Performance

The Performant: The Empire has no clothes

Andrew Lam
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The Performant: The Empire has no clothes

Adventures in Naked Empire’s bouffonery

An evening spent in the presence of the Naked Empire Bouffon Company is always an unsettling experience. It can be difficult sometimes to assess who is actually performing for whom, as bouffons are wickedly adept at reading individuals and pulling them however briefly into the spotlight not as props, but as human beings with something to hide.

Unlike clowns, who often devise situations during which the oddience may laugh at them, bouffons laugh at the oddience from a position of almost comically aggressive power. It can be as simple as an offhand observation (“recently dyed,” one bouffon sniffed at a blonde streak) or a direct poke at a cultural or time-sensitive taboo (“surely it’s still too early to be referencing radiation in Japan”), but once they’ve got you in the crosshairs of their uniquely confrontational form of physical theatre, a bouffon shoots straight from the hip.

“As a citizen I am consistently impressed by how much of the “unsayable” the bouffon is allowed to say and by how well people hear it,” writes Naked Empire artistic director Nathaniel Justiniano. Justiniano first experienced the art form at the Dell’Arte International School of Physical Theatre and was immediately attracted to its audacious commitment to the truth.

“(It’s) a corkscrew type of energy…boring into the audience and sniffing out the muck we try to hide.” But despite the element of improv, Bouffon performance is also tightly scripted, allowing the performers a tightly structured framework to work within, and break out from when it becomes relevant to do so.

Performing as part of the Home Theatre festival in an artist’s warehouse dubbed the Main Street Theatre, Justiniano and company member Ross Travis performed two solo shows starring their Bouffon alter egos: Zooka Splat and Cousin Cruelty. 

Nathanial Justiniano’s Cousin Cruelty addresses his audience. Photo by Ross Travis 

Ross as Zooka burst into the room, screaming a war cry and dressed in tattered camouflage. He circled the crowd knowingly, leaping on the backs of the sofas they sat in, leering at their shock. Like a one-man Mad Max, he ably deconstructed the post-apocalypse genre of action films and doomsayer surrender in a series of vignettes that mapped out the bizarre terrains of alien abduction, zombie uprisings, nuclear holocaust, and macho bullshit. 

Justiniano’s Cousin Cruelty, a lewd giggling juggernaut of murderous impulse and fart jokes bounded out, shopping bag in hand, looking for trouble. Trouble came in the form of an orgy of mimed bloodshed — until from the shopping bag, a querulous puppet demanded to be released. 

Between the puppet’s script – a passionate, twelve-minute long speech denouncing the death penalty, delivered by Orson Welles in the 1959 film “Compulsion”— and Cousin Cruelty’s gleefully chaotic depictions of the origins and implications of violence, the oddience would have been pushed out of their “theatre-going” comfort zone even without the addition of the personal attentions bestowed on them by puppet and puppet-master alike. 

The laughter these twisted creatures provoked was genuine, but with an edge of unease, which is exactly the effect Justiniano is looking for.

“This laughter is uncomfortable….(It’s) the laughter that humans tend to find comforting when the silence or truth is too heavy.”

Intrigued by buffoonery? Check Naked Empire’s website for upcoming classes in this uncomfortable art

 

A third space to call their own

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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4
A third space to call their own

culture@sfbg.com

EAT HANG LOVE Every neighborhood has its ups and downs, but when it comes to Sixth and Market streets, many shop owners and residents will tell you all about the downs — street crime, homelessness, and substance abuse, to name a few. But despite warnings of stormy weather, one café and community art space has dropped anchor to serve this neighborhood. With affordable food, superior coffee, and accessible seating areas for creativity and connection, Rancho Parnassus provides a living room for neighborhood characters stuffed into cramped apartments and dirty streetscapes. But it hasn’t been easy — the good guys behind the endeavor worry that it may come down to sink or swim.

Weary of the nautical analogies yet? It’s hard not to make them after setting foot in the cafe, whose interior resembles the inside of a ship at sea. With big wooden furniture sets, photographs from group art shows hanging from ropes — not to mention the sailing equipment, bright blue walls, wooden barrels, plastic fish, and ship wheel décor — even the tiny kitchen is modeled after the galley of a ship.

Owner Andy Harris says the nautical motif is no coincidence. From behind the kitchen counter on a slow weekday morning he tells us that “the idea is that when you come in here, you’re going somewhere. You are on a ship, you’re on a journey. I don’t like static spaces — I’m trying to give people that come in here a feeling of motion.”

A lot of the lingo that Harris uses when he talks about the ideology behind Rancho Parnassus comes from the new urbanism movement. “It’s about revitalizing America’s cities rather than encouraging people to flee to the suburbs. The café and corner store are really important — they’re examples of third space, a space that is neither home nor work. That’s what this community was missing: a casual, affordably priced all-day, all-ages hangout.”

Harris refers to Rancho Parnassus mostly as a “creative hub,” and emphasizes that the food and coffee come second. But it’s hard to ignore the high quality and low prices of the coffee and food. Harris makes every cup of joe fresh using an aeropress, which is similar to a French press but with an even smaller microfilter, resulting in a brew that’s strong and tasty.

And when it comes to the menu, Harris depends on Tony Thomas, his chef and right-hand man. Thomas, a musician and performer who says he grew up cooking in his family’s now-defunct SF restaurant, was a regular at Rancho Parnassus before he got his current gig. He says he came in to play the piano one day when he spied Harris, frazzled to get through a morning rush. “He was sweatin’,” Thomas recalls. Eager to help, the cook jumped behind the counter and started frying eggs and toasting bread. He never looked back.

As Thomas tells us his story, a regular comes in to order a brioche bun stuffed with sausage, gorgonzola, spinach, and bacon, which shows up on Rancho’s menu as “The Bird in the Hand.” In keeping with the rest of the sustenance on offer, the sandwich is affordably priced — $2.50.

Although Harris and Thomas say that food costs are low, Sixth Street isn’t a big money-making location. They worry that this free art and performance space — the dining room is regularly rented out to creative types from around the city — and café might not be open much longer. It’s a frustrating reality for Harris, who knows he will “never get rich off of this space” and is more interested in his cafe’s social mission.

A typical Rancho afternoon is enough proof that the cafe means a lot to its regulars. Most days you’ll find the street artist who goes by the name of Big Face using the space as his personal studio, constructing collages at the café tables or on an easel. Around him other patrons work on their laptops or use the café’s public Apple computer, talking, eating, or just sitting quietly. “I don’t make a big fuss about anyone buying anything,” Harris says. “I want people to hang out, and we are certainly never going to push anyone out as long as they are polite and not disturbing the creative environment.”

The community members familiar with Rancho Parnassus vouch that the space makes them feel welcome. “I kind of wandered in by accident,” says Adrien, a 20-year resident of the neighborhood who lives two blocks away. Adrien comes in every day for breakfast and to do work in the morning. “There’s really no other place around here like this. There is a more relaxed vibe here between the décor, the music, and the people who work here. Other places are similar but they get too crowded and it’s more ‘get in, get out.’ “

Harris says it will be up to the community and the economy to keep Rancho Parnassus open. Although the café has a community agenda, it’s still a business, which means it won’t be receiving grants or funding from outside organizations. “There’s no grant for ‘really wonderful café — let’s get them to stay open,’ ” Harris says. When he talks about the struggle to stay afloat, you can tell he thinks the stakes are high. “It’s such a great thing for this neighborhood. So many depend on us to be here.” 

RANCHO PARNASSUS Mon.–Sat. 6 a.m.–7 p.m. 505 Minna, SF (415) 503-0700 www.ranchoparnassus.com

 

From East Coast to West

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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2
From East Coast to West

arts@sfbg.com

MUSIC I guess there’s some redemption for America in that it can still produce someone like Kurt Vile, a pure rock musician, to the manner (rather than to the manor) born.

Last spring I caught Philadelphia’s Vile in the Hemlock Tavern’s crowded back room, and instead of blowing everyone away with a crowd-pleasing performance, he did something different, going deep into his songs to a degree that the audience was an afterthought. This wasn’t Catpower-style meandering as lame performance art, it was a musician working with his guitar. Jay Reatard had died a few months earlier, and for me, there was a sense of relief that his introverted counterpart Vile seemed so engaged with what he was doing, with his calling.

Vile’s new album Smoke Ring For My Halo (Matador) is the best studio effort by him and his band, the Violators, and roughly the equal of his superb 2008 collection of stripped-down solo recordings, Constant Hitmaker. The instrumental chops are top notch, a rarity in indie land. Vile wears a Midwestern twang like a fine middle-finger salute when he isn’t doing his best son-of-Iggy on “Puppet to the Man.”

Throughout Smoke Ring For My Halo, the couplets flow freely: “Society is my friend/ He makes me lie down in a cold bloodbath”; “If it ain’t workin’ take a whiz on the world/ An entire nation drinkin’ from a dirty cup/ My best friend’s long gone, but I got runner-ups” “I don’t want to give up but I kind of want to lie down/ But not sleep, just rest.” Vile shrinks himself to Tom Thumb proportions to fit into his baby’s hand, and plays the role of peeping tom captivated by a tomboy. He goes back and forth between deadpan morbid or devastating observations and just-joshing asides, all the while maintaining the disconcerting familiarity of a bar-stool neighbor.

Vile and his band peak with “On Tour,” which turns the lonely romanticism of an on-the-road ballad into a Lord of the Flies scenario within its first two lines. The song blankly presents the visions of a traveling musician — and restlessly contemplates the idea of the traveling musician — then torches all of it. “Oh yeah,” Vile drawls, at the quiet onset of a thunderous instrumental passage that’s totally shiver-inducing. Oh yeah is right.

Cass McCombs’ has spent time in the Midwest, but it was a passage in a Californian son’s vagabond travels. McCombs is more of a stately chap, his voice a little higher and prettier, his arrangements — while also country-tinged — a little more chamber-like and precise, his Poe-tinged fatal lyricism more literary and bookish. The lyrics for Wit’s End (Domino), his follow-up to 2009’s impressive Catacombs, are printed in English and German.

Like Vile’s, McCombs’ portraits of American life are defined in relation to death. There’s more quiet and open space in his compositions, yet when he sings “I can smell the columbine” on the opening “County Line,” he’s finding wildflowers trampled beneath a landscape — and world of meaning — familiar with high-school massacres. This is someone who gave a tune about a guy who loves his job the title “The Executioner’s Song.”

At eight songs, Wit’s End, due out in late April, doesn’t overstay its welcome. “County Line” takes the keening, solitary atmosphere of 1970s radio ballads such as Paul Davis’ “I Go Crazy” or the Eagles’ “I Can’t Tell You Why” and replaces their fantasies of love with an empty landscape.

The song that follows, “The Lonely Doll,” is even more brash in its formal marriage of poeticism and storytelling. It could be heard as an answer-song to France Gall’s Serge Gainsbourg-penned 1965 hit “Poupée de cire, poupée de son,” which was covered as “Lonely Singing Doll” by Twinkle in 1965 and Anika last year. An unsettling lullaby, “The Lonely Doll” is a voyeur scenario to match Vile’s “Peeping Tomboy.” But there and elsewhere on Wit’s End — “Saturday Song,” in particular — the writing, sometimes piano-based, is more evocative of Kurt Weill than Kurt Vile. 

KURT VILE AND THE VIOLATORS

With RTX

April 22, 10 p.m.; $12–$14; all ages

Bottom of the Hill

1233, 17th St., SF

(415) 621-4455

www.bottomofthehill.com

CASS MCCOMBS

With Frank Fairfield

May 5, 8 p.m.; $15; all ages

Swedish American Hall

2170 Market, SF

(415) 861-5016

www.cafedunord.com

Our Weekly Picks: March 30-April 5, 2011

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0

WEDNESDAY 30

DANCE

Paul Taylor Dance Company

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

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

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

Novellus Theater

701 Mission, SF

(415) 392-2545

www.sfperformances.org

 

THURSDAY 31

DANCE

Nrityagram Dance Ensemble

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

8 p.m., $25––$75

Palace of Fine Arts Theater

3301 Lyon, SF

(415) 392-4400

www.palaceoffinearts.org

 

EVENT

“The State of Sex and Dating in SF”

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

6:30 p.m., $7–$20

Commonwealth Club

595 Market, SF

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

www.tickets.commonwealthclub.org

 

FRIDAY 1

EVENT

WonderCon

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

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

Sun/3, 11 a.m.–5 p.m., $5–$40

Moscone Center South

747 Howard, SF

www.comic-con.org/wc

 

PERFORMANCE

“Roccopura: The Misadventures of Pancho Sanza”

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

8 p.m., $25–$45

DNA Lounge

375 11th St, SF

www.roccopura.com

 

MUSIC

Lozen

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

With Walken, Dog Shredder, Pins of Light

9 p.m., $8

Hemlock Tavern

1131 Polk, SF

(415) 923-0923

www.hemlocktavern.com

 

SATURDAY 2

MUSIC

Baseball Project

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

With Minus 5 and Steve Wynn

9 p.m., $17

Slim’s

333 11th St., SF

(415) 255-0333

www.slims-sf.com

 

MUSIC

Sonny Smith

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

With Sandwitches

9 p.m., $15

Amnesia

853 Valencia, SF

(415) 970-0012

www.amnesiathebar.com

 

SUNDAY 3

MUSIC

Crowbar

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

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

8 p.m., $25

Mezzanine

444 Jessie, SF

(415) 625-8880

www.mezzaninesf.com

 

FILM

“Fearless: Chinese Independent Documentaries”

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

April 3–21

Karamay today, 1 p.m., $8

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission, SF

(415) 978-2700

www.ybca.org

 

MONDAY 4

PERFORMANCE

Los Muñequitos de Matanzas

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

7 p.m., $15–$50

Mission High School

3750 18th St. SF

1-800-838-3006

www.sfiaf.org

 

TUESDAY 5

MUSIC

Ben Kweller

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

With Pete Yorn and Wellspring

8 p.m., $25

Regency Ballroom

1300 Van Ness, SF

1-800-745-3000

www.theregencyballroom.com 


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Beyond Fido

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Beyond Fido

culture@sfbg.com

PETS You can’t keep a hedgehog, ferret, or sugar glider as a pet — legally — in California. But don’t worry, there are still plenty of options when it comes to unusual creatures to keep your pad rad. Read on for exotic animals you can enjoy right here in the city.

