Protest

OccupySF protesters shut down Wells Fargo HQ

Sasha Cuttler
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30

At 7 a.m. this morning (Wed/12), protesters against corporate greed were poised for one of the most impactful actions since OccupySF began.

About 50 people associated with the Foreclose Wall Street coalition were seated in front of all the entrances to the Wells Fargo corporate headquarters on California and Montgomery streets. Back at the site of the OccupySF camp in front of the Federal Reserve Bank on Market Street, protesters gathered. They held a rally there that included a speech from Sup. John Avalos, the only mayoral candidate to actively support the movement.

When the march started off to join those blockading Wells Fargo, there were about 1,000 protesters present, according to estimates of those present. They stopped off at the Hyatt across the street from the Fed to support Unite Here Local 2 hotel workers who are involved in a boycott against the Hyatt before continuing in the march. Protesters chanted, “make banks pay” and “we are the 99 percent.”

The march reached the Wells Fargo building and began rallying there. The sit-ins in front of entrances were still going strong. There, activist and author Naomi Klein addressed the crowd.

When Wells Fargo employees began to arrive at work. According to Max Bell Alper, one of those involved in the blockade, “a number of bankers were trying to get in and yelling at us.” Then they called the police.

When the police arrived, Alper says, “at first, the people from the march were physically blocking them from arresting us.”

Around 8:30 a.m., 11 were arrested. They were brought to the North Beach/Chinatown police station, were they were cited for trespassing, held for about an hour and then released. When I spoke to Alper, he was back from the police station, chanting and marching with the crowd.

He told me that when his parents’ home was foreclosed this year, they moved in with his uncle, whose home was then foreclosed. Currently his grandmother is facing foreclosure. He listed Chase, Wells Fargo, and Bank of America as the banks involved in his family members’ foreclosures.

“Enough is enough. Banks need to recognize that they need to pay,” said Alper.

Protesters continued to block every entrance besides the employee entrance on Leidesdorff Street with sit-ins, as well as march in picket lines, chant “banks got bailed out, we got sold out”, and cheer as organizers spoke. The bank was unable to open until they chose to leave around noon.

SFPD Lt. Troy Dangerfield said that no more arrests were made because Wells Fargo did not request them- apparently, they preferred to wait it out. Said Dangerfield, “It would make it worse if they had to remove them. It doesn’t look good.”

Dangerfield insisted that he “had no stake whatsoever” in what will result from the Occupy movement throughout the country. He has noticed, “it seems like it’s growing nationwide.”

Activist Lucia Kimble sat helping to block the bank’s California entrance from 7:15 to noon. She says protesters voluntarily left at noon because, “We’ve been out here five hours. We successfully shut down the bank. I think our message has been heard.”

Kimble, 27, is a Bay Area resident and housing counselor with Causa Justa :: Just Cause, a group that works to advocate for housing and tenants rights for low income and African American and Latino communities in San Francisco and Oakland. Kimble said that her group was part of the coalition that put on this event “to give a voice to those most affected by our economic crisis.”

Kimble listed the Foreclose Wall Street West coalition’s demands with this action: an immediate moratorium on foreclosures, fixed annual interest rates, an end to Wells Fargo’s financing of high-interest Pay Day Loans, and that they “pay their fair share – pay taxes and give them to the community.”

Shaw San Liu of the Chinese Progressive Association – which just voted to endorse OccupySF and today joined the movement – was an energetic and inspiring speaker throughout the event. Said Liu: “A lot of folks have been saying there’s no diversity in the Occupy movement…In San Francisco it’s becoming clear the diversity of groups that support this movement. Youth, community groups, anti-war, we’re all coming together”

Liu maintained that the problems she was fighting did not start with the financial collapse in 2008. “In my work in Chinese immigrant communities, I know that even before the recession, we were already suffering from unemployment, low wages, and poor housing. I’m excited to see how the country is waking up to oppose a system that allows 1 percent of the people to control 42 percent of the wealth.”

The California Nurses Association, one of the many labor organizations that have showed support for OccupySF, was present at the protest. Said Pilar Schiavo, 36, a CNA organizer from Oakland, “I’m fed up with social inequity. I’m tired of corporate America buying politicians and passing laws to benefit the rich.”

“Patients are foregoing treatment and losing their healthcare. The nurses are here fighting for everyone,” she said.

Schiavo’s father, Bill, drove from Sonora to be at the protest today. A 65-year-old retired electrician, he says that the medical benefits he felt fortunate to have after retiring from a secure job have become unaffordable. “My medical benefits went up $300 a month this year. Who can afford that? Does anyone get a $300 raise? But Wall Street has benefits galore.”

Schiavo made his opinion clear about the Wall Street crisis and bailouts: “It was unbridled theft. We’re angry.”

 

Crackdown came from the top

Andrew Lam
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8
Crackdown came from the top

steve@sfbg.com

The decision to raid the OccupySF protest camp in the middle of the night Oct. 5 was approved by Mayor Ed Lee and Police Chief Greg Suhr — and involved a more aggressive approach to limiting protest activities than authorities in any other major city have undertaken.

Both Lee and Suhr insist that they support the protesters right to free speech. But the raid was more than a modest effort to get a propane stove turned off or to bring food preparation up to health codes.

The move only served to galvanize the movement and increase its numbers. And both police and protesters say they expect this occupation to continue for a long time.

Suhr told the Guardian that the decision to move into the encampment and seize its supplies was made after consultation with the Fire Department, Department of Public Health, and the Mayor’s Office. While DPH expressed concerns about food preparation on the site, Suhr said health officials never asked the police to shut the kitchen down. The Fire Department was another story.

“There was open flame, propane, and tons of fuel, near plywood. The Fire Department told us there as a fire danger,” Suhr told us. “Deputy Chief Cashman made the call that we would go move the people away from the fuel.”

Suhr said Mayor Ed Lee gave the okay to remove public safety hazards, but said the protest itself shouldn’t be interfered with. “In San Francisco, protesters are acting within their First Amendment right to free speech and freedom to assemble. While allowing for peaceful protests, we also must ensure that our streets and sidewalks remain safe and accessible for everyone,” Lee said in a public statement, although his office has not responded to a list of questions about the decision and its implications.

After all, the tents and other shelters were hardly a hazard to anyone; leaving the activists out in the rain with no tents was, strictly speaking, more of a health issue.

A movement that calls for the indefinite occupation of public spaces to protest corporate greed is bound to continue to cause conflicts with local ordinances and property interests, something that Suhr acknowledged. “We will surgically and as best as possible and with as much restraint as possible try to deal with the hazards while protecting people’s First Amendment rights, Suhr said.

He objected to the notion that there was a police crackdown on the protest. “They’re occupying it now, and they’re probably going to be there was a long time,” Suhr said. “We haven’t arrested one demonstrator. The only person arrested punched a cop and then threatened to kill him afterward.”

But Sup. John Avalos, the one major mayoral candidate to show up during the raid and try to mediate the conflict, said he’s disappointed with the city’s stance. “This is not the San Francisco that I know. This is not the San Francisco I love. This City has served as a sanctuary for free speech and assembly for generations, and we must protect that legacy,” Avalos said in prepared statement that he closed with, “This should be a city for the rest of us — for the 99 percent. I stand with Occupy SF.”

Even Suhr said that the SFPD has no intention of removing the protesters from their perch in front of the Federal Reserve, and will continue safeguarding regular OccupySF marches, telling us, “We will continue to facilitate this.”

“They got everything out of there so we could start over,” Suhr said the encampment’s kitchen and other hazards. “This demonstration isn’t going away. I think people are justifiably upset by this issue nationally.”

Inside the occupation

Andrew Lam
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20
Inside the occupation

Follow the Guardian’s complete Occupy SF coverage here.

Thursday morning, in gray seven o’clock fog, about 100 people asleep in front of the Federal Reserve building began to blink their eyes open. The bustling camp that had been there the day before — a small village of tents, tarps and easy-ups, shelves brimming with books, art supplies, and a display of hundreds of signs — was gone. The kitchen and all their food were missing, too.

“Wake up, everyone’s gotta wake up. Remember, sit/lie kicks in at seven,” urged a few protesters gently, winding their way through the maze of sleeping bags and blankets. No one was in the mood for legal trouble. All the people there, and a few hundred more who had gone home at two and three in the morning, had been a part of OccupySF’s first clash with the police. Someone pushed a cart full of fruit and granola bars. Breakfast. It was the camp’s first food donation since the incident, which had ended only four hours before. In the calm morning air, it was clear: the police could confiscate gear, but they could not stop the protest. It was only the beginning.

To say that OccupySF has grown in the past three weeks does not begin to describe it.

On Wednesday, Oct. 5, the camp was busy, clean, and what organizer Amy O proudly described as “jubilant.” Hundreds exchanged ideas, played music, and made signs and art. Two abundant snack tables providing free food to any and all were only the tip of the iceberg; the kitchen was piled so high that organizers had begun turning away food donations.

This scene contrasted starkly to the demonstration’s first night. Occupy SF started on Sept. 17, the same day as Occupy Wall Street, as one of the solidarity actions now reportedly numbering over 1,000. About 150 people gathered for the protest that first day and only a handful stayed the night. A week later, there was a devoted group of 10 campers. By Oct. 1, a good 40 people were camping and the kitchen and communications sections were set up. When the police showed up late Wednesday night, camp was 200 strong.

 

AS LONG AS IT TAKES

Spending time at the camp is addictive. Since my first night, I feel something constantly pulling me back. That night, Oct. 1, the camp was lively and half a block long. A big, hot pot of soup sat on the kitchen stove. Next door, the communications area was populated with organizers busily typing on laptops. The medical tent was next, kept pristine but as of yet untouched—its necessity, nonetheless, was evident after that week’s incident in New York when police pepper sprayed a group of young women.

At that point, the San Francisco Police Department had been courteous with OccupySF. They provided escorts on marches and didn’t bother the camp. Soon after arriving, Russell, a friendly 23-year-old from San Diego who has been camping since the first day, greeted me. He told me that there was a Gardening Committee meeting in a few minutes, and I planned to check it out. Next I saw Lesley Moore, 48, an Oakland resident with unrelenting energy and a knack for mediating misunderstandings at meetings.

She carried a clipboard and was compiling a massive list of food, supplies, and every imaginable resource the group might want. I learned that a flood of supporters, eager to donate, had requested info about what the camp needed. She planned to post the list on occupysf.com later that night.

Fifteen people climbed into a tent for the Gardening Committee meeting, keen to begin growing food for the camp. The donations were rolling in, and if there was a project we wanted to do, well, we probably could. We discussed what could grow in the winter and planting more in the spring. The mood was giddy with possibility but a bit uneasy— could we imagine we’d still be here then?

Many participants are determined to stay put. Jreds, a protester who had come from Chico, looked me in the eye and promised, “I’m staying as long as it takes.”

When asked his occupation, Jreds replied, “This is our occupation.”

After years of foreclosures and unemployment, no wonder so many people are motivated and available to work and sleep at a place like this. Wall Street’s unmitigated power has failed to trickle down into economic opportunities for the rest of us, and in this economy, “why don’t you just get a job” is starting to sound like “let them eat cake.”

As John Reimann, 65, a retired carpenter from Oakland, put it, “I’ve been waiting 10 years for something like this.” He helped start Occupy Oakland last week.

Protester Chris L, who says the community at the camp is the best part about it, also plans to stay indefinitely. Billy Gene Hobbs, a promoter from LA who can often be seen jumping and shouting to keep protest crowds pumped, came to visit San Francisco two weeks ago, found the camp, and hasn’t left. Since the police came through, almost 100 more people have joined.

The camp’s population is a source of ongoing discussion. Complaints of “too many hippies” usually die quickly when someone actually comes to camp, where the people they’re referring to are not the only ones and, moreover, are active and responsible organizers.

Others object that the protest is populated mostly with young people, especially white and male. There is active discussion on how to accommodate people with children as well as people with disabilities.

It seems everyone — including the many people of color, folks of all ages, and disabled people who have been organizers and participants in the movement — shares the view that oppressive institutions work hand in hand with the corporate corruption and power that the movement strives to end.

 

THE PEOPLE’S MIC

Camp life is dotted with calls for the People’s Mic, a tool developed at Occupy Wall Street, where using bullhorn or speakers is illegal. When someone yells “Mic check!” the crowd echoes in response. The person speaks his piece, sentence by sentence, as the crowd repeats. If a few people nearby can hear him, everyone can. For better or for worse, it tends not to amplify ideas people don’t have much taste for; at a recent meeting, when someone insisted that people who had been foreclosed on were greedy and foolish, the People’s Mic’s volume faded fast.

The People’s Mic requires no electricity, discourages rambling, a brilliant improvisation. But the central feature of Occupations throughout the country is the General Assembly. OccupySF has been holding General Assemblies every day at camp at 6 p.m. and on Saturdays at noon in Union Square. In the past week they have consistently boasted a couple hundred participants daily, but continue to practice consensus-based decision-making and participatory democracy. They’re long and often frustrating, but for many, as a standard rallying cry insists, “This is what democracy looks like!”

Many have stepped up at meetings to say that too many men, too many white people, or simply too many of the same voices are being heard. Solidarity efforts like Occupy the Hood, which declares the vital need that people of color make decisions and organize in and along with the occupations, have surfaced nationally.

On Oct. 5, after about 700 people marched on the Financial District with OccupySF, the General Assembly was particularly well attended. It was peppered with invitations and expressions of solidarity, conveyed by representatives of groups from throughout the Bay Area.

The week’s schedule slowly filled: Thursday’s anti-war march, the next day’s teach-in with activist Miguel Robles, a 7 am “Wake Up Action” with Unite-HERE Local 2 on Oct. 10, and plans to coordinate with the LGBT rights group Get Equal for a National Coming Out Day action the next day.

Carolyn DeRoo, a brightly charismatic BART station agent, reveled in the whoops and cheers when she announced that Amalgamated Transit Union Local 1555, the union that represents BART workers, had just voted to endorse Occupy SF. “I got an hour off work today so I could be in the march,” said DeRoo.

She expressed concern over the lack of coherent messaging, hoping it wouldn’t hurt the movement. “I was about to get on a plane to New York because of how badly I wanted to be a part of it,” she said. “I’m so glad it has started in SF.”

 

THE COPS ARRIVE

But on that fateful night, Oct. 5, meeting ideals were strained. High-tension and often angry debate filled the hours between being warned of police action and its onset, making consensus difficult. Some wanted to take down the camp, unable to risk arrest. There were campers from all walks of life present, including some homeless folks and travelers who would risk losing all or most of their possessions if the police confiscated them. Others didn’t want to see the camp’s growth stunted due to police intimidation.

Dierdre Anglin, 40, an Oakland resident who works in the nonprofit sector, was particularly calm amongst the chaos. “I think the energy got a little high,” she said, as protesters ran around taking down tents and preparing for the imminent police confrontation. “But we have decided to take the stance and to stay here.”

She added, “I personally feel that they are not going to do anything because it would make the police look quite bad. There’s a lot of support for us.” Anglin’s prediction about the cops’ actions, if not their public relations consequences, was mistaken. Police marched in around 1 am, and Department of Public Works employees began to fill their trucks with camp materials.

Billy Gene, ever energetic, raced to lie down on the street in front of trucks and was dragged away, yelling “Don’t be mean!” at police. Many sat and stood in front of trucks. Others could be seen shaking their heads at colleagues’ verbal attacks and murmuring, “that isn’t nonviolent.”

There was no property damage or physical violence on the part of the protesters, although one man was arrested for allegedly punching an officer in the face, which both sides cast as an aberration that didn’t reflect the tenor of the standoff.

At 3 am, protesters surveyed the damage. An organizer addressed the group: “We’re still here, and it’s time to rebuild.” The camp received a donation of blankets and sleeping bags at four o’clock that morning. At five, a small jam session and dance party broke out.

Police have since provided information on how to retrieve confiscated materials, and Police Chief Greg Suhr told us they’ve been actively trying to facilitate getting people their stuff back and allowing the occupation to continue (see accompanying article for more from Suhr).

In the days since, the mood has again turned jubilant. On Thursday afternoon, Oct. 6, about 120 people were gathered at the camp. Signs ranged from “student loan debt is slavery” to “grannies against war.” The next night, the mass of people had increased, and with it the group’s creativity. Protesters could be seen pedaling a stationary bike connected to a battery, powering laptops.

As the sun set Friday, 300 people at camp looked west. They erupted in cheers as a 500-person anti-war demonstration marched onto the site. Market between Main and Embarcadero was shut down as protesters rallied and then held General Assembly. A dozen police lined up near the sidewalk; one told me they were separating OccupySF from the march. The next second, the “march” erupted in chants of “We are the 99 percent,” the Occupy movement’s signature rallying cry. Attempts to divide were futile.

That the movement has no “one message” has in many ways worked to their advantage. It seems hundreds of thousands of people with varying issues and concerns can all agree that an elite class, embodied by Wall Street, has far too much power and money, and that the people must unite against the sorry state of this system. As I looked in the officers’ eyes, I wondered how long even their disconnect from the protesters will last. Most are, after all, the 99 percent too.

After the General Assembly held the street for an hour, police requested that they please move to the sidewalk. A consensus vote decided to oblige. An assembly member proclaimed, words booming with the roar of the People’s Mic, “Let us remember that we took this street, and we could have held it if we wanted to.”

This is the kind of power many haven’t felt in a long time. And I get the feeling that no one intends to relinquish it any time soon.

Protesters blast Wall Street and war; support OccupySF

Sasha Cuttler
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93

Story by Nena Farrell, photos by Ariel Soto-Suver

“We’re mad as hell, and we’re not taking it anymore!” was Tanya Dennis’s cry yesterday (Thurs/6) afternoon at a march and rally that drew from the Occupy San Francisco/Occupy Wall Street and the anti-war movements. It began at the Federal Building at Mission and 7th streets, where protesters will return today at 4:30 pm for a march marking the 10th anniversary of the war against Afghanistan.

Dennis got the crowd to scream the words with her, chanting it. Because it’s true—they’re not taking it anymore. She was one of the many featured speakers at the protest, along with representatives from OccupySF, the California Democratic Party, the American Indian Movement, and so many more. There were also sections of open microphones, where people could stand up to make a proposal, or usually just to make a point.

One of the open speakers proposed we free people. She had the entire gathering call it out with her: “Free people, free people.”

That’s one of the four demands that the 99 percent – the people that the occupiers say they represent – is making. One, to protect the environment. Two, to care for the people. Three, to tax the rich. And four, to end the wars. These are the four demands of the movement. At the protest, these four demands were posted on multiple signs.

The protest was in solidarity with the anti-war action in Washington DC. And from DC, the event had Dick Cheney – or rather, an impersonator of the former vice president – here to open the event. Upon his arrival, he was booed, but Cheney himself seemed fairly pleased with the entire situation. He joked that he brought three virgin hearts with him in case he was shot.

After the speakers, the protest moved to march down to 101 Market Street, where Occupy San Francisco has its movement encampment. The group moved down the blocks, chanting “Banks got bailed out, we got sold out!” Each time they came to a bank along Market Street, the entire group would stop and cry together “Make banks pay” and “Tax the rich.”

It was the speakers, overall, that brought the real power to the event. They described the madness the working class was facing, the entire country and our state, and even the outside countries that we have both declared and undeclared wars on. And not just by the selected featured speakers, but also the ones like Sheila Gun Cushman, a blind woman who spoke up during the open speakers, saying “We have wanted this for years, it’s about bleepin’ time!”

Janet Weil, a Code Pink activist, was moved by the speakers as well: “[The] testimony of people at open mike was very powerful and important.”

Lee backs crackdown; Avalos: “I stand with Occupy SF”

Sasha Cuttler
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136
Lee backs crackdown; Avalos: “I stand with Occupy SF”

Mayor Ed Lee has just released a statement on last night’s police raid of the Occupy San Francisco encampment – claiming to basically support the movement but also support the harsh police crackdown and seizure of tents, food, and other personal property – that offers a sharp contrast to the position of his mayoral rival, John Avalos, who is condemning the SFPD’s actions.

Once again, as Lee also did this week in defending businesses that seize money set aside for employee health care costs, our “consensus and civility” mayor is showing that if you try to stand for everything, you end up standing for nothing. Yet Avalos understands that there are times when one side is simply wrong and that supporting the people means being willing to fight for them.

On both issues, Lee mouthed the meaningless “jobs” defense, claiming that he was trying to help working people by letting their employers raid their health care funds, allowing restaurants to fraudulently jack up their bills, or directing the police to seize their tents and food. That’s not just pandering, it’s insulting.

I’ve tried unsuccessfully to get Lee’s office to offer more detailed explanations of his positions, but they’re so far sticking to prepared statements that are riddled with contradictions. So we’re just going to run the full statements by Lee and Avalos and let you decide who makes more sense and best reflects San Francisco values.

Lee wrote:

“I understand and sympathize with the anxiety and frustration felt by so many in our country caused by a lingering recession and joblessness. That’s why I am doing everything I can to create jobs, get people back to work and make our families stronger here in San Francisco. I support the spirit of the Occupy Wall Street movement that calls for peacefully assembling to protest and bring national attention to disparity issues in our country.
“In San Francisco, protesters are acting within their First Amendment right to free speech and freedom to assemble. While allowing for peaceful protests, we also must ensure that our streets and sidewalks remain safe and accessible for everyone. I will continue to work closely with our Police Chief to ensure San Francisco responds appropriately to these demonstrations.  
“San Francisco is a city that embraces free speech and freedom to assemble like no other city.”

Indeed, no other city among the 60 or so that have followed the Occupy Wall Street example of occupying public spaces has sent police and trucks in to raid encampments in the middle of night, so San Francisco is indeed alone in its treatment of the movement that Lee shamelessly claims to support.

And now Avalos:

“Last night I gathered in solidarity with the protesters Occupying San Francisco. Like many people all over the country, I have been watching this protest gather strength and grow as more and more of us, more of the 99 percent, demand accountability from the corporations and people who are responsible for the destruction of our economy and devastation of our families.

“I came to down to observe the protest last night in response to summons from protesters and a notice from the police accusing their encampment of a number of minor infractions, ranging from open flames on a city street or sidewalk to serving food without a permit. I observed and negotiated with police in good faith to keep the peace and allow the encampment to remain, only to hear of a crackdown shortly after I left.

“This is not the San Francisco that I know. This is not the San Francisco I love. This City has served as a sanctuary for free speech and assembly for generations, and we must protect that legacy. With our unemployment rate nearing 10 percent, we have a responsibility to be a sanctuary for the 99 percent.

“Instead, last night we witnessed that 99 percent being detained, arrested, and intimidated with force.

“My vision is of a true sanctuary city – one that protects our right to free speech and assembly, and one that holds real criminals accountable. This should be a city for the rest of us – for the 99 percent. I stand with Occupy SF.”

BREAKING: SFPD threatening to break up Occupy S.F. encampment

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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53

San Francisco city government is cracking down on the Occupy S.F. movement, with public officials waiting until around 11 p.m. on Oct. 5 to move in and try to clear out the camp.

Police appeared on the scene in front of the Federal Reserve at the foot of Market Street in downtown San Francisco where roughly 200 protesters were camped out as part of the Occupy SF movement, and threatened to make arrests if protesters did not clear out completely within 30 minutes. The protest was a peaceful affair and the encampment had been in place since Sept. 29. The protest was called to mirror the growing Occupy Wall Street movement to oppose corporate greed and highlight the role of financial institutions in an economic decline resulting in a rising wave of foreclosures, unemployment, and cuts to public services.

Yael Chanoff, who was at the encampment on behalf of the San Francisco Bay Guardian, phoned in to report that police officers had issued notices telling people that they had to clear out because they were in violation of local city ordinances such as public nuisance laws, rules requiring permits for temporary structures, and the newly adopted sit/lie ordinance. Officers were taking photographs of the camp, presumably for evidence. Trucks from the city’s Department of Public Works had lined up on the street, she said.

Roughly 50 police officers in standard uniform were there, carrying “stacks of zip ties,” she added. Alexandra List, a protester, said that a commanding officer on the scene had told her no one would be arrested if the structures were removed completely within 30 minutes. Chanoff estimated that there were about 20 structures.

Chanoff said protesters were meeting to try and find out how to proceed, but some had decided to begin taking down the tents.

UPDATE: The Guardian spoke with SFPD public information officer Albie Esparza, who told us, “the sidewalks are being cleared of debris,” and mentioned that protesters had been in violation of certain codes, such as a fire code prohibiting open flames that applied to outdoor cooking setups. “They have the right to protest as individuals, obviously,” he said. Asked why it was so urgent that these codes be enforced at 11 p.m. when the streets are virtually empty, Esparza said, “I don’t know what the reason was for the timing.”

 

Yael Chanoff contributed to this report.

 

Occupy SF marches on the banks again

Sasha Cuttler
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5

Occupy San Francisco — the local manifestation of the Occupy Wall Street movement that is spreading across the country — took to the streets today with a rally numbering in the hundreds. Marching up Market Street and through the heart of the Financial District, protesters met supportive car horns as often as tight-lipped disapproval. Today’s protest followed a similar one last week when six activists were arrested, with no arrests reported this time.

“We are the 99 percent!” was the most resounding chant, one that prompted several onlookers to join in. “We are 99 cents,” replied one man, walking through the crowd as they strode through the Tenderloin. Signs ranged from the plain – “Stop this” – to the hard-hitting: “Greedy Bastards!”

“I saw them on my way to get her immunization record,” related one woman, gesturing at a sleeping toddler in a stroller. “And I had to join in.” Visibly swelling in size throughout the two-hour march and stretching as far as six blocks at a time, the rally stopped in front of Wells Fargo, Chase Bank, and City Hall before ending back at the Federal Reserve Building where it began and where protesters have been camped out.

“Whose streets?” yelled a megaphone-toting activist. “Our streets!” the crowd bellowed back, spilling off the sidewalks and into the roadway. As rain threatened the Financial District, the protesters’ chants and shouts were not dampened.

Photos by Lucy Schiller

The goals of Occupy Wall Street

Zelda Bronstein
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74
The goals of Occupy Wall Street

Occupy Wall Street is an easy target — a group of protesters taking on one of the most powerful institutions in the country, with loose spinoffs in cities all over, and no clear leadership or (many would say) agenda. The Atlantic’s business writer, Danile Indiviglio, weighed in Oct 5 with an essay he called “Five Reasons Occupy Wall Street Won’t Work.” Some of it’s your typical musings from a guy in a suit who doesn’t understand direct action (“But the Occupy Wall Street movement’s anger is directed at bankers. Here’s the problem: they really don’t care.”)

But his main pitch is one that I’m sympathetic to, and so are a lot of other supporters of the growing movement. He says the protesters don’t know what they want:

Any protest that hopes to accomplish some goal needs, well, a goal. If a demonstration like this lacks concrete objectives, then its purpose will be limited at best and nonexistent at worst. At this time, all the protest really appears to stand for is a general dislike of Wall Street. But what does that mean?

And that’s where I think he’s wrong. The occupiers may have started off with only vague objectives, but some tangible, progressive goals are starting to emerge — and they don’t in any way require the bankers to care.

The Wall Street protests are growing — and some of the people getting involved have a very clear agenda. The most dramatic evidence is the growing role of organized labor in the actions. The nurses marched Oct. 5 — and they have a very specific platform, well thought-out, that calls for a financial transactions tax. AFSCMA, CWA and the city’s transit workers joined the march, too. And the head of the AFL-CIO, Richard Trumka, is now on board. And while Trumka made it clear that labor isn’t going to try to dominate the spontaneous protests,

The labor leader was specific as he summarized his demands: make Wall Street invest in creating jobs for Americans, stop foreclosures and write down problem mortgages. Paying for government programs would come from a “very tiny” tax on speculation, he said.

I’m not seeing any kind of political turf war here — the original Occupy Wall Street folks seem happy to have labor on the team. And once you get tens of thousands of labor activists in the streets — and using the media and the growing groundswell of support for the protests to push a Congressional agenda — then something potentially powerful is happening.

 

Breaking free

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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20
Breaking free

rebeccab@sfbg.com

An ordeal that began with a hiking trip on July 31, 2009 in Northern Iraq came to a close Sept. 21 when Shane Bauer and Josh Fattal were released from Tehran’s Evin Prison. They’d languished in an 8-by-13-foot cell for 781 days while their friends and supporters waged a creative, behind-the-scenes campaign to free them.

Bauer and Fattal were ferried out in a convoy with Swiss and Omani officials and flown to Oman, where news cameras captured their joyful reunion with loved ones. Waiting on the tarmac with their family members was Sarah Shourd, Bauer’s fiancée, who’d been arrested with them and was released last September after spending 410 days in solitary confinement. It was the first time since their arrest that “the hikers” — as the trio came to be labeled in the campaign calling for their release — were together outside prison walls, free at last.

Watching their reunion from Seattle, their friend Shon Meckfessel — who went to Northern Iraq with them but hadn’t felt up to hiking that day — was overjoyed. “It’s like I’ve collapsed from relief,” he told us by phone. “I just feel like I’ve been asphyxiated for the last two years, and suddenly I remember what air smells like.”

In the Bay Area, friends who’d pulled together to work toward their release breathed a huge, collective sigh of relief. “It was just a crazy, amazing adrenaline rush of happiness,” said Jennifer Miller, who befriended Shourd years earlier while doing human rights work focused on violence against women in Juarez.

Bauer and Fattal had stood trial only weeks earlier in an Iranian court, on charges of espionage and illegally crossing an unmarked border between Iraq and Iran. They were found guilty and sentenced to eight years each in prison. Their release coincided with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to the United States for the United Nations General Assembly conference.

As Bauer, Shourd, and Fattal remained isolated at the mercy of guards they could barely communicate with, their family and supporters kept up a steady drumbeat calling for their release. They recruited actors, intellectuals, and foreign diplomats to urge the Iranian government — which has not had diplomatic ties with the U.S. Since 1979 — to let the Americans go. Once Bauer and Fattal were free and wandering around New York City, they’d morphed into minor celebrities — strangers approached them in the streets to wish them well.

In the end, nobody can say just what persuaded the Iranian government to release Bauer and Fattal. “Sarah was talking with diplomats in all kinds of countries. The thing is, none of us really knows what the calculus was,” said Liam O’Donoghue, a friend who helped out with the campaign.

The campaign was multi-faceted, with friends and family coordinating parallel efforts from various locales. While Bauer and Fattal’s group of friends in the Bay Area are quick to note that their work reflected just one slice of the overall push for the young men’s freedom, the grassroots organizing effort they created clearly had some effect in the end.

“If Shane, Sarah, and Josh were just three random people who didn’t have this group of friends who were so proficient at organizing, I think they would have still been in jail,” O’Donoghue mused.

Shortly after Bauer and Fattal were freed, Iran’s foreign ministry issued a statement acknowledging the involvement of the Sultan of Oman, United Nations Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon, Iraqi President Jalal Talabani, and — more surprisingly, given his adversarial relationship with the U.S. — Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, who enjoys a close relationship with Ahmadinejad.

Once reports surfaced emphasizing Chavez’s involvement, the news broke that actor Sean Penn had played a role, too — by flying to Venezuela to encourage Chavez to approach Ahmadinejad about the case.

Yet the stage had already been set by friends of the hiking trio, a small crew of passionate social justice activists based in San Francisco and Oakland. They possessed skills as organizers, but this time the goal was more personal — they wanted nothing more than for their friends to be free.

 

TIME TO ORGANIZE

Based on the 17 alarmed messages on his voicemail, David Martinez knew something terrible had happened involving Bauer and Shourd. An independent filmmaker, Martinez was close to both and had collaborated with Bauer in 2007 to produce a film about Darfur.

Soon after learning that they were being detained in Iran, he found himself swept into a whirlwind, ad-hoc grassroots organizing effort as friends and family of the hikers contacted one another, fired off rapid emails, and organized conference calls to try and determine how to respond.

“We created this working group, this conference group — we wanted everybody’s expertise,” explained attorney Ben Rosenfeld, who has known Shourd for more than a decade and offered free legal representation to Shourd’s mother. “We set out to build a brain trust, essentially, and we did that very, very quickly.”

Shourd and Bauer had been living in Damascus, Syria, at a Palestinian camp when they decided to take a short trip to Iraqi Kurdistan. Shourd was teaching English to Iraqi refugees, and Bauer — a photojournalist — was writing articles about the Middle East. Fattal, an environmental educator, was visiting them. They journeyed along with Meckfessel to Kurdistan, a forested region of Iraq known as a safe destination for U.S. citizens. But once they arrived, Meckfessel felt groggy, so he opted to stay behind while the other three went off in search of a waterfall.

“I was on a bus to meet them and got a call from Shane that they were being arrested by Iranian authorities,” Meckfessel told the Guardian. After notifying their families, he flew to Istanbul to stay with a friend.

Back in the Bay Area, word of the hikers’ plight was starting to make news. “I had producers from morning shows like Good Morning America ringing my doorbell from the beginning,” Rosenfeld said.

Martinez was on a conference call with the core group of organizers when Meckfessel contacted him via Skype from Istanbul — and by that point, the national media was hungry for a statement from the elusive fourth hiker. So the group worked with Meckfessel to craft a statement for the press.

The first challenge they faced was this: Should they emphasize that Bauer, Shourd, and Fattal were humanitarian activists, or should they downplay their political leanings by casting them as adventuresome Americans with a love of the outdoors? Both portrayals were true, but the most important audience, as Rosenfeld pointed out, was ultimately their captors.

Meckfessel said he thought highlighting their politics would help their case. “The first minute after I got the phone call [from Bauer] … I thought that basically our involvement in the region as journalists, as academics, and as educators, and our long public record speaking out for human rights and as critics of US foreign policy in the area … would get them out,” he said.

Meckfessel later created a website, FreeOurFriends.eu, to emphasize the humanitarian and journalistic work that the three were engaged in. In the summer of 2010, he maxed out two credit cards to go on a 30-city European tour to drum up support overseas.

Despite the group’s initial contact with the Committee to Protect Journalists as well as Bauer’s editors at The Nation and Mother Jones, some were opposed to emphasizing the journalism aspect. “Think back to July 2009 in Iran,” Martinez said, referencing the popular uprising known as the Green Revolution that had sent shockwaves through Iran just months earlier. “Our friends were and are journalists involved in social movements and people’s movements. I’m pretty sure if you did a Google search with ‘Iran, July, 2009, activists,’ you’d come up with something like torture, prison. That is why we thought … let’s just say they’re hikers.”

So they came to be known as “the hikers,” and a website was created to go along with the campaign, called Free the Hikers.

“We wanted to make sure we weren’t divulging details about them that they weren’t divulging to their interrogators,” Rosenfeld said. “We wanted to be careful not to piss off the U.S. or the State Department. And, if we seemed too orchestrated, it might feed into Iran’s paranoid theories that they were spies. So we had to try to solve for all of these variables at the same time.”

It began to dawn on them that they were contending not only with the soured relationship between the U.S. and Iran, but an internal power struggle within Iran that had intensified in the wake of mass internal dissent. “The government that grabbed Shane, Josh, and Sarah was at war with its own people,” Martinez reflected. “They were prisoners of the historical moment.”

Nor was the trio the first in their circle of friends to stumble into a horrendous situation overseas. Tristan Anderson, of Berkeley, was attending a nonviolent protest of the Israeli occupation in a Palestinian village at the beginning of 2009 when he was hit by a high-velocity teargas projectile fired by Israeli Defense Forces, and sustained serious brain injuries.

“Tristan’s like a minor celebrity in Iran,” Meckfessel noted. “He’s known not only for initially getting shot … but Tristan’s whole case got a lot of sympathetic media in Iran.” When his three friends were captured, “the first thought I had was, we have proof that we’re all friends with Tristan,” he said.

On Feb. 10, 2010, Anderson’s parents, Nancy and Mike Anderson, sent a letter to Ahmadinejad. “It pains us greatly, on top of the tragedy we have already suffered, to see Tristan’s close friends made to bear the burden of grievances between nations,” they wrote.

 

GAME OF DIPLOMACY

The idea to approach the Venezuelan government started when Raymor Ryan, an Irish author who lives in Chiapas, phoned Martinez. “He said, ‘The only thing that’s going to really affect them is state power — this is a game of diplomacy,'” Martinez recounted. He suggested Venezuela — a country that is not only on friendly terms with Iran, but has connections with social movements. Martinez liked the idea, but first he ran it by another friend, famed academic Immanuel Wallerstein.

In an email, Wallerstein summarized for the Guardian the advice he gave. “The Iranians are using this as part of their struggles with the United States,” he wrote. “The least likely way to obtain their release is to allow U.S.-Iranian relations to be the issue, or to allow the virtues of the Iranian regime to be the issue. I suggested that they try to work with various left-of-center governments in Latin America, which have friendly relations with Iran, and see if they will intervene with the Iranian government. I did not single out Venezuela. After that, I was out of the picture.”

In October of 2009, Rosenfeld reached out to an attorney he knew through the National Lawyers Guild, Eva Golinger, who’s authored seven books, lives in Caracas, and occasionally serves as an adviser to Chavez. She agreed to help.

Nicolas Maduro, Venezuela’s foreign minister, told her he thought Chavez would be open to helping. “The foreign minister went to Tehran, and they told me they were going to broach the subject,” Golinger said. “When they came back, they told me unfortunately, it wasn’t a topic that was received favorably by the Iranians.”

Rosenfeld and Martinez were crazed, but they had another idea. Perhaps Chavez would be more responsive to appeals from lefty luminaries. Thanks to behind-the-scenes arrangements made by campaign organizers working every connection they could muster, a letter dated Feb. 26, 2010 was sent to Chavez on behalf of Noam Chomsky, Angela Davis, and Harry Belafonte.

“All three of the hikers are dedicated to improving living conditions for poor and oppressed people throughout the world, and to fostering a better understanding among their fellow citizens of the U.S.’s hegemonic role in global politics and economic privation,” they wrote.

Soon after, Golinger had a chance to speak with Chavez directly, when she was invited to join him on a trip to Uruguay to attend the presidential inauguration. “He said, ‘do you think they’re spies?’ I said, look, I don’t think they’re spies. I think they were gringos in the wrong place at the wrong time,” she recounted. “Chavez said, yeah, no problem. I’ll help.”

Soon after, the campaign recruited anti-war activist Cindy Sheehan to write to Chavez, too. But the months rolled by without word of a trial date, let alone a release. Rosenfeld thought up a new way to reach Chavez — by encouraging actor Sean Penn to speak with him.

Penn enjoyed a good relationship with the Venezuelan president and had been regularly traveling to the region to aid in earthquake relief efforts in Haiti, which Venezuela was deeply involved in. Rosenfeld asked Matt Gonzalez, chief attorney of the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office and a friend of Penn’s, to mention it to him.

Within months, Penn discussed the hikers’ case with Chavez, according to Golinger. Then, in September of 2010, Shourd was finally released. Bay Area friends described it as a moment of sheer joy, but also bittersweet, because Bauer and Fattal remained behind bars. Miller invited friends and organizers over to her place in Oakland to join her in the surreal experience of watching their friend deliver a speech on television.

Meckfessel was in Rome as part of his “Free Our Friends” tour through Europe. “I got a text message from somebody that she had been released, and I burst into tears of relief,” he said. “Then, just as I was preparing to do my presentation in Rome, I got a call — and it was Sarah. I just shouted and cried in front of this big group of Romans, and everyone was applauding.”

Upon her return, Shourd wasted no time throwing herself into the campaign. “I just have so much admiration and respect for Sarah,” Miller said. “She went from coming out of prison, and needing time to heal from that, to becoming a full-force, 24/7 international diplomacy worker.”

Shourd, Bauer, and Fattal were unavailable for an interview for this article, but their families emailed a statement. “As Josh and Shane said when they got home, many of their friends put their own lives on hold to fight for their freedom,” they wrote. “We are grateful to the many people who worked in many different ways to help Shane and Josh. Every single effort mattered and made a difference.”

 

INEXCUSABLE ACTS

When the day of their release finally came, Golinger watched in Caracas as television broadcasts showed Bauer and Fattal bounding down the steps of the plane and leaping into the arms of their loved ones. She sent a text to Maduro, the Venezuelan foreign minister, who was in New York for the UN General Assembly. “I asked … were we involved?” Minutes later, she received a text in response. “He said, fundamentally, yes.” The Iranian foreign minister had told him that the release went through because of Chavez’s request.

Days later, in New York, the hikers visited the Venezuelan consulate. And on the same trip, their first time back on U.S. soil, Bauer and Fattal held a press conference.

“The only explanation for our prolonged detention is the 32 years of mutual hostility between America and Iran,” Bauer said. “The irony is that Sarah, Josh, and I oppose U.S. policies towards Iran which perpetuate this hostility. We were convicted of espionage because we are American. It is that simple.”

He went on: “In prison, every time we complained about our conditions, the guards would immediately remind us of comparable conditions at Guantanamo Bay. They would remind us of CIA prisons in other parts of the world, and the conditions that Iranians and others experience in prisons in the U.S. We do not believe that such human rights violations on the part of our government justify what has been done to us, not for a moment. However, we do believe that these actions on the part of the U.S provide an excuse for other governments, including the governments of Iran, to act in kind.”

Film Listings

Andrew Lam
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MILL VALLEY FILM FESTIVAL

The 34th Mill Valley film festival runs Oct. 6-16 at various North Bay venues, including the Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center, 1118 Fourth St., San Rafael. For tickets (most shows $13.50) and complete schedule, visit www.mvff.com. For commentary, see “Do North.”

OPENING

*American Teacher Public school teachers have one of the most important jobs in America — and most of them are paid very little in proportion to the long, difficult hours they put in (truth, no matter what Tea Partiers say). Vanessa Roth’s American Teacher — narrated by Matt Damon, co-produced by Dave Eggers, and spurred by the nonprofit Teacher Salary Project — examines the current state of the teaching profession, from its many drawbacks (like those mentioned above) to its chief rewards, namely, the feelings of joy that come from helping to expand young minds. As education experts lament the fact that top college grads gravitate toward big-bucks careers in law and medicine instead of teaching, the film profiles four teachers who’re struggling to stay in the career they love (one of them reluctantly quits his job at San Francisco’s Leadership High School in favor of a higher-paying gig with his family’s real-estate business). There’s also the Harvard grad tempted by a magnet school that pays its teachers over $100,000 a year; the pregnant first-grade teacher worried about the intricacies of maternity leave; and the most devastating tale, of a small-town Texas teacher and coach forced to take on a second job to support his family, at the eventual expense of his marriage. It’s likely that American Teacher will play mostly for audiences already sympathetic to its message, but there’s always hope a film like this will inspire an angry Fox News-er to have a change of heart. (1:21) Roxie. (Eddy)

*The Dead Most zombie movies tell the same basic story, some variation of “survivors on the run.” Sometimes, the repetition is forgivable, as when the special effects are particularly juicy, or there’s totally unique plot twist (2009’s Zombieland set a new gold standard for that one), or there’s some other special thing that makes the film stand out from the brains-gobbling pack. For British directing brothers Howard J. and Jon Ford, that thing is the setting, which is neither backwoods America nor empty London, but West Africa. When The Dead begins, the outbreak (never explained) has already commenced; in an abandoned village, a grizzled American soldier (Rob Freeman) encounters a grim African soldier (Prince David Osei). Since they’re the only two living humans for miles, logic dictates they should team up; much of the film follows the pair on a surreal road trip through a rural landscape populated only by slow-moving, staring, ever-hungry undead. Despite some flaws (uneven acting, plus a few culturally iffy points — isn’t “witch doctor” kind of an outdated turn of phrase?), The Dead delivers where it matters, with moments of genuine suspense and some satisfyingly gross-outs. A+ in the ripped-off limbs department, Ford brothers. (1:45) Metreon. (Eddy)

Dirty Girl The teenage heroine and hero of Dirty Girl, a self-possessed, unabashed slut and a chubby, diva-loving gay boy, were clearly meant for better things than life in the small-minded town of Norman, Okla., where they seem destined for a succession of beat-downs and shunnings. But as writer-director Abe Sylvia’s sweet-tart 1987-set story opens, Danielle (Juno Temple) and Clarke (Jeremy Dozier) have been wedged by a high school administration ill-equipped to handle square pegs into a remedial-track classroom that resembles the Island of Misfit Toys. There they are paired up for a “life skills” project as unenthusiastic new parents to a five-pound sack of flour (christened Joan after the pair’s respective idols, Jett and Crawford). Parenting missteps loom uncomfortably large in their lives: on Danielle’s home front, an ineffectual mother (Milla Jovovich), feebly deflecting her daughter’s rancor and clinging to her cheery Mormon boyfriend (William H. Macy); on Clarke’s, a homophobic father (Dwight Yoakam) and a recessive mother (Mary Steenburgen) passively witnessing his abuses. With none of the adults seeming up to the task of competently raising these misfit teenagers, it’s something of a relief when they acquire some wheels and Dirty Girl turns into a road movie — destination: Danielle’s mystery birth father, now living in California. With Danielle narrating — and penning diary entries in baby Joan’s name — Sylvia’s skillfully made first feature maps the high and low points of the journey with a comic eye and compassion, depicting a girl and her (flour)baby daddy’s deepening relationship and the complications attending any attempt to draw a family tree from scratch. (1:45) Shattuck. (Rapoport)

The Human Centipede II: Full Sequence In which a mentally disturbed man becomes obsessed with, and attempts to recreate, events that occurred in the original Human Centipede film. I think you know which events. (runtime not available) Lumiere.

The Ides of March George Clooney directs and co-stars, along with Ryan Gosling and Paul Giamatti, this timely political drama. (1:51) Balboa, California, Marina, Piedmont.

Margaret Lisa Cohen (Anna Paquin) is an Upper West Side teen living with her successful actress mother (J. Smith-Cameron, wife to writer-director Kenneth Lonergan) — dad (Lonergan) lives in Santa Monica with his new spouse — and going through normal teenage stuff. Her propensity for drama, however, is kicked into high gear when she witnesses (and inadvertently causes) the traffic death of a stranger. Initially fibbing a bit to protect both herself and the bus driver (Mark Ruffalo) involved, she later has second thoughts, increasingly pursuing a path toward “justice” that variably affects others including the dead woman’s friend (Jeannie Berlin), mom’s new suitor (Jean Reno), teachers at Lisa’s private school Matt Damon and Matthew Broderick), etc. Lonergan is a fine playwright and uneven sometime scenarist who made a terrific screen directorial debut with 2000’s You Can Count On Me (which also featured Ruffalo, Broderick and Smith-Cameron). He appears to have intended Margaret as a pulse-taking of privileged Manhattanites’ comingled rage, panic, confusion, and guilt after 9-11. But if that’s the case, then this convoluted story provides a garbled metaphor at best. It might best be taken as a messy, intermittently potent study of how someone might become the kind of person who’ll spend the rest of their lives barging into other people’s affairs, creating a mess, assuming the moral high ground in a stubborn attempt to “fix” it, then making everything worse while denying any personal responsibility. Certainly that’s the person Lisa appears to be turning into, though it’s unclear whether Lonergan intends her to be seen that way. Indeed, despite some sharply written confrontations and good performances, it’s unclear what Lonergan intended here at all — and since he’s been famously fiddling with Margaret‘s (still-problematic) editing since late 2005, one might guess he never really figured that out himself. (2:29) Embarcadero. (Harvey)

1911 Jackie Chan’s 100th film is a historical epic, presumably containing some pretty awesome fight scenes. (2:05) Four Star, Opera Plaza, Shattuck.

*Puncture Chris Evans seems poised to break out of that chiseled superhero category with this smart, quietly rabble-rousing portrait of a hard-partying lawyer who makes the switch from ambulance-chasing to crusading. Mike Weiss (Evans) is an attorney with a penchant for cruising for crack, jumping on bumps, and hitting the hypodermic while buried in briefs or on the way to the courtroom or Senator’s office. He comes to learn that chemical addiction can translate into a consuming passion for justice when he and his partner, Paul (Mark Kassen, co-directing with brother Adam Kassen) meet with nurse Vicky (Vinessa Shaw), who has become infected with HIV after a prick from a contaminated needle. She only wants one thing: that her inventor friend Jeffrey Dancort’s (Marshall Bell) safety needle is used in hospitals to avoid future accidents like her own. “Sometimes the brightest light comes from the darkest places,” she assures Mike, in the throes of his fighting a battle with his own addicted body as his way-over-its-head firm struggles to wage war with a massively well-funded pharmaceutical giant. Throughout Mike’s showdowns and screw-ups — notably, nodding out and dripping blood from his ravaged nostrils instead of attending a vital meeting with his client — Evans convincingly pours himself into his part, while imparting the idea that his counselor’s only hope is the conviction that he’s in a righteous fight. Also on point: the Kassens’ restrained direction — encapsulating the seedy eccentricity of their protagonist, the OTT opulence of the opposition, and the crumminess of generic hotel suites, as well as rain drops refracting street lights — and Ryan Ross Smith’s minimal electronic score. (1:39) Bridge. (Chun)

Real Steel Father-son bonding, plus robot boxing. Or vice versa, not sure. (2:07) Presidio.

*Sleep Furiously Gideon Koppel’s poetical feature takes a snapshot of an ebbing agricultural hamlet in middle Wales where his parents now live, one near in flavor and geography to Dylan Thomas’ fictive “Llareggub” in Under Milk Wood. Not that any background information is laid out here — this is the kind of documentary that eschews narrative and informational elements for an impressionist approach, little fragments of artfully arranged life adding up to a flavorsome if incomplete whole picture. Koppel is attracted to the way things haven’t changed — we never see a TV on, let alone somebody using a cell phone — yet we soon glean that things in Trefeurig are changing whether he likes it or not. The local residents we meet don’t: a dwindling populace has already shuttered the post office and other basic lifelines, with the schoolhouse scheduled next. What’s at issue here is the extinction of a community, though despite the attempts we see at sustaining local traditions, that may already be a foregone conclusion. Still, life goes on, from livestock birthings and shearings to the rain-or-shine route of John the mobile librarian, whose monthly visits to isolated pensioners provides Sleep‘s closest thing to a connecting thread. Some may be frustrated by the film’s opacity, and Koppel’s directorial choices can be pointlessly mannered. Yet there’s a lovely, lyrical warmth of observation that makes this perversely named (after a Noam Chomsky quote) nonfiction work a real pleasure to watch. It’s also a pleasure to hear, thanks to one exceptional local choir (featured in a rehearsal segment) and an original ambient soundtrack by Aphex Twin. (1:34) Roxie. (Harvey)

*Take Shelter Jeff Nichols directed Michael Shannon in 2007’s Shotgun Stories, released right around the time the actor’s decade-plus prior career broke huge with an Oscar nom for 2008’s Revolutionary Road. Their second collaboration, Take Shelter, is a subtle drama that succeeds mostly because of Shannon’s strong star turn, with an assist from Jessica Chastain (suddenly ubiquitous after The Help, The Debt, and Tree of Life). Curtis (Shannon) and Samantha (Chastain) live paycheck to paycheck in a small Midwestern town; the health insurance associated with his construction job is the only reason they’ll be able to afford a cochlear implant for their deaf daughter. When Curtis starts having horrible nightmares, he can’t shake the feeling that his dreams prophesize an actual disaster to come — or are an indicator that Curtis, like his mother before him, is slowly losing touch with reality. Curtis does seek professional help, but he also starts ripping up his backyard, making expensive improvements to the family’s tornado shelter. You know, just in case. Domestic turmoil, troubles at work, and social ostracization inevitably follow. Where will it all lead? Won’t spoil it for you, but Take Shelter‘s conclusion isn’t nearly as gripping as Shannon’s performance, an skillfully balanced mix of confusion, anger, regret, and white-hot terror. (2:00) Embarcadero. (Eddy)

*Weekend See “A New England.” (1:36) Embarcadero, Shattuck.

ONGOING

Abduction (1:46) 1000 Van Ness.