 

A BLUNT RUMP ONLY A MOTHER COULD LOVE

In addition to what he claims is the largest exotic bug store in the country, Ken the Bug Guy (www.kenthebugguy.com) is the proud parent of tail-less whip scorpions that he’s raised from babies. At two and a half years old, they’re only half-grown, but Ken is eagerly monitoring their progression from weanling to adult.

“We don’t usually get to see the whole process,” he says, explaining that most of his scorpions — which hail from the order amblypygi, meaning “blunt rump” — are imported from breeders abroad. A mama amblypygid lays a sac of eggs and carries it under her belly until the eggs hatch. In the wild, she would then pile the babies on her back, protecting and feeding them. In captivity (where food is plentiful and predators scarce), the babies are separated from their mother to sell to a distributor like Ken.

The benefits of a blunt rump to call your own? They’re “crazy-looking, like an alien,” according to Ken. They also live seven to 10 years, don’t sting or bite, and have interesting, complex social structures like wolves.

“They’re completely harmless,” Ken emphasizes. “Little kids can hold them and play with them, and they only need to be fed once a week and have their cage misted a bit.”

 

PYTHON PERFORMANCE: WHY SHOULD BRITNEY HAVE ALL THE FUN?

Get it straight: dancer Jim Berenholtz’s red tail boas, African ball pythons, and Central American boas aren’t his pets — they’re flatmates.

“They’re other beings that share my living space, but I don’t own them, and they don’t own me. We’re all equal partners,” he tells us. They’re also costars.

Berenholtz has been performing with his snakes since 1989, when he debuted his act on his birthday, the eve of the Chinese Year of the Snake. A “powerful dream” prompted him to try snake dancing and in 2003, he started Serpentium, a troupe that dances for corporate events and for celebrities in the Bay Area and beyond. Over the years, Berenholtz has performed with some 16 to 20 different animals, sometimes with as many as seven at a time.

“I respond to their movements, and they respond to mine,” he says. “You may have seen belly dancers performing with snakes as props. But for me they’re not props. They’re living beings that I interact with as if they were a human partner.”

At home, his menagerie has grown organically — some of his animals have bred and produced offspring, others he adopted when previous owners could no longer care for them.

Though nearly all reptiles need to stay under heat lamps in this chilly city — East Bay Vivarium (www.eastbayvivarium.com) has space heaters for your scaly ones — Berenholtz will occasionally take his snake friends out of their aquariums and allow them to wrap their bodies around his while he’s lounging to “give them time outside of their tanks and to enjoy their presence.”

 

ALL SWEET, NO SNEEZE

Love the kitties, but not their dander? You may have heard that hairless cats can provide your feline fix sans sneezes. But if the alarmingly naked critters give you the cold willies over the warm fuzzies, there’s another way.

Patty Royall owns Sugar, a Cornish Rex with extremely fine, soft, curly hair. The breed, along with the related Devon Rex, is defined by a lack of all fur except a thin undercoat of down, which is said to be hypoallergenic. The breed’s characteristics are the result of a genetic mutation preserved from a litter born in 1950s Cornwall in the United Kingdom.

Like most Rexes, Sugar is often cold. The cats are known to hang out around light bulbs and computer monitors, but Sugar takes a more straightforward approach: she’ll simply jump under the bed covers and stay curled up all day, Royall says. Luckily, if you’re considering a Rex of your own, Royall has found a convenient solution for the chills. She uses a microwaveable heating pad that stays hot for about nine hours. Try a SnuggleSafe heat pad (www.snugglesafe.co.uk/), available at Pawtrero pet supply store (www.pawtrero.com).

What about baking in the summer sun? Royall has heard that some people use sunscreen on their Cornish Rexes, but — given how cats groom themselves by licking — she doesn’t think that’s the best idea.

 

CUTE COOING

Elizabeth Young is the founding director of Mickacoo Pigeon and Dove Rescue (www.mickacoo.org, a division of SF-based Mickaboo Companion Bird Rescue), but if you’re thinking about the greasy green-and-gray birds you plow through every day on the sidewalk, think again. The birds Young rescues are primarily king pigeons, a pure white domestic breed that — unlike San Fran’s feral flocks — can’t survive outdoors on their own.

“They’re good-natured, easygoing, adaptable pets,” Young says. “They’re experts at the leisure arts — lounging, flirting, snacking, napping.” She adds that because of their mellow nature, they’re not demanding companions and do very well indoors or in an outdoor aviary.

Young says her seven pigeons have distinct personalities and form monogamous pairs — a characteristic that leads her to personify her birds’ love lives as though they were soap-opera biddies, describing, for example, how once-shy Frances eventually won the heart of widowed Country.

The birds are affectionate toward people, too. The aforementioned Frances comes hurtling down the hall when Young calls him, screeching by and then turning on a dime to locate Young. Because the birds are quiet, don’t chew, and don’t bite, they are ideal for homes where dogs are not an option.

The only problem with pigeons is that, unlike dogs, they can’t be housebroken. Luckily, the fine people at BirdWearOnline.com (www.birdwearonline.com) have invented pigeon pants — stylish suits that Young heartily endorses.

Stage Listings

Maria Poblet
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0

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

THEATER

OPENING

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

ONGOING

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

BAY AREA

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

Film Listings

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

OPENING

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

ONGOING

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

REP PICKS

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

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

 

5 Things: March 24, 2011

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

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

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

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

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

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

Dinner with the Clams

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Dinner with the Clams

arts@sfbg.com

MUSIC “This is where the heartbeat is. Does that sound cocky?” Shannon Shaw, bold-voiced singer and bassist from Oakland’s Shannon and the Clams, is cautious how she answers my question. She’s in a booth, finishing up her fries at Grubstake, just off of Polk Street. The eatery is my suggestion for a pre-performance chat about the band’s new album, Sleep Talk (1-2-3-4 Go! Records), slated for release April 5.

Amid the bustling dinner-time sounds of the restaurant, Cody Blanchard, the guitarist, eats something vegetarian, while Ian Amberson, the group’s drummer, opts for the more traditional caldo verde soup. In a few hours Shannon and the Clams is playing a show at the nearby Hemlock Tavern, along with openers Guantanamo Baywatch — a Portland, Ore., band they admire — and Uzi Rash.

The heartbeat Shaw refers to is the Bay Area and its seemingly tight-knit music scene. I’d asked if the group’s members if they thought their success could have been achieved anywhere, or if it’s something particular to their Oakland stomping grounds.

“The Bay Area is defined by its history of fun punk — stuff like the Mummies, the Trashwomen, and the Bobbyteens,” Cody says, in acknowledgment of our locale’s rich garage rock history. But as much as they’re influenced by the “weird and wild people” they consider like-minded allies, and the strange beauty of Oakland’s abandoned neighborhoods, Shannon and the Clams’ inspiration also comes from a place in the past, no less strange, sort of dark, yet innocent. Their music is the sound of teenage despair.

 

NOT QUITE QUEERCORE

I first encountered Shannon and the Clams live at Oakland’s Stork Club in early 2009. I’d seen their ridiculous name around before, but didn’t know what to expect. They’d been categorized as everything from queercore to surf punk to the downright nauseating term retro-billy. “I think the people feel a kinship with us,” Cody says, discussing the group’s fan base. “People become really comfortable letting their freak flag fly.”

Still, Cody doesn’t think some of the labels assigned to the band were the best fit. “I’d rather musical genres have more to do with sounds instead of politics, gender, and sexuality,” he explains, while acknowledging that it isn’t how things often work.

On that night two years ago, Shannon and the Clams turned out a solid performance that incorporated oldies elements such as late-1950s, early-1960s vocal styles and instrumental sounds. The group even covered Del Shannon’s “Runaway,” which was the moment of confirmation for me. I knew I was hooked and wanted more.

The group’s version of “Runaway” is a keeper, but Shannon and the Clams isn’t just recycling rock ‘n’ roll hits from a repressive American era when feelings were bottled up, not talked about. The group’s songs and sound possess an individual spirit and personality that ranges from playful to feral, calm (a clam anagram) to cuckoo. Both shine through on Sleep Talk, the follow-up to 2009’s I Wanna Go Home, also on 1-2-3-4 Go! Records. The new collection of songs was written and recorded in three weeks.

The Bay Area’s most recent wave of psych and garage bands draws from the acid-soaked late-1960s, with results that often come out drone-y, druggy, and dreamlike. But the Clams obviously take note of the less-altered dawn of that same decade, before psilocybin and its closely associated synthetic cousin became the remedy reaction of youth and counterculture. Melodramatic songs of angst and lost love were common.

Shannon, a self-described square-but-morbid kid, admits to loving Roy Orbison’s “Crying.” “Any teenager death ballad, I was all over,” she says. A tragic mood is conjured on Sleep Talk‘s “Half Rat,” where the incessantly repetitive lyric longs for a soul mate’s return. It’s almost like when a loved one dies and you dream about them being alive, only to be disappointed when you wake up to the heartbreaking reality that nothing will ever bring them back. It’s no wonder that without a release other than singing, so many of the voices from the past were compelled to do some amazing things.

 

THAT VOICE

Raspy and powerful, Shannon’s voice has become a signature trademark. She shreds words, wails, and lets loose with an extended growl on “Done With You.” Her vocal delivery is raw, real, and out of control — one of a kind. Her vocals are one reason that it’s misleading to tag Shannon and the Clams as simply retro — it’s hard to imagine a June Cleaver-type belting out songs in this fashion, though maybe someone like Wanda Jackson would be up for the task.

“I think it’s out-of-body,” Shannon, says when asked about singing. “I just sometimes feel kind of possessed on stage, or like I’m excreting odd toxins or something.” She notes that other dynamic vocalists like Tina Turner, James Brown, and Irma Thomas bring a similarly unique intensity to live performance.

Wanda Jackson is a queen of rock ‘n’ roll, but it was another Jackson who inspired Shannon to get up on stage sing in public for the first time, at a karaoke bar during her “lowest of lows.” She performed a ballad famously delivered by a little boy who, sadly, was adult ahead of his time. “I didn’t sing publicly at all till I started playing [music] around three years ago, and I just knew I really needed to sing “Ben” [by Michael Jackson], and I needed to sing it right away,” she explains. “I didn’t care about being self-conscious.” After being accepted by her “grizzled karaoke comrades,” she found the strength and confidence to perform her own songs.

Cody, the Clams’ co-songwriter, is also no slouch behind the mic. On Sleep Talk‘s “Old Man Winter,” he sounds brilliant doing his rockabilly best, exaggerating the whooping, keening sounds Buddy Holly could make with his voice. He’s pretty keen on the originality of vocalists Hasil Adkins, Joey Ramone, and Marc Bolan, preferring sound over lyrical content.

“Amazing singing is something that feels to the singer like a compulsion or a nervous tick, as if that singer can’t do anything to keep themselves from crying out,” he says. “They must do it or they’ll go nuts, and they just invent these bizarre sounds.”

 

WE JUST WANNA BE WEIRD

On the subject of songwriting, Cody uses vivid imagery to describe a T-Rex- that “kidnaps” him and takes him away to a “glittery, horny, spaced-out fantasy world.” I guess Clam nation can’t all be doom and gloom. Indeed, a typical Shannon and the Clams show finds the band in colorful costume, making inventive use of capes, fast-food outfits, and other assorted disguises. This past Halloween they even dressed as Devo for a night of cover songs.

Shannon and the Clams’ affinity for cartoons, jingles, and campy commercialism is apparent. On Sleep Talk‘s cover art, photographed by Keith Aguiar, Shannon and Cody are buried in what looks like a landfill of stuffed animal nostalgia and familiar characters. The imagery is indicative of their bubblegum side and love of Jim Henson’s Muppets. Cody points out that the people behind those Muppet tunes were pretty solid songwriters. On “The Cult Song,” listeners might even detect a vocal tribute to the Cookie Monster, if not Keith Moon circa “Boris the Spider.”

The name Joe Meek pops up more than once in conversation. “I love how Meek’s records sound, so inventive and strange,” Cody says, regarding the innovative Space Race-era producer behind “Telstar,” an instrumental No. 1 hit by the Tornados. “And he seemed totally nuts.”