*The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 Cinematic crate-diggers have plenty to celebrate, checking the results of The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975. Swedish documentarian Göran Hugo Olsson had heard whispers for years that Swedish television archives possessed more archival footage of the Black Panthers than anyone in the states — while poring through film for a doc on Philly soul, he discovered the rumors were dead-on. With this lyrical film, coproduced by the Bay Area’s Danny Glover, Olsson has assembled an elegant snapshot of black activists and urban life in America, relying on the vivid, startlingly crisp images of figures such as Stokely Carmichael and Huey P. Newton at their peak, while staying true to the wide-open, refreshingly nonjudgmental lens of the Swedish camera crews. Questlove of the Roots and Om’Mas Keith provide the haunting score for the film, beautifully historicized with shots of Oakland in the 1960s and Harlem in the ’70s. It’s made indelible thanks to footage of proto-Panther school kids singing songs about grabbing their guns, and an unforgettable interview with a fiery Angela Davis talking about the uses of violence, from behind bars and from the place of personally knowing the girls who died in the infamous Birmingham, Ala., church bombing of 1963. (1:36) Lumiere, Shattuck. (Chun)

Circumstance Thirteen (2003) goes to Tehran? The world of sex, drugs, and underground nightclubs in Iran provides the backdrop for writer-director Maryam Keshavarz’s lusty, dreamy take on the passionate teenagers behind the hijabs. Risking jail and worse are the sassy, privileged Atafeh (Nikohl Boosheri) and the beautiful, orphaned Shireen (Sarah Kazemy), who, much like young women anywhere, just want to be free — to swim, sing, dance, test boundaries, lose, and then find themselves. The difference here is that they’re under constant, unnerving surveillance, in a country where more than 70 percent of the population is less than 30 years old. Nevertheless, within their mansion walls and without, beneath graffitied walls and undulating at intoxicating house parties, the two girls begin to fall in love with each other, as Atafeh’s handsome, albeit creepy older brother Mehran (Palo Alto-bred Reza Sixo Safai) gazes on. The onetime musical talent’s back from rehab, has returned to the mosque with all the zeal of the prodigal, and has hooked up with the Morality Police that enforces the nation’s cultural laws. Filmed underground in Beirut, with layers that permit both pleasure and protest (wait for the hilarious moment when 2008’s Milk is dubbed in Farsi), Circumstance viscerally transmits the realities and fantasies of Iranian young women on the verge. (1:45) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Chun)

City of Life and Death There have been a number of recent works about the “rape of Nanking,” but perhaps none tackles the brutal nature of Nanjing’s fall with as much beauty as City of Life and Death. Shot in striking black and white, the film depicts the invasion of China’s capital by Japanese forces from a number of points of view, including that of a Japanese soldier. It can be difficult at times to become emotionally attached to characters within such a restless narrative, but the structure goes a long way toward keeping the proceedings balanced. The stunningly elaborate sets and cinematography alone are worth the price of admission, and it’s amazing that such detail was achieved with a budget of less than $12 million. But it is the unflinching catalog of the some 300,000 murders and rapes that took place between 1937 and 1938 in Nanjing that will remain with you long after watching. (2:13) Four Star. (Peter Galvin)

*Contagion Tasked with such panic-inducing material, one has to appreciate director Steven Soderbergh’s cool head and hand with Contagion. Some might even dub this epic thriller (of sorts) cold, clinical, and completely lacking in bedside manner. Still, for those who’d rather be in the hands of a doctor who refuses to talk down to the patient, Contagion comes on like a refreshingly smart, somewhat melodrama-free clean room, a clear-eyed response to a messy, terrifying subject. A deadly virus is spreading swiftly — sans cure, vaccine, or sense — starting with a few unlikely suspects: globe-trotting corporate exec Beth (Gwyneth Paltrow), a waiter, a European tourist, and a Japanese businessman. The chase is on to track the disease’s genesis and find a way to combat it, from the halls of the San Francisco Chronicle and blog posts of citizen activist-journalist Alan (Jude Law), to the emergency hospital in the Midwest set up by intrepid Dr. Mears (Kate Winslet), to a tiny village in China with a World Health investigator (Marion Cotillard). Soderbergh’s brisk, businesslike storytelling approach nicely counterpoints the hysteria going off on the ground, as looting and anarchy breaks out around Beth’s immune widower Mitch (Matt Damon), and draws you in — though the tact of making this disease’s Typhoid Mary a sexually profligate woman is unsettling and borderline offensive, as is the predictable blame-it-on-the-Chinese origin coda. (1:42) California, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Crazy, Stupid, Love Keep the poster’s allusion to 1967’s The Graduate to one side: there aren’t many revelations about midlife crises in this cleverly penned yet strangely flat ensemble rom-com, awkwardly pitched at almost every demographic at the cineplex. There’s the middle-aged romance that’s withered at the vine: nice but boring family man Cal (Steve Carell) finds himself at a hopeless loss when wife and onetime teenage sweetheart Emily (Julianne Moore) tells him she wants a divorce and she’s slept with a coworker (Kevin Bacon). He ends up waxing pathetic at a slick nightclub where he catches the eye of the well-dressed, spray-tanned smoothie Jacob (Ryan Gosling), who appears to have taken his ladies man stance from the Clooney playbook. It’s manly makeover time: GQ meets Pretty Woman (1990)! Cut to Cal and Emily’s babysitter Jessica (Analeigh Tipton), who is crushing out on Cal, while the separated couple’s tween Robbie (Jonah Bobo) hankers for Jessica. Somehow Josh Groban worms his way into the mix as the dullard suitor of Hannah (Emma Stone) in a hanging chad of a storyline that must somehow be resolved in this mad, mad, mad, mad — actually, the problem with Crazy, Stupid, Love is that it isn’t really that crazy. It tries far too hard to please everybody in the theater to its detriment, reminding the viewer of a tidy, episodic TV series (albeit a quality effort) like Modern Family more than an actual film. Likewise I yearned for a way to fast-forward through the too-cute Jessica-Robbie scenes in order to get back to the sleazy-smart, punchy complexity of Gosling, playing adeptly off both Carrell and Stone. (1:58) SF Center. (Chun)

The Debt On paper, The Debt has a lot going for it: captivating history-based plot, “it” actor Jessica Chastain, Helen Mirren vs. Nazis. And while the latest from John Madden (1998’s Shakespeare in Love) is fairly entertaining, the film is ultimately forgettable. Chastain plays Rachel, a member of an Israeli team tasked with capturing a Nazi war criminal and bringing him to justice. Mirren is the older Rachel, who is haunted by the long-withheld true story of the mission. Although The Debt traffics in spy secrets, it’s actually rather predictable: the big reveal is shrug-worthy, and the shocking conclusion is expected. So while the entire cast — which also includes Tom Wilkinson, Sam Worthington, and Ciaran Hinds — turn in admirable performances, the script is lacking what it needs to make The Debt an effective drama or thriller. Like 2008’s overrated The Reader, the film tries to hide its inadequacies under heavy themes and the dread with which we remember the Holocaust. (1:54) Piedmont, Sundance Kabuki. (Louis Peitzman)

Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (2:02) Lumiere.

Dolphin Tale (1:53) 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center.

Dream House (1:33) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center.

*Drive Such a lovely way to Drive, drunk on the sensual depths of a lush, saturated jewel tone palette and a dreamlike, almost luxurious pacing that gives off the steamy hothouse pop romanticism of ’80s-era Michael Mann and David Lynch — with the bracing, impactful flecks of threat and ultraviolence that might accompany a car chase, a moody noir, or both, as filtered through a first-wave music video. Drive comes dressed in the klassic komforts — from the Steve McQueen-esque stances and perfectly cut jackets of Ryan Gosling as the Driver Who Shall Remain Nameless to the foreboding lingering in the shadows and the wittily static, statuesque strippers that decorate the background. Gosling’s Driver is in line with Mann’s other upstanding working men who hew to an old-school moral code and are excellent at what they do, regardless of what side of the law they’re working: he likes to keep it clear and simple — his services as a wheelman boil down to five minutes, in and out — but matters get messy when he falls for sweet-faced neighbor Irene (Carey Mulligan), who lives down the hall with her small son, and her ex-con husband (Oscar Isaac) is dragged back into the game. Populated by pungent side players like Albert Brooks, Bryan Cranston, Ron Perlman, and Christina Hendricks, and scattered with readily embeddable moments like a life-changing elevator kiss that goes bloodily wrong-right, Drive turns into a real coming-out affair for both Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn (2008’s Bronson), who rises above any crisis of influence or confluence of genre to pick up the po-mo baton that Lynch left behind, and 2011’s MVP Ryan Gosling, who gets to flex his leading-man muscles in a truly cinematic role, an anti-hero and under-the-hood psychopath looking for the real hero within. (1:40) Four Star, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

50/50 This is nothing but a mainstream rom-com-dramedy wrapped in indie sheep’s clothes. When Adam (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) learns he has cancer, he undergoes the requisite denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance like a formality. Aided by his bird-brained but lovable best friend Kyle (Seth Rogan), lovable klutz of a counselor Katherine (Anna Kendrick), and panicky mother (Anjelica Huston), Adam gets a new lease on life. This comes in the form of one-night-stands, furious revelations in parked cars, and a prescribed dose of wacky tobaccy. If 50/50 all sounds like the setup for a pseudo-insightful, kooky feel-goodery, it is. The film doesn’t have the brains or spleen to get down to the bone of cancer. Instead, director Jonathan Levine (2008’s The Wackness) and screenwriter Will Reiser favor highfalutin’ monologues, wooden characters, and a Hollywood ending (with just the right amount of ambiguity). Still, Gordon-Levitt is the most gorgeous cancer patient you will ever see, bald head and all. (1:40) 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Ryan Lattanzio)

The Guard Irish police sergeant Gerry Boyle (Brendan Gleeson) is used to running his small town on his own terms — not in a completely Bad Lieutenant (1992) kind of way, though he’s not afraid to sample drugs and hang with hookers. More like, he’s been running the show for years, and would prefer that big-city cops stay the hell out of his village. Alas, a gang of drug smugglers is doing business in the area, so an officious group of investigators from Dublin (horrors!) and America (in the form of an FBI agent played by Don Cheadle) soon descend. His mother’s dying, his brand-new partner’s missing, and between all the interlopers on both sides of the law, Boyle’s having a hard time having a pint in peace. Good thing he’s not as simple-minded as all who surround him think he is. Writer-director John Michael McDonagh (brother of playwright Martin, who directed 2008’s In Bruges — also starring Gleeson) puts an affable Irish spin on what’s essentially a pretty typical indie comedy, with some pretty typical crime-drama elements layered atop. Boyle’s character is memorably clever, but the film that contains him never quite elevates to his level. (1:36) Lumiere. (Eddy)

The Help It’s tough to stitch ‘n’ bitch ‘n’ moan in the face of such heart-felt female bonding, even after you brush away the tears away and wonder why the so-called help’s stories needed to be cobbled with those of the creamy-skinned daughters of privilege that employed them. The Help purports to be the tale of the 1960s African American maids hired by a bourgie segment of Southern womanhood — resourceful hard-workers like Aibileen (Viola Davis) and Minny (Octavia Spencer) raise their employers’ daughters, filling them with pride and strength if they do their job well, while missing out on their own kids’ childhood. Then those daughters turn around and hurt their caretakers, often treating them little better than the slaves their families once owned. Hinging on a self-hatred that devalues the nurturing, housekeeping skills that were considered women’s birthright, this unending ugly, heartbreaking story of the everyday injustices spells separate-and-unequal bathrooms for the family and their help when it comes to certain sniping queen bees like Hilly (Bryce Dallas Howard). But the times they are a-changing, and the help get an assist from ugly duckling of a writer Skeeter (Emma Stone, playing against type, sort of, with fizzy hair), who risks social ostracism to get the housekeepers’ experiences down on paper, amid the Junior League gossip girls and the seismic shifts coming in the civil rights-era South. Based on the best-seller by Kathryn Stockett, The Help hitches the fortunes of two forces together — the African American women who are trying to survive and find respect, and the white women who have to define themselves as more than dependent breeders — under the banner of a feel-good weepie, though not without its guilty shadings, from the way the pale-faced ladies already have a jump, in so many ways, on their African American sisters to the Keane-eyed meekness of Davis’ Aibileen to The Help‘s most memorable performances, which are also tellingly throwback (Howard’s stinging hornet of a Southern belle and Jessica Chastain’s white-trash bimbo-with-a-heart-of-gold). (2:17) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

*Killer Elite Jason Statham has a lot going on, in addition to devastatingly attractive male-pattern balding: along with fellow Brit Daniel Craig, he’s one of the most believable action heroes in the cineplex today. This continent-hopping, Bourne-ish exercise, kitted out with piercingly loud sound design, comes chock-full of promise in the form of Statham, Robert De Niro, and Clive Owen, wielding endless firearms and finding new deadly uses for bathroom tile — you don’t want to be caught solo in anger management class with these specialists in cinematic rageaholism. Mercenary assassin Danny (Statham) wants out of the game after a traumatic killing involving way too much eye contact with a small child. Killer coworker Hunter (De Niro) pulled him out of that tight spot, so when the aging gunman is held hostage, Danny must emerge from hiding in rural Australia and take on a seemingly impossible case: avenge the deaths of a dying sheik’s sons, who were gunned down by assorted highly trained British military hotshots, get them to confess, and make it all look like an accident. Oh, yes, and try to make sure his own loved ones aren’t killed in the process. Dancing backwards as fast as he can is those retired Brits’ guardian angel-of-sorts, Spike (Owen), another intense, dangerous fellow with too much time on his hands. Throw in my favorite Oz evil-doer Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as Danny and Hunter’s boss, some welcome been-there twinkle from De Niro, as well as a host of riveting fight scenes (and that ’00s cliché: sudden death by bus/truck/semi), and you have diverting popcorn killer. (1:40) 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

The Lion King 3D (1:29) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki.

*Love Crime Early this year came the announcement that Brian De Palma was hot to do an English remake of Alain Corneau’s Love Crime. The results, should they come to fruition, may well prove a landmark in the annals of lurid guilty-pleasure trash. But with the original Love Crime finally making it to local theaters, it’s an opportune moment to be appalled in advance about what sleazy things could potentially be done to this neat, dry, fully clothed model of a modern Hitchcockian thriller. No doubt in France Love Crime looks pretty mainstream. But here its soon-to be-despoiled virtues of narrative intricacy and restraint are upscale pleasures. Ludivine Sagnier plays assistant to high-powered corporate executive Christine (Kristin Scott Thomas). The boss enjoys molding protégée Isabelle to her own image, making them a double team of carefully planned guile unafraid to use sex appeal as a business strategy. But Isabelle is expected to know her place — even when that place robs her of credit for her own ideas — and when she stages a small rebellion, Christine’s revenge is cruelly out of scale, a high-heeled boot brought down to squash an ant. Halfway through an act of vengeance occurs that is shocking and satisfying, even if it leaves the remainder of Corneau and Nathalie Carter’s clever screenplay deprived of the very thing that had made it such a sardonic delight so far. Though it’s no masterpiece, Love Crime closes the book on his Corneau’s career Corneau (he died at age 67 last August) not with a bang but with a crisp, satisfying snap. (1:46) Albany, Clay. (Harvey)

Machine Gun Preacher The title sounds like a sequel to Hobo with a Shotgun — but there’s nary a speck of tongue-in-cheek, kitschy-koo-koo irony in this passionate rendering of the life of Sam Childers. Childers (Gerard Butler) was a former dealing, thieving biker who found God, built a refuge for Sudanese orphans and former child soldiers, and became their fiercest fight-fire-with-fire defender. As Machine Gun Preacher opens, Childers has just emerged from the pen — he’s still the mean motherfucker he always was, shooting up within hours of release and hooking up with chum Donnie (Michael Shannon) to rob dealers. But a semi-mystical run-in forces him to face the worst and sends him to church, to join wife Lynn (Michelle Monaghan), a former stripper and addict. Childers’ fiery love of the Lord, and his spontaneous visions, lead him to construct his own church for sketched-out recovered sinners like himself and then on to war-torn Sudan, where he discovers even more to fix — and likely more than he ever can. To his credit, director Marc Forster (2001’s Monster’s Ball, 2008’s Quantum of Solace) doesn’t shy away from the visceral violence nor the enraged holy-rolling that’s a clear part of Childers’ life, although the most memorable part of Machine Gun Preacher must be Butler, who gets his righteous wrath on in his meatiest part since 2006’s 300. (2:03) Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Midnight in Paris Owen Wilson plays Gil, a self-confessed “Hollywood hack” visiting the City of Light with his conservative future in-laws and crassly materialistic fiancée Inez (Rachel McAdams). A romantic obviously at odds with their selfish pragmatism (somehow he hasn’t realized that yet), he’s in love with Paris and particularly its fabled artistic past. Walking back to his hotel alone one night, he’s beckoned into an antique vehicle and finds himself transported to the 1920s, at every turn meeting the Fitzgeralds, Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates), Dali (Adrien Brody), etc. He also meets Adriana (Marion Cotillard), a woman alluring enough to be fought over by Hemingway (Corey Stoll) and Picasso (Marcial di Fonzo Bo) — though she fancies aspiring literary novelist Gil. Woody Allen’s latest is a pleasant trifle, no more, no less. Its toying with a form of magical escapism from the dreary present recalls The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), albeit without that film’s greater structural ingeniousness and considerable heart. None of the actors are at their best, though Cotillard is indeed beguiling and Wilson dithers charmingly as usual. Still — it’s pleasant. (1:34) Albany, Embarcadero. (Harvey)

The Mill and the Cross One of the clichés often told about art is that it is supposed to speak to us. Polish director Lech Majewski’s gorgeous experiment in bringing Flemish Renaissance painter Peter Bruegel’s sprawling 1564 canvas The Procession to Calvary to life attempts to do just that. Majeswki both re-stages Bruegel’s painting –which draws parallels between its depiction of Christ en route to his crucifixion and the persecution of Flemish citizens by the Spanish inquisition’s militia — in stunning tableaux vivant that combine bluescreen technology and stage backdrops, and gives back stories to a dozen or so of its 500 figures. Periodically, Bruegel himself (Rutger Hauer) addresses the camera mid-sketch to dolefully explain the allegorical nature of his work, but these pedantic asides speak less forcefully than Majeswki’s beautifully lit vignettes of the small joys and many hardships that comprised everyday life in the 16th century. Beguiling yet wholly absorbing. (1:37) Embarcadero, Shattuck. (Sussman)

Moneyball As fun as it is to watch Brad Pitt listen to the radio, work out, hang out with his cute kid, and drive down I-80 over and over again, it doesn’t quite translate into compelling cinema for the casual baseball fan. A wholesale buy-in to the cult of personality — be it A’s manager Billy Beane or the actor who plays him — is at the center of Moneyball‘s issues. Beane (Pitt) is facing the sad, inevitable fate of having to replace his star players, Jason Giambi and Johnny Damon, once they command the cash from the more-moneyed teams. He’s gotta think outside of the corporate box, and he finds a few key answers in Peter Brand (a.k.a. Paul DePodesta, played by Jonah Hill), who’s working with the sabermetric ideas of Bill James: scout the undervalued players that get on base to work against better-funded big-hitters. Similarly, against popular thought, Moneyball works best when director Bennett Miller (2005’s Capote) strays from the slightly flattening sunniness of its lead actor and plunges into the number crunching — attempting to visualize the abstract and tapping into the David Fincher network, as it were (in a related note, Aaron Sorkin co-wrote Moneyball‘s screenplay) — though the funny anti-chemistry between Pitt and Hill is at times capable of pulling Moneyball out of its slump. (2:13) Balboa, Marina, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Mozart’s Sister Pity the talented sister of a world-shaking prodigy. Maria Anna “Nannerl” Mozart, who may have had just as much promise as a composer as her younger brother, according to Rene Féret’s Mozart’s Sister. A scant five years older, enlisted in the traveling family band led by father-teacher Leopold (Marc Barbe), yet forced to hide her music, being female and forbidden to play violin and compose, Nannerl (Marie Féret, the filmmaker’s daughter) tours the courts of Europe and is acclaimed as a keyboardist and vocalist but is expected to share little of her brother’s brilliant future. Following a chance carriage breakdown near a French monastery, Nannerl befriends one of its precious inhabitants, a daughter of Louis XV (Lisa Féret, another offspring), which leads her to Versailles, into a cross-dressing guise of a boy, and puts her into the sights of the Dauphin (Clovis Fouin, who could easily find a spot in the Cullen vampire clan). He’s seduced by her music and likewise charms Nannerl with his power and feline good looks — what’s a humble court minstrel to do? The conceit of casting one’s daughters in a narrative hinging on unjustly neglected female progeny — shades of Sofia Coppola in The Godfather: Part III (1990)! — almost capsizes this otherwise thoughtful re-imagination of Maria Anna’s thwarted life; despite the fact Féret has inserted his children in his films in the past, both girls offer little emotional depth to their roles. Nevertheless, as a feminist rediscovery pic akin to Camille Claudel (1988), Mozart’s Sister instructs on yet another tragically quashed woman artist and might inspire some righteous indignation. (2:00) Shattuck. (Chun)

*My Afternoons with Margueritte There’s just one moment in this tender French dramedy that touches on star Gerard Depardieu’s real life: his quasi-literate salt-of-the-earth character, Germain, rushes to save his depressed friend from possible suicide only to have his pretentious pal pee on the ground in front of him. Perhaps Depardieu’s recent urinary run-in, on the floor of an airline cabin, was an inspired reference to this moment. In any case, My Afternoons With Margueritte offers a hope of the most humanist sort, for all those bumblers and sad cases that are usually shuttled to the side in the desperate ’00s, as Depardieu demonstrates that he’s fully capable of carrying a film with sheer life force, rotund gut and straw-mop ‘do and all. In fact he’s almost daring you to hate on his aging, bumptious current incarnation: Germain is the 50-something who never quite grew up or left home. The vegetable farmer is treated poorly by his doddering tramp of a mother and is widely considered the village idiot, the butt of all the jokes down at the cafe, though contrary to most assumptions, he manages to score a beautiful, bus-driving girlfriend (Sophie Guillemin). However the true love of his life might be the empathetic, intelligent older woman, Margueritte (Gisele Casadesus), that he meets in the park while counting pigeons. There’s a wee bit of Maude to Germain’s Harold, though Jean Becker’s chaste love story is content to remain within the wholesome confines of small-town life — not a bad thing when it comes to looking for grace in a rough world. (1:22) Opera Plaza. (Chun)

*Point Blank Not for nothing did Hollywood remake French filmmaker Fred Cavaye’s last film, Anything for Her (2008) as The Next Three Days (2010) — Cavaye’s latest, tauter-than-taut thriller almost screams out for a similar rework, with its Bourne-like handheld camera work, high-impact immediacy, and noirish narrative economy. Point Blank — not to be confused with the 1967 Lee Marvin vehicle —kicks off with a literal slam: a mystery man (Roschdy Zem) crashing into a metal barrier, on the run from two menacing figures until he is cornered and then taken out of the action by fate. His mind mainly on the welfare of his very pregnant wife Nadia (Elena Anaya), nursing assistant Samuel (Gilles Lellouche) has the bad luck to stumble on a faux doctor attempting to make sure that the injured man never rises from his hospital bed. As police wrangle over whose case this exactly is — the murder of an industrialist seems to have expanded the powers of the stony-faced, monolithic Commandant Werner (Gerard Lanvin) — Samuel gets sucked into the mystery man’s lot, a conspiracy that allows them to trust no one, and seemingly impossibly odds against getting out of the mess alive. Cavaye never quite stops applying the pressure in this clever, unrelenting cat-and-mouse and mouse-and-his-spouse game, topping it with a nerve-jangling search through a messily chaotic police station. (1:24) Opera Plaza. (Chun)

*Rise of the Planet of the Apes “You gotta love a movie where the animals beat up on the humans,” declared my Rise of the Planet of the Apes companion. Indeed, ape must not kill ape, and this Planet of the Apes prequel-cum-remake of Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972) takes the long view, back to the days when ape-human relations were still high-minded enough to forbid smart apes from killing those well-armed, not-so-bright humanoids. I was a fan of the original series, but honestly, I approached Rise with trepidation: I dreaded the inevitable scenes of human cruelty meted out to exploited primates — the current wave of chimp-driven films seems focused on holding a scary, shaming mirror up to the two-legged mammalian violence toward their closest living genetic relatives. It’s a contrast to the original series, which provided prisms with which to peer at race relations and generational conflict. But I needn’t have feared this PG-13 “reboot.” There’s little CGI-driven gore, apart from the visceral opening and the showdown, though the heartbreak remains. Scientist Will (James Franco, brow perpetually furrowed with worry) is working to find a medicine designed to supercharge the brain in the wake of Alzheimer’s — a disease that has struck down his father (John Lithgow). When the experimental chimp that responds to his serum becomes violently aggressive, the project is shut down, although the primate leaves behind a surprise: a baby chimp that Will and his father name Caesar and raise like a beloved child in their idyllic Bay Area Victorian. Growing in intelligence as he matures, Caesar finds himself torn by an existential dilemma: is he a pet or a mammal with rights that must be respected? Rise becomes Caesar’s story, rendered in heart-wrenching, exhilarating ways — to director Rupert Wyatt and his team’s credit you don’t miss the performance finesse of Roddy McDowell and Kim Hunter in groundbreaking prosthetic ape face in the original movies — while resolving at least one question about why humans gave up the globe to the primates. One can only imagine the next edition will take care of the lingering question about how even the cleverest of apes will feed themselves in Muir Woods. (1:50) 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

Sarah Palin: You Betcha! Isn’t the Sarah Palin joke kind of over at this point? Apparently not, as British documentarian Nick Broomfield (1998’s Kurt and Courtney) dons his ear-flap hat and travels to Alaska, intent on discovering the real Palin. Unsurprisingly, Palin dodges his interview requests; her supporters are none to eager to speak to Broomfield either, after word gets out he’s making “a hit [piece],” according to Palin’s father (who does appear in the film, along with his “antler dog”). Broomfield doggedly traces Palin’s path from Wasilla beauty queen to mayor to Alaska governor to Vice Presidential nominee, finding plenty of dirt (albeit no real revelations) along the way. Worth seeing for some of the odder asides (Levi Johnston’s manager suggesting the lad won’t go below $20,000 for an interview), but there’s not much new Sarah-bashing material here. Now, if Broomfield could marshal a Michele Bachmann hit-piece right quick, that’d be something worth cashing in on. (1:30) Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

*Senna When Ayrton Senna died in 1994 at the age of 34, he had already secured his legacy as one of the greatest and most beloved Formula One racers of all time. The three-time world champion was a hero in his native Brazil and a respected and feared opponent on the track. This eponymous documentary by director Asif Kapadia is nearly as dynamic as the man himself, with more than enough revving engines and last minute passes to satisfy your lust for speed and a decent helping Ayrton’s famous personality as well. Senna was a champion, driven to win even as the sometimes-backhanded politics of the racing world stood in his way. A tragic figure, maybe, but a legend nonetheless. You don’t have to be an F1 fan to appreciate this film, but you may wind up one by the time the credits roll. (1:44) Opera Plaza. (Cooper Berkmoyer)

*Tucker and Dale vs. Evil Hillbilly horror is nothing new. Some might mark its heyday as the 1970s, a decade containing Deliverance (1972) and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre (1974), The Hills Have Eyes (1977), and I Spit On Your Grave (1978). Others might point to Herschell Gordon Lewis’ immortal Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964), probably cinema’s most persuasive example of why Yankees road-tripping below the Mason-Dixon Line should never, for any reason, detour off the main highway. Twenty-first century hillbillies are still scary, at least on the big screen; this is one stereotype that’ll never die. Any number of recent horror films — most of them remakes of the films noted above (or directed by Rob Zombie) — have drawn their clichéd plots from a checklist that always includes city slickers, cars that break down, cell phones that don’t work, and inbred locals. The lesson remains the same: stay the hell out of the backwoods, yuppie! But what if, asks Eli Craig’s Tucker and Dale vs. Evil, you were totally misjudging those sinister-seeming whiskey-tango yokels? What if, despite being a little unwashed and fond of sharp objects and power tools, they happened to be really nice guys? The film — about a couple of blue-collar guys (Tyler Labine and Alan Tudyk) hanging out at their mountain cabin who unwittingly terrify a group of vacationing college kids — finds a sense of humor in the tired genre. The result is blood-spattered comedy gold. (1:28) Lumiere, Shattuck. (Eddy)

*We Were Here Reagan isn’t mentioned in David Weissman’s important and moving new documentary about San Francisco’s early response to the AIDS epidemic, We Were Here — although his communications director Pat Buchanan and Moral Majority leader Jerry Falwell get split-second references. We Were Here isn’t a political polemic about the lack of governmental support that greeted the onset of the disease. Nor is it a kind of cinematic And the Band Played On that exhaustively lays out all the historical and medical minutiae of HIV’s dawn. (See PBS Frontline’s engrossing 2006 The Age of AIDS for that.) And you’ll find virtually nothing about the infected world outside the United States. A satisfying 90-minute documentary couldn’t possibly cover all the aspects of AIDS, of course, even the local ones. Instead, Weissman’s film, codirected with Bill Weber, concentrates mostly on AIDS in the 1980s and tells a more personal and, in its way, more controversial story. What happened in San Francisco when gay people started mysteriously wasting away? And how did the epidemic change the people who lived through it? The tales are well told and expertly woven together, as in Weissman’s earlier doc The Cockettes. But where We Were Here really hits home is in its foregrounding of many unspoken or buried truths about AIDS. The film will affect viewers on a deep level, perhaps allowing many to weep openly about what happened for the first time. But it’s a testimony as well to the absolute craziness of life, and the strange places it can take you — if you survive it. (1:30) Castro. (Marke B.)