Shannon and the Clams haven’t yet rocketed to the moon, but a trip to South by Southwest and a tour with Hunx and His Punx are part of their immediate travel plans. I ask what comes after that. “I feel like something [currently] brewing in Oakland is much weirder caveman-type music,” Shannon says, in anticipation of the scene’s next wave of creativity. “Can we just be weirdo, other rock ‘n’ roll?”

Cody is convinced that the dedication of the Bay Area music scene is unique and undying. “I can’t think of any other cities that are so enthusiastic about [music],” he says. “It just keeps coming. Waves of all kinds come and go.” If you think Shannon and the Clams are riding the wave for teenage kicks and landing in tragic territory, you’re partly right — and it’s working. Right now, with Sleep Talk, you’ve got a second dose.

Need a shrink?

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Need a shrink?

Dear Andrea:

Due to a prostate operation, my penis is quite small and I cannot get a proper erection. Will the Fleshlight work for me?

Love,

Shrinky Dink

Dear Shrink:

First off, allow me to apologize for the terrible nom de Altsex I stuck you with. I am a bad person. But I am also very sorry for your woes. Postsurgical shrinkage and erectile dysfunction are both common and totally NOT FAIR.

Reading around on urology sites, the shrinkage is not supposed to be that major. Have you spoken to your urologist about what this, since it may be an ongoing process and, maybe, just maybe, something could be done to halt it? Granted, there seems to be something of a dearth of information about these effects, but yours should not go unreported or uncomplained-about.

There are products on the market purporting to restore lost length after surgery, but since I never see them mentioned on sites like WebMD, I’m not about to go touting them myself. They are there. I assume that if they prove harmful, it will be more to your wallet than to your tenderer parts, but proceed at your own risk.

What may work, both to prevent or, one hopes, restore lost length and lost function, is an element both abundant and well understood: our old friend oxygen. It would be awesome if you could just go hanging your business out in the fresh air and up it would sprout like those time-lapse movies of beanstalks unfurling. You cannot, but Viagra and its cousins, while pricier than oxygen and requiring a prescription, are hardly difficult to acquire. Here is eminent urologist Dr. Larry Goldenberg on using sildenifil citrate nightly as a postsurgical therapy, on the Prostate Cancer Canada Network’s site:

The main premise behind treating erectile dysfunction is to stimulate the circulation of blood into the penis. Doing this will protect the smooth muscles in the penis, the nerve tissue, and the blood vessel linings. Stimulating blood flow to the penis, even if it doesn’t give men an erection, is “keeping the tissues healthy while the nerves are recovering or the blood is finding its way back down there” more regularly.

I urge you to see if popping a pill at night is all it would take for you to get all your function back. It may not work, but it is so very worth investigating.

On to the Fleshlight, definitely the best-known male masturbation device. It vaguely hardware-y looking, heavily marketed, and offers a variety of disembodied orifices for your orifice-entering pleasure. It is not, however, an erectile dysfunction therapy or a magnifying glass, so I am not sure how it is supposed to either heal or enlarge you. But there’s something to be said for “use it or lose it” in these cases. Even urologists don’t seem sure if the loss of erectile function that often follows prostate surgery is due to damage or simple lack of use (or lack of faith). So yes, actually, I think a toy could help. Like Viagra itself, an uncomplaining, expectations-free inanimate object can help alleviate performance anxiety.

Love,

Andrea

Stage Listings

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

THEATER

OPENING

*Geezer Marsh, 1062 Valencia; (800) 838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Previews Thurs, 8pm; Sat, 5pm; Sun, 3pm (through March 27). Opens March 31. Thurs, 8pm; Sat, 5pm; Sun, 3pm. Through May 1. The Marsh presents a new solo show about aging and mortality by Geoff Hoyle.

ONGOING

As Always Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson; www.AsAlwaysTickets.com. $25. Thurs-Sun, 8pm. Through March 27. Tracy Ward directs a new musical by Peter W. Tucker.

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

*40 Pounds in 12 Weeks: A Love Story The Marsh, 1062 Valencia; 1-800-838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $15-35. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Through Sat/26. “I hate assumptions,” says Pidge Meade. In fact, her new solo show, about her experience as a young woman of size on a brutal crash diet, goes a long way toward unsettling more than one. Developed and directed by Charlie Varon (Rush Limbaugh in Night School, Rabbi Sam), Meade’s multi-character monologue eschews easy sentiment for a sharply performed, consistently funny and genuine engagement with her younger, bigger self. Framed by a 20-year college reunion during which she suffers an unwanted conversation with an old roommate about her intervening dramatic weight loss, Meade recounts trying to lose 40 unwanted pounds to please her devoted but “harsh” father, an Olympic-level gymnastics coach shocked and appalled by her weight gain while at school. The father-daughter story comes interlarded with a few other encounters and characters measuring the variety of attitudes and approaches to weight among women in her Midwestern milieu. Meanwhile, Meade’s problematic relationship with her demanding if ultimately responsive father finds an unexpected echo in her former roommate’s pushy inquisitiveness (which, we learn, stems from her own desperate concern over a beloved but obese teen nephew). It’s in quietly mingling awkwardness, fear, and love that Meade’s piece can really surprise, and reaffirm that whatever else follows, it’s the usual assumptions that need shedding first. (Avila)

The Homecoming American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary; 749-2228, www.act-sf.org. Call for times and prices. Through Sun/27. North London in the mid-1960s served Harold Pinter well as an apt location for an enduring vision of familial nightmare, namely a jockeying tribe of self-interested working-class men bent on embracing as much as destroying one another. Into this testy household returns for a visit, unannounced and in the wee hours, one of their own: social climber Teddy (Anthony Fusco) back from America with wife Ruth (René Augesen). What happens next still has real force, even if it’s sometimes missing in American Conservatory Theater’s current revival. A family unit of vipers and sadists and weirdoes is still a family unit, but real connections between the actors are few here. Augesen’s Ruth—startlingly set free from deadening domestic harmony by the braying barnyard she soon comes to dominate—is the riveting center of attention, but the tension overall remains diffuse and inconsistent despite her gravitational pull. As the pugnacious patriarch, Max, slipping mercilessly from his historic spot at the top of the dog pile, Jack Willis is a bit all over the place, sometimes physically—director Carey Perloff has him well across the room in the opening scene’s vital first confrontation, instead of up in the grill of coiled son Lenny (Andrew Polk)—but in tone and register too. Kenneth Welsh’s fine performance as Max’s superficially calm brother Sam goes some way toward grounding the proceedings, but the other performances remain more dutiful than distinguished and the production never quite attains the pressure and threat it should. (Avila)

James Bond: Lady Killer Dark Room Theater, 2263 Mission; 732-9592, www.brownpapertickets.com. $20. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through Sat/26. Dark Room Theater presents an all-new James Bond adventure.

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

*Loveland Marsh, 1062 Valencia; 1-800-838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Through Sat/26. Ann Randolph’s one-woman show extends its run.

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

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

The Oldest Profession Brava Theater, 2781 24th St; 647-2822, www.brava.org. $10-25. Brava Theater presents a play by Paula Vogel, directed by Evren Odcikin.

Out of Sight Marsh, 1062 Valencia; 1-800-838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thurs and Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Sun/27. Sara Felder’s one-woman show extends its run.

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

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

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

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

Sex and Death: A Night with Harold Pinter Phoenix Theatre, Suite 601, 414 Mason; 1-800-838-3006, www.offbroadwaywest.org. $35. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Sat/26. The thing with Harold Pinter is you never know for certain whether he means for something to be funny or not. Take his most celebrated one-act, The Dumb Waiter, a rather tense dialogue between two hit-men waiting for their mark to show which veers into disarmingly surrealist territory once they start receiving mysterious lunch orders via a creaky dumbwaiter, despite not having any food, or indeed any gas to cook food on. Is this Pinter’s attempt to lighten the mood in an otherwise joyless examination of two minor functionaries in the criminal underworld, or is it a way for him to interject more unease into their already intractable situation? In Off-Broadway West’s staging they opt mainly for the latter interpretation, neither Gus (Conor Hamill) nor Ben (Shane Fahy) play up much of the sly humor tucked into their lines, and when the “surprise” twist arrives, it feels like a foregone conclusion. More deftly nuanced, the second one-act on the bill, The Lover milks the sex lives of the petty bourgeoisie for all the hidden wit and complicated innuendo that could possibly be excavated. Morphing from chilly society marrieds to shameless afternoon fling and “common garden slut” Chad Stender and Nicole Helfer play out a tightly-wound sexual fantasy with a cool edge, a satisfying end to a low-key revival. (Gluckstern)

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

Tenth Annual Bay One-Acts Festival Boxcar Theatre, 505 Natoma; 891-7235, www.bayoneacts.org. $20-32. Wed-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 3 and 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through Sat/26. Three Wise Monkeys Theatre Company presents the tenth incarnation of the curated festival.

BAY AREA

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

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

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

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

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

Romeo and Juliet La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; www.impacttheatre.com. $10-20. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Sat/26. Bet you thought Romeo and Juliet was just a sappy love story at its beating heart. But as Impact Theatre’s artistic director Melissa Hillman, fight director Dave Meier, and production “blood technician” Tunuviel Luv manage to remind us, R&J is known as a tragedy for good reason—full of escalating violence and a bodycount almost as high as Hamlet’s. Before they snuff it though, Romeo (Michael Garret McDonald) and Juliet (Luisa Frasconi) fall in love in a meet-cute, after-school special way: Frasconi exhibiting the coltish excitability of a very young teenager, and doofy McDonald egged on by a pack of uncouth youth (Seth Thygesen as Benvolio, Marilet Martinez as Mercutio, Miyuki Bierlein as Balthasar) who pretty much steal the show with their crass deconstruction of Romeo’s woes. Unfortunately, the Russian mafia angle is less fully fleshed out than the teen romance portion of the show. Yes, the mobsters all sport some great tattoos, carry mean-looking pistols, and occasionally deliver their lines in Russian thanks to language consultant Helen Nesteruk, but setting the show in the ex-pat Russian community “in the Bay Area” dilutes the extreme feudalism that setting the show in Moscow would imply, and allows the production to rely a little too heavily on familiar California-isms—phrases, behaviors, and fashions— rather than committing fully to exploring the vastly different world of the Russkaya Mafiya. (Gluckstern)

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

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

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

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

Marga’s Funny Mondays Cabaret at Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk.; 1-800-838-3006, www.themarsh.org. Mon/28, 8pm. $10. Marga Gomez hosts a Monday night comedy series. *

 

Film Listings

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

OPENING

The Beaver Jodie Foster directs and co-stars in this film about a man (Mel Gibson) who communicates using a hand puppet. No word if said hand puppet calls anyone “sugar tits.” (1:30)

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

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

Diary of a Wimpy Kid: Rodrick Rules Sequel to last year’s hit comedy based on the best-selling YA books by Jeff Kinney. (1:36)

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

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

Sucker Punch From what I can tell, Sucker Punch is Zach Snyder’s remake of his 300 (2006), except with jailbait instead of Spartans. (2:00) Presidio.

*Win Win See “#Winning.” (1:46) Bridge.

Winter in Wartime A 13-year-old boy joins the resistance movement in 1945 Nazi-occupied Holland. (1:43) Embarcadero, Shattuck, Smith Rafael.