What’s Your Number? Following some sage relationship advice from Marie Claire about the perils of a lengthy sexual résumé, Ally (Anna Faris) resolves to cut off her partner roster at 20, too late to avoid getting tagged a slut by her friends but not, she hopes, to secure her soul mate — if she can cast back over a storied career of failed relationships and hook the one who might not have been a total douche after all. Aiding her in this sad, misguided quest is her far sluttier across-the-hall neighbor, Colin (Chris Evans), whose main selling point other than P.I. skills and a well-defined set of obliques seems to be that he’s virtually the only person in the movie who doesn’t think Ally is doomed to solitude for having slept with 20 people. Faris is a charmer, and — no mean feat given the modest claims of the material at hand — she injects a comic exuberance into Ally’s reunions with a succession of impossibles, who are either engaged to be married, still not interested, or a gay politico seeking a beard. For jokes not revealed in the trailer, see: the inexorable progression of Ally and Colin’s friendship (they have plenty of time to hang out, cyber-stalk people, and play games of strip H-O-R-S-E since she’s just been laid off and he has no visible source of income), which leaves Ally with a couple of insights into Colin’s character and motivations and the viewer shrugging, only half-convinced of the merits of bachelor number 21. (1:46) 1000 Van Ness, Presidio. (Rapoport)

Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Kimberly Chun, Max Goldberg, Dennis Harvey, Lynn Rapoport, and Matt Sussman. For rep house showtimes, see Rep Clock.

The occupiers of SF, NYC, and next DC gain momentum

Sasha Cuttler
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The occupiers of SF, NYC, and next DC gain momentum

It’s been almost three weeks and they’re still there. It’s been raining, and they’re still here. Not only that, but their numbers are growing. The Occupy Wall Street movement – and its local counterpart, the Occupy San Francisco group that has been camped in front of the Federal Reserve at the foot of Market Street – is showing real staying power as it demands social and economic justice.

Following last week’s march through the Financial District, the local group plans to brave the rain storm expected to hit tomorrow (Wed/5) and to stage another march on the banks and big financial players that they blame for crashing the economy and transferring more and more wealth from the bottom to the top. The fun begins at noon outside the Federal Reserve, 101 Market Street.

Then, the next day, protesters plan to gather outside the Federal Building at Mission and 7th streets from 3-6 pm to voice solidarity with the latest big city occupation that starts that day: the “Stop the machine! Create a new world!” occupation of Freedom Plaza in Washington D.C., which organizers intend to last throughout the month.

And on Friday, the 10th anniversary of the U.S. military campaign against Afghanistan, anti-war groups will again gather at the Federal Building for a rally and march starting at 4:30 pm, with a message that seeks to link this country’s ongoing wars with the messages being sounded by the occupiers in the streets, that it’s time to divert resources being wasted on war and Wall Street toward the 99 percent of Americans who could really use them right now.

The mainstream media has been struggling with how to cover that linkage and convey the protesters’ long list of grievances and demands. But as groups of teachers and pilots and other exploited professionals join the Occupy Wall Street movement, and as noted economists and celebrities stop by to show their support, the effort is entering a new phase, and we should all seek to understand what’s driving it and where this might be headed.

Taking sit-lie lying down: Graduate student beds down on Haight Street

Andrew Lam
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Some things seem strange even for San Francisco. The pedestrian double take was in full effect at the Haight Street curb where Bennett Austin fed the meter for his bed last Thursday. And it wasn’t even Parking Day. 

Austin hoped to create awareness about the homeless youth who wander, sleep, and hang out on Haight Street. The graduate school student set up a bed to demonstrate that the only safe space for the homeless to sleep in public are curb spots that they must pay for by the hour, joining the tradition of artists speaking out against sit-lie. 

His campaign, “Keep the Meter Running,” spun from last year’s sit-lie ordinance, which prohibits sitting or lying on the sidewalk or public spaces for more than three minutes at a time. Although this law is nominally meant to be enforced uniformly, it is widely understood that it targets the homeless. 

Austin wanted to do something. “I wanted to put creative efforts to solutions,” he told the Guardian that day on Haight Street. He contacted the Homeless Youth Alliance (HYA), a youth-focused organization in the Haight-Asbury which provides food, clothing, showers, counseling, and mental health and medical services to the homeless. Within three weeks his idea was in action. 

The project was also accepting donations for HYA’s HIV prevention program, whose  funding was recently cut, reducing the organization’s total funds by one-third. Mary Howe, founder and executive director for HYA, said she and her staff was very open to Austin’s advertising idea.

“It brings attention to the sit-lie law, which doesn’t solve the problem [of homelessness],” Howe said.  

Austin said he understands that everyone’s circumstances are different and he is hoping his campaign can help people become more open-minded. He said he has received very few negative responses. The first six people to donate to the HYA, Austin said, were homeless youth themselves.

Because the parking spot is paid for and Austin moves the bed every two hours (to comply with San Francisco parking laws) everything he is doing is legal. “Keep the Meter Running,” is costing Austin $16 per day to advertise on a historic street. For him, it is the cheapest and easiest way. 

“I’m reclaiming public space,” he added. “Because these kids are just as much a part of the Haight as the Haight is a part of them.”

On the streets with Occupy San Francisco

Sasha Cuttler
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31

The messages sounded yesterday on the streets of San Francisco – delivered in speeches, chants, signs, songs, interviews, and the petition handed to Chase Bank officials by a half-dozen protesters before their arrest – should resonate with most Americans. After all, while rich corporations and individuals have been accruing ever more wealth, the vast majority of us have been falling behind.

“Banks get bailed out, we get sold out,” was one of those chants by the several hundred people who marched through the Financial District – our OccupySF effort building off the two-week Occupy Wall Street events – targeting some of the villains of the economic meltdown: JPMorgan Chase, Bank of America, Citibank, Charles Schwab, the Federal Reserve, and Goldman Sachs.

They may be relatively small and easy to ignore, these “occupations” of Wall Street and San Francisco and other cities that are entering their third week, but they’re being driven by a palpable anger and stirring critiques of economic and political systems that exploit the powerless. But as the foreclosures, layoffs, and other hardships continue, this nascent movement could have some staying power.

“I think it’s starting to wake people up out of their complacent distraction,” Robin Kralique, a 26-year-old SF resident holding a sign that read “Let’s have the GDP measure happiness,” told the Guardian. “We’re planting the seeds for a better future, and I’m hoping it wakes some people up.”

Like many of the young protesters gathered outside the corporate office building at 555 California at the start of the march, she was inspired by Occupy Wall Street. They’re angry watching their economic opportunities evaporate as more and more of the country’s wealth accumulates in fewer and fewer hands.

“There’s an insane amount of greed in this country,” 24-year-old Erin Kramer, a dancer and performance artist stuck in a corporate job she needs to get by, told me. Her sign read, “Don’t be afraid to say revolution!”

And many weren’t, with calls for revolution on the tips of many lips, albeit tempered with healthy doses of realism. “Even if it isn’t at critical mass yet, it sets the stage for the next revolution,” Kralique said when I asked her what she hoped this moment would accomplish.

Sup. John Avalos, a progressive mayoral candidate who spoke at the rally, is pushing legislation to create a municipal bank in San Francisco, one that would invest far more money in local projects and small businesses than Bank of America, which manages most of the city’s money.

“We have to figure out new ways to use our local dollars to help our economy,” Avalos told us. “The message here is we’re pulling our dollars out of these banks unless they help us.”

Before Avalos spoke – asking the boisterous crowd, “Have you ever felt like you’ve been had?” – activist Bobbi Lopez was on the microphone decrying the “lack of accountability for the people responsible for this decline.”

And then, the march was off – flanked by dozens of San Francisco Police officers on motorcycles, riding bicycles, and in cars – to deliver creative forms of protest around the Financial District, including a funny song and dance routine by Fresh Juice Party in front of the Schwab office, singing, “Land of the free, home of the brave, this is the street our labor paved.”

In fact, that was almost literally true at the San Francisco march, which was shepherded by off-duty city workers from SEIU Local 1021.

“This Wall Street thing is really spreading. The message of a small group of people in New York has really spread…Wall Street is a symbol of all this corruption, cronyism, and greed,” Gabriel Haaland, an organizer with SEIU Local 1021, told me at the start of the march. “It’s really resonated with our members…It’s been picking up steam as things have been unraveling over the last year.”

An hour or so later, Haaland was one of six people who staged an occupation of the Chase branch at Market and 2nd streets, along with two women in his union who have been unsuccessfully battling bank foreclosures on their homes – Brenda Reed and Tanya Dennis – and three other activists: William Chorneau, Manny S. Tucker, and Claire Haas.

Tipped off by Haaland, I was inside the bank lobby as the march approached and a police officer on a bicycle came inside to warn bank officials, “The protest is headed your way, you may want to secure the premises.”

He and another officer helped prevent protesters from getting inside, but the six protesters had already infiltrated the building. They began chanting and pulled blankets out of a suitcase, laying them out and placing them on the ground.

Reed spoke for the group, demanding to meet with JPMorgan Chase & Co. CEO Jamie Dimond to present a petition calling for a halt to the bank’s foreclosures. Through tears, she told the story of her long struggle to protect her home from foreclosure by Chase, which had taken her loan over from another lender.

SFPD Lt. M.E. Mahoney told the group, “You’re not going to be able to camp out here and wait for the CEO to come talk to you,” asking store managers whether they wanted to make a citizen’s arrest. They did, but Mahoney also told Reed that he would watch as she handed the petition to store managers.

“I’m here today because for two and a half years, I have desperately tried to get Chase to work with me,” Reed told a bank employee as hundreds of protesters outside looked on and chanted their support. “You have put me through hell. You’ve destroyed my health, you’ve destroyed my business, and it’s not fair what you’ve done.”

After she was finished, another bank manager (who refused to give his name) told Reed, “Just to let you know, we are compassionate to your cause,” drawing from the protesters the frustrated retort, “No you aren’t!” Through the day, protesters noted that the banks have been profitable and don’t need to be foreclosing on so many homes, sitting on so much capital, and funneling their profits out of desperate communities and into the accounts of wealthy investors – particularly after being bailed out by taxpayers in 2008.

Outside, the crowd chanted “Go, Brenda, go!” and “Let those people go, arrest the CEO!”

The crowd remained outside for more than an hour as police tried to wait them out, finally arresting the occupiers on trespassing charges and quickly citing and releasing them, apparently in the hope it would clear the people out of congested Market Street. “That was my quickest arrest ever,” Haaland, a veteran of many labor actions and progressive protests over the years, told me afterward.

Reed addressed the crowd on a bullhorn, explaining that she refinanced her home in 2007 with a shady “pretender lender” who misrepresented what her monthly payments would be. They ballooned to a level she was unable to cover and she sought a loan modification from Chase, which had taken over the loan from the now defunct Washington Mutual.

“Chase Bank is trying to steal my home of 38 years,” she told the crowd. “Jamie Dimond, come out from under your rock and let me talk to you.”

She decried how government bailed out the banks and then allowed them to aggressively foreclose on homes whose mortgages they didn’t originate, but who acquired the title out of the complex financial derivatives that has sliced and diced mortgages into complex financial instruments.

“It’s government-sanctioned fraud,” she said. Despite what she said were Chase’s plans to auction her home in Oakland next month, she pledged, “You will not get my home. You will not get what belongs to me.”

But whether that kind of fierce resolve – voiced over and over again, by hundreds of activists fed up with economic injustice – translates into any kind of real change is yet to be determined.

Six arrested protesting bank foreclosures during Occupy SF

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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131

Six activists protesting bank foreclosures were arrested after occupying Chase bank on Market Street in downtown San Francisco this afternoon (Thurs/29) as part of a broader action organized to mirror the Occupy Wall Street protests in New York City.

Brenda Reed, Tanya Dennis, William Chorneau, Manny S. Tucker, Gabriel Haaland, and Claire Haas were all arrested inside Chase on Market and Second streets while hundreds rallied outside, according to Guardian City Editor Steven T. Jones, who is there at the scene. The occupation was staged following a march that originated at San Francisco’s Goldman Sachs offices at 555 California Street and then progressed to the offices of CitiBank, Charles Schwab, and Chase.

The arrests prompted protesters to chant, “Let those people go! Arrest the CEO!” They also chanted, “Go, Brenda, go!” and “Shame on Chase!”

When they first entered the downtown San Francisco bank, Reed, who has battled a Chase foreclosure for two years, demanded to speak to the CEO. “You have put me through hell, and devastated my health,” she told the bank manager.

“Just to let you know, we are compassionate to your cause,” the manager responded, but was greeted by shouts of “No, you’re not!” from the crowd.

When Reed and her small group of supporters were asked to leave, they refused. As of 5:20 p.m., there was still a crowd of hundreds protesting out front.

UPDATE: They’ve been released, and Reed made the following statement to the crowd: “Chase Bank is trying to steal my home of 38 years.”

She said, “It’s government-sanctioned, nationalized fraud,” and added, “there are thousands and thousands and thousands of people like me, all over California.”

Video by Steven T. Jones

 

 

Occupy Wall Street comes to SF: VIDEO

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
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24

Guardian City Editor Steven T. Jones is out in the streets this afternoon (9/29) covering the Occupy Wall Street protests that were brought to San Francisco by a coalition of labor and economic justice advocates, and inspired by ongoing demonstrations in New York City. Mayoral candidate Sup. John Avalos was spotted mixing with demonstrators as they flew signs calling for taxes on the rich.

“People are understanding that we’ve had the wool pulled over our eyes,” Avalos said, “and they’re fighting back.”

Here’s footage from the scene shot outside 555 California, a San Francisco skyscraper that was the former Bank of America headquarters and now houses offices for Goldman Sachs and other major financial players.

Video by Steven T. Jones

Film Listings

Andrew Lam
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OPENING

Dream House Newlyweds Daniel Craig and Rachel Weisz, plus third wheel Naomi Watts, star in this psychological thriller. (1:33)

50/50 This is nothing but a mainstream rom-com-dramedy wrapped in indie sheep’s clothes. When Adam (Joseph Gordon-Levitt) learns he has cancer, he undergoes the requisite denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance like a formality. Aided by his bird-brained but lovable best friend Kyle (Seth Rogan), lovable klutz of a counselor Katherine (Anna Kendrick), and panicky mother (Anjelica Huston), Adam gets a new lease on life. This comes in the form of one-night-stands, furious revelations in parked cars, and a prescribed dose of wacky tobaccy. If 50/50 all sounds like the setup for a pseudo-insightful, kooky feel-goodery, it is. The film doesn’t have the brains or spleen to get down to the bone of cancer. Instead, director Jonathan Levine (2008’s The Wackness) and screenwriter Will Reiser favor highfalutin’ monologues, wooden characters, and a Hollywood ending (with just the right amount of ambiguity). Still, Gordon-Levitt is the most gorgeous cancer patient you will ever see, bald head and all. (1:40) Presidio. (Ryan Lattanzio)

Machine Gun Preacher The title sounds like a sequel to Hobo with a Shotgun — but there’s nary a speck of tongue-in-cheek, kitschy-koo-koo irony in this passionate rendering of the life of Sam Childers. Childers (Gerard Butler) was a former dealing, thieving biker who found God, built a refuge for Sudanese orphans and former child soldiers, and became their fiercest fight-fire-with-fire defender. As Machine Gun Preacher opens, Childers has just emerged from the pen — he’s still the mean motherfucker he always was, shooting up within hours of release and hooking up with chum Donnie (Michael Shannon) to rob dealers. But a semi-mystical run-in forces him to face the worst and sends him to church, to join wife Lynn (Michelle Monaghan), a former stripper and addict. Childers’ fiery love of the Lord, and his spontaneous visions, lead him to construct his own church for sketched-out recovered sinners like himself and then on to war-torn Sudan, where he discovers even more to fix — and likely more than he ever can. To his credit, director Marc Forster (2001’s Monster’s Ball, 2008’s Quantum of Solace) doesn’t shy away from the visceral violence nor the enraged holy-rolling that’s a clear part of Childers’ life, although the most memorable part of Machine Gun Preacher must be Butler, who gets his righteous wrath on in his meatiest part since 2006’s 300. (2:03) (Chun)

The Mill and the Cross One of the clichés often told about art is that it is supposed to speak to us. Polish director Lech Majewski’s gorgeous experiment in bringing Flemish Renaissance painter Peter Bruegel’s sprawling 1564 canvas The Procession to Calvary to life attempts to do just that. Majeswki both re-stages Bruegel’s painting –which draws parallels between its depiction of Christ en route to his crucifixion and the persecution of Flemish citizens by the Spanish inquisition’s militia — in stunning tableaux vivant that combine bluescreen technology and stage backdrops, and gives back stories to a dozen or so of its 500 figures. Periodically, Bruegel himself (Rutger Hauer) addresses the camera mid-sketch to dolefully explain the allegorical nature of his work, but these pedantic asides speak less forcefully than Majeswki’s beautifully lit vignettes of the small joys and many hardships that comprised everyday life in the 16th century. Beguiling yet wholly absorbing. (1:37) Embarcadero, Shattuck. (Sussman) *Mysteries of Lisbon Though produced for Portuguese television, Raúl Ruiz’s Mysteries of Lisbon won awards and raves on the festival circuit. Suddenly, the aging Ruiz seemed more assured his rightful status as a master. Mysteries of Lisbon has arrived for a rather miraculous theatrical run — but Ruiz is gone. He died in August 2011, having directed many more films than his 70 years. His movies have typically been the province of hardcore cinephiles, but this splendid epic holds wider appeal. It’s difficult to think of another movie that so satisfyingly captures the intricacies and volatilities of the 19th century novel — anyone enthralled by the teeming creations of Balzac and Dickens will find that Mysteries of Lisbon‘s four-and-a-half hours stream by. Ruiz was no stranger to the 19th century — his recent films included Klimt (2006) and the Proustian Time Regained (1999) — but the ornately plotted trio of novellas by Portuguese author Camilo Castelo Branco which supply these mysteries seem specially tailored to the director’s affinity for involved narrations. The story sweeps across dozens of characters and several generations of doomed love, revenge plots, disguised identities, uncertain parentages, and religious vows. We even glimpse the Napoleonic Wars. Ruiz’s narrations are commonly likened to labyrinths, but for Mysteries of Lisbon‘s vigorous expansion I reach for the cosmos: one luminous sphere rotates another which in turn rotates a larger system, the whole of it spreading outwards in all directions at once. (4:26) Embarcadero, Shattuck. (Goldberg)

Passione John Turturro’s lush tribute to the music of Naples, Italy is beamed directly from a strange alternate universe completely devoid of snark — a place where grand emotions and sweeping melodrama are presented at face value. In other words, anyone who can’t stomach a heaping helping of cheese will miss the point of Passione. (If you can stomach a small helping of cheese, the film will suck you in after a few minutes.) Passione is more free-form than docs like Buena Vista Social Club (1999), but it’s in a similar vein: a celebration of the musical traditions and artists from a specific place, and an exploration of what it is about that specific place that inspires such creativity. In Naples, there are centuries-old folk ballads, comedic ditties about the mafia, histrionic romantic duets, slinky laments, opera, and more. Actor-turned-director Turturro — the Brooklyn-born son of Italian immigrant parents — doesn’t really provide a structure so much as simply let the performances, most of which are staged in organic settings, flow. Fans of Italian popular music might recognize some of the singers, but most will be unfamiliar to stateside viewers. The majority of the songs offer subtitles, but even the ones that don’t are so over-the-top that their meanings (usually having to do with anguish, love, or the anguish of love) are easy to decipher. Turturro is scheduled to appear in person at the film’s Mon/3 evening screenings; check www.sffs.org for updates. (1:31) SFFS New People Cinema. (Eddy)

*Tucker and Dale vs. Evil See “Twang On.” (1:28) California, Lumiere.

What’s Your Number? Unlucky-in-love Anna Faris checks back in with all her former conquests in this romantic comedy. (1:46) Presidio.

ONGOING

Abduction (1:46) 1000 Van Ness.

*The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 Cinematic crate-diggers have plenty to celebrate, checking the results of The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975. Swedish documentarian Göran Hugo Olsson had heard whispers for years that Swedish television archives possessed more archival footage of the Black Panthers than anyone in the states — while poring through film for a doc on Philly soul, he discovered the rumors were dead-on. With this lyrical film, coproduced by the Bay Area’s Danny Glover, Olsson has assembled an elegant snapshot of black activists and urban life in America, relying on the vivid, startlingly crisp images of figures such as Stokely Carmichael and Huey P. Newton at their peak, while staying true to the wide-open, refreshingly nonjudgmental lens of the Swedish camera crews. Questlove of the Roots and Om’Mas Keith provide the haunting score for the film, beautifully historicized with shots of Oakland in the 1960s and Harlem in the ’70s. It’s made indelible thanks to footage of proto-Panther school kids singing songs about grabbing their guns, and an unforgettable interview with a fiery Angela Davis talking about the uses of violence, from behind bars and from the place of personally knowing the girls who died in the infamous Birmingham, Ala., church bombing of 1963. (1:36) Embarcadero, Piedmont, Shattuck. (Chun)

Circumstance Thirteen (2003) goes to Tehran? The world of sex, drugs, and underground nightclubs in Iran provides the backdrop for writer-director Maryam Keshavarz’s lusty, dreamy take on the passionate teenagers behind the hijabs. Risking jail and worse are the sassy, privileged Atafeh (Nikohl Boosheri) and the beautiful, orphaned Shireen (Sarah Kazemy), who, much like young women anywhere, just want to be free — to swim, sing, dance, test boundaries, lose, and then find themselves. The difference here is that they’re under constant, unnerving surveillance, in a country where more than 70 percent of the population is less than 30 years old. Nevertheless, within their mansion walls and without, beneath graffitied walls and undulating at intoxicating house parties, the two girls begin to fall in love with each other, as Atafeh’s handsome, albeit creepy older brother Mehran (Palo Alto-bred Reza Sixo Safai) gazes on. The onetime musical talent’s back from rehab, has returned to the mosque with all the zeal of the prodigal, and has hooked up with the Morality Police that enforces the nation’s cultural laws. Filmed underground in Beirut, with layers that permit both pleasure and protest (wait for the hilarious moment when 2008’s Milk is dubbed in Farsi), Circumstance viscerally transmits the realities and fantasies of Iranian young women on the verge. (1:45) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Chun)

City of Life and Death There have been a number of recent works about the “rape of Nanking,” but perhaps none tackles the brutal nature of Nanjing’s fall with as much beauty as City of Life and Death. Shot in striking black and white, the film depicts the invasion of China’s capital by Japanese forces from a number of points of view, including that of a Japanese soldier. It can be difficult at times to become emotionally attached to characters within such a restless narrative, but the structure goes a long way toward keeping the proceedings balanced. The stunningly elaborate sets and cinematography alone are worth the price of admission, and it’s amazing that such detail was achieved with a budget of less than $12 million. But it is the unflinching catalog of the some 300,000 murders and rapes that took place between 1937 and 1938 in Nanjing that will remain with you long after watching. (2:13) Four Star. (Peter Galvin)

*Contagion Tasked with such panic-inducing material, one has to appreciate director Steven Soderbergh’s cool head and hand with Contagion. Some might even dub this epic thriller (of sorts) cold, clinical, and completely lacking in bedside manner. Still, for those who’d rather be in the hands of a doctor who refuses to talk down to the patient, Contagion comes on like a refreshingly smart, somewhat melodrama-free clean room, a clear-eyed response to a messy, terrifying subject. A deadly virus is spreading swiftly — sans cure, vaccine, or sense — starting with a few unlikely suspects: globe-trotting corporate exec Beth (Gwyneth Paltrow), a waiter, a European tourist, and a Japanese businessman. The chase is on to track the disease’s genesis and find a way to combat it, from the halls of the San Francisco Chronicle and blog posts of citizen activist-journalist Alan (Jude Law), to the emergency hospital in the Midwest set up by intrepid Dr. Mears (Kate Winslet), to a tiny village in China with a World Health investigator (Marion Cotillard). Soderbergh’s brisk, businesslike storytelling approach nicely counterpoints the hysteria going off on the ground, as looting and anarchy breaks out around Beth’s immune widower Mitch (Matt Damon), and draws you in — though the tact of making this disease’s Typhoid Mary a sexually profligate woman is unsettling and borderline offensive, as is the predictable blame-it-on-the-Chinese origin coda. (1:42) California, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Crazy, Stupid, Love Keep the poster’s allusion to 1967’s The Graduate to one side: there aren’t many revelations about midlife crises in this cleverly penned yet strangely flat ensemble rom-com, awkwardly pitched at almost every demographic at the cineplex. There’s the middle-aged romance that’s withered at the vine: nice but boring family man Cal (Steve Carell) finds himself at a hopeless loss when wife and onetime teenage sweetheart Emily (Julianne Moore) tells him she wants a divorce and she’s slept with a coworker (Kevin Bacon). He ends up waxing pathetic at a slick nightclub where he catches the eye of the well-dressed, spray-tanned smoothie Jacob (Ryan Gosling), who appears to have taken his ladies man stance from the Clooney playbook. It’s manly makeover time: GQ meets Pretty Woman (1990)! Cut to Cal and Emily’s babysitter Jessica (Analeigh Tipton), who is crushing out on Cal, while the separated couple’s tween Robbie (Jonah Bobo) hankers for Jessica. Somehow Josh Groban worms his way into the mix as the dullard suitor of Hannah (Emma Stone) in a hanging chad of a storyline that must somehow be resolved in this mad, mad, mad, mad — actually, the problem with Crazy, Stupid, Love is that it isn’t really that crazy. It tries far too hard to please everybody in the theater to its detriment, reminding the viewer of a tidy, episodic TV series (albeit a quality effort) like Modern Family more than an actual film. Likewise I yearned for a way to fast-forward through the too-cute Jessica-Robbie scenes in order to get back to the sleazy-smart, punchy complexity of Gosling, playing adeptly off both Carrell and Stone. (1:58) SF Center, Shattuck. (Chun)

The Debt On paper, The Debt has a lot going for it: captivating history-based plot, “it” actor Jessica Chastain, Helen Mirren vs. Nazis. And while the latest from John Madden (1998’s Shakespeare in Love) is fairly entertaining, the film is ultimately forgettable. Chastain plays Rachel, a member of an Israeli team tasked with capturing a Nazi war criminal and bringing him to justice. Mirren is the older Rachel, who is haunted by the long-withheld true story of the mission. Although The Debt traffics in spy secrets, it’s actually rather predictable: the big reveal is shrug-worthy, and the shocking conclusion is expected. So while the entire cast — which also includes Tom Wilkinson, Sam Worthington, and Ciaran Hinds — turn in admirable performances, the script is lacking what it needs to make The Debt an effective drama or thriller. Like 2008’s overrated The Reader, the film tries to hide its inadequacies under heavy themes and the dread with which we remember the Holocaust. (1:54) Four Star, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, Sundance Kabuki. (Peitzman)

Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (2:02) Embarcadero, Four Star, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki.