ONGOING

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

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

Biutiful Uxbal (Javier Bardem) has problems. To name but a few: he is raising two young children alone in a poor, crime-beset Barcelona hood. He is making occasional attempts to rope back in their bipolar, substance-abusive mother (Maricel Álvarez), a mission without much hope. He is trying to stay afloat by various not-quite legal means while hopefully doing the right thing by the illegals — African street drug dealers and Chinese sweatshop workers — he acts as middleman to, standing between them and much less sympathetically-inclined bossmen. He’s got a ne’er-do-well brother (Eduard Fernandez) to cope with. Needless to say, with all this going on (and more), he isn’t getting much rest. But when he wearily checks in with a doc, the proverbial last straw is stacked on his camelback: surprise, you have terminal cancer. With umpteen odds already stacked against him in everyday life, Uxbal must now put all affairs in order before he is no longer part of the equation. This is Alejandro González Iñárritu’s first feature since an acrimonious creative split with scenarist Guillermo Arriaga. Their films together (2006’s Babel, 2003’s 21 Grams, 2000’s Amores Perros) have been criticized for arbitrarily slamming together separate baleful storylines in an attempt at universal profundity. But they worked better than Biutiful, which takes the opposite tact of trying to fit several stand-alone stories’ worth of hardship into one continuous narrative — worse, onto the bowed shoulders of one character. Bardem is excellent as usual, but for all their assured craftsmanship and intense moments, these two and a half hours collapse from the weight of so much contrived suffering. Rather than making a universal statement about humanity in crisis, Iñárritu has made a high-end soap opera teetering on the verge of empathy porn. (2:18) Shattuck. (Harvey)

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

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

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

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

*Heartbeats Twenty-one-year-old French Canadian Xavier Dolan — who wrote, directed, and starred in 2009’s I Killed My Mother — returns with the romantic farce Heartbeats, a film peppered with homages to the films, art, and literature that inspired it. While the story is simple — friends Francis (Dolan) and Marie (Monia Chokri) both fall for stunning stranger Nicolas (Niels Schneider) — Dolan’s visual references give his film weight. As with his first movie, he draws from his own life, though Heartbeats is more an amalgamation of stories than Dolan’s singular experience. (1:35) Lumiere. (Peitzman)

*The Human Resources Manager What happens when a nameless, faceless “human resource” begin to resolve into a palpably real being with hopes, fears, loved ones, a hometown, a past? The harried Human Resources Manager of a big Jerusalem bakery finds out when one of his employer’s foreign workers is killed in a suicide bombing. After her body remains unclaimed in a city morgue, his employer is tagged with callous indifference, and it’s up to the beleaguered HR Manager (Mark Ivanir) — already suffering from something of an existential crisis — to undertake damage control. That task turns out to be absurdly above and beyond the ordinary when he retraces his late charge’s footsteps and tracks down her family in Romania, dogged by a meddling reporter (Guri Alfi). Back in the bleak old country, “neither east nor west,” as he’s constantly reminded, the HR Manager encounters a suitably salty, strange array of characters — the earthy Consul (Rozina Cambos) and the deceased’s divorced husband (Reymond Amsalem) and her feral son (Noah Silver) — though who can actually claim the lady’s remains? The troublesome chore turns into a journey about reconnecting with the people the HR Manager stopped seeing as full-fledged, complicated beings. Working from A.B. Yehoshua’s 2006 novel, A Woman in Jerusalem, director Eran Riklis deigns to give his characters names, apart from the dead, and instead focuses on crafting a carefully balanced, altogether enjoyable and accessible black comedy, rendering it all with a delicate touch that Anton Chekhov might have approved of. (1:43) Opera Plaza. (Chun)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

*True Grit Jeff Bridges fans, resist the urge to see your Dude in computer-trippy 3D and make True Grit your holiday movie of choice. Directors Ethan and Joel Coen revisit (with characteristic oddball touches) the 1968 Charles Portis novel that already spawned a now-classic 1969 film, which earned John Wayne an Oscar for his turn as gruff U.S. Marshall Rooster Cogburn. (The all-star cast also included Dennis Hopper, Glen Campbell, Robert Duvall, and Strother Martin.) Into Wayne’s ten-gallon shoes steps an exceptionally crusty Bridges, whose banter with rival bounty hunter La Boeuf (a spot-on Matt Damon) and relationship with young Mattie Ross (poised newcomer Hailee Steinfeld) — who hires him to find the man who killed her father — likely won’t win the recently Oscar’d actor another statuette, but that doesn’t mean True Grit isn’t thoroughly entertaining. Josh Brolin and a barely-recognizable Barry Pepper round out a cast that’s fully committed to honoring two timeless American genres: Western and Coen. (1:50) Shattuck. (Eddy)

Unknown Everything is blue skies as Dr. Martin Harris (Liam Neeson) flies to Germany for a biotech conference, accompanied by lovely wife Elizabeth (January Jones in full Betty Draper mode). Landing in Berlin things quickly become grey, as he’s separated from his wife and ends up in a coma. Waking in a hospital room, Harris experiences memory loss, but like Harrison Ford he’s getting frantic with an urgent need to find his wife. Luckily she’s at the hotel. Unluckily, so is another man, who she and everyone else claims is the real Dr. Harris. What follows is a by-the-numbers thriller, with car chases and fist fights, that manages to entertain as long as the existential question is unanswered. Once it’s revealed to be a knock-off of a successful franchise, the details of Unknown‘s dated Cold War plot don’t quite make sense. On the heels of 2008’s Taken, Neeson again proves capable in action-star mode. Bruno Ganz amuses briefly as an ex-Stasi detective, but the vacant parsing by bad actress Jones, appropriate for her role on Mad Men, only frustrates here. (1:49) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Ryan Prendiville)

You Won’t Miss Me Look at this fucking hipster: dour, aimless Shelly (Stella Schnabel, daughter of Julian) has her own New York City apartment (plus access to a country home, the ability to travel to Atlantic City on a whim, etc.) despite having no apparent source of income. Shelly drifts, going on auditions to further her as-yet unsuccessful acting career; leaving monotone voice mails for her mother; visiting her therapist; hooking up with assorted unwashed dudes; and hanging out with her insipid friends, one of whom helps our hapless 21st century protagonist set up her very first email account. That Shelly is depressed is a given; why anyone would choose to watch this drag of a film is a mystery. Director Ry Russo-Young aims to break up the angst by deploying an array of formats — from Super 8 to Flip — but no amount of artsy quirks (or cameos recognizable only to mumblecore enthusiasts) can make up for You Won’t Miss Me‘s uninvolving plot and unsympathetic characters. For a less painful (though by no means pain-free) experience, seek out last year’s similar Tiny Furniture instead. (1:21) Roxie. (Eddy)

REP PICKS

Dimension 5 and ESPY The Vortex Room March series of vintage espionage obscurities continues with this double bill of two particularly off-radar relics. First up is a 1966 U.S. B-flick that was one of a gazillion cheap James Bond imitations flooding the market at the time. It stars Jeffrey Hunter — a fading late 50s movie star who this same year made the mistake of surrendering Star Trek‘s Kirk role to William Shatner. He’s Justin Power, a big swingin’ dick type who works for “Espionage, Inc.,” surrounded by a bevy of pantingly available female assistants. He discovers a “fantastic Red plot” to “destroy Los Angeles unless all Allied forces are withdrawn from Southeast Asia” being executed by Bond villain Harold “Oddjob” Sakata, who shows off his wrestling physique in a wheelchair and barks things (obviously dubbed by another actor) like “You?! Attack me?! Your superior?!?!” Our hero is thrown a “horizontal curve” by the “curious cat” Kitty (France Nguyen of 1958’s South Pacific and 1993’s Joy Luck Club), an ally with her own hidden agenda. The cheesy big gimmick is Power’s use of a “time travel belt,” but the main attraction today is the film’s occasionally jaw-dropping sexist and racist condescensions. More overtly fantasy-oriented is 1974’s Japanese ESPY from director Jun Fukuda, a veteran of Toho Godzilla epics. Gifted with telekinetic powers, racecar driver Miki (handsome ex-model Masao Kusakari, still active in movies and TV) is drafted into a organization of similar extra-normal abilities to avert international crisis — unknown forces are assassinating world leaders attempting to negotiate peace in various trouble spots. Turns out “superhumans” living among us want to winnow the “weak” human race. It’s good mutants vs. these bad mutants in a globe-trotting adventure that anticipates elements of X-Men (2000), The Fury (1978), Scanners (1981), and even Team America: World Police (2004) while hovering on the borders of spy, kung fu, disaster flick, and (briefly but memorably) sexploitation … with a very groovy 70s soundtrack to boot. Vortex Room. (Harvey)<\!s>2

 

Rep Clock

Maria Poblet
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Schedules are for Wed/23–Tues/29 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features are marked with a •. All times are p.m. unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $6. Sweet Crude (Cioffi), Wed, 7:30. With special guest Emem Okon, a women’s rights activist and advocate from Nigeria. “Free Form Film Series: TransCosmic Geometry,” Thurs, 8. “Re-Imagining Gaza: Screenings of Short Films,” Fri, 8. “Other Cinema:” Rachel (Bitton, 2009), plus more films about Israel and Palestine, Sat, 8:30.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $7.50-10. •Kuroneko (Shindo, 1968), Wed, 3:10, 7, and House (Obayashi, 1977), Wed, 5:05, 9. “Disposable Film Festival,” short films made on cell phones and other “everyday devices,” Thurs, 8. This event, $12; advance tickets at www.brownpapertickets.com. “Sing-a-long:” The Wizard of Oz (Fleming, 1939), March 25-31, 7 (also Sat and Wed, 2).

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.50-15. Certified Copy (Kiarostami, 2010), Wed-Thurs, call for times. Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune (Bowser, 2010) Wed-Thurs, call for times. Winter in Wartime (Koolhoven, 2009), March 25-31, call for times.

DELANCEY SCREENING ROOM 600 Embarcadero, SF; www.thackarystime.com. Free (seating limited; please RSVP to bstrebel@sbcglobal.net). Thackary’s Time (Klausner and Strebel), Wed, 7.

HUMANIST HALL 390 27th St, Oakl; www.humanisthall.org. $5. Overdose: The Next Financial Crisis (Borgs, 2010), Wed, 7:30.

MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; (415) 393-0100, rsvp@milibrary.org. $10. “CinemaLit Film Series: Heros and Misfits: The Films of Stephen Frears:” Dirty Pretty Things (2002), Fri, 6.

NINTH STREET INDEPENDENT FILM CENTER 145 Ninth St, SF; www.sfdancefilmfest.org. $15. “San Francisco Dance Film Festival,” dance films from around the globe, Fri-Sat, 6pm.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Under the Skin: The Films of Claire Denis:” Nénette and Boni (Denis, 1996), Fri, 7; Beau travail (Denis, 1999), Fri, 9; Down By Law (Jarmusch, 1986), Sat, 8:30. “First Person Rural: The New Nonfiction:” La libertad (Alonso, 2001), Sat, 6:30; Agrarian Utopia (Raksasad, 2009), Sun, 3; The Sky Turns (Álvarez, 2004), Sat, 5:30.

RED VIC 1727 Haight, SF; (415) 668-3994; www.redvicmoviehouse.com. $6-10. Rushmore (Anderson, 1998), Wed, 2, 7:15, 9:15. “Regurgitated: A Multimedia Comedy Show About Food,” performance by Michael Capozzola, Thurs, 7:30, 9. Poison (Haynes, 1991), Fri-Sat, 7:15, 9:15 (also Sat, 2, 4). Somewhere (Coppola, 2010), Sun-Mon, 7:15, 9:20 (also Sun, 2, 4:15). The Mystery of Kaspar Hauser (Herzog, 1974), March 29-30, 7, 9:20 (also March 30, 2).

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $5-9.75. You Won’t Miss Me (Russo-Young, 2009), Wed-Thurs, 7, 8:50. Queen of the Sun: What Are the Bees Telling Us? (Siegel, 2010), Fri-Mon, 7, 9 (also Sat-Sun, 1:45, 3:30, and 5:15); March 29-31, 7, 8:45.

VORTEX ROOM 1082 Howard, SF; www.myspace.com/thevortexroom. $5 donation. “Thursday Film Cult:” •Dimension 5 (Adreon, 1966), Thurs, 9, and ESPY (Komatsu, 1974), Thurs, 11. YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-8. “Volume 14: Middle East,” nine videos focusing on the Middle East compiled by ASPECT: The Chronicle of New Media Art, Thurs-Sat, noon-8; Sun, noon-6. “Human Rights Watch Film Festival:” Last Best Chance (Camerini and Robertson, 2010), Thurs, 7:30. “Iran Beyond Censorship:” Close-Up (Kiarostami), Fri-Sat, 7:30; Crimson Gold (Panahi, 2003), Sun, 2; White Meadows (Rasoulof, 2009), Sun, 4.

Live Review: Warpaint at The Independent, 3/16

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0

The anticipation was brewing: even before the the ladies of Warpaint took the stage at the Independent, a guy standing at front and center passed out. His muscle failure could have been a product of over-intoxication, but I’m guessing it was an overdose of hard excitement. I admit, I too got the jimmy-legs during the show but I managed to keep them clenched until the encore came to a wow-worthy close. And then I hit the floor with a smirk. 

The LA band of four was nothing short of stunning. The set was gorgeously long, stacked with songs from their debut, The Fool [Rough Trade, 2010] and an exceptional jam-session during the encore. The guitars were intense, the drums fierce and the bass lines sanded rough edges with impressive force. Warpaint rocks hard and yet continually taunts with such an eerie, feminine mystique. 

It’s the girly details I liked best: Theresa Wayman hugs her guitar while she sings, Emily Kokal’s hips sway while she plucks a rift, the constant and very mischievous smirk on drummer Stella Mozgawa’s lips and Jenny Lee Lindberg’s relentless wild-child energy. They laughed, they kissed and hugged and flirted– and all the while the music was still totally rad and introspective. Harmonies oozed like honey from the nest and the simultaneous head-banging kept emotions on the rail. They drew the crowd in with a taunting index finger and then pushed us flat down when we got too close. It was the perfect mix of sensual and edgy. 

The Warpaint women are obviously best buds and their complimentary energies explode on stage. They’re like an upgraded version of the Babysitters Club— a hippie, feminist, grown-up version of the girl clan that could have been totally badass if they had traded all their boy-drama and horseback riding for band practice. 

I already totally loved the recorded version of Warpaint but their live performance upgraded my feelings to overflowing admiration for their mad skills, sex appeal and sweetness. No doubt this group is going to blow up and it’s totally deserved. 

Hip-hop heroes

Andrew Lam
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I’m rolling with the big timers: the executive director and founder of a community circus arts program, an after-school program b-boy teacher, the most beautiful family in Bay Area hip-hop, and my boyfriend, who is snapping photos on his Nikon of the rest of us. We’re standing under the high ceiling of Acrosports, in a room filled with trapezes, a balancing beam, an over-sized trampoline, and the contorting, jack-knifing bodies of young, aspiring circus professionals. The people assembled (minus me and my man) are using the power of hip-hop to bring a cultural skill swap to underprivileged youth in Zanzibar.

It’s a feel good moment, particularly because it comes during a week that hosted some of the darkest days in the past century of the labor movement, the start of unimaginable hardship in Japan, and disheartening scenes from our nation’s leaders’ announced Muslim witch hunt. But enough of that for now, Zumbi’s talking:

“This is the first time we’ve done a tour that benefited charities, which is cool… but it’s like, why has this taken so long to do? Why don’t more people do this?”

The emcee from Zion I is makes uplifting Bay Area hip-hop without major label representation, and now it’s been announced that his, DJ Amp Live, and the Grouch’s upcoming tour will be benefiting local community organizations at each of its 36 gigs on its “Healing of the Nation” tour — which is named after the artists’ second collaboration album, Heroes in the Healing of the Nation.

In the Acrosport’s basement, breakdancing students get their new skills battle-ready. Photo by Erik Anderson

“This album, it’s more focused, it’s about communities, families, self. It’s needed! These days, you’ve got Charlie Sheen occupying more time onscreen than the Middle East. Everybody’s all caught up on tiger blood,” Zumbi tells me. It’s positive music, much like the first Zion I-grouch collab, 2006’s Heroes in the City of Dope, but it’s far from Public Enemy-style protest rap. 

Track eight on the new album is entitled “Be A Father To Your Child,” in the chorus of track two the Grouch asserts “I’m a leader/I don’t want to be a follower,” pledging allegiance to self-motivation. There’s a song called “I Used to Be Vegan” on the album that I find particularly resonant given my own struggles with evading cheese. The message is: be a positive force, don’t get swept up in the forces that try to disempower you and make you sad. It’s conscious music, but conscious music meant to have a good time to.

Today we also meet Zumbi’s beautiful partner Tiffany and their three-month old prince, Kodi Shaddai. They pose prettily by the catapulting acrobats behind them and Zumbi tells me that Kodi may well make a cameo appearance in the album’s upcoming music video. He tells me he used to do capoeira himself and jokes about his bad knees with B-Boy Black, a.k.a. Ed Johnson, Acrosports’ outreach director and breakdance teacher who will be one of the leaders on the Zanzibar trip.

Acrosports’ professional track performers practice across the street from Kezar Stadium. Photo by Erik Anderson

Is Zion I’s hip-hop philanthropy new? Certainly not, but what is novel is the group’s maturing image. Zumbi says that Heroes in the City of Dope was “more commentary, more getting fresh.” Heroes in the Healing of the Nation focuses more on creating positive space — reflective of the three men’s new roles as fathers and, gulp, role models. Looking into the future (though he’s far from hanging up his touring hat), Zion I’s emcee tells me that he sees his role in hip-hop as that of mentor to youngsters coming up in the ranks. 

My star-struckedness aside, I should probably be spending more of this article talking about Acrosports and its planned trip to Africa. You wanna see bringing uplift to the people? The place is pretty incredible, offering classes in breakdancing, capoeira, tumbling, and parkour to community members from 10 months of age and up. They run after-school programs in over 20 school, YMCAs, and Boys & Girls Clubs whose philosophy is to empower kids through positive motivation and access to non-traditional sports. 

Community activist Dorrie Huntington founded the place 20 years ago when she realized the building she lived next door to was sitting empty after years as a high school, and then a homeless shelter. Some unemployed members of the Moscow Circus proposed that they start teaching tumbling classes. Soon the team was repurposing sleeping mats from the homeless shelter and donated paint to create the center, all with very little resources. “It took a lot of sweat equity,” Huntington smiles. But that was 20 years ago and the perspiration paid off – now the city has a place where people of all ages and levels of fitness can come to learn how to move their bodies in joyous, creative ways. 

In 2009, Huntington went to Africa to volunteer in a Tanzanian orphanage, and on a vacation ran into some kids flipping out on a beach in Zanzibar. “Their skills were so amazing. They had this truck tire wedged in the sand and they were doing flips off of it.” She struck up a friendship with the amateur acrobats and vowed to return with teachers that could help the kids develop their performance skills. 

It’s a mission that resonates with her staff. “Growing up in a black community,” says Johnson, “going to Africa was seen as learning about your roots. I want to go out there and meet these amazing artists.” I ask him how he felt when he learned that Zion I and the Grouch were dipping into ticket sales to help him and his team realize the dream and he gets a little bashful. “I had to keep my composure,” he tells the group, and turns to Zumbi. “I have the vinyl record of The Bay! I don’t even have a record player, I was just like, I got to have that album!”

Inspiring people creating space for each other to make great things happen. Like a little feedback loop of positivity, it was. And a real good break from the heartache of the news channels.

 

Zion I and the Grouch

Sat/19 9 p.m., $25

The Fillmore 

1805 Geary, SF

www.zioniandthegrouch.com

 

American Idol: Elvis and the Lion Queen

Zelda Bronstein
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American Idol: Elvis and the Lion Queen

I was out at the SPJ FOI Awards event early in the evening, so I missed the first few performances, but no worries: Vivian and Michael were taking excellent notes and filled me in. And the best stuff came at the end anyway.


First: What was UP with J-Lo’s hair? I can’t find any pix on the web (Idol is insanely protective of its imagery) but trust me: She looked like something out of the Lion King. And the leopard-print dress didn’t help much. It’s a jungle out there, Jennifer. Grrr.


Next: The background video/light show continues to be utterly moronic, mixing psychedelia and syrup pretty much at random. With the millions they’re making from the Ford commercials, they could get a decent designer.


Also: These people are all so young. The night’s theme was picking a song from the year you were born; for Scotty, that was 1993. As his backstage producers noted, “I have a pair of jeans that were born in 1993.” Five of the finalists aren’t even old enough to buy a drink. No OGs in the lineup this year; Paul clocks in as the senior citizen at 26.


The baby and kid pics were cute; I loved watching Scotty as Halloween Elvis. And with 12 contestants, there wasn’t a whole lot of time for nonsense; the show kept moving. Oh: Casey’s back form the hospital and seems fine.


The details: Naima does “What’s Love Got To Do With It.” Eh. From Viv: “J-Lo thought it was a little pitchy and Randy agreed. Really, it was just okay.”


Paul: Elton John. “I Guess That’s Why They Call It the Blues.” Not Sir Elton’s best song, not Paul’s best performance.


Thia: “Colors of the Wind.” Again, nothing special.


So overall a slow start — until James hit the stage with Bon Jovi. Steven Tyler was so impressed he offered to quit Aerosmith (can you really quit a band that isn’t really there anymore?) and join him onstage. The kid can rock.


Haley: Whitney Houston. Oops.


Stefano, the guy who almost got sent home, turned the entire show around with “If You Don’t Know Me By Now.” His parents weren’t out of diapers when Harold Melvin and the Blue Notes first released that, but somebody else did it 22 years ago, so it counts. Perfect song for him, perfect rendition of a tough piece.


Pia: Whitney Houston, too. The girl is drop-dead beautiful and has a stunning voice — but that horrid white outfit looked like someone had wrapped her in a plastic garbage bag. (“You can’t say it made her look fat,” Jean told me harshly. And it didn’t, really, because she isn’t, but it might have.) Hideous, I almost couldn’t listen to the song. 


Scotty is always solid, born to be a country singer. He’s so good it’s almost boring.


Karen: Marge Simpson hairdo. Devo-meets-Vegas outfit. The song was okay, and the interview with her mom was too cute for words, but next time let mom check the look before you go out the door, okay?


Casey went on with his bass and tried to be Kurt Cobain — and oddly, it worked. Kind of scary, actually. But it worked. Steven: “Crazy and talented — that’s the goop that great stuff was made of.” J-lo still thinks he’s sexy. Grrrr, Lion Queen.


Lauren’s got the flu, but did a great job with Melissa Ethridge. Jacob tried Heart, and failed.


Naima, Haley and Jacob — bottom three. And Naima’s going home. Tune in tomorrow; I’m never right.

Songs of flesh and faith

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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1
Songs of flesh and faith

arts@sfbg.com

MUSIC Some cowboy angels have been crying into their beer for salvation; meantime, some of us singing cowgirls who are also in struggle push onward to save ourselves. Texan-in-exile Josh T. Pearson’s new Last of the Country Gentlemen (Mute) is very much the answer record for that divide, its harrowing, beautiful 60 minutes transmuting into a sonic angel and devil’s advocate for both sides.

On hearing the disc’s seven songs — or, as when seeing Pearson live a few weeks past at Brooklyn’s Bell House, where he opened with the one-two punch of “Sweetheart I Ain’t Your Christ” and “Thou Art Loosed” — you might be inclined to label the work mere post-breakup bittersweets, or worse, sexist. Yet you would be woefully wrong, akin to those scene-making hipsters at the Bell House who refused to pocket their cell phones and thus did not respect the artist or the hush required to truly hear the songs. You would not be awake to the fact that Brother Pearson’s preaching the (female) listener toward empowerment. He fled Sam the Sham, crossing the pond for refuge, solace, and space, but did not find old world streets paved with gold, and ultimately he was stalked by heartache, firewater, and despair. No one else can love you into wholeness. Reckon I don’t know if Jesus saves; down here, it appears nobody can save your soul but you — savior self.

In my recent long seasons of darkness, this is the hardest life lesson I was forced to learn. And so the acute sadness of Josh T. Pearson the artist — once weighted with the spoils and pressures of one anointed as sonic savior, courtesy of his prior trio Lift to Experience and its lone apocalyptic recording The Texas-Jerusalem Crossroads (2001) — and his seven devastating accounts of love gone wrong, about the chains of dissipation and loss of mind and self, resonate with me in ways that cannot be reduced to printed matter nor speech. After a decade of inner turbulence and music’s collective loss of grace, here, at last, is a recording made by a grown-ass man.

With their length and delicate, unvarnished instrumentation — chiefly, Pearson’s voice and guitar, recorded over two days in Berlin with strings added a few months later — the songs of Last of the Country Gentlemen will doubtless cause some to resist, too cowardly to engage with pain. They need to recognize that Pearson is strong enough to balance (gallows) wit with generous depth and unflinching honesty. See “Honeymoon is Great, I Wish You Were Her,” or even the tortured meshes of “Sorry With A Song,” with its “Last time you left I got my drunk ass whupped in a fight/ My whole life’s been one clichéd country unfinished line after line after line after line.” On stage at the Bell House, he joked about expecting to see more beards in the Brooklyn crowd, and noted that the 10-year length of his own mirrored his “absence.” Awake, awake…know his embodiment of the divine.

The portrait Pearson is gentlemanly enough to present: a young Ugly American seeking detachment abroad, unraveling, and painstakingly slaying dragons to evolve and become a better human. Yes, there are ghost notes between his being the son of a Southern preacher man and myself being the granddaughter, niece, cousin of same; a shared lore of traditions and the Word communicates beneath the surface of this record (and I nigh passed out when he seamlessly recuperated the Melodians-minted “Rivers of Babylon” into his oeuvre live last week).

It matters not that Pearson focused on busking and drifting across western Europe and the isles, surfacing only once in the past decade with a (fitting) cover of Hank Williams’ “I’m So Lonesome I Could Cry” and continuing to sit on a trove of unreleased material. In fleeing the horrors of Bush America, he reconnected with the traditions of his own soil and kinfolk (as slyly/sadly limned on the single, “Country Dumb”) and went through them changes to fiercely mature as songcatcher and man. When he opens his record keening, crying that he is “off to save the world,” he may be earnest and he might be clowning himself. It could just be the bravado of wishful drinkin’, but it sho’nuff ain’t purty aesthetic insincerity. I am bone-weary of Pan’s musical sons capering in the glades, and the ever-cloning manchildren of indie-ana. Give me Brother Pearson’s testimony and its rare, precious ability to trigger the full spectrum of human feeling.

The inevitable forthcoming hooptedoodle that results from Pearson’s appearance at Austin’s annual South by Southwest festival next week will determine how much of his vault comes to light and whether or not the amorphous-but-fervent digital cult that enshrined Lift to Experience and has awaited any new music with bated breath expands to a mass. However, I neither require consensus nor further laurels determining its future reception to claim that Last of the Country Gentlemen is a masterpiece. Especially when it seems possible that Brother Pearson could well disappear into Texas, never to record again. Or feel beckoned anew by the boomtown Berlin of our master satirist Californian bard Stew, and Pearson’s fellow quester, the noted East Village African performance artist Krylon Superstar (a “breathaholic,” as we all should be). He could pull a Josephine-with-her-leopards rather than remain here to help rebuild America(na) from the ashes.

I, the Indian watching from the deep dark woods as the settlers clash and struggle to resurrect themselves and their ideals from the heaven/hell of Bush’s infinitely twisted New Jerusalem, am very grateful that Josh T. Pearson has boldly called himself out an American dreamer. He reminds me that I could be one, too, if I am brave enough to bleed. This is worth so much more than letter grades and lazy crit comparisons to this act or that, so expect none. Due to powers of inner vision and commitment, Pearson conjures the two other maverick artists who framed the past decade for me: my most-beloved white chocolate master, Lewis Taylor, from the United Kingdom, and still-undersung, Carolina-to-canyon folk visionary Jonathan Wilson. But he is virtually without peer. It takes a great deal now to summon me from the abyss. Truth alone.