Dolphin Tale (1:53) 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center.

*Drive Such a lovely way to Drive, drunk on the sensual depths of a lush, saturated jewel tone palette and a dreamlike, almost luxurious pacing that gives off the steamy hothouse pop romanticism of ’80s-era Michael Mann and David Lynch — with the bracing, impactful flecks of threat and ultraviolence that might accompany a car chase, a moody noir, or both, as filtered through a first-wave music video. Drive comes dressed in the klassic komforts — from the Steve McQueen-esque stances and perfectly cut jackets of Ryan Gosling as the Driver Who Shall Remain Nameless to the foreboding lingering in the shadows and the wittily static, statuesque strippers that decorate the background. Gosling’s Driver is in line with Mann’s other upstanding working men who hew to an old-school moral code and are excellent at what they do, regardless of what side of the law they’re working: he likes to keep it clear and simple — his services as a wheelman boil down to five minutes, in and out — but matters get messy when he falls for sweet-faced neighbor Irene (Carey Mulligan), who lives down the hall with her small son, and her ex-con husband (Oscar Isaac) is dragged back into the game. Populated by pungent side players like Albert Brooks, Bryan Cranston, Ron Perlman, and Christina Hendricks, and scattered with readily embeddable moments like a life-changing elevator kiss that goes bloodily wrong-right, Drive turns into a real coming-out affair for both Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn (2008’s Bronson), who rises above any crisis of influence or confluence of genre to pick up the po-mo baton that Lynch left behind, and 2011’s MVP Ryan Gosling, who gets to flex his leading-man muscles in a truly cinematic role, an anti-hero and under-the-hood psychopath looking for the real hero within. (1:40) Marina, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Farmageddon First-time director Kristin Canty embarked on this documentary after discovering the healing power of raw milk in helping her child’s allergies. And it shows. Farmaggedon really should have been titled A Raw Deal for Raw Milk, considering its primary focus on several small family-operated dairies and the souring treatment they have received from government bureaucrats, spurring Canty’s activist act of making this movie. Larry and Linda Failace of Three Shephard’s Cheese in Vermont (the latter wrote her own book, 2007’s Mad Sheep: The True Story Behind the USDA’s War on a Family Farm) seem to have suffered the most, driven out of business when the sheep they brought over legally, with all the required quarantines, were seized and destroyed by the government agents on the pretext that the animals might spread “mad cow” disease. The sight of Linda Failace breaking into tears reading her daughter’s words about how the sheep were like her brothers and sisters is heart-breaking. Undermining such powerful, outrageous material are Canty’s textbook missteps: the director has major problems organizing her seemingly scattershot, lopsided material into a coherent and, er, organic whole, and lets her many sources drone on without a strong narrative through-line. All of this makes Farmaggedon a bit of a struggle to watch, although the dirt Canty digs up is likely to justifiably raise the hackles of progressive foodies. (1:30) Roxie, Smith Rafael. (Chun)

*The Future Dreams and drawings, cats and fantasies, ambition and aimlessness, and the mild-mannered yet mortifying games people play, all wind their way into Miranda July’s The Future. The future’s a scary place, as many of us fully realize, even if you hide from it well into your 30s, losing yourself in the everyday. But you can’t duck July’s collection of moments, objects, and small gestures transformed into something strangely slanted and enchanted, both weird and terrifying, when viewed through July’s looking glass. Care and commitment — to oneself and others — are two vivid threads running through The Future. Cute couple Sophie (July) and Jason (Hamish Linklater) — unsettling look-alikes with their curly crops — appear at first to be sailing contently, aimlessly toward an undemanding unknown: Jason works from home as a customer-service operator, and Sophie attempts to herd kiddies as a children’s dance instructor. But enormous, frightening demands beckon — namely the oncoming adoption of a special-needs feline named Paw-Paw (voiced by July as if it’s a traumatized, innocent child). Lickety-splitsville, they must be all they can be before Paw-Paw’s arrival. The weirdness of the familiar, and the kindness of strangers, become ways into fantasy and escape when the couple bumps up against the limits of their imagination. This ultra-low-key horror movie of the banal is obviously remote territory for July (2005’s Me and You and Everyone We Know). The Future is her best film to date and finds her tumbling into a kind of magical realism or plastic fantastic, embodied by a talking cat that becomes the conscience of the movie. (1:31) Roxie. (Chun)

The Guard Irish police sergeant Gerry Boyle (Brendan Gleeson) is used to running his small town on his own terms — not in a completely Bad Lieutenant (1992) kind of way, though he’s not afraid to sample drugs and hang with hookers. More like, he’s been running the show for years, and would prefer that big-city cops stay the hell out of his village. Alas, a gang of drug smugglers is doing business in the area, so an officious group of investigators from Dublin (horrors!) and America (in the form of an FBI agent played by Don Cheadle) soon descend. His mother’s dying, his brand-new partner’s missing, and between all the interlopers on both sides of the law, Boyle’s having a hard time having a pint in peace. Good thing he’s not as simple-minded as all who surround him think he is. Writer-director John Michael McDonagh (brother of playwright Martin, who directed 2008’s In Bruges — also starring Gleeson) puts an affable Irish spin on what’s essentially a pretty typical indie comedy, with some pretty typical crime-drama elements layered atop. Boyle’s character is memorably clever, but the film that contains him never quite elevates to his level. (1:36) Lumiere, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

*The Hedgehog You needn’t possess the rough, everyday refinement of the characters of The Hedgehog to appreciate this debut feature by director-screenwriter Mona Achache — just an appreciation for a delicate touch and a tender heart. Eleven-year-old Paloma (the wonderful Garance Le Guillermic) is too smart for her own good, bored, neglected by her parents, and left to fend for herself with only her considerable imagination and a camcorder. She drifts around her fishbowl of privilege, a deluxe art nouveau-style apartment building in Paris, leveling her all-too-wise gaze on its denizens and plotting certain suicide on her 12th birthday — that is until a new resident appears in her viewfinder: a kindly Japanese gentleman Kakuro Ozu (Togo Igawa). He has as much of a connoisseur’s eye as Paloma — the proof is in his unlikely focus of attention, the building’s concierge Renée Michel (Josiane Balasko, resembling a burly Gertrude Stein), who hides her cultured and bookish inclinations behind a gruff, drab exterior. They recognize in each other a reverence for an almost monkish life of the mind, the austere elegance of wabi-sabi, and the transient beauty of rough-hewn imperfection, even in the sleek, well-heeled heart of the City of Light. To the credit of Achache, working with Muriel Barbery’s novel, these unlikely fragile friendships between outsiders take hold in a way that sidesteps preciousness and stays with you long after its pages have turned. (1:40) Smith Rafael. (Chun)

The Help It’s tough to stitch ‘n’ bitch ‘n’ moan in the face of such heart-felt female bonding, even after you brush away the tears away and wonder why the so-called help’s stories needed to be cobbled with those of the creamy-skinned daughters of privilege that employed them. The Help purports to be the tale of the 1960s African American maids hired by a bourgie segment of Southern womanhood — resourceful hard-workers like Aibileen (Viola Davis) and Minny (Octavia Spencer) raise their employers’ daughters, filling them with pride and strength if they do their job well, while missing out on their own kids’ childhood. Then those daughters turn around and hurt their caretakers, often treating them little better than the slaves their families once owned. Hinging on a self-hatred that devalues the nurturing, housekeeping skills that were considered women’s birthright, this unending ugly, heartbreaking story of the everyday injustices spells separate-and-unequal bathrooms for the family and their help when it comes to certain sniping queen bees like Hilly (Bryce Dallas Howard). But the times they are a-changing, and the help get an assist from ugly duckling of a writer Skeeter (Emma Stone, playing against type, sort of, with fizzy hair), who risks social ostracism to get the housekeepers’ experiences down on paper, amid the Junior League gossip girls and the seismic shifts coming in the civil rights-era South. Based on the best-seller by Kathryn Stockett, The Help hitches the fortunes of two forces together — the African American women who are trying to survive and find respect, and the white women who have to define themselves as more than dependent breeders — under the banner of a feel-good weepie, though not without its guilty shadings, from the way the pale-faced ladies already have a jump, in so many ways, on their African American sisters to the Keane-eyed meekness of Davis’ Aibileen to The Help‘s most memorable performances, which are also tellingly throwback (Howard’s stinging hornet of a Southern belle and Jessica Chastain’s white-trash bimbo-with-a-heart-of-gold). (2:17) California, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

I Don’t Know How She Does It I don’t know how a likable comedian like Sarah Jessica Parker does it — meaning, such mediocre material as this mom-com. Parker may have parlayed her Sex and the City fame into a fashion, fragrance, and spin-off franchises, but she still hasn’t quite found her stride away from Carrie Bradshaw, though her Lucille Ball-esque physical comedy here — pulling down her skirt in mid-mommy-frazzle in front of her high-powered client — can be cute. Kate (Parker) just might be the busiest mom in the world: she’s juggling two kids, a hubby whose own career is on the rise (Greg Kinnear), and a major fund idea, which she has to sell to an attractive banking bigwig (Pierce Brosnan). Poor, poor privileged mom — in the trenches of the still-unadorable field of banking, with her obviously sizable salary, enviable Boston duplex, flaky-nice nanny, and bubbly single-mom friend (Christina Hendricks)! The biggest assist comes from her careerist aide, played by Olivia Munn, who grabs the biggest laughs with her deadpan delivery. (1:35) 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

*Killer Elite Jason Statham has a lot going on, in addition to devastatingly attractive male-pattern balding: along with fellow Brit Daniel Craig, he’s one of the most believable action heroes in the cineplex today. This continent-hopping, Bourne-ish exercise, kitted out with piercingly loud sound design, comes chock-full of promise in the form of Statham, Robert De Niro, and Clive Owen, wielding endless firearms and finding new deadly uses for bathroom tile — you don’t want to be caught solo in anger management class with these specialists in cinematic rageaholism. Mercenary assassin Danny (Statham) wants out of the game after a traumatic killing involving way too much eye contact with a small child. Killer coworker Hunter (De Niro) pulled him out of that tight spot, so when the aging gunman is held hostage, Danny must emerge from hiding in rural Australia and take on a seemingly impossible case: avenge the deaths of a dying sheik’s sons, who were gunned down by assorted highly trained British military hotshots, get them to confess, and make it all look like an accident. Oh, yes, and try to make sure his own loved ones aren’t killed in the process. Dancing backwards as fast as he can is those retired Brits’ guardian angel-of-sorts, Spike (Owen), another intense, dangerous fellow with too much time on his hands. Throw in my favorite Oz evil-doer Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as Danny and Hunter’s boss, some welcome been-there twinkle from De Niro, as well as a host of riveting fight scenes (and that ’00s cliché: sudden death by bus/truck/semi), and you have diverting popcorn killer. (1:40) 1000 Van Ness, Presidio. (Chun)

The Lion King 3D (1:29) SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki.

*Love Crime Early this year came the announcement that Brian De Palma was hot to do an English remake of Alain Corneau’s Love Crime. The results, should they come to fruition, may well prove a landmark in the annals of lurid guilty-pleasure trash. But with the original Love Crime finally making it to local theaters, it’s an opportune moment to be appalled in advance about what sleazy things could potentially be done to this neat, dry, fully clothed model of a modern Hitchcockian thriller. No doubt in France Love Crime looks pretty mainstream. But here its soon-to be-despoiled virtues of narrative intricacy and restraint are upscale pleasures. Ludivine Sagnier plays assistant to high-powered corporate executive Christine (Kristin Scott Thomas). The boss enjoys molding protégée Isabelle to her own image, making them a double team of carefully planned guile unafraid to use sex appeal as a business strategy. But Isabelle is expected to know her place — even when that place robs her of credit for her own ideas — and when she stages a small rebellion, Christine’s revenge is cruelly out of scale, a high-heeled boot brought down to squash an ant. Halfway through an act of vengeance occurs that is shocking and satisfying, even if it leaves the remainder of Corneau and Nathalie Carter’s clever screenplay deprived of the very thing that had made it such a sardonic delight so far. Though it’s no masterpiece, Love Crime closes the book on his Corneau’s career Corneau (he died at age 67 last August) not with a bang but with a crisp, satisfying snap. (1:46) Albany, Clay, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

Mary Lou A musical fable for fans of Glee, Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001), The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994), and Bollywood, the latest from Eytan Fox (2002’s Yossi and Jagger) is a drag-flavored dramedy (Israel’s first?) Originally a hit miniseries in its home country, Mary Lou screens at the Castro in one big chunk jammed with singing, dancing, and a dreamy cast. Pouty Ido Rosenberg stars as Meir, a gay boy obsessed with finding the mother who left him when he was 10. After a disastrous graduation party, Meir flees his homophobic high school for the worldly environs of Tel Aviv, where he soon becomes a drag star named Mary Lou, after his mother’s favorite song. Love, loss, friendship, tragedy, joy, coming-of-age, and quite a few elaborate musical numbers soon transpire — the plot is not without clichés, to be sure, but it’s hard to hate on anything possessed of such sparkly energy. Not familiar with Svika Pick, the Israeli legend whose music provides much of the soundtrack? It matters not, especially if you’re a fan of deliriously corny pop tunes. (2:30) Castro. (Eddy)

Midnight in Paris Owen Wilson plays Gil, a self-confessed “Hollywood hack” visiting the City of Light with his conservative future in-laws and crassly materialistic fiancée Inez (Rachel McAdams). A romantic obviously at odds with their selfish pragmatism (somehow he hasn’t realized that yet), he’s in love with Paris and particularly its fabled artistic past. Walking back to his hotel alone one night, he’s beckoned into an antique vehicle and finds himself transported to the 1920s, at every turn meeting the Fitzgeralds, Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates), Dali (Adrien Brody), etc. He also meets Adriana (Marion Cotillard), a woman alluring enough to be fought over by Hemingway (Corey Stoll) and Picasso (Marcial di Fonzo Bo) — though she fancies aspiring literary novelist Gil. Woody Allen’s latest is a pleasant trifle, no more, no less. Its toying with a form of magical escapism from the dreary present recalls The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), albeit without that film’s greater structural ingeniousness and considerable heart. None of the actors are at their best, though Cotillard is indeed beguiling and Wilson dithers charmingly as usual. Still — it’s pleasant. (1:34) Albany, Embarcadero, Four Star, Piedmont. (Harvey)

Moneyball As fun as it is to watch Brad Pitt listen to the radio, work out, hang out with his cute kid, and drive down I-80 over and over again, it doesn’t quite translate into compelling cinema for the casual baseball fan. A wholesale buy-in to the cult of personality — be it A’s manager Billy Beane or the actor who plays him — is at the center of Moneyball‘s issues. Beane (Pitt) is facing the sad, inevitable fate of having to replace his star players, Jason Giambi and Johnny Damon, once they command the cash from the more-moneyed teams. He’s gotta think outside of the corporate box, and he finds a few key answers in Peter Brand (a.k.a. Paul DePodesta, played by Jonah Hill), who’s working with the sabermetric ideas of Bill James: scout the undervalued players that get on base to work against better-funded big-hitters. Similarly, against popular thought, Moneyball works best when director Bennett Miller (2005’s Capote) strays from the slightly flattening sunniness of its lead actor and plunges into the number crunching — attempting to visualize the abstract and tapping into the David Fincher network, as it were (in a related note, Aaron Sorkin co-wrote Moneyball‘s screenplay) — though the funny anti-chemistry between Pitt and Hill is at times capable of pulling Moneyball out of its slump. (2:13) Marina, 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

Mozart’s Sister Pity the talented sister of a world-shaking prodigy. Maria Anna “Nannerl” Mozart, who may have had just as much promise as a composer as her younger brother, according to Rene Féret’s Mozart’s Sister. A scant five years older, enlisted in the traveling family band led by father-teacher Leopold (Marc Barbe), yet forced to hide her music, being female and forbidden to play violin and compose, Nannerl (Marie Féret, the filmmaker’s daughter) tours the courts of Europe and is acclaimed as a keyboardist and vocalist but is expected to share little of her brother’s brilliant future. Following a chance carriage breakdown near a French monastery, Nannerl befriends one of its precious inhabitants, a daughter of Louis XV (Lisa Féret, another offspring), which leads her to Versailles, into a cross-dressing guise of a boy, and puts her into the sights of the Dauphin (Clovis Fouin, who could easily find a spot in the Cullen vampire clan). He’s seduced by her music and likewise charms Nannerl with his power and feline good looks — what’s a humble court minstrel to do? The conceit of casting one’s daughters in a narrative hinging on unjustly neglected female progeny — shades of Sofia Coppola in The Godfather: Part III (1990)! — almost capsizes this otherwise thoughtful re-imagination of Maria Anna’s thwarted life; despite the fact Féret has inserted his children in his films in the past, both girls offer little emotional depth to their roles. Nevertheless, as a feminist rediscovery pic akin to Camille Claudel (1988), Mozart’s Sister instructs on yet another tragically quashed woman artist and might inspire some righteous indignation. (2:00) Bridge, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Chun)

*My Afternoons with Margueritte There’s just one moment in this tender French dramedy that touches on star Gerard Depardieu’s real life: his quasi-literate salt-of-the-earth character, Germain, rushes to save his depressed friend from possible suicide only to have his pretentious pal pee on the ground in front of him. Perhaps Depardieu’s recent urinary run-in, on the floor of an airline cabin, was an inspired reference to this moment. In any case, My Afternoons With Margueritte offers a hope of the most humanist sort, for all those bumblers and sad cases that are usually shuttled to the side in the desperate ’00s, as Depardieu demonstrates that he’s fully capable of carrying a film with sheer life force, rotund gut and straw-mop ‘do and all. In fact he’s almost daring you to hate on his aging, bumptious current incarnation: Germain is the 50-something who never quite grew up or left home. The vegetable farmer is treated poorly by his doddering tramp of a mother and is widely considered the village idiot, the butt of all the jokes down at the cafe, though contrary to most assumptions, he manages to score a beautiful, bus-driving girlfriend (Sophie Guillemin). However the true love of his life might be the empathetic, intelligent older woman, Margueritte (Gisele Casadesus), that he meets in the park while counting pigeons. There’s a wee bit of Maude to Germain’s Harold, though Jean Becker’s chaste love story is content to remain within the wholesome confines of small-town life — not a bad thing when it comes to looking for grace in a rough world. (1:22) Embarcadero, Shattuck. (Chun)

*Point Blank Not for nothing did Hollywood remake French filmmaker Fred Cavaye’s last film, Anything for Her (2008) as The Next Three Days (2010) — Cavaye’s latest, tauter-than-taut thriller almost screams out for a similar rework, with its Bourne-like handheld camera work, high-impact immediacy, and noirish narrative economy. Point Blank — not to be confused with the 1967 Lee Marvin vehicle —kicks off with a literal slam: a mystery man (Roschdy Zem) crashing into a metal barrier, on the run from two menacing figures until he is cornered and then taken out of the action by fate. His mind mainly on the welfare of his very pregnant wife Nadia (Elena Anaya), nursing assistant Samuel (Gilles Lellouche) has the bad luck to stumble on a faux doctor attempting to make sure that the injured man never rises from his hospital bed. As police wrangle over whose case this exactly is — the murder of an industrialist seems to have expanded the powers of the stony-faced, monolithic Commandant Werner (Gerard Lanvin) — Samuel gets sucked into the mystery man’s lot, a conspiracy that allows them to trust no one, and seemingly impossibly odds against getting out of the mess alive. Cavaye never quite stops applying the pressure in this clever, unrelenting cat-and-mouse and mouse-and-his-spouse game, topping it with a nerve-jangling search through a messily chaotic police station. (1:24) Opera Plaza. (Chun)

*Rise of the Planet of the Apes “You gotta love a movie where the animals beat up on the humans,” declared my Rise of the Planet of the Apes companion. Indeed, ape must not kill ape, and this Planet of the Apes prequel-cum-remake of Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972) takes the long view, back to the days when ape-human relations were still high-minded enough to forbid smart apes from killing those well-armed, not-so-bright humanoids. I was a fan of the original series, but honestly, I approached Rise with trepidation: I dreaded the inevitable scenes of human cruelty meted out to exploited primates — the current wave of chimp-driven films seems focused on holding a scary, shaming mirror up to the two-legged mammalian violence toward their closest living genetic relatives. It’s a contrast to the original series, which provided prisms with which to peer at race relations and generational conflict. But I needn’t have feared this PG-13 “reboot.” There’s little CGI-driven gore, apart from the visceral opening and the showdown, though the heartbreak remains. Scientist Will (James Franco, brow perpetually furrowed with worry) is working to find a medicine designed to supercharge the brain in the wake of Alzheimer’s — a disease that has struck down his father (John Lithgow). When the experimental chimp that responds to his serum becomes violently aggressive, the project is shut down, although the primate leaves behind a surprise: a baby chimp that Will and his father name Caesar and raise like a beloved child in their idyllic Bay Area Victorian. Growing in intelligence as he matures, Caesar finds himself torn by an existential dilemma: is he a pet or a mammal with rights that must be respected? Rise becomes Caesar’s story, rendered in heart-wrenching, exhilarating ways — to director Rupert Wyatt and his team’s credit you don’t miss the performance finesse of Roddy McDowell and Kim Hunter in groundbreaking prosthetic ape face in the original movies — while resolving at least one question about why humans gave up the globe to the primates. One can only imagine the next edition will take care of the lingering question about how even the cleverest of apes will feed themselves in Muir Woods. (1:50) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Chun)

Sarah’s Key (1:42) Opera Plaza.