Myself, still too blue to fly — yet there is great remedy and mystery to be gained from Josh the Revelator’s Wild West revolution of the mind. I know you have heard the sounds of red, white, and blue footsteps scrawling in fear. You know intimately the disintegration of this earth. If only you have the ears to hear both the low lonesome and glory of “Sweetheart I Ain’t Your Christ,” wherein Pearson wrenches out, through rippling guitar, “You don’t need a lover or a friend/ You need a savior/ And I am not him.” Don’t flinch when he sings from a land you’re stranger to. Do not escape into the sunset — the brother needs you to openly and humbly step up as his amen corner, and welcome holy breath. 

Josh T. Pearson will be making his solo debut at South by Southwest at three official performances — the first, Wed., March 16 at the Central Presbyterian Church in downtown Austin, should be the hot ticket

Dolphin double

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0
Dolphin double

arts@sfbg.com

MUSIC San Francisco’s Mi Ami was a trio when it released the spazz-punk albums Steal Watersports (2009) and Steal Your Face (2010) on Thrill Jockey. Then bassist Jacob Long announced that he was going to leave the group. After Long made that decision, Mi Ami played a few Bay Area shows at El Rio, Rickshaw Stop, and the Knockout. They were full-throttle performances — high in energy, as always. But they also revealed a ripping-at-the-seams that would soon be complete.

Mi Ami’s Daniel Martin-McCormick explains that he and remaining bandmate Damon Palermo believed that “the music we’d written as trio was specific to that dynamic.” Rather than recruit a new bassist, the remaining two Mi Ami members spent the past year experimenting with different arrangements to make the band work as a duo. “We tried different combinations with guitar and drum,” says Martin-McCormick. “Then we tried with me playing keyboards and Damon playing drums.” What they settled on — “Damon playing a drum machine and a sampler, and me doing stuff on top of it” — is even more surprising.

Dolphins, a 12-inch EP released on Thrill Jockey, is a first taste of the band’s new approach, which includes a vintage 707 drum machine, a sampler, keys, and of course Martin-McCormick’s trademark squall-vocals. In its new manifestation, Mi Ami ditches any resemblance to a traditional rock band. At the same time, the ideas behind the music are similar to those the band has always been traveling along. The influences are the same; then again, they’ve always been eclectic: post-punk to Italo-disco, dubstep to krautrock. The emphasis remains on being (and feeling) very live.

Mi Ami is bicoastal now that Martin-McCormick has relocated to New York City. But before the big move, the pair recorded Dolphins with Phil Manley. “We were puzzling over how to do the recording because the way we do it live is pretty bootleg,” Martin-McCormick says. “It’s pretty raw.” Manley suggested that Mi Ami just record the album live. So they did.

There are, of course, a few touch-ups. Even so, Dolphins is essentially a live performance, and one that encapsulates the quintessential give-and-take of the band’s music. “There’s a lot of interplay, and a lot of focus on creating, and jamming that out, and building on top of it,” Martin-McCormick said.

Mi Ami layers sounds, as on “Sunrise.” As the song emerges, there are undulating synth sounds and kraut beats. Next, steady keys slowly become awash with samples and the song transitions into jungle dub. Once the mood and atmosphere has evolved into a very different space, the track returns to the steady keys. Each song is given time to grow, build — even overflow — then fade away. And no two songs abide by the same rules. Each creates a unique evolution.

The EP’s opener, “Hard Up,” is chock-full of hypnotic beats and heavy bass, making it a perfect party starter. Its follow-up, “Dolphins,” begins where “Hard Up” leaves off — with dance-ready beats. As it unravels, however, it reveals something altogether different: ecstatic sounds turn into twisted grooves and anguished beats as Martin-McCormick’s apocalyptic cries create a juxtaposition of dolphins washing ashore while “Your wife in capris/ Drinking Hi-C and eating lima beans.” Through the sampler and keyboard, Martin-McCormick creates dying dolphin sounds, pushing his voice to an even higher register to sound dolphin-like. The track is a response, he explains, to “humanity’s assault on the environment.”

A final, poignant reinvention of the band is revealed on Dolphins‘ final song “Echo,” which has appeared in different forms and with slightly different titles (such as “Echoonoecho”) on two earlier releases. The sole through-line is Martin-McCormick’s vocal track. “We didn’t want to use Jacob Long’s bassline, but the vocal part could go over anything — it’s so repetitive,” he said.

Dolphins is proof that, although challenging, change isn’t always bad. In conjunction with the EP’s release, Palermo is traveling to New York to tour with Martin-McCormick as a duo for the first time. They’ll play a handful of shows in New York, moving on to the Midwest, and then to Europe. If we’re lucky, this journey will eventually include a return to the Bay Area.

Body talk

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Body talk

arts@sfbg.com

DANCE Forty is the time when the midlife crisis is supposed to hit, but there’s no sign that ODC is even close. At its short but sweet gala performance on March 11, which opened this year’s three-week “Dance That Matters” program, the artists looked stunning, the choreography fresh and fun, and the audience thoroughly pleased. What more would you want? A home that is paid for? ODC has it. Some money in the bank? ODC has enough to stay alive. Plans for the future? Yes: more dance, and something called the ODC Campus that might include housing for dancers and perhaps even college degrees.

The gala featured new works by Brenda Way and Kimi Okada. (KT Nelson’s Listening Last, a collaboration with Shinichi Iova-Koga, premieres this week.) For the celebratory yet pensive Speaking Volumes: Architecture of Light II, Way reworked the installation piece that ODC’s company reopened its theater with last year. Speaking is linear and therefore allows for a different trajectory. Way takes stock of a dancer’s life, from the working individual to the end of a career that gets absorbed into a mass of humanity. Thirty-five current, former, and recreational dancers flooded the stage for a communal celebration of dance. Along the way, they regaled us with aphorisms along the lines of “Art gives shape to life,” and “Don’t be afraid of people seeing your ideas.” Their energetic optimism is characteristic of Way.

Speaking opened with Jeremy Smith following a voice-over instruction for a new piece. (For example: “Make a triangle with your arm … stick your head through it.”) His responses, sometimes literal, other times imagistic, were fascinating. Then flashlights began to search, a little too long, for potent ideas among dancers half-hidden in the dark.

The lights found, among other treasures, a quintet that reminded me of frolicking dogs and a fluidly stretched give-and-take trio for Dennis Adams, Quilet Rarang, and Vanessa Thiessen that allowed sparks to fly between friendly moments of repose. Fierceness and volatility without rancor propelled Elizabeth Farotte Heenan and Daniel Santos’s duet. At the end of Speaking, they embraced. (Farotte Heenan is retiring.)

Associate choreographer Okada runs ODC’s school and its mentorship program, so she choreographs little these days. That’s why I look vacantly at the Pacific … though regret — a humorous look at misunderstandings, erroneous assumptions, and long-held behavioral patterns — was so welcome. Good intentions won’t keep you from making faux pas in a world that values “diversity.” Yet Okada’s take is so witty and good-natured that it would take a real curmudgeon of political correctness to take offense at this light-hearted consideration of a serious subject.

Look moves speedily through awkward encounters; it presents a world that’s a merry-go-round from which there is no escape. Anne Zivolich, hair flying, skipped through the chaos. The English language can yield rich images, and Okada’s choreography also presents more than a few. Two men literally bite the bullet; Yayoi Kambara points a Medusa finger and everyone freezes. Jerky, fragmented movement illustrates the topsy-turvy results of linguistic maneuvering to oft-comic effect.

But there is more to the piece, namely its navigation of culture gaps. In a smartly-timed encounter, two couples try to greet each other. One bows, the other outstretches hands. Each attempt to connect only drives them further apart. During one of Look‘s funniest moments, Jay Cloidt introduces a section of Japanese classical music. The dancers freeze in terror and embarrassment. Rubbery-limbed Santos, clad in a business suit, tries to toe the line — here we go with an image — but falls all over himself. He had my sympathy. *

ODC/DANCE DOWNTOWN: A FORCE AT 40

Through March 27; $20

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Novellus Theater

701 Mission, SF

(415) 978-2787

www.ybca.org

 

Our Weekly Picks: March 16-22

Andrew Lam
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WEDNESDAY 16

EVENT

“Nerd Nite SF No. 10: Visualization of Science, Undersea Internet, and the Art of Videogames”

Get your geek on! Nerd Nite, a relaxed celebration of the cerebral, features science-centric presentations that will increase your already genius-level IQ, you MENSA member, you. Take your first sip of alcohol and listen to lectures like “The Coolest A/V Club in the Universe: Science Visualization at the California Academy of Sciences” by Jon Britton, senior systems engineer and production engineering manager of electronics engineering and science visualization (that’s a mouthful) at the academy; “20,000 Leagues Under the TCP: The Undersea Internet” by Chris Woodfield, senior network engineer for Yahoo!; and “Sorry, but Videogames Are Art” by acclaimed technology journalist Alex Handy. (Jen Verzosa)

8 p.m., $8

Rickshaw Stop

155 Fell, SF

(415) 861-2011

www.sf.nerdnite.com


MUSIC

“(Pre) St. Paddy’s Day Punk Bash XI”

Tradition dictates that the St. Paddy’s Day Punk Bash is held on, well, March 17. But this year, there was a Steve Ignorant-playing-Crass-songs show (don’t call it a reunion!) scheduled for March 17, so veteran local promoter Scott Alcoholocaust — noting the potential conflict of mohawked interests — scooted his Paddy party to the day prior. Alas, Crass ran into visa troubles and had to reschedule its gig for later this spring. So get your punk fix tonight; tomorrow, you can stay home and recover (suggested activity: watching all the Leprechaun movies) while the amateurs crowd the pubs. The bill includes SF’s own tongue-in-cheek rockers Crosstops and “all-zombie” Dead Boys tribute act UNdead Boys. Magically delicious! (Cheryl Eddy)

With Ruleta Rusa, Face the Rail, and Street Justice

8 p.m., $8

Elbo Room

647 Valencia, SF

(415) 552-7788

www.elbo.com


THURSDAY 17

EVENT

“How Wine Became Modern Featuring Pop-Up Magazine”

If you prefer wine to green beer on St. Patrick’s Day, head to SFMOMA for a wine-infused installment of their Now Playing series, featuring Pop-Up Magazine in a new, between-issues format, “Sidebar.” Unlike normal magazines with a shelf life, each issue of Pop-Up takes the form of a live performance presented to an audience in real time. This issue discusses wine culture, science, history, politics, and humor in conjunction with the museum’s current exhibition, “How Wine Became Modern.” The evening includes a screening of Brian De Palma’s Dionysus in 69 (1970) and a rooftop bacchanal-themed event by Meatpaper magazine. Bonus: admission is half-price after 6 p.m. Thursday nights. (Julie Potter)

6 p.m., $9

San Francisco Museum of Modern Art

151 Third St., SF

(415) 357-4000

www.sfmoma.org

 

FRIDAY 18

DANCE

Dance Anywhere

A few years ago dancer-choreographer Beth Fein asked herself: “What if the world paused to dance?” It certainly couldn’t hurt. In the Bronx, hip-hop helped reduce violence. More recently, all of Cairo danced on Tahrir Square. Fein elicited enough of a response that people around the globe will gather for one big communal dance. You can “dance anywhere” on your own or join kindred spirits. In San Francisco, find Alyce Finwall (Geary and Grant streets), the Foundry (Civic Center BART), Kara Davis and Agora Project (Lincoln Park), or Project Trust (Togonon Gallery). In Oakland see Carolyn Lei-Lanilau (Bosko Picture and Framing store), Destiny Arts Center (at home), and Eric Kupers’ Dandelion Dance Theater (Frank Ogawa Plaza). For additional Bay Area participants consult the website. (Rita Felciano)

Noon, free

Various Bay Area locations

(415) 706-7644

www.danceanywhere.org

 

DANCE

Nederlands Dans Theater

The elite dance creatures of Nederlands Dans Theater visit Berkeley to perform Whereabouts Unknown, the work of former artistic director Jiri Kylián, and Silent Screen, a collaboration by resident choreographers Paul Lightfoot and Sol León set to the music of Philip Glass. Known for its gorgeously trained artists, the company pairs the work of NDT’s longtime leader alongside choreography by the company’s next generation of dance makers, giving audiences an idea of this fine group’s trajectory. In addition, artistic director Jim Vincent (previously stateside directing Hubbard Street Dance Chicago) offers a free public lobby talk with Cal Performances’ Kathryn Roszak Sat/19 at 5 p.m. (Potter)

Fri/18–Sat/19, 8 p.m., $34–$72

Zellerbach Hall

Bancroft at Telegraph, Berk.