*Senna When Ayrton Senna died in 1994 at the age of 34, he had already secured his legacy as one of the greatest and most beloved Formula One racers of all time. The three-time world champion was a hero in his native Brazil and a respected and feared opponent on the track. This eponymous documentary by director Asif Kapadia is nearly as dynamic as the man himself, with more than enough revving engines and last minute passes to satisfy your lust for speed and a decent helping Ayrton’s famous personality as well. Senna was a champion, driven to win even as the sometimes-backhanded politics of the racing world stood in his way. A tragic figure, maybe, but a legend nonetheless. You don’t have to be an F1 fan to appreciate this film, but you may wind up one by the time the credits roll. (1:44) Opera Plaza, Smith Rafael. (Cooper Berkmoyer)

*Shaolin There’s a lot to like about Shaolin, from Andy Lau, as a warlord turned passionate monk, to the return of Jackie Chan, as a stir-frying Shaolin, to its overall Buddhistic message (by way of heaps of chopsocky, blood-spitting violence), to its many action scenes, complete with mucho ax-throwing and horsing around with out-of-control carriages. We’re at the dawn of China’s republic, and the warlords are squabbling over the country’s spoils. General Hou Jie (Lau) appears to be the most ruthless of them all, following his second in command Cao Man (Nicholas Tse) into the Shaolin Temple to pursue an enemy with a golden secret and arrogantly leaving his mark on the sanctuary signage. But tragedy turns Hou around and sends him in the temple once more, where he finds real brotherhood with the good-hearted monks. Lau has reteamed here with director Benny Chan, and the results effectively recast the star, sometimes too easily pictured as a villain with his hawkish looks, as a hero once again, all while foregrounding Buddhism and giving it to the white devils at the end — an anti-imperialism message that has become rote in recent years, little wonder considering China’s growing might and the hardening of positions on the front lines of the global economy. (2:11) SFFS New People Cinema. (Chun)

Straw Dogs Never could I have predicted there would be a day when the violent finale of Straw Dogs would be met with raucous cheers. The original 1971 film was produced within a morally ambiguous social climate and remains one of director Sam Peckinpah’s most controversial efforts; contemporary audiences trained to applaud a payoff of blood and gore are likely in the wrong headspace for a film like this. The remake, which sends a good-natured screenwriter (James Marsden) on a retreat in his wife’s (Kate Bosworth) sweaty Southern hometown where they find themselves at odds with a group of good ol’ boys, remains powerful and just as uncomfortable and mean as Peckinpah’s version, but it’s in service of a moral outcome that’s more in line with its commercial placement: ultimately it takes the road of “man becomes protector” over “man becomes monster.” If you have no interest in the original, you will find a fair bit of talent in this remake, but without the cynical attitude it can be hard to separate Straw Dogs from any other horror-movie-of-the-week. (1:50) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Galvin)

*3 The press literature for 3, Tom Tykwer’s latest, throws around references to classic Hollywood screwball comedies, but this romantic drama is far too self-conscious, serious, and almost pretentious to ever completely ape the mercury lightness of that genre. Apart from one slightly jarring fantasy sequence or two, this polyamorous love story is all about contemporary Berlin bohemia, from hero Hanna’s (Sophie Rois) immersion in the worlds of science and art, to her increasingly plastic relationship with partner Simon (Sebastian Schipper). On the edge of their 20th anniversary, the smart, stylish 40-ish bohos are still in love, though a younger, perpetually amused-looking doctor Adam (Devid Striesow) threatens to turn their two-decade itch into something much more involved. Tykwer kicks off his high-minded romp with a pas de trois, sprinkling split-screen interludes into the program as he goes, but such devices fall away — sucking the viewer into its heady, seductive undertow — beneath the sheer eroticism of these sexual empiricists’ couplings, particularly in the humid, Cat People-like scenes set in a Badeschiff pool, which comes to resemble a carnally charged hothouse as envisioned by Olafur Eliasson. (1:59) Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

The Tree of Life Mainstream American films are so rarely adventuresome that overreactive gratitude frequently greets those rare, self-conscious, usually Oscar-baiting stabs at profundity. Terrence Malick has made those gestures so sparingly over four decades that his scarcity is widely taken for genius. Now there’s The Tree of Life, at once astonishingly ambitious — insofar as general addressing the origin/meaning of life goes — and a small domestic narrative artificially inflated to a maximally pretentious pressure-point. The thesis here is a conflict between “nature” (the way of striving, dissatisfied, angry humanity) and “grace” (the way of love, femininity, and God). After a while Tree settles into a fairly conventional narrative groove, dissecting — albeit in meandering fashion — the travails of a middle-class Texas household whose patriarch (a solid Brad Pitt) is sternly demanding of his three young sons. As a modern-day survivor of that household, Malick’s career-reviving ally Sean Penn has little to do but look angst-ridden while wandering about various alien landscapes. Set in Waco but also shot in Rome, at Versailles, and in Saturn’s orbit (trust me), The Tree of Life is so astonishingly self-important while so undernourished on some basic levels that it would be easy to dismiss as lofty bullshit. Its Cannes premiere audience booed and cheered — both factions right, to an extent. (2:18) Lumiere. (Harvey)

*Warrior Those wondering why the mixed martial arts scene has captured the imagination of so many can finally understand what the fuss is all about, now that it comes filtered through a melodramatic narrative akin to The Fighter (2010). Warrior‘s mis-en-scene is immediately recognizable: a prodigal returns, in the form of Tom Conlon (Tom Hardy). Once a talented teenage wrestler, the now-battered man is the damaged youngest son of alcoholic ex-boxer Paddy Conlon (Nick Nolte). Tom wants his father to train him for a major mixed martial arts tournament with a multimillion-dollar purse, though the two obviously still have a deadly hold on each other — the repentant Paddy is on the wagon and the emotionally bruised Tom harbors secrets he won’t reveal — and battle with cutting comments rather than fists. Tom isn’t the only prodigal in the house: Paddy has lost the trust of Tom’s bro, Brendan (Joel Edgerton), a former fighter and present-day physics high school teacher who’s struggling to make ends meet with an underwater mortgage. Though Warrior is no Raging Bull (1980), it almost outdukes The Fighter in terms of its brutal bouts, conveying the swift, no-holds-barred action of MMA in the ring, while giving actors plenty of drama to wrap their jowls ’round — particularly in Nolte’s case. His tore-up turn as an all-excuses patriarch is as heartbreaking as a solid kick to the jaw. (2:19) SF Center. (Chun)

*We Were Here Reagan isn’t mentioned in David Weissman’s important and moving new documentary about San Francisco’s early response to the AIDS epidemic, We Were Here — although his communications director Pat Buchanan and Moral Majority leader Jerry Falwell get split-second references. We Were Here isn’t a political polemic about the lack of governmental support that greeted the onset of the disease. Nor is it a kind of cinematic And the Band Played On that exhaustively lays out all the historical and medical minutiae of HIV’s dawn. (See PBS Frontline’s engrossing 2006 The Age of AIDS for that.) And you’ll find virtually nothing about the infected world outside the United States. A satisfying 90-minute documentary couldn’t possibly cover all the aspects of AIDS, of course, even the local ones. Instead, Weissman’s film, codirected with Bill Weber, concentrates mostly on AIDS in the 1980s and tells a more personal and, in its way, more controversial story. What happened in San Francisco when gay people started mysteriously wasting away? And how did the epidemic change the people who lived through it? The tales are well told and expertly woven together, as in Weissman’s earlier doc The Cockettes. But where We Were Here really hits home is in its foregrounding of many unspoken or buried truths about AIDS. The film will affect viewers on a deep level, perhaps allowing many to weep openly about what happened for the first time. But it’s a testimony as well to the absolute craziness of life, and the strange places it can take you — if you survive it. (1:30) Castro. (Marke B.)

 

Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Kimberly Chun, Michelle Devereaux, Max Goldberg, Dennis Harvey, Louis Peitzman, Lynn Rapoport, Ben Richardson, and Matt Sussman. For rep house showtimes, see Rep Clock. For complete film listings, see www.sfbg.com.

Fighting displacement in Fiji, San Antonio’s community gardens

Andrew Lam
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Last Saturday, the website 350.org encouraged people met up to protest dependence on fossil fuels and celebrate community-based activism. The result was 2,000 events across the world for a day of action called Moving Planet Day, a dispersed mix that illustrated how climate change is affecting and being worked on in different parts of the world. We checked in with organizers in San Francisco and Buenos Aires last week (check shots from the celebration in San Francisco’s Civic Center Plaza here) and will round out the series with news from activists in San Antonio, Tex. and Suva, Fiji. Their answers spoke to the breadth of the day’s significance.

Mobi Warren, founder of 350SanAntonio.org and Moving Planet volunteer coordinator, helped organize two events in her city — one at a community garden and one at a repurposed brewery, at the same time as a farmers market. 

SFBG: What was the goal of Moving Planet Day in your town?

MW: Increased awareness among citizens; expanded partnerships and new alliances between environmental, civic, non-profit, and local governmental organizations who engage with the issue of climate change from different perspectives; momentum and inspiration for all the hard work that lies ahead.  

 

SFBG: How did people mark the day? What was going on in San Antonio?

MW: We had [Moving Planet Day] events at two venues. One was sponsored by the Health Collaborative, a non-profit that works in local schools and that has a beautiful community garden (next door to the school where I am a fifth grade math teacher — the Roots and Shoots Environmental Club I sponsor at my school partners with the garden) — they offered several family-friendly, hands-on activities that explored community gardens and local food as one of the solutions to climate change. They also had two huge pinatas in the shape of Hummers filled with green surprises that children broke open as a symbolic way of breaking an addiction to fossil fuel.

The second event was a larger awareness fair that took place at a popular San Antonio gathering place — the historical Pearl Brewery — a completely solar-powered space that has been repurposed and that holds a popular farmer’s market every Saturday that draws a good crowd. Twenty groups set up tables with hands-on activities and info related to climate change solutions: green building, alternative transportation, recycling, community gardening, etc. Sierra Club members took on the task of inviting an impressive slate of speakers for the Pearl event. We had state representative Mike Villareal, two Texas  Climate Scientists, Gunnar Schade and Gerald North who gave terrific and informative presentations, and Congressman Lloyd Doggett, a strong advocate of 350.org. There was even a poetry reading as part of Moving Planet in the local bookstore at the Pearl, The Twig. Poets read poems on the theme of climate change and environmental issues.


SFBG: Your favorite part of the day?

MW: The entire event was pretty amazing. We estimate 800 to 1000 people passed through the awareness fair and there was a lot of engagement and conversation going on the whole time. Seeing citizens stay after the speakers’ presentations to ask questions and discuss with them how we can better work together on the urgent issue of climate change made me feel that awareness and momentum is growing here in the heart of Texas. But maybe the most inspiring moment was seeing the face of one of my students who came to both venues with her mom and siblings (and this is a low income family that gets everywhere by bus or foot) — explaining to her family what 350.org means.   

 

Ewan Cameron celebrated two Moving Planet Days — roughly the first and last ones in the world. The coordinator for the Pacific chapter of Moving Planet Day and part of the organizing committee for Moving Planet Samoa, he participated in a Suva, Fiji walk-bike-canoe-run event. We caught up with him via email before he flew the 719 miles — and 22 hour time difference — to Samoa to participate in festivities there. 

SFBG: What is your role in your city’s Moving Planet Day events?

Ewan Cameron: I am the Pacific coordinator for Moving Planet as well as a part of the Samoa Moving Planet organizing committee.

 

SFBG: What inspired you to get involved?

EC: The problems that small islands face, the interactiveness of 350.org, the friendship and inspiration of others, and the passion.

 

SFBG: What did Suva get up to on Saturday?

EC: We paddled a six-person canoe, sailed, walked, ran, and cycled from Suva Point to Suva’s grammar school and back.

 

SFBG: What, for you, was the most inspiring moment?

EC: Sharing this moment with fellow Pacific Islanders, and with the rest of the entire world, in addition the fact that the Pacific officially began the campaign with in Tonga, and we in Samoa will be the last country to close the campaign. I am fortunate at this moment to be in Fiji participating in the Moving Planet event in Suva, I was here attending a 2 week training, and then I fly out tonight back to Samoa where I live to celebrate our event in Samoa which is the last event on the planet. So I will be in two different time zone.

 

SFBG: How many people attended the event?

EC: Over 50 people participated.

 

SFBG: Why was this such a big deal?

EC: Because the climatic impacts are already being felt, people, and communities within the Pacific are being forced to relocate and are being displaced. These problems are not being exaggerated, Coastal areas are eroding, saltwater from king tides are damaging staple foods that people rely on, climate change is a real issue. The science is there, it can be proven, and on top of that major emitters are violating people rights!


SFBG: What do you hope that Saturday’s activities achieve?

EC: Major public pressure on governments to commit to a emissions reduction target that will bring the planet down below the safety level of 350ppm, and a serious, rapid display of movement towards the use of cleaner energy sources.  


SFBG: How did you transport yourself to the festivities?

EC: I walked.


SFBG: Complete this sentence: We can reverse the causes of man-made climate change if we… 

EC: … stop burning coal, and not allow the burning of tar sands. 

Alerts

Andrew Lam
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steve@sfbg.com

 

MONDAY 3

CMAC mayoral forum

San Francisco Police crackdowns on nightclubs and private parties, with the tactic and sometimes overt support by then-Mayor Gavin Newsom, led to the creation of the California Music and Culture Association to advocate for the city’s nightlife (see “The new War on Fun,” 3/23/10). Now, CMAC is hosting a mayoral candidate forum to gauge how the next potential inhabitants of Room 200 feel about issues relevant to party-goers and -throwers. The event will be moderated by Priya David Clemens and will feature remarks by Lyrics Born and Sup. Scott Wiener and musical performances by Bob Mould and Zoe Keating.

6-9 p.m., free

The Fillmore

1805 Geary, SF

rsvp to sfmayoralcandidateforum.eventbrite.com

 

The state of labor

Wilma Liebman, former chair of the National Labor Relations Board, gives a talk entitled “The Battle for a Fair and Realistic National Labor Policy.” Liebman stepped down as chair last month — after 14 years serving on the board, the third longest serving member in its history — during one of the most turbulent years in the body’s history. The event, sponsored by SF State’s Labor and Employment Studies Program, is the first Gerald McKay Memorial Lecture.

6-8 p.m., free

SF State’s Downtown Campus

885 Market, 5th Floor, SF

817-4300

rsvp to jlogan@sfsu.edu

 

 

New Coffee Party

The Coffee Party, a consensus-seeking political group formed in reaction to the reactionary Tea Party, is in transition. The leaders of the former SF Coffee Party Group have now dubbed themselves The Bay Area Circle and they’ll meet to decide on a new name and direction for a group that seeks to bring together people of various views around a common agenda.

6:30-8 p.m., free

Cafe La Boheme

3318 24th St., SF

thebayareacircle@yahoo.com

 

TUESDAY 4

Organizing in radical times

Authors Amy Sonnie and James Tracy will discuss their new book, Hillbilly Nationalists, Urban Race Rebels and Black Power: Community Organizing in Radical Times (Melville House Publishing, 2011), in conversation with Roxanne Dunbar Ortiz. The books shows how the protest movements of the New Left in the ’60s spawned future organizing efforts that have been challenging right-wing networks over a range of important issues vital to the direction of the country. Afterward the talk, attendees will cross the street to the Buck Tavern for a beer bash benefiting the SF Community Land Trust and Jobs with Justice SF.

7 p.m., free

Green Arcade Books

1680 Market, SF

sonnieandtracybook.com

Film Listings

Andrew Lam
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OPENING

Abduction A teenager (Taylor Lautner) sets out to find his true identity (duh, dude, everyone knows you’re a werewolf) in John Singleton’s action thriller. (1:46)

*The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 Cinematic crate-diggers have plenty to celebrate, checking the results of The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975. Swedish documentarian Göran Hugo Olsson had heard whispers for years that Swedish television archives possessed more archival footage of the Black Panthers than anyone in the states — while poring through film for a doc on Philly soul, he discovered the rumors were dead-on. With this lyrical film, coproduced by the Bay Area’s Danny Glover, Olsson has assembled an elegant snapshot of black activists and urban life in America, relying on the vivid, startlingly crisp images of figures such as Stokely Carmichael and Huey P. Newton at their peak, while staying true to the wide-open, refreshingly nonjudgmental lens of the Swedish camera crews. Questlove of the Roots and Om’Mas Keith provide the haunting score for the film, beautifully historicized with shots of Oakland in the 1960s and Harlem in the ’70s. It’s made indelible thanks to footage of proto-Panther school kids singing songs about grabbing their guns, and an unforgettable interview with a fiery Angela Davis talking about the uses of violence, from behind bars and from the place of personally knowing the girls who died in the infamous Birmingham, Ala., church bombing of 1963. (1:36) Embarcadero, Piedmont, Shattuck. (Chun)

City of Life and Death There have been a number of recent works about the “rape of Nanking,” but perhaps none tackles the brutal nature of Nanjing’s fall with as much beauty as City of Life and Death. Shot in striking black and white, the film depicts the invasion of China’s capital by Japanese forces from a number of points of view, including that of a Japanese soldier. It can be difficult at times to become emotionally attached to characters within such a restless narrative, but the structure goes a long way toward keeping the proceedings balanced. The stunningly elaborate sets and cinematography alone are worth the price of admission, and it’s amazing that such detail was achieved with a budge of less than $12 million. But it is the unflinching catalog of the some 300,000 murders and rapes that took place between 1937 and 1938 in Nanjing that will remain with you long after watching. (2:13) Opera Plaza. (Peter Galvin)

Dolphin Tale A wayward dolphin with an injured tail is rescued by marine biologists, befriends a little boy and his single mother (Ashley Judd), and somehow Kris Kristofferson and Morgan Freeman are involved. Admit it, you’re weeping already. (1:53) Presidio.

Farmageddon First-time director Kristin Canty embarked on this documentary after discovering the healing power of raw milk in helping her child’s allergies. And it shows. Farmaggedon really should have been titled A Raw Deal for Raw Milk, considering its primary focus on several small family-operated dairies and the souring treatment they have received from government bureaucrats, spurring Canty’s activist act of making this movie. Larry and Linda Failace of Three Shephard’s Cheese in Vermont (the latter wrote her own book, 2007’s Mad Sheep: The True Story Behind the USDA’s War on a Family Farm) seem to have suffered the most, driven out of business when the sheep they brought over legally, with all the required quarantines, were seized and destroyed by the government agents on the pretext that the animals might spread “mad cow” disease. The sight of Linda Failace breaking into tears reading her daughter’s words about how the sheep were like her brothers and sisters is heart-breaking. Undermining such powerful, outrageous material are Canty’s textbook missteps: the director has major problems organizing her seemingly scattershot, lopsided material into a coherent and, er, organic whole, and lets her many sources drone on without a strong narrative through-line. All of this makes Farmaggedon a bit of a struggle to watch, although the dirt Canty digs up is likely to justifiably raise the hackles of progressive foodies. (1:30) Roxie, Smith Rafael. (Chun)

*Killer Elite Jason Statham has a lot going on, in addition to devastatingly attractive male-pattern balding: along with fellow Brit Daniel Craig, he’s one of the most believable action heroes in the cineplex today. This continent-hopping, Bourne-ish exercise, kitted out with piercingly loud sound design, comes chock-full of promise in the form of Statham, Robert De Niro, and Clive Owen, wielding endless firearms and finding new deadly uses for bathroom tile — you don’t want to be caught solo in anger management class with these specialists in cinematic rageaholism. Mercenary assassin Danny (Statham) wants out of the game after a traumatic killing involving way too much eye contact with a small child. Killer coworker Hunter (De Niro) pulled him out of that tight spot, so when the aging gunman is held hostage, Danny must emerge from hiding in rural Australia and take on a seemingly impossible case: avenge the deaths of a dying sheik’s sons, who were gunned down by assorted highly trained British military hotshots, get them to confess, and make it all look like an accident. Oh, yes, and try to make sure his own loved ones aren’t killed in the process. Dancing backwards as fast as he can is those retired Brits’ guardian angel-of-sorts, Spike (Owen), another intense, dangerous fellow with too much time on his hands. Throw in my favorite Oz evil-doer Adewale Akinnuoye-Agbaje as Danny and Hunter’s boss, some welcome been-there twinkle from De Niro, as well as a host of riveting fight scenes (and that ’00s cliché: sudden death by bus/truck/semi), and you have diverting popcorn killer. (1:40) Presidio. (Chun)

Moneyball As fun as it is to watch Brad Pitt listen to the radio, work out, hang out with his cute kid, and drive down I-80 over and over again, it doesn’t quite translate into compelling cinema for the casual baseball fan. A wholesale buy-in to the cult of personality — be it A’s manager Billy Beane or the actor who plays him — is at the center of Moneyball‘s issues. Beane (Pitt) is facing the sad, inevitable fate of having to replace his star players, Jason Giambi and Johnny Damon, once they command the cash from the more-moneyed teams. He’s gotta think outside of the corporate box, and he finds a few key answers in Peter Brand (a.k.a. Paul DePodesta, played by Jonah Hill), who’s working with the sabermetric ideas of Bill James: scout the undervalued players that get on base to work against better-funded big-hitters. Similarly, against popular thought, Moneyball works best when director Bennett Miller (2005’s Capote) strays from the slightly flattening sunniness of its lead actor and plunges into the number crunching — attempting to visualize the abstract and tapping into the David Fincher network, as it were (in a related note, Aaron Sorkin co-wrote Moneyball‘s screenplay) — though the funny anti-chemistry between Pitt and Hill is at times capable of pulling Moneyball out of its slump. (2:13) Marina. (Chun)

*My Afternoons with Margueritte There’s just one moment in this tender French dramedy that touches on star Gerard Depardieu’s real life: his quasi-literate salt-of-the-earth character, Germain, rushes to save his depressed friend from possible suicide only to have his pretentious pal pee on the ground in front of him. Perhaps Depardieu’s recent urinary run-in, on the floor of an airline cabin, was an inspired reference to this moment. In any case, My Afternoons With Margueritte offers a hope of the most humanist sort, for all those bumblers and sad cases that are usually shuttled to the side in the desperate ’00s, as Depardieu demonstrates that he’s fully capable of carrying a film with sheer life force, rotund gut and straw-mop ‘do and all. In fact he’s almost daring you to hate on his aging, bumptious current incarnation: Germain is the 50-something who never quite grew up or left home. The vegetable farmer is treated poorly by his doddering tramp of a mother and is widely considered the village idiot, the butt of all the jokes down at the cafe, though contrary to most assumptions, he manages to score a beautiful, bus-driving girlfriend (Sophie Guillemin). However the true love of his life might be the empathetic, intelligent older woman, Margueritte (Gisele Casadesus), that he meets in the park while counting pigeons. There’s a wee bit of Maude to Germain’s Harold, though Jean Becker’s chaste love story is content to remain within the wholesome confines of small-town life — not a bad thing when it comes to looking for grace in a rough world. (1:22) Embarcadero, Shattuck. (Chun)

Restless See “Twee of Life.” (1:35) Lumiere, Shattuck.

*3 The press literature for 3, Tom Tykwer’s latest, throws around references to classic Hollywood screwball comedies, but this romantic drama is far too self-conscious, serious, and almost pretentious to ever completely ape the mercury lightness of that genre. Apart from one slightly jarring fantasy sequence or two, this polyamorous love story is all about contemporary Berlin bohemia, from hero Hanna’s (Sophie Rois) immersion in the worlds of science and art, to her increasingly plastic relationship with partner Simon (Sebastian Schipper). On the edge of their 20th anniversary, the smart, stylish 40-ish bohos are still in love, though a younger, perpetually amused-looking doctor Adam (Devid Striesow) threatens to turn their two-decade itch into something much more involved. Tykwer kicks off his high-minded romp with a pas de trois, sprinkling split-screen interludes into the program as he goes, but such devices fall away — sucking the viewer into its heady, seductive undertow — beneath the sheer eroticism of these sexual empiricists’ couplings, particularly in the humid, Cat People-like scenes set in a Badeschiff pool, which comes to resemble a carnally charged hothouse as envisioned by Olafur Eliasson. (1:59) Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

ONGOING

Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star (1:36) 1000 Van Ness.

Circumstance Thirteen (2003) goes to Tehran? The world of sex, drugs, and underground nightclubs in Iran provides the backdrop for writer-director Maryam Keshavarz’s lusty, dreamy take on the passionate teenagers behind the hijabs. Risking jail and worse are the sassy, privileged Atafeh (Nikohl Boosheri) and the beautiful, orphaned Shireen (Sarah Kazemy), who, much like young women anywhere, just want to be free — to swim, sing, dance, test boundaries, lose, and then find themselves. The difference here is that they’re under constant, unnerving surveillance, in a country where more than 70 percent of the population is less than 30 years old. Nevertheless, within their mansion walls and without, beneath graffitied walls and undulating at intoxicating house parties, the two girls begin to fall in love with each other, as Atafeh’s handsome, albeit creepy older brother Mehran (Palo Alto-bred Reza Sixo Safai) gazes on. The onetime musical talent’s back from rehab, has returned to the mosque with all the zeal of the prodigal, and has hooked up with the Morality Police that enforces the nation’s cultural laws. Filmed underground in Beirut, with layers that permit both pleasure and protest (wait for the hilarious moment when 2008’s Milk is dubbed in Farsi), Circumstance viscerally transmits the realities and fantasies of Iranian young women on the verge. (1:45) Embarcadero, Shattuck. (Chun)

*Cold Fish Did you love (or find yourself baffled by) Sion Sono’s Love Exposure during its Roxie run? Sono’s Cold Fish is similarly occupied with indoctrination, masochism, and extreme behavior. However, it’s also somewhat better able to sustain a tone of hysteria escalating toward dementia. An unhappy family (father Mitsuru Fukikoshi, daughter Hikari Kajiwara, stepmother Megumi Kagurazaka) is yanked into the orbit of a tropical-fish tycoon (Denden) who at first seems a boisterous benefactor providing shock therapy to their depressed lives out of simple altruism. But he and his bombshell wife (Asuka Kurosawa) soon reveal sides not just sinister but psychopathic, ensnaring all three in diabolical doings that encompass murder, rape, grisly corpse disposals, and more. Structured like Love Exposure as one long countdown to a transformative moment, Cold Fish pushes black comedy way beyond the bounds of taste with an oddly neutralizing good cheer. It’s a manic Grand Guignol set to the soothing kitsch strains of retro Hawaiian-flavored lounge music. (2:24) Roxie. (Harvey)

Colombiana (1:47) 1000 Van Ness.

*Connected: An Autoblogography About Love, Death, and Technology Local filmmaker Tiffany Shlain (founder of the Webby Awards) takes a look at 21st century connections, both technological and personal, in this documentary. And the film gets very personal at times; constructed mostly as a video collage (using animation, stock footage, etc.), its few original clips come from Shlain family movies, which become more poignant when it’s revealed that the filmmaker’s beloved father, an author and brain surgeon, is dying of brain cancer. Shlain’s film draws some of its themes from her father’s 1999 book The Alphabet Versus the Goddess, a study of literacy’s effect on male-female dynamics over history, and the film is dedicated to him. But though the Shlain family’s struggles with loss and life (the filmmaker was pregnant when her father died) form Connected‘s thru line, the film’s probing, lively exploration of links (on- and offline) is universally relatable, and ultimately quite thought-provoking. (1:20) Embarcadero, Shattuck. (Eddy)

*Contagion Tasked with such panic-inducing material, one has to appreciate director Steven Soderbergh’s cool head and hand with Contagion. Some might even dub this epic thriller (of sorts) cold, clinical, and completely lacking in bedside manner. Still, for those who’d rather be in the hands of a doctor who refuses to talk down to the patient, Contagion comes on like a refreshingly smart, somewhat melodrama-free clean room, a clear-eyed response to a messy, terrifying subject. A deadly virus is spreading swiftly — sans cure, vaccine, or sense — starting with a few unlikely suspects: globe-trotting corporate exec Beth (Gwyneth Paltrow), a waiter, a European tourist, and a Japanese businessman. The chase is on to track the disease’s genesis and find a way to combat it, from the halls of the San Francisco Chronicle and blog posts of citizen activist-journalist Alan (Jude Law), to the emergency hospital in the Midwest set up by intrepid Dr. Mears (Kate Winslet), to a tiny village in China with a World Health investigator (Marion Cotillard). Soderbergh’s brisk, businesslike storytelling approach nicely counterpoints the hysteria going off on the ground, as looting and anarchy breaks out around Beth’s immune widower Mitch (Matt Damon), and draws you in — though the tact of making this disease’s Typhoid Mary a sexually profligate woman is unsettling and borderline offensive, as is the predictable blame-it-on-the-Chinese origin coda. (1:42) California, Empire, Marina, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Crazy, Stupid, Love Keep the poster’s allusion to 1967’s The Graduate to one side: there aren’t many revelations about midlife crises in this cleverly penned yet strangely flat ensemble rom-com, awkwardly pitched at almost every demographic at the cineplex. There’s the middle-aged romance that’s withered at the vine: nice but boring family man Cal (Steve Carell) finds himself at a hopeless loss when wife and onetime teenage sweetheart Emily (Julianne Moore) tells him she wants a divorce and she’s slept with a coworker (Kevin Bacon). He ends up waxing pathetic at a slick nightclub where he catches the eye of the well-dressed, spray-tanned smoothie Jacob (Ryan Gosling), who appears to have taken his ladies man stance from the Clooney playbook. It’s manly makeover time: GQ meets Pretty Woman (1990)! Cut to Cal and Emily’s babysitter Jessica (Analeigh Tipton), who is crushing out on Cal, while the separated couple’s tween Robbie (Jonah Bobo) hankers for Jessica. Somehow Josh Groban worms his way into the mix as the dullard suitor of Hannah (Emma Stone) in a hanging chad of a storyline that must somehow be resolved in this mad, mad, mad, mad — actually, the problem with Crazy, Stupid, Love is that it isn’t really that crazy. It tries far too hard to please everybody in the theater to its detriment, reminding the viewer of a tidy, episodic TV series (albeit a quality effort) like Modern Family more than an actual film. Likewise I yearned for a way to fast-forward through the too-cute Jessica-Robbie scenes in order to get back to the sleazy-smart, punchy complexity of Gosling, playing adeptly off both Carrell and Stone. (1:58) SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

The Debt On paper, The Debt has a lot going for it: captivating history-based plot, “it” actor Jessica Chastain, Helen Mirren vs. Nazis. And while the latest from John Madden (1998’s Shakespeare in Love) is fairly entertaining, the film is ultimately forgettable. Chastain plays Rachel, a member of an Israeli team tasked with capturing a Nazi war criminal and bringing him to justice. Mirren is the older Rachel, who is haunted by the long-withheld true story of the mission. Although The Debt traffics in spy secrets, it’s actually rather predictable: the big reveal is shrug-worthy, and the shocking conclusion is expected. So while the entire cast — which also includes Tom Wilkinson, Sam Worthington, and Ciaran Hinds — turn in admirable performances, the script is lacking what it needs to make The Debt an effective drama or thriller. Like 2008’s overrated The Reader, the film tries to hide its inadequacies under heavy themes and the dread with which we remember the Holocaust. (1:54) Four Star, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Peitzman)

Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame (2:02) Embarcadero, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki.