(510) 642-9988

www.calperfs.berkeley.edu

 

MUSIC

Devo

With nearly 15 years between releases leading up to 2010’s Something for Everybody, it’s probably an understatement to say that Devo has slowed down considerably since its heyday throughout the 1970s and ’00s. Regardless, the band is still synonymous with the idiosyncratic new wave and synth-punk it helped create those many years ago. Ringleader Mark Mothersbaugh has rekindled the group’s flare for sci-fi kitsch, surreal humor, and of course, the costumes, in recent appearances and the group seems rejuvenated with touring drummer Josh Freese (Vandals, A Perfect Circle) on board. With talks of a possible Devo Broadway musical in the works, it seems the group possibly has a few more tricks up its oddball sleeve. (Landon Moblad)

With the Octopus Project

9 p.m., $37.50–$99.50

Warfield

982 Market, SF

(415) 345-0900

www.thewarfieldtheatre.com

 

DANCE

RAWdance

RAWdance, also known as Ryan T. Smith and Wendy Rein, may be best known for their Concept Series, in which popcorn and new dance packs them in. (It is also a place where a local critic was once hit by a flying ice cream bar.) The work shown is usually “in progress.” An ODC Theater Residency has now enabled the two artists to finish one of their tentative excursions. The full-evening Hiding in the Space Between — live dance and LED projections — takes on the complications, discoveries, and shifting priorities that an exploding range of technology imposes on us. Human beings have always been social creatures, but what kind of animals are we turning into? (Felciano)

Fri/18–Sun/20, 8 p.m., $15–$18

ODC Theater

3153 17th St., SF

(415) 863-9834

www.odctheater.org

 

SATURDAY 19

MUSIC

Greg Ginn and the Royal We

Full disclosure: I have only the vaguest impression of what the erstwhile Black Flag guitarist’s latest project actually sounds like (short answer: weird and stony), and my preliminary Internet sleuthing suggests that nobody else seems to know too much, either. What’s certain, however, is that any band with Greg Ginn at the helm will make for an interesting experience — consider the countless stories in circulation about people who walked into a Taylor Texas Corrugators show hoping to hear “Police Story,” only to be held hostage by a nightmarish jam band for over an hour. Here’s hoping Ginn’s latest project lives up to the jarring strangeness of its immediate predecessors. (Tony Papanikolas)

With Big Scenic Nowhere and Glitter Wizard

9 p.m., $8

Thee Parkside

1600 17th St., SF

(415) 252-1330

www.theeparkside.com

 

PERFORMANCE

“Jay and Silent Bob Get Old”

Since their first appearance in Kevin Smith’s 1994 film Clerks, the characters of Jay and Silent Bob have gone on to achieve cult status — ever though Smith’s alter ego doesn’t speak much and his overly-verbose partner, portrayed by Jason Mewes, is a foul-mouthed, obnoxious punk. Smith and Mewes have revived the hilarious duo once again; brandishing the tagline “Every saga has a middle age,” they’ve started taping a live podcast, “Jay and Silent Bob Get Old,” riffing on just about everything funny thing you could imagine. When the show comes to the city tonight, just imagine you’re standing in front of that old Quick Stop in Jersey and let the raunchy tirades roll. (Sean McCourt)

9 p.m., $59.50

Warfield

982 Market, SF

(415) 345-0900

www.thewarfieldtheatre.com

 

SUNDAY 20

MUSIC

Carlton Melton

Welcome to Spaceship Earth. Please enjoy its dynamic equilibrium, finite resources, and infallible interdependency. Heavy shit? Maybe. But engineer and visionary Buckminster Fuller had reality dialed, helping popularize these concepts and designing the eco-before-“eco” geodesic dome. Time travel 40 years to today, where the five members of Carlton Melton have pioneered “dome rock” from the acoustic womb of their spherical abode on the Mendocino coast. No rehearsals, studios, or second takes; all dome-inspired improvisation, experimentation, and Floydian trippiness. Bucky would be proud. And beyond reverberations from dome sweet dome, how could you flake on a stony Sunday afternoon BBQ with Acid King? (Kat Renz)

With Acid King and Qumram Orphics

2 p.m., $8

Bottom of the Hill

1233 17th St., SF

(415) 621-4455

www.bottomofthehill.com

 

MONDAY 21

MUSIC

Destroyer

Dan Bejar is never quite what he seems. He’s a pivotal member of indie talent union the New Pornographers, but the nine albums he’s released as Destroyer stands to eclipse that collective effort. The name may invoke metal, but that’s the one popular genre that Bejar seems to borrow from the least. Kaputt in particular, the latest and best Destroyer album since 2001’s Streethawk: A Seduction, finds Bejar in territory that’s undeniably smooth. Smooth jazz smooth, but adding musical nuance and lyrical mystery in a way that hasn’t been so successful since the ’80s (or arguably, ever). If the eight-piece orchestra on this tour aims to destroy anything, it’s expectations. (Prendiville)

With the War on Drugs, Devon Williams, and DJ Britt Govea

8 p.m., $16

Great American Music Hall

859 O’Farrell, SF

(415) 885-0750

www.gamh.com

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Film Listings

Andrew Lam
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0

SAN FRANCISCO INTERNATIONAL ASIAN AMERICAN FILM FESTIVAL

The 29th SFIAAFF runs through Sun/20 at the Camera 12, 201 S. Second St., San Jose; Pacific Film Archive, 2776 Bancroft, Berk.; Sundance Kabuki, 1881 Post; and Viz Cinema, New People, 1746 Post, SF. For tickets (most shows $12) and additional program information, visit www.caamedia.org. All times pm.

WED/16

Kabuki “Futurestates” (shorts program) 4. One Voice 4:45. Made in India 6:45. Anna May Wong: In Her Own Words with “Slaying the Dragon Reloaded” 7:15. Dance Town 9:15. Affliction 9:30.

PFA M/F Remix 7. Sampaguita, National Flower 9.

Viz “Living Life Large” (shorts program) 4. Dog Sweat 6:45. Peace 9:15.

THURS/17

Kabuki Living in Seduced Circumstances 4:20. “Tainted Love” (shorts program) 5:15. “Silent Rituals and Hovering Proxies” (shorts program) 6:45. Surrogate Valentine 7. Bi, Don’t Be Afraid! 7:30.

PFA Dance Town 7. Nang Nak 9:20.

Viz “Life Interrupted” (shorts program) 5. “Futurestates” (shorts program) 7:30.

FRI/18

PFA Passion 7. The Taqwacores 8:45.

SAT/19

Camera Amin 12:15. Piano in a Factory 1. Saigon Electric 3:15. “Life, Interrupted” (shorts program) 3:30. Almost Perfect 6. Made in India 6. Emir 8:30. When Love Comes 9.

PFA Bend It Like Beckham 4. The Imperialists Are Still Alive! 6:10. Histeria 8.

SUN/20

Camera “3rd I South Asian International Shorts” noon. The Fourth Portrait 1. One Voice 2:15. Surrogate Valentine 3:30. Abraxas 4:45. Bi, Don’t Be Afraid! 6. It’s a Wonderful Afterlife 7:30. Break Up Club 8.

 

OPENING

Certified Copy See “Looking Glass Love.” (1:46) Clay, Shattuck, Smith Rafael.

*Heartbeats See “Xavier University.” (1:35) Lumiere.

*The Human Resources Manager What happens when a nameless, faceless “human resource” begin to resolve into a palpably real being with hopes, fears, loved ones, a hometown, a past? The harried Human Resources Manager of a big Jerusalem bakery finds out when one of his employer’s foreign workers is killed in a suicide bombing. After her body remains unclaimed in a city morgue, his employer is tagged with callous indifference, and it’s up to the beleaguered HR Manager (Mark Ivanir) — already suffering from something of an existential crisis — to undertake damage control. That task turns out to be absurdly above and beyond the ordinary when he retraces his late charge’s footsteps and tracks down her family in Romania, dogged by a meddling reporter (Guri Alfi). Back in the bleak old country, “neither east nor west,” as he’s constantly reminded, the HR Manager encounters a suitably salty, strange array of characters — the earthy Consul (Rozina Cambos) and the deceased’s divorced husband (Reymond Amsalem) and her feral son (Noah Silver) — though who can actually claim the lady’s remains? The troublesome chore turns into a journey about reconnecting with the people the HR Manager stopped seeing as full-fledged, complicated beings. Working from A.B. Yehoshua’s 2006 novel, A Woman in Jerusalem, director Eran Riklis deigns to give his characters names, apart from the dead, and instead focuses on crafting a carefully balanced, altogether enjoyable and accessible black comedy, rendering it all with a delicate touch that Anton Chekhov might have approved of. (1:43) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Chun)

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

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

The Lincoln Lawyer Matthew McConaughey stars as an unconventional lawyer who takes on a controversial client (Ryan Phillippe). (1:59)

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

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

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

You Won’t Miss Me Look at this fucking hipster: dour, aimless Shelly (Stella Schnabel, daughter of Julian) has her own New York City apartment (plus access to a country home, the ability to travel to Atlantic City on a whim, etc.) despite having no apparent source of income. Shelly drifts, going on auditions to further her as-yet unsuccessful acting career; leaving monotone voice mails for her mother; visiting her therapist; hooking up with assorted unwashed dudes; and hanging out with her insipid friends, one of whom helps our hapless 21st century protagonist set up her very first email account. That Shelly is depressed is a given; why anyone would choose to watch this drag of a film is a mystery. Director Ry Russo-Young aims to break up the angst by deploying an array of formats — from Super 8 to Flip — but no amount of artsy quirks (or cameos recognizable only to mumblecore enthusiasts) can make up for You Won’t Miss Me‘s uninvolving plot and unsympathetic characters. For a less painful (though by no means pain-free) experience, seek out last year’s similar Tiny Furniture instead. (1:21) Roxie. (Eddy)

ONGOING

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

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

Beastly The problem with a title like Beastly is that it’s difficult to avoid the obvious line: the movie lives up to its name. But indeed, this modernized take on the Beauty and the Beast tale is wretched on all fronts — a laughable script, endless plot holes, and the kind of wooden acting that makes you long for the glory days of Twilight (2008). New “It Boy” Alex Pettyfer stars as Kyle, a vapid popular kid who is cursed to look like a slightly less attractive version of himself by a vengeful witch (Mary-Kate Olsen). Only the love of kind-hearted Lindy (Vanessa Hudgens) can cure him of his fate. There is so much wrong with Beastly, it’s hard to zone in on its individual faults: this is a film in which the opening scene has Kyle telling his ugly classmates to “embrace the suck”—and then getting elected to student government anyway. Embrace Beastly‘s suck if you can’t live without Pettyfer’s washboard abs, but you’re far better off rewatching the Disney or Cocteau versions. (1:35) 1000 Van Ness. (Peitzman)

Biutiful Uxbal (Javier Bardem) has problems. To name but a few: he is raising two young children alone in a poor, crime-beset Barcelona hood. He is making occasional attempts to rope back in their bipolar, substance-abusive mother (Maricel Álvarez), a mission without much hope. He is trying to stay afloat by various not-quite legal means while hopefully doing the right thing by the illegals — African street drug dealers and Chinese sweatshop workers — he acts as middleman to, standing between them and much less sympathetically-inclined bossmen. He’s got a ne’er-do-well brother (Eduard Fernandez) to cope with. Needless to say, with all this going on (and more), he isn’t getting much rest. But when he wearily checks in with a doc, the proverbial last straw is stacked on his camelback: surprise, you have terminal cancer. With umpteen odds already stacked against him in everyday life, Uxbal must now put all affairs in order before he is no longer part of the equation. This is Alejandro González Iñárritu’s first feature since an acrimonious creative split with scenarist Guillermo Arriaga. Their films together (2006’s Babel, 2003’s 21 Grams, 2000’s Amores Perros) have been criticized for arbitrarily slamming together separate baleful storylines in an attempt at universal profundity. But they worked better than Biutiful, which takes the opposite tact of trying to fit several stand-alone stories’ worth of hardship into one continuous narrative — worse, onto the bowed shoulders of one character. Bardem is excellent as usual, but for all their assured craftsmanship and intense moments, these two and a half hours collapse from the weight of so much contrived suffering. Rather than making a universal statement about humanity in crisis, Iñárritu has made a high-end soap opera teetering on the verge of empathy porn. (2:18) Shattuck. (Harvey)

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

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

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

The Fighter Once enough of a contenda to have fought Sugar Ray Leonard — and won, though there are lingering questions about that verdict’s justice — Dicky (Christian Bale) is now a washed-up, crack-addicted mess whose hopes for a comeback seem just another expression of empty braggadocio. Ergo it has fallen to the younger brother he’s supposedly “training,” Micky (Mark Wahlberg), to endure the “managerial” expertise of their smothering-bullying ma (Melissa Leo) and float their large girl gang family of trigger-tempered sisters. That’s made even worse by the fact that they’ve gotten him nothing but chump fights in which he’s matched someone above his weight and skill class in order to boost the other boxer’s ranking. When Micky meets Charlene (Amy Adams), an ambitious type despite her current job as a bartender, this hardboiled new girlfriend insists the only way he can really get ahead is by ditching bad influences — meaning mom and Dicky, who take this shutout as a declaration of war. The fact-based script and David O. Russell’s direction do a good job lending grit and humor to what’s essentially a 1930s Warner Brothers melodrama — the kind that might have had Pat O’Brien as the “good” brother and James Cagney as the ne’er-do-well one who redeems himself by fadeout. Even if things do get increasingly formulaic (less 1980’s Raging Bull and more 1976’s Rocky), the memorable performances by Bale (going skeletal once again), Wahlberg (a limited actor ideally cast) and Leo (excellent as usual in an atypically brassy role) make this more than worthwhile. As for Adams, she’s just fine — but by now it’s hard to forget the too many cutesy parts she’s been typecast in since 2005’s Junebug. (1:54) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Harvey)

Gnomeo and Juliet If you willingly see a movie titled Gnomeo and Juliet, you probably have a keen sense of what you’re in for. And as long as that’s the case, it’s hard not to get sucked into the film’s 3D gnome-infested world. Believe it or not, this is actually a serviceable adaptation of Shakespeare’s classic — minus the whole double-suicide downer ending. But at least the movie is conscious of its source material, throwing in several references to other Shakespeare plays and even having the Bard himself (or, OK, a bronze statue) comment on the proceedings. It helps that the cast is populated by actors who could hold their own in a more traditional Shakespearean context: James McAvoy, Emily Blunt, Maggie Smith, and Michael Caine. But Gnomeo and Juliet isn’t perfect — not because of its outlandish concept, but due to a serious overabundance of Elton John. The film’s songwriter and producer couldn’t resist inserting himself into every other scene. Aside from the final “Crocodile Rock” dance number, it’s actually pretty distracting. (1:24) 1000 Van Ness. (Peitzman)

Hall Pass There are some constants when it comes to a Farrelly Brothers movie: lewd humor, full-frontal male nudity, and at least one shot of explosive diarrhea. Hall Pass does not disappoint on the gross-out front, but it’s a letdown in almost every other way. Rick (Owen Wilson) and Fred (Jason Sudeikis) are married men obsessed with the idea of reliving their glory days. Lucky for them, wives Maggie (Jenna Fischer) and Grace (Christina Applegate) decide to give them a week-long “hall pass” from marriage. Of course, once Rick and Fred are able to go out and snag any women they want, they realize most women aren’t interested in being snagged by dopey fortysomethings. On paper, Hall Pass has the potential to be a sharp, anti-bro comedy. Instead, it wallows in recycled toilet humor that’s no longer edgy enough to make us squirm. At least there are still moments of misogyny to provide that familiar feeling of discomfort. (1:38) 1000 Van Ness. (Peitzman)

Happythankyoumoreplease Director, writer, and star Josh Radnor gets the prize for most unwieldy, hard-to-remember title in a while — and a tiny gold star for revealing the most heart within one so-called hipster. In this indie feel-gooder, writer Sam (Radnor) is lost at sea, completely adrift at the close of his twenties and unable to sell his novel. The aimlessness is beginning to seem less than cute to the random ladies that pass in the night and chums like Annie (Malin Akerman), who happens to have Alopecia and whose merry outlook is battling with her lack of self-confidence, and Mary Catherine (Zoe Kazan), who is puzzling whether to follow her boyfriend Charlie (Pablo Schreiber) to LA or to retain her life as a an artist in NYC. It takes a lost little boy, Rasheen (Michael Algieri), to bring out the selfless nurturer in Sam’s self-conscious man-child, giving him the courage to approach the local hottie-slash-waitress-slash-cabaret-singer Mississippi (Kate Mara). Radnor — who resembles a likable, every-guy Ben Affleck, though he’s hindered with an expressiveness that ranges from bemused to bemused — himself points to the similarities between Woody Allen’s hymns to Manhattan intelligentsia-bohemia and his own aria to NYC singles on the brink of hooking up with adulthood. Waxing cute rather than critical, Happythankyoumoreplease lacks Allen’s early bite, but its guileless sweetness just might do the trick and satisfy some. (1:40) Lumiere. (Chun)

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

I Am Number Four Do you like Twilight? Do you think aliens are just as sexy — if not sexier! — than vampires? I Am Number Four isn’t a rip-off of Stephenie Meyer’s supernatural saga, but the YA novel turned film is similar enough to draw in that coveted tween audience. John (Alex Pettyfer) is a teenage alien with extraordinary powers who falls in love with a human girl Sarah (Dianna Agron). But they’re from two different worlds! To be fair, star-crossed romance isn’t the issue here: the real problem is I Am Number Four‘s “first in a series” status. Rather than working to establish itself as a film in its own right, the movie sets the stage for what’s to come next, a bold presumption for something this mediocre. It lazily drops some exposition, then launches into big, loud battles without pausing to catch its breath. I Am Number Four only really works if it gets a sequel, and we all know how well that turned out for The Golden Compass (2007). (1:44) 1000 Van Ness. (Peitzman)

I Saw the Devil This latest by South Korean wunderkind Kim Ji-woon (2008’s The Good, The Bad, The Weird; 2003’s A Tale of Two Sisters) aims to push serial-killer thriller conventions to new extremes in intensity, violent set-piece bravado, and sheer length. Intelligence agent Joo-yeong (Lee Byung-hun) is inconsolably horrified when his fiancée — a police chief’s daughter — is abducted, tortured and murdered by giddily remorseless Kyung-chul (Choi Min-sik). The latter is a rural schoolbus driver who stalks his prey on and off the job, hauling them to a rigged-up shack where he enjoys their protracted final writhings. Once our hero tracks down this grotesque villain, he demonstrates a perverse, obsessive side by letting the “devil” loose again — each time after serious physical punishment — so that he can live in terror of his avenger. The trouble with that concept is that our upright, fanatical hero thus allows remorseless Kyung-chul to abuse new victims every time he’s let loose, which simply doesn’t make psychological sense. I Saw the Devil has some dazzling action set-pieces and outre content. But the dependency on slasher genre-style harm toward pretty young women sounds a sour, conventional note. And while it reserves a delicious irony or two for the end, this glorified horror flick simply goes on way too long. (2:21) Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

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

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

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

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

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

Nora’s Will There’s certainly something to be said for the uniqueness of Nora’s Will: I can’t think of any other Mexican-Jewish movies that cover suicide, Passover, and cooking with equal attention. But while it sounds like the film is overloaded, Nora’s Will is actually too subtle for its own good. It meanders along, telling the story of the depressed Nora, her conflicted ex-husband, and the family she left behind. When the movie focuses on the clash between Judaism and Mexican culture, the results are dynamic, but more often that not, it simply crawls along. It’s not that Nora’s Will is boring: it’s just easily forgettable, which is surprising given its subject matter. Meanwhile, it walks that fine line between comedy and drama, never bringing the laughs or the emotional catharsis it wants to offer. The only real reaction it inspires is hunger, particularly if the idea of a Mexican-Jewish feast sounds appealing. Turns out “gefilte fish” is the same in every language. (1:32) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Peitzman)

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

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

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

Take Me Home Tonight Just because lame teen comedies existed in the ’80s doesn’t mean that they need to be updated for the ’10s. Nary an Eddie Money song disgraces the soundtrack of this unselfconscious puerile, pining sex farce — the type one assumes moviemakers have grown out of with the advent of smarty-pants a la Apatow and Farrell. Take Me Home Tonight would rather find its feeble kicks in major hair, big bags of coke, polo shirts with upturned collars, and “greed is good” affluenza. Matt (Topher Grace) is an MIT grad who’s refused to embrace the engineer within and is instead biding his time as a clerk at the local Suncoast video store when he stumbles on his old high school crush Tori (Teresa Palmer), a budding banker. In an effort to impress, he tells her he works for Goldman Sachs and trails after her to the rip-roaring last-hooray-before adulthood bash. Pal Barry (Dan Fogler) gets to play the Belushi-like buffoon when he swipes a Mercedes from the dealership he just got fired from, and ends up with a face full of powder in the arms of a kinky ex-supermodel (Angie Everhart). Despite cameos by comedians like Demetri Martin and a trailer and poster that make it all seem a bit cooler than it really is, Take Me Home Tonight doesn’t really touch the coattails of Jonathan Demme or even Cameron Crowe — in the hands of director Michael Dowse, it feels nowhere near as heartfelt, rock ‘n’ roll, or at the very least, cinematically competent. (1:37) 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

*True Grit Jeff Bridges fans, resist the urge to see your Dude in computer-trippy 3D and make True Grit your holiday movie of choice. Directors Ethan and Joel Coen revisit (with characteristic oddball touches) the 1968 Charles Portis novel that already spawned a now-classic 1969 film, which earned John Wayne an Oscar for his turn as gruff U.S. Marshall Rooster Cogburn. (The all-star cast also included Dennis Hopper, Glen Campbell, Robert Duvall, and Strother Martin.) Into Wayne’s ten-gallon shoes steps an exceptionally crusty Bridges, whose banter with rival bounty hunter La Boeuf (a spot-on Matt Damon) and relationship with young Mattie Ross (poised newcomer Hailee Steinfeld) — who hires him to find the man who killed her father — likely won’t win the recently Oscar’d actor another statuette, but that doesn’t mean True Grit isn’t thoroughly entertaining. Josh Brolin and a barely-recognizable Barry Pepper round out a cast that’s fully committed to honoring two timeless American genres: Western and Coen. (1:50) SF Center. (Eddy)

“2011 Academy Award-Nominated Short Films, Live-Action and Animated” (Live-action, 1:50; animated, 1:25) Red Vic.

Unknown Everything is blue skies as Dr. Martin Harris (Liam Neeson) flies to Germany for a biotech conference, accompanied by lovely wife Elizabeth (January Jones in full Betty Draper mode). Landing in Berlin things quickly become grey, as he’s separated from his wife and ends up in a coma. Waking in a hospital room, Harris experiences memory loss, but like Harrison Ford he’s getting frantic with an urgent need to find his wife. Luckily she’s at the hotel. Unluckily, so is another man, who she and everyone else claims is the real Dr. Harris. What follows is a by-the-numbers thriller, with car chases and fist fights, that manages to entertain as long as the existential question is unanswered. Once it’s revealed to be a knock-off of a successful franchise, the details of Unknown‘s dated Cold War plot don’t quite make sense. On the heels of 2008’s Taken, Neeson again proves capable in action-star mode. Bruno Ganz amuses briefly as an ex-Stasi detective, but the vacant parsing by bad actress Jones, appropriate for her role on Mad Men, only frustrates here. (1:49) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Ryan Prendiville)

*William S. Burroughs: A Man Within William S. Burroughs, as director John Waters puts it in this long-overdue documentary, became famous before any of his peers, “for all the things you were supposed to hide: he was gay; he was a junkie; he shot his wife.” Of course, that isn’t the entire story. Examining the cultural forces and tragic biographical events that shaped The Naked Lunch author, director Yony Lesler attempts with varying degrees of success to separate the intensely private man from the countercultural raconteur in the gray flannel suit Burroughs would become later in his life. Combining interviews with a who’s who of famous associates, friends, and admirers, rare and never-before seen archival footage, and clips from Burroughs’ own experimental films and later home movies, Lesler makes a convincing case for Burroughs as a perennial outsider, even to himself. His Harvard education and wealthy pedigree set him apart from his crunchier Beat compatriots and he openly disdained the label of “gay revolutionary” even as his writing boldly envisioned same-sex desire as something truly queer. And although his dour mien and conservative dress would later become personal trademarks, he in fact privately mourned the death of his wife, Joan Vollmer, who he shot in Mexico playing a drunken round of William Tell (he was never tried), and his estranged son, Bill Burroughs Jr., who died attempting to approximate his father’s former junkie lifestyle. The film’s talking heads variously credit Burroughs with everything from punk rock to performance art, but the sad, all-too-human story behind the hagiography is what’s most compelling here. (1:38) Roxie. (Sussman)

REP PICK

*In the Dust of the Stars This goofy 1976 science-fiction opus would certainly have some cult cache in the West if it hadn’t been an East Germany-Romania coproduction whose exposure was pretty well limited to nations behind the Iron Curtain. A spaceship from planet Cynro captained by Akala (Jana Brejchova) arrives on Tem 4, having answered a call asking for help. It is disconcerting when the Temians try to make them crash during landing, then incongruously welcome them with open arms and cocktails — well, actually, flavored inhalers — while claiming no distress signal was sent. When our protagonists remain skeptical, they are further plied with a lavish party involving much interpretive dancing, snakes slithering among the smorgasbord (which no one seems to mind, or notice), screaming women bouncing on circus nets, and a game in which men and women alike catch little balls with their cleavage. The guests are brainwashed by these vaguely orgiastic goings-on, but one who’d stayed behind on the ship suspects something amiss, soon discovering Tem 4’s big secret: its ruling class are invaders who have enslaved the actual natives, who toil in the mines or serve as frequently slapped waiters. Its supreme leader, apparently named “Boss,” likes to get his hair painted different colors and wear a bathrobe at all times. Things bog down at times as we wait for the proletariat to achieve nonviolent revolutionary overthrow of their capitalist oppressors, but how can you dislike any movie in which people wear futuristic pastel disco track suits and red leather jumpsuits? Let alone one that alternately recalls everything from 1930s Flash Gordon and 1950s mega-kitsch like Queen of Outer Space (1958) to Barbarella (1968) and Space: 1999. This is part of Goethe Institut’s “From the Wild West to Outer Space: East German Genre Films” series, which concludes March 31 with the 1968 youth pop musical Hot Summer. (1:35) Thurs/17, 7 p.m., $7, Goethe-Institut, 530 Bush, SF; www.goethe.de. (Harvey)

 

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

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