*Drive Such a lovely way to Drive, drunk on the sensual depths of a lush, saturated jewel tone palette and a dreamlike, almost luxurious pacing that gives off the steamy hothouse pop romanticism of ’80s-era Michael Mann and David Lynch — with the bracing, impactful flecks of threat and ultraviolence that might accompany a car chase, a moody noir, or both, as filtered through a first-wave music video. Drive comes dressed in the klassic komforts — from the Steve McQueen-esque stances and perfectly cut jackets of Ryan Gosling as the Driver Who Shall Remain Nameless to the foreboding lingering in the shadows and the wittily static, statuesque strippers that decorate the background. Gosling’s Driver is in line with Mann’s other upstanding working men who hew to an old-school moral code and are excellent at what they do, regardless of what side of the law they’re working: he likes to keep it clear and simple — his services as a wheelman boil down to five minutes, in and out — but matters get messy when he falls for sweet-faced neighbor Irene (Carey Mulligan), who lives down the hall with her small son, and her ex-con husband (Oscar Isaac) is dragged back into the game. Populated by pungent side players like Albert Brooks, Bryan Cranston, Ron Perlman, and Christina Hendricks, and scattered with readily embeddable moments like a life-changing elevator kiss that goes bloodily wrong-right, Drive turns into a real coming-out affair for both Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn (2008’s Bronson), who rises above any crisis of influence or confluence of genre to pick up the po-mo baton that Lynch left behind, and 2011’s MVP Ryan Gosling, who gets to flex his leading-man muscles in a truly cinematic role, an anti-hero and under-the-hood psychopath looking for the real hero within. (1:40) Empire, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

*The Future Dreams and drawings, cats and fantasies, ambition and aimlessness, and the mild-mannered yet mortifying games people play, all wind their way into Miranda July’s The Future. The future’s a scary place, as many of us fully realize, even if you hide from it well into your 30s, losing yourself in the everyday. But you can’t duck July’s collection of moments, objects, and small gestures transformed into something strangely slanted and enchanted, both weird and terrifying, when viewed through July’s looking glass. Care and commitment — to oneself and others — are two vivid threads running through The Future. Cute couple Sophie (July) and Jason (Hamish Linklater) — unsettling look-alikes with their curly crops — appear at first to be sailing contently, aimlessly toward an undemanding unknown: Jason works from home as a customer-service operator, and Sophie attempts to herd kiddies as a children’s dance instructor. But enormous, frightening demands beckon — namely the oncoming adoption of a special-needs feline named Paw-Paw (voiced by July as if it’s a traumatized, innocent child). Lickety-splitsville, they must be all they can be before Paw-Paw’s arrival. The weirdness of the familiar, and the kindness of strangers, become ways into fantasy and escape when the couple bumps up against the limits of their imagination. This ultra-low-key horror movie of the banal is obviously remote territory for July (2005’s Me and You and Everyone We Know). The Future is her best film to date and finds her tumbling into a kind of magical realism or plastic fantastic, embodied by a talking cat that becomes the conscience of the movie. (1:31) Roxie. (Chun)

The Guard Irish police sergeant Gerry Boyle (Brendan Gleeson) is used to running his small town on his own terms — not in a completely Bad Lieutenant (1992) kind of way, though he’s not afraid to sample drugs and hang with hookers. More like, he’s been running the show for years, and would prefer that big-city cops stay the hell out of his village. Alas, a gang of drug smugglers is doing business in the area, so an officious group of investigators from Dublin (horrors!) and America (in the form of an FBI agent played by Don Cheadle) soon descend. His mother’s dying, his brand-new partner’s missing, and between all the interlopers on both sides of the law, Boyle’s having a hard time having a pint in peace. Good thing he’s not as simple-minded as all who surround him think he is. Writer-director John Michael McDonagh (brother of playwright Martin, who directed 2008’s In Bruges — also starring Gleeson) puts an affable Irish spin on what’s essentially a pretty typical indie comedy, with some pretty typical crime-drama elements layered atop. Boyle’s character is memorably clever, but the film that contains him never quite elevates to his level. (1:36) Lumiere, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

*The Hedgehog You needn’t possess the rough, everyday refinement of the characters of The Hedgehog to appreciate this debut feature by director-screenwriter Mona Achache — just an appreciation for a delicate touch and a tender heart. Eleven-year-old Paloma (the wonderful Garance Le Guillermic) is too smart for her own good, bored, neglected by her parents, and left to fend for herself with only her considerable imagination and a camcorder. She drifts around her fishbowl of privilege, a deluxe art nouveau-style apartment building in Paris, leveling her all-too-wise gaze on its denizens and plotting certain suicide on her 12th birthday — that is until a new resident appears in her viewfinder: a kindly Japanese gentleman Kakuro Ozu (Togo Igawa). He has as much of a connoisseur’s eye as Paloma — the proof is in his unlikely focus of attention, the building’s concierge Renée Michel (Josiane Balasko, resembling a burly Gertrude Stein), who hides her cultured and bookish inclinations behind a gruff, drab exterior. They recognize in each other a reverence for an almost monkish life of the mind, the austere elegance of wabi-sabi, and the transient beauty of rough-hewn imperfection, even in the sleek, well-heeled heart of the City of Light. To the credit of Achache, working with Muriel Barbery’s novel, these unlikely fragile friendships between outsiders take hold in a way that sidesteps preciousness and stays with you long after its pages have turned. (1:40) Smith Rafael. (Chun)

The Help It’s tough to stitch ‘n’ bitch ‘n’ moan in the face of such heart-felt female bonding, even after you brush away the tears away and wonder why the so-called help’s stories needed to be cobbled with those of the creamy-skinned daughters of privilege that employed them. The Help purports to be the tale of the 1960s African American maids hired by a bourgie segment of Southern womanhood — resourceful hard-workers like Aibileen (Viola Davis) and Minny (Octavia Spencer) raise their employers’ daughters, filling them with pride and strength if they do their job well, while missing out on their own kids’ childhood. Then those daughters turn around and hurt their caretakers, often treating them little better than the slaves their families once owned. Hinging on a self-hatred that devalues the nurturing, housekeeping skills that were considered women’s birthright, this unending ugly, heartbreaking story of the everyday injustices spells separate-and-unequal bathrooms for the family and their help when it comes to certain sniping queen bees like Hilly (Bryce Dallas Howard). But the times they are a-changing, and the help get an assist from ugly duckling of a writer Skeeter (Emma Stone, playing against type, sort of, with fizzy hair), who risks social ostracism to get the housekeepers’ experiences down on paper, amid the Junior League gossip girls and the seismic shifts coming in the civil rights-era South. Based on the best-seller by Kathryn Stockett, The Help hitches the fortunes of two forces together — the African American women who are trying to survive and find respect, and the white women who have to define themselves as more than dependent breeders — under the banner of a feel-good weepie, though not without its guilty shadings, from the way the pale-faced ladies already have a jump, in so many ways, on their African American sisters to the Keane-eyed meekness of Davis’ Aibileen to The Help‘s most memorable performances, which are also tellingly throwback (Howard’s stinging hornet of a Southern belle and Jessica Chastain’s white-trash bimbo-with-a-heart-of-gold). (2:17) California, Empire, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

I Don’t Know How She Does It I don’t know how a likable comedian like Sarah Jessica Parker does it — meaning, such mediocre material as this mom-com. Parker may have parlayed her Sex and the City fame into a fashion, fragrance, and spin-off franchises, but she still hasn’t quite found her stride away from Carrie Bradshaw, though her Lucille Ball-esque physical comedy here — pulling down her skirt in mid-mommy-frazzle in front of her high-powered client — can be cute. Kate (Parker) just might be the busiest mom in the world: she’s juggling two kids, a hubby whose own career is on the rise (Greg Kinnear), and a major fund idea, which she has to sell to an attractive banking bigwig (Pierce Brosnan). Poor, poor privileged mom — in the trenches of the still-unadorable field of banking, with her obviously sizable salary, enviable Boston duplex, flaky-nice nanny, and bubbly single-mom friend (Christina Hendricks)! The biggest assist comes from her careerist aide, played by Olivia Munn, who grabs the biggest laughs with her deadpan delivery. (1:35) 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

The Lion King 3D (1:29) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki.

*Love Crime Early this year came the announcement that Brian De Palma was hot to do an English remake of Alain Corneau’s Love Crime. The results, should they come to fruition, may well prove a landmark in the annals of lurid guilty-pleasure trash. But with the original Love Crime finally making it to local theaters, it’s an opportune moment to be appalled in advance about what sleazy things could potentially be done to this neat, dry, fully clothed model of a modern Hitchcockian thriller. No doubt in France Love Crime looks pretty mainstream. But here its soon-to be-despoiled virtues of narrative intricacy and restraint are upscale pleasures. Ludivine Sagnier plays assistant to high-powered corporate executive Christine (Kristin Scott Thomas). The boss enjoys molding protégée Isabelle to her own image, making them a double team of carefully planned guile unafraid to use sex appeal as a business strategy. But Isabelle is expected to know her place — even when that place robs her of credit for her own ideas — and when she stages a small rebellion, Christine’s revenge is cruelly out of scale, a high-heeled boot brought down to squash an ant. Halfway through an act of vengeance occurs that is shocking and satisfying, even if it leaves the remainder of Corneau and Nathalie Carter’s clever screenplay deprived of the very thing that had made it such a sardonic delight so far. Though it’s no masterpiece, Love Crime closes the book on his Corneau’s career Corneau (he died at age 67 last August) not with a bang but with a crisp, satisfying snap. (1:46) Albany, Clay, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

Mary Lou A musical fable for fans of Glee, Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001), The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994), and Bollywood, the latest from Eytan Fox (2002’s Yossi and Jagger) is a drag-flavored dramedy (Israel’s first?) Originally a hit miniseries in its home country, Mary Lou screens at the Castro in one big chunk jammed with singing, dancing, and a dreamy cast. Pouty Ido Rosenberg stars as Meir, a gay boy obsessed with finding the mother who left him when he was 10. After a disastrous graduation party, Meir flees his homophobic high school for the worldly environs of Tel Aviv, where he soon becomes a drag star named Mary Lou, after his mother’s favorite song. Love, loss, friendship, tragedy, joy, coming-of-age, and quite a few elaborate musical numbers soon transpire — the plot is not without clichés, to be sure, but it’s hard to hate on anything possessed of such sparkly energy. Not familiar with Svika Pick, the Israeli legend whose music provides much of the soundtrack? It matters not, especially if you’re a fan of deliriously corny pop tunes. (2:30) Castro. (Eddy)

Midnight in Paris Owen Wilson plays Gil, a self-confessed “Hollywood hack” visiting the City of Light with his conservative future in-laws and crassly materialistic fiancée Inez (Rachel McAdams). A romantic obviously at odds with their selfish pragmatism (somehow he hasn’t realized that yet), he’s in love with Paris and particularly its fabled artistic past. Walking back to his hotel alone one night, he’s beckoned into an antique vehicle and finds himself transported to the 1920s, at every turn meeting the Fitzgeralds, Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates), Dali (Adrien Brody), etc. He also meets Adriana (Marion Cotillard), a woman alluring enough to be fought over by Hemingway (Corey Stoll) and Picasso (Marcial di Fonzo Bo) — though she fancies aspiring literary novelist Gil. Woody Allen’s latest is a pleasant trifle, no more, no less. Its toying with a form of magical escapism from the dreary present recalls The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), albeit without that film’s greater structural ingeniousness and considerable heart. None of the actors are at their best, though Cotillard is indeed beguiling and Wilson dithers charmingly as usual. Still — it’s pleasant. (1:34) Albany, Embarcadero, Piedmont. (Harvey)

Mozart’s Sister Pity the talented sister of a world-shaking prodigy. Maria Anna “Nannerl” Mozart, who may have had just as much promise as a composer as her younger brother, according to Rene Féret’s Mozart’s Sister. A scant five years older, enlisted in the traveling family band led by father-teacher Leopold (Marc Barbe), yet forced to hide her music, being female and forbidden to play violin and compose, Nannerl (Marie Féret, the filmmaker’s daughter) tours the courts of Europe and is acclaimed as a keyboardist and vocalist but is expected to share little of her brother’s brilliant future. Following a chance carriage breakdown near a French monastery, Nannerl befriends one of its precious inhabitants, a daughter of Louis XV (Lisa Féret, another offspring), which leads her to Versailles, into a cross-dressing guise of a boy, and puts her into the sights of the Dauphin (Clovis Fouin, who could easily find a spot in the Cullen vampire clan). He’s seduced by her music and likewise charms Nannerl with his power and feline good looks — what’s a humble court minstrel to do? The conceit of casting one’s daughters in a narrative hinging on unjustly neglected female progeny — shades of Sofia Coppola in The Godfather: Part III (1990)! — almost capsizes this otherwise thoughtful re-imagination of Maria Anna’s thwarted life; despite the fact Féret has inserted his children in his films in the past, both girls offer little emotional depth to their roles. Nevertheless, as a feminist rediscovery pic akin to Camille Claudel (1988), Mozart’s Sister instructs on yet another tragically quashed woman artist and might inspire some righteous indignation. (2:00) Bridge, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Chun)

*One Day Why do romantic comedies get such a bad rap? Blame it on the lame set-up, the contrived hurdles artificially buttressed by the obligatory chorus of BFFs, the superficial something-for-every-demographic-with-ADD multinarrative, and the implausible resolutions topped by something as simple as a kiss or as conventional as marriage, but often no deeper, more crafted, or heartfelt than an application of lip gloss. Yet the lite-as-froyo pleasures of the genre don’t daunt Danish director Lone Scherfig, best known for her deft touch with a woman’s story that cuts closer to the bone, with 2009’s An Education. Her new film, One Day, based on the best-selling novel by David Nicholls, flirts with the rom-com form — from the kitsch associations with Same Time, Next Year (1978) to the trailer that hangs its love story on a crush — but musters emotional heft through its accumulation of period details, a latticework of flashbacks, and collection of encounters between its charming protagonists: upper-crusty TV presenter Dexter (Jim Sturgess) and working-class aspiring writer Emma (Anne Hathaway). Their quickie university friendship slowly unfolds, as they meet every St. Swithin’s Day, July 15, over a span of years, into the most important relationship of their lives. Despite the blue-collar female lead and UK backdrop that it shares with An Education, One Day feels like a departure for Scherfig, who first found international attention for her award-winning Dogme 95-affiliated Italian for Beginners (2000). (1:48) 1000 Van Ness, Piedmont. (Chun)

*Our Idiot Brother If you thought 1998’s The Big Lebowski had eked all the humor that it could from the Dude, well, screenwriter (and Vanity Fair contributor) Evgenia Peretz, her not-so-idiotic brother (director Jesse Peretz), and star Paul Rudd would differ. They correctly guessed that there are still laughs to be wrung from a shaggy stoner in floral jams, only this time with less fuuuck-s and more benevolent, idiot-savant good vibrations. Dazed and confused broheim 2.0 (Rudd) is glimpsed through the jaded, harried prism of his three dysfunctional, supposedly normal sisters: frumpadelic mom Liz (Emily Mortimer), queen-bitch Vanity Fair writer Miranda (Elizabeth Banks), and slatternly would-be comedian Natalie (Zooey Deschanel). A good-hearted naïf who’s easily entrapped by a uniformed police officer claiming to need some pity doobage, Ned has just emerged from the joint and is now couch-surfing among his sibs, exposing the hypocrisies of bourgie-hipster Brooklyn, as well as the infidelities and vanities of family, friends, and partners (Steve Coogan, Rashida Jones, Adam Scott, and Hugh Dancy) as he goes, in his own good-natured, aw-shucks way. As innocuous (and desexualized) as Andy Griffith beneath the hippie trappings, this dude-with-a-little-d knows where his real family is — with his dog, Willie Nelson, who loves him just as unconditionally. Beastie besties have never seemed so innocent as they are in this proudly feel-good comedy, and despite a cringe-y, saccharine soundtrack and lackadaisical pacing, Rudd’s charismatic sunny slacker and some pointed jabs at the follies of the cooler-than-thou save this indie-that-could. (1:36) 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

*Point Blank Not for nothing did Hollywood remake French filmmaker Fred Cavaye’s last film, Anything for Her (2008) as The Next Three Days (2010) — Cavaye’s latest, tauter-than-taut thriller almost screams out for a similar rework, with its Bourne-like handheld camera work, high-impact immediacy, and noirish narrative economy. Point Blank — not to be confused with the 1967 Lee Marvin vehicle —kicks off with a literal slam: a mystery man (Roschdy Zem) crashing into a metal barrier, on the run from two menacing figures until he is cornered and then taken out of the action by fate. His mind mainly on the welfare of his very pregnant wife Nadia (Elena Anaya), nursing assistant Samuel (Gilles Lellouche) has the bad luck to stumble on a faux doctor attempting to make sure that the injured man never rises from his hospital bed. As police wrangle over whose case this exactly is — the murder of an industrialist seems to have expanded the powers of the stony-faced, monolithic Commandant Werner (Gerard Lanvin) — Samuel gets sucked into the mystery man’s lot, a conspiracy that allows them to trust no one, and seemingly impossibly odds against getting out of the mess alive. Cavaye never quite stops applying the pressure in this clever, unrelenting cat-and-mouse and mouse-and-his-spouse game, topping it with a nerve-jangling search through a messily chaotic police station. (1:24) Opera Plaza. (Chun)

*Rise of the Planet of the Apes “You gotta love a movie where the animals beat up on the humans,” declared my Rise of the Planet of the Apes companion. Indeed, ape must not kill ape, and this Planet of the Apes prequel-cum-remake of Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972) takes the long view, back to the days when ape-human relations were still high-minded enough to forbid smart apes from killing those well-armed, not-so-bright humanoids. I was a fan of the original series, but honestly, I approached Rise with trepidation: I dreaded the inevitable scenes of human cruelty meted out to exploited primates — the current wave of chimp-driven films seems focused on holding a scary, shaming mirror up to the two-legged mammalian violence toward their closest living genetic relatives. It’s a contrast to the original series, which provided prisms with which to peer at race relations and generational conflict. But I needn’t have feared this PG-13 “reboot.” There’s little CGI-driven gore, apart from the visceral opening and the showdown, though the heartbreak remains. Scientist Will (James Franco, brow perpetually furrowed with worry) is working to find a medicine designed to supercharge the brain in the wake of Alzheimer’s — a disease that has struck down his father (John Lithgow). When the experimental chimp that responds to his serum becomes violently aggressive, the project is shut down, although the primate leaves behind a surprise: a baby chimp that Will and his father name Caesar and raise like a beloved child in their idyllic Bay Area Victorian. Growing in intelligence as he matures, Caesar finds himself torn by an existential dilemma: is he a pet or a mammal with rights that must be respected? Rise becomes Caesar’s story, rendered in heart-wrenching, exhilarating ways — to director Rupert Wyatt and his team’s credit you don’t miss the performance finesse of Roddy McDowell and Kim Hunter in groundbreaking prosthetic ape face in the original movies — while resolving at least one question about why humans gave up the globe to the primates. One can only imagine the next edition will take care of the lingering question about how even the cleverest of apes will feed themselves in Muir Woods. (1:50) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Chun)

Sarah’s Key (1:42) Four Star, Opera Plaza.

*Senna When Ayrton Senna died in 1994 at the age of 34, he had already secured his legacy as one of the greatest and most beloved Formula One racers of all time. The three-time world champion was a hero in his native Brazil and a respected and feared opponent on the track. This eponymous documentary by director Asif Kapadia is nearly as dynamic as the man himself, with more than enough revving engines and last minute passes to satisfy your lust for speed and a decent helping Ayrton’s famous personality as well. Senna was a champion, driven to win even as the sometimes-backhanded politics of the racing world stood in his way. A tragic figure, maybe, but a legend nonetheless. You don’t have to be an F1 fan to appreciate this film, but you may wind up one by the time the credits roll. (1:44) Opera Plaza, Smith Rafael. (Cooper Berkmoyer)

Straw Dogs Never could I have predicted there would be a day when the violent finale of Straw Dogs would be met with raucous cheers. The original 1971 film was produced within a morally ambiguous social climate and remains one of director Sam Peckinpah’s most controversial efforts; contemporary audiences trained to applaud a payoff of blood and gore are likely in the wrong headspace for a film like this. The remake, which sends a good-natured screenwriter (James Marsden) on a retreat in his wife’s (Kate Bosworth) sweaty Southern hometown where they find themselves at odds with a group of good ol’ boys, remains powerful and just as uncomfortable and mean as Peckinpah’s version, but it’s in service of a moral outcome that’s more in line with its commercial placement: ultimately it takes the road of “man becomes protector” over “man becomes monster.” If you have no interest in the original, you will find a fair bit of talent in this remake, but without the cynical attitude it can be hard to separate Straw Dogs from any other horror-movie-of-the-week. (1:50) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Shattuck. (Galvin)

The Tree of Life Mainstream American films are so rarely adventuresome that overreactive gratitude frequently greets those rare, self-conscious, usually Oscar-baiting stabs at profundity. Terrence Malick has made those gestures so sparingly over four decades that his scarcity is widely taken for genius. Now there’s The Tree of Life, at once astonishingly ambitious — insofar as general addressing the origin/meaning of life goes — and a small domestic narrative artificially inflated to a maximally pretentious pressure-point. The thesis here is a conflict between “nature” (the way of striving, dissatisfied, angry humanity) and “grace” (the way of love, femininity, and God). After a while Tree settles into a fairly conventional narrative groove, dissecting — albeit in meandering fashion — the travails of a middle-class Texas household whose patriarch (a solid Brad Pitt) is sternly demanding of his three young sons. As a modern-day survivor of that household, Malick’s career-reviving ally Sean Penn has little to do but look angst-ridden while wandering about various alien landscapes. Set in Waco but also shot in Rome, at Versailles, and in Saturn’s orbit (trust me), The Tree of Life is so astonishingly self-important while so undernourished on some basic levels that it would be easy to dismiss as lofty bullshit. Its Cannes premiere audience booed and cheered — both factions right, to an extent. (2:18) California, Lumiere. (Harvey)

*Warrior Those wondering why the mixed martial arts scene has captured the imagination of so many can finally understand what the fuss is all about, now that it comes filtered through a melodramatic narrative akin to The Fighter (2010). Warrior‘s mis-en-scene is immediately recognizable: a prodigal returns, in the form of Tom Conlon (Tom Hardy). Once a talented teenage wrestler, the now-battered man is the damaged youngest son of alcoholic ex-boxer Paddy Conlon (Nick Nolte). Tom wants his father to train him for a major mixed martial arts tournament with a multimillion-dollar purse, though the two obviously still have a deadly hold on each other — the repentant Paddy is on the wagon and the emotionally bruised Tom harbors secrets he won’t reveal — and battle with cutting comments rather than fists. Tom isn’t the only prodigal in the house: Paddy has lost the trust of Tom’s bro, Brendan (Joel Edgerton), a former fighter and present-day physics high school teacher who’s struggling to make ends meet with an underwater mortgage. Though Warrior is no Raging Bull (1980), it almost outdukes The Fighter in terms of its brutal bouts, conveying the swift, no-holds-barred action of MMA in the ring, while giving actors plenty of drama to wrap their jowls ’round — particularly in Nolte’s case. His tore-up turn as an all-excuses patriarch is as heartbreaking as a solid kick to the jaw. (2:19) California, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Chun)

 

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

BART’s failed press mainpulation

Zelda Bronstein
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10
BART’s failed press mainpulation

Another nice scoop by Zusha Elinson at the Bay Citizen: He’s got emails showing how BART tried to set up a fake counter-protest and press conference to skew media coverage toward how protests were inconveniencing riders.

The brainchild of Linton Johnson, BART’s PR chief (and the man who brought you the cell-phone shutoff), the plans included a pre-written script and a couple of private SUVs with drivers to take the BART loyalists to the press conference.

You can’t make this shit up.

BART’s attempts to avoid protests and manipulate the press appear to exceed its interest in reforming police practices. I wonder, sometimes, if the BART Board is even paying attention.

Film Listings

Andrew Lam
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0

OPENING

*All She Can Muscle Milkers and protein powderheads might want to bottle the ferocity of Texas-small-town teen Luz Garcia (Corina Calderon): it’s all heat, marathon-level work ethic, and can-do pigheaded mettle — hold the heavy metals. Instead, Luz presses, or rather lifts, really heavy metal — her opportunity to rise above her Mexican American family’s working-class lot is to attend University of Texas at Austin on a scholarship pegged on winning the state power lifting championships. Unfortunately, there’s a gauntlet of obstacles facing the teenager: her family is struggling with the burden of debt, boyfriend Raynaldo (Jeremy Ray Valdez) is tempting her with performance-enhancement drugs, and Luz has a bit of an anger-management issue, so much so that her abuela (Julia Vera) is rubbing eggs on her and taking her to a bruja to exorcise her demons. In Luz’s favor, however, is filmmaker Amy Wendel, who has an empathetic, attentive eye for the petite blue-collar powerhouse who can dead lift 280 pounds yet must struggle to find her balance in the world. Screening as part of the Maya Indie Film Series. (1:36) Opera Plaza. (Chun)

Aurora Critics have been divided over Cristi Puiu’s Aurora since its 2010 Cannes debut. It’s not hard to see why: even filmgoers who loved Puiu’s 2005 The Death of Mr. Lazarescu, or are obsessed with Romania’s newly thriving film industry, or even enjoy films that are deliberately slow-moving and enigmatic (like 1975’s Jeanne Dielman) still may want to give Aurora a pass. For three hours, a man (played by Puiu) putters, drives around, spies, and has a series of increasingly frustrating and futile encounters (with neighbors, relatives, co-workers, and strangers). When a firearm appears around 45 minutes in, it seems that something might finally happen, but it’s no spoiler to reveal that the motivation behind what does happen is barely explained, and also that the events unfold in inscrutable long shots. It’s clear by the film’s extreme length that Puiu wants viewers to feel mind-numbed by his deconstructed genre film (its working title was the perhaps too-literal Scenes from a Crime). The artistic effort is admirable, but be warned: there’s a fine line between “challenging” and “boring.” (3:01) SFFS New People Cinema. (Eddy)

*Cold Fish Did you love (or find yourself baffled by) Sion Sono’s Love Exposure during its Roxie run? Sono’s Cold Fish is similarly occupied with indoctrination, masochism, and extreme behavior. However, it’s also somewhat better able to sustain a tone of hysteria escalating toward dementia. An unhappy family (father Mitsuru Fukikoshi, daughter Hikari Kajiwara, stepmother Megumi Kagurazaka) is yanked into the orbit of a tropical-fish tycoon (Denden) who at first seems a boisterous benefactor providing shock therapy to their depressed lives out of simple altruism. But he and his bombshell wife (Asuka Kurosawa) soon reveal sides not just sinister but psychopathic, ensnaring all three in diabolical doings that encompass murder, rape, grisly corpse disposals, and more. Structured like Love Exposure as one long countdown to a transformative moment, Cold Fish pushes black comedy way beyond the bounds of taste with an oddly neutralizing good cheer. It’s a manic Grand Guignol set to the soothing kitsch strains of retro Hawaiian-flavored lounge music. (2:24) Roxie. (Harvey)

*Connected: An Autoblogography About Love, Death, and Technology Local filmmaker Tiffany Shlain (founder of the Webby Awards) takes a look at 21st century connections, both technological and personal, in this documentary. And the film gets very personal at times; constructed mostly as a video collage (using animation, stock footage, etc.), its few original clips come from Shlain family movies, which become more poignant when it’s revealed that the filmmaker’s beloved father, an author and brain surgeon, is dying of brain cancer. Shlain’s film draws some of its themes from her father’s 1999 book The Alphabet Versus the Goddess, a study of literacy’s effect on male-female dynamics over history, and the film is dedicated to him. But though the Shlain family’s struggles with loss and life (the filmmaker was pregnant when her father died) form Connected‘s thru line, the film’s probing, lively exploration of links (on- and offline) is universally relatable, and ultimately quite thought-provoking. (1:20) Embarcadero, Shattuck. (Eddy)

Detective Dee and the Mystery of the Phantom Flame Tsui Hark directs this period epic starring Andy Lau and featuring fight choreography by Sammo Hung. (2:02) Embarcadero, Shattuck.

*Drive Such a lovely way to Drive, drunk on the sensual depths of a lush, saturated jewel tone palette and a dreamlike, almost luxurious pacing that gives off the steamy hothouse pop romanticism of ’80s-era Michael Mann and David Lynch — with the bracing, impactful flecks of threat and ultraviolence that might accompany a car chase, a moody noir, or both, as filtered through a first-wave music video. Drive comes dressed in the klassic komforts — from the Steve McQueen-esque stances and perfectly cut jackets of Ryan Gosling as the Driver Who Shall Remain Nameless to the foreboding lingering in the shadows and the wittily static, statuesque strippers that decorate the background. Gosling’s Driver is in line with Mann’s other upstanding working men who hew to an old-school moral code and are excellent at what they do, regardless of what side of the law they’re working: he likes to keep it clear and simple — his services as a wheelman boil down to five minutes, in and out — but matters get messy when he falls for sweet-faced neighbor Irene (Carey Mulligan), who lives down the hall with her small son, and her ex-con husband (Oscar Isaac) is dragged back into the game. Populated by pungent side players like Albert Brooks, Bryan Cranston, Ron Perlman, and Christina Hendricks, and scattered with readily embeddable moments like a life-changing elevator kiss that goes bloodily wrong-right, Drive turns into a real coming-out affair for both Danish director Nicolas Winding Refn (2008’s Bronson), who rises above any crisis of influence or confluence of genre to pick up the po-mo baton that Lynch left behind, and 2011’s MVP Ryan Gosling, who gets to flex his leading-man muscles in a truly cinematic role, an anti-hero and under-the-hood psychopath looking for the real hero within. (1:40) Presidio. (Chun)

Forged Strong performances mark the wintry, fateful indie Forged, which at times almost threatens to swallow up its players in its sooty, steel-town ambience. Two lives run in tandem: homeless teen Machito (David Castro) is scraping out a life alone, haunted by horrific memories, while father Chuco (Manny Perez) has just emerged from prison, released on good behavior and far from eager to return to his criminal past. Much stands between the father and son — Chuco murdered Machito’s mother in front of him, and has much to make up for. Dysfunctional grandmother Dianne (Margo Martindale) is little help. Will viewers care about these blighted figures, bundled up in the cold and attempting to thaw from the inside out? Director William Wedig dances with clichés, but the actors, particularly Perez, are critical in making us care about the outcome, positioned somewhere between Scranton, Penn., and oblivion. Screening as part of the Maya Indie Film Series.

(1:17) Opera Plaza. (Chun)

I Don’t Know How She Does It Sarah Jessica Parker stars in this comedy about a woman who struggles to balance her career, family, and (no doubt) fabulous wardrobe. (1:35) Presidio.

The Lion King 3D Hakuna matata — in your face! (1:29) Shattuck.

Mary Lou A musical fable for fans of Glee, Hedwig and the Angry Inch (2001), The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert (1994), and Bollywood, the latest from Eytan Fox (2002’s Yossi and Jagger) is a drag-flavored dramedy (Israel’s first?) Originally a hit miniseries in its home country, Mary Lou screens at the Castro in one big chunk jammed with singing, dancing, and a dreamy cast. Pouty Ido Rosenberg stars as Meir, a gay boy obsessed with finding the mother who left him when he was 10. After a disastrous graduation party, Meir flees his homophobic high school for the worldly environs of Tel Aviv, where he soon becomes a drag star named Mary Lou, after his mother’s favorite song. Love, loss, friendship, tragedy, joy, coming-of-age, and quite a few elaborate musical numbers soon transpire — the plot is not without clichés, to be sure, but it’s hard to hate on anything possessed of such sparkly energy. Not familiar with Svika Pick, the Israeli legend whose music provides much of the soundtrack? It matters not, especially if you’re a fan of deliriously corny pop tunes. (2:30) Castro. (Eddy)

Mozart’s Sister Pity the talented sister of a world-shaking prodigy. Maria Anna “Nannerl” Mozart, who may have had just as much promise as a composer as her younger brother, according to Rene Féret’s Mozart’s Sister. A scant five years older, enlisted in the traveling family band led by father-teacher Leopold (Marc Barbe), yet forced to hide her music, being female and forbidden to play violin and compose, Nannerl (Marie Féret, the filmmaker’s daughter) tours the courts of Europe and is acclaimed as a keyboardist and vocalist but is expected to share little of her brother’s brilliant future. Following a chance carriage breakdown near a French monastery, Nannerl befriends one of its precious inhabitants, a daughter of Louis XV (Lisa Féret, another offspring), which leads her to Versailles, into a cross-dressing guise of a boy, and puts her into the sights of the Dauphin (Clovis Fouin, who could easily find a spot in the Cullen vampire clan). He’s seduced by her music and likewise charms Nannerl with his power and feline good looks — what’s a humble court minstrel to do? The conceit of casting one’s daughters in a narrative hinging on unjustly neglected female progeny — shades of Sofia Coppola in The Godfather: Part III (1990)! — almost capsizes this otherwise thoughtful re-imagination of Maria Anna’s thwarted life; despite the fact Féret has inserted his children in his films in the past, both girls offer little emotional depth to their roles. Nevertheless, as a feminist rediscovery pic akin to Camille Claudel (1988), Mozart’s Sister instructs on yet another tragically quashed woman artist and might inspire some righteous indignation. (2:00) Embarcadero, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Chun)

Straw Dogs Which is worse: a pointless remake of a classic movie, or a re-release of a classic movie with 3D slapped all over it? Discuss. (1:50) Shattuck.

ONGOING

Apollo 18 (1:26) Empire, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center.

*Bellflower Picture Two Lane Blacktop (1971) drifters armed with “dude”-centric vocabulary and an obsession with The Road Warrior (1981) and its apocalypse-wow survivalist chic. There are so many pleasures in this janky, so-very-DIY, heavy-on-the-sunblasted-atmosphere indie that you’re almost willing to overlook the clichés, the dead zones, and the annoying characters. Seeming every-dudes Woodrow (director-writer-producer Evan Glodell) and Aiden (Tyler Dawson) are far too obsessed with tricking out their cars and building a flamethrower for their own good — the misfits must force themselves out of the metal shop of the mind to meet women. So when Woodrow goes up against Milly (Jessie Wiseman) in a cricket-eating contest at a bar, it’s love at first bite. Their meet-gross morphs into a road trip and eventually a relationship, while the flamethrower nags, unexplained, in the background, like an unfired gun — or an unconsummated, not-funny bromance. These manifestations of male fantasy — muscle cars, weapons, and tough chicks — are cast in a dreamy, saturated, and burnt-at-the-edges light, as Glodell and company weave together barely articulated reveries and bad-new-west imagery with a kind of fuck-all intelligence, culminating in a finale that will either haunt you with its scattershot machismo-romanticism or leave you scratching your noggin wondering what just happened. (1:46) Roxie. (Chun)

Bucky Larson: Born to Be a Star (1:36) 1000 Van Ness.

Captain America: The First Avenger OK, Marvel. I could get behind 2008’s Iron Man (last year’s Iron Man 2, not so much), but after Thor and now Captain America, I’m starting to get cynical about this multi-year build-up to the full-on Avengers movie, due in May 2012. Can even a superhero-stuffed movie directed by Joss Whedon live up to all this hype? There’s plenty of time to ponder, and maybe worry a little, with Captain America’s backstory-explaining picture now in theaters. Chris Evans stars as the 90-pound weakling who morphs into a supersoldier, thanks to the World War II-era tinkerings of a scientist (Stanley Tucci) and an inventor (Dominic Cooper as Howard Stark, a.k.a. Iron Man’s dad). The original plan for the musclebound shield-bearer (fighting Nazis, natch) gets waylaid a bit when the newly famous Captain America becomes a PR prop for the U.S. government; it’s abandoned entirely when a worse-than-Hitler foe, in the guise of power-obsessed Red Skull (Hugo Weaving), threatens the world. Directed by Spielberg cohort Joe Johnston, Captain America is gee-whiz enjoyable enough, but it’s very nearly the same movie as Thor, which no amount of Tommy Lee Jones (as a sarcastic army colonel) wisecracks can conceal. And here’s an anti-spoiler: there’s no post-credits surprise in this one, so you can bolt as soon as they start to roll. (2:09) SF Center. (Eddy)

Chasing Madoff Bernie Madoff was a cold-blooded Ponzi schemer who ripped off billions from rich folks, average folks, little old ladies, children, charities, and so on, ruining lives while stoking the fire of the still-robust financial crisis. But he isn’t the only villain in Jeff Prosserman’s doc — there’s plenty of haterade left over to be (deservedly) dumped on the US Securities and Exchange Commission, which (willfully?) looked the other way for nearly a decade despite warnings about Madoff’s growing misdeeds. Chasing Madoff champions the few who dared speak up, chiefly fraud investigator Harry Markopolos, who badgered the SEC and the press for years and was eventually outed as the “Madoff whistleblower,” despite the fact that Madoff’s downfall came, more or less, when the man simply ran out of money. It was only after the fact that Markopolos gained fame by shaming the SEC with what must have been a deeply satisfying I-told-you-so testimony before Congress. Madoff’s crimes are so recent and notorious that anyone who watches this doc will already know what happens in the end; still, Chasing Madoff tries quite hard to build suspense. (As a result Markopolos comes off a bit paranoid — sure, Madoff may have had underworld connections, but do we really a re-enactment of Markopolos at the gun range, or groping ‘neath his minivan to check for car bombs?) Despite his ultimate triumph, Markopolos is reluctant to agree with anyone who calls him a hero, pointing out that because his findings were ignored, he wasn’t able to prevent Madoff from preying on more victims. The suicides associated with the Madoff collapse add an even sadder coda to the story. (1:31) Metreon. (Eddy)

Circumstance Thirteen (2003) goes to Tehran? The world of sex, drugs, and underground nightclubs in Iran provides the backdrop for writer-director Maryam Keshavarz’s lusty, dreamy take on the passionate teenagers behind the hijabs. Risking jail and worse are the sassy, privileged Atafeh (Nikohl Boosheri) and the beautiful, orphaned Shireen (Sarah Kazemy), who, much like young women anywhere, just want to be free — to swim, sing, dance, test boundaries, lose, and then find themselves. The difference here is that they’re under constant, unnerving surveillance, in a country where more than 70 percent of the population is less than 30 years old. Nevertheless, within their mansion walls and without, beneath graffitied walls and undulating at intoxicating house parties, the two girls begin to fall in love with each other, as Atafeh’s handsome, albeit creepy older brother Mehran (Palo Alto-bred Reza Sixo Safai) gazes on. The onetime musical talent’s back from rehab, has returned to the mosque with all the zeal of the prodigal, and has hooked up with the Morality Police that enforces the nation’s cultural laws. Filmed underground in Beirut, with layers that permit both pleasure and protest (wait for the hilarious moment when 2008’s Milk is dubbed in Farsi), Circumstance viscerally transmits the realities and fantasies of Iranian young women on the verge. (1:45) Embarcadero, Shattuck. (Chun)

Colombiana (1:47) 1000 Van Ness.

*Contagion Tasked with such panic-inducing material, one has to appreciate director Steven Soderbergh’s cool head and hand with Contagion. Some might even dub this epic thriller (of sorts) cold, clinical, and completely lacking in bedside manner. Still, for those who’d rather be in the hands of a doctor who refuses to talk down to the patient, Contagion comes on like a refreshingly smart, somewhat melodrama-free clean room, a clear-eyed response to a messy, terrifying subject. A deadly virus is spreading swiftly — sans cure, vaccine, or sense — starting with a few unlikely suspects: globe-trotting corporate exec Beth (Gwyneth Paltrow), a waiter, a European tourist, and a Japanese businessman. The chase is on to track the disease’s genesis and find a way to combat it, from the halls of the San Francisco Chronicle and blog posts of citizen activist-journalist Alan (Jude Law), to the emergency hospital in the Midwest set up by intrepid Dr. Mears (Kate Winslet), to a tiny village in China with a World Health investigator (Marion Cotillard). Soderbergh’s brisk, businesslike storytelling approach nicely counterpoints the hysteria going off on the ground, as looting and anarchy breaks out around Beth’s immune widower Mitch (Matt Damon), and draws you in — though the tact of making this disease’s Typhoid Mary a sexually profligate woman is unsettling and borderline offensive, as is the predictable blame-it-on-the-Chinese origin coda. (1:42) Balboa, California, Empire, Marina, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Crazy, Stupid, Love Keep the poster’s allusion to 1967’s The Graduate to one side: there aren’t many revelations about midlife crises in this cleverly penned yet strangely flat ensemble rom-com, awkwardly pitched at almost every demographic at the cineplex. There’s the middle-aged romance that’s withered at the vine: nice but boring family man Cal (Steve Carell) finds himself at a hopeless loss when wife and onetime teenage sweetheart Emily (Julianne Moore) tells him she wants a divorce and she’s slept with a coworker (Kevin Bacon). He ends up waxing pathetic at a slick nightclub where he catches the eye of the well-dressed, spray-tanned smoothie Jacob (Ryan Gosling), who appears to have taken his ladies man stance from the Clooney playbook. It’s manly makeover time: GQ meets Pretty Woman (1990)! Cut to Cal and Emily’s babysitter Jessica (Analeigh Tipton), who is crushing out on Cal, while the separated couple’s tween Robbie (Jonah Bobo) hankers for Jessica. Somehow Josh Groban worms his way into the mix as the dullard suitor of Hannah (Emma Stone) in a hanging chad of a storyline that must somehow be resolved in this mad, mad, mad, mad — actually, the problem with Crazy, Stupid, Love is that it isn’t really that crazy. It tries far too hard to please everybody in the theater to its detriment, reminding the viewer of a tidy, episodic TV series (albeit a quality effort) like Modern Family more than an actual film. Likewise I yearned for a way to fast-forward through the too-cute Jessica-Robbie scenes in order to get back to the sleazy-smart, punchy complexity of Gosling, playing adeptly off both Carrell and Stone. (1:58) Presidio, SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

The Debt On paper, The Debt has a lot going for it: captivating history-based plot, “it” actor Jessica Chastain, Helen Mirren vs. Nazis. And while the latest from John Madden (1998’s Shakespeare in Love) is fairly entertaining, the film is ultimately forgettable. Chastain plays Rachel, a member of an Israeli team tasked with capturing a Nazi war criminal and bringing him to justice. Mirren is the older Rachel, who is haunted by the long-withheld true story of the mission. Although The Debt traffics in spy secrets, it’s actually rather predictable: the big reveal is shrug-worthy, and the shocking conclusion is expected. So while the entire cast — which also includes Tom Wilkinson, Sam Worthington, and Ciaran Hinds — turn in admirable performances, the script is lacking what it needs to make The Debt an effective drama or thriller. Like 2008’s overrated The Reader, the film tries to hide its inadequacies under heavy themes and the dread with which we remember the Holocaust. (1:54) Marina, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Peitzman)

Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark If you’re expecting a traditional haunted house story, Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark might be a disappointment. The film, which was co-written by Guillermo del Toro, has a lot in common with his Pan’s Labyrinth (2006) — both movies are more dark fairy tale than horror. They follow a young girl who discovers a mystical world around her, much to the disbelief of the adults around her. It’s worth noting that Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark is lighter fare: despite all the peril involved, it’s actually pretty fun. Young Bailee Madison, who made such an impression in 2009’s Brothers, is a charming lead, precocious but believable. And Katie Holmes is surprisingly sympathetic in her role as the caring stepmother, a nice switch from the standard fairy tale trope. As with Fright Night, the ad campaign for Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark is misleading, so here’s hoping audience members looking for a gory slasher will appreciate a whimsical fable instead. (1:40) 1000 Van Ness. (Peitzman)

The Guard Irish police sergeant Gerry Boyle (Brendan Gleeson) is used to running his small town on his own terms — not in a completely Bad Lieutenant (1992) kind of way, though he’s not afraid to sample drugs and hang with hookers. More like, he’s been running the show for years, and would prefer that big-city cops stay the hell out of his village. Alas, a gang of drug smugglers is doing business in the area, so an officious group of investigators from Dublin (horrors!) and America (in the form of an FBI agent played by Don Cheadle) soon descend. His mother’s dying, his brand-new partner’s missing, and between all the interlopers on both sides of the law, Boyle’s having a hard time having a pint in peace. Good thing he’s not as simple-minded as all who surround him think he is. Writer-director John Michael McDonagh (brother of playwright Martin, who directed 2008’s In Bruges — also starring Gleeson) puts an affable Irish spin on what’s essentially a pretty typical indie comedy, with some pretty typical crime-drama elements layered atop. Boyle’s character is memorably clever, but the film that contains him never quite elevates to his level. (1:36) Embarcadero, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

*Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 Chances are you aren’t going to jump into the Harry Potter series with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2. So while the movie is probably the best Harry Potter film yet, it’s more a fitting conclusion than a standalone film. For fans of the books, there are no real surprises — this is a close adaptation. And for those Harry Potter movie fans who haven’t read the books, shame on you, and kudos if you managed to not get spoiled. It’s hard for me to offer a serious critical analysis of Part 2, because it represents the end of a long and very emotional journey. (Everyone in that audience was crying. Everyone.) I will say that, as was the case in the book, there are a few overdone, schmaltzy moments that aren’t really necessary. But in the context of the series, they’re forgivable — this may not be the great cinematic event of our generation, but Harry Potter as a whole is sure to be one of our most enduring cultural icons. (2:10) 1000 Van Ness. (Peitzman)

*The Hedgehog You needn’t possess the rough, everyday refinement of the characters of The Hedgehog to appreciate this debut feature by director-screenwriter Mona Achache — just an appreciation for a delicate touch and a tender heart. Eleven-year-old Paloma (the wonderful Garance Le Guillermic) is too smart for her own good, bored, neglected by her parents, and left to fend for herself with only her considerable imagination and a camcorder. She drifts around her fishbowl of privilege, a deluxe art nouveau-style apartment building in Paris, leveling her all-too-wise gaze on its denizens and plotting certain suicide on her 12th birthday — that is until a new resident appears in her viewfinder: a kindly Japanese gentleman Kakuro Ozu (Togo Igawa). He has as much of a connoisseur’s eye as Paloma — the proof is in his unlikely focus of attention, the building’s concierge Renée Michel (Josiane Balasko, resembling a burly Gertrude Stein), who hides her cultured and bookish inclinations behind a gruff, drab exterior. They recognize in each other a reverence for an almost monkish life of the mind, the austere elegance of wabi-sabi, and the transient beauty of rough-hewn imperfection, even in the sleek, well-heeled heart of the City of Light. To the credit of Achache, working with Muriel Barbery’s novel, these unlikely fragile friendships between outsiders take hold in a way that sidesteps preciousness and stays with you long after its pages have turned. (1:40) Opera Plaza, Smith Rafael. (Chun)

The Help It’s tough to stitch ‘n’ bitch ‘n’ moan in the face of such heart-felt female bonding, even after you brush away the tears away and wonder why the so-called help’s stories needed to be cobbled with those of the creamy-skinned daughters of privilege that employed them. The Help purports to be the tale of the 1960s African American maids hired by a bourgie segment of Southern womanhood — resourceful hard-workers like Aibileen (Viola Davis) and Minny (Octavia Spencer) raise their employers’ daughters, filling them with pride and strength if they do their job well, while missing out on their own kids’ childhood. Then those daughters turn around and hurt their caretakers, often treating them little better than the slaves their families once owned. Hinging on a self-hatred that devalues the nurturing, housekeeping skills that were considered women’s birthright, this unending ugly, heartbreaking story of the everyday injustices spells separate-and-unequal bathrooms for the family and their help when it comes to certain sniping queen bees like Hilly (Bryce Dallas Howard). But the times they are a-changing, and the help get an assist from ugly duckling of a writer Skeeter (Emma Stone, playing against type, sort of, with fizzy hair), who risks social ostracism to get the housekeepers’ experiences down on paper, amid the Junior League gossip girls and the seismic shifts coming in the civil rights-era South. Based on the best-seller by Kathryn Stockett, The Help hitches the fortunes of two forces together — the African American women who are trying to survive and find respect, and the white women who have to define themselves as more than dependent breeders — under the banner of a feel-good weepie, though not without its guilty shadings, from the way the pale-faced ladies already have a jump, in so many ways, on their African American sisters to the Keane-eyed meekness of Davis’ Aibileen to The Help‘s most memorable performances, which are also tellingly throwback (Howard’s stinging hornet of a Southern belle and Jessica Chastain’s white-trash bimbo-with-a-heart-of-gold). (2:17) California, Empire, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

*Higher Ground Higher Ground does not bite off more than it can chew. I guess that should go without saying, but it’s striking how comfortably Vera Farmiga (in her directorial debut) tackles this story of devotion and doubt. Based on the memoirs of Carolyn S. Briggs, who co-wrote the screenplay, this deeply personal film follows Corrine Walker (Vera Farmiga) from her adolescence through the trials of youth and middle age, her marriage to high school sweetheart Ethan (Joshua Leonard), and their lives as members of a small hippie Christian community. Although religion serves as a backdrop for Higher Ground, it doesn’t suffocate the human element of the story; it’s less a film about Christianity than it is about the challenges one woman faces as she tries to find room for herself amidst faith. Farmiga treats her subjects with empathy and humor and crafts a thoughtful, tender slice of sixties Midwest Americana. (1:49) Opera Plaza, Sundance Kabuki. (Cooper Berkmoyer)

*The Interrupters With concern from society and government as a whole at low ebb, communities at greater risk of violence from within than ever have had to come up with their own peace-making solutions. The Interrupters, the latest documentary by Steve James (1994’s Hoop Dreams), shows dedicated efforts to help one of the nation’s worst centers of such bloodshed: Chicago. “Violence is like the great infectious diseases of all history,” says epidemiologist Gary Slutkin, in that it can be stopped from spreading to epidemic proportions by numerous “initial interruption(s) of transmission” at its source. He translated that perspective into the founding of CeaseFire, an organization that doesn’t aim to summarily end the existence of gangs and drug trade. Instead, its plain but hardly simple mission is to stop the shootings, stabbings, etc. which are exacerbated by unemployment, broken families, and other sources of stress whose cumulative effect can rapidly escalate a casual dis to a mortal confrontation. Under CeaseFire’s auspices, Tio Hardiman created the Violence Interrupters program, which drafts people from the community — many former gangbangers themselves — as mediators wading into conflicts to defuse them before things get out of hand. It takes considerable will and nerves of steel; “interrupters” have been shot at, and during the course of this documentary’s year-long span one volunteer lands in the hospital for his trouble. But The Interrupters makes a powerful case against the inevitability of hopelessness turning into violence. (2:05) Shattuck. (Harvey)

Little Rock When the rental car driven by Atsuko (Atsuko Okatsuka) and Rintaro Sakamato (Rintaro Sawamoto) breaks down in nowheresville, California (actually, a small town called Little Rock), an air of disillusion hangs between the siblings, on vacation to “see America.” Holed up in a motel room, their disappointment is palpable, until a chance encounter with some locals sucks the pair into exurban American life. By the time their car is again roadworthy, Atsuko can’t bear to leave and decides to stay behind as her brother, the only one of the two who speaks a word of English, continues ahead without her. Communication is the driving force behind Little Rock and the language barrier somehow never gets stale; it certainly allows Okatsuka the opportunity for some superb acting. Despite some directorial flourishes (by Mike Ott), however, the story doesn’t really hold many surprises, and its inevitable conclusion is glimpsed long before it’s reached. (1:25) Roxie. (Berkmoyer)

*Love Crime Early this year came the announcement that Brian De Palma was hot to do an English remake of Alain Corneau’s Love Crime. The results, should they come to fruition, may well prove a landmark in the annals of lurid guilty-pleasure trash. But with the original Love Crime finally making it to local theaters, it’s an opportune moment to be appalled in advance about what sleazy things could potentially be done to this neat, dry, fully clothed model of a modern Hitchcockian thriller. No doubt in France Love Crime looks pretty mainstream. But here its soon-to be-despoiled virtues of narrative intricacy and restraint are upscale pleasures. Ludivine Sagnier plays assistant to high-powered corporate executive Christine (Kristin Scott Thomas). The boss enjoys molding protégée Isabelle to her own image, making them a double team of carefully planned guile unafraid to use sex appeal as a business strategy. But Isabelle is expected to know her place — even when that place robs her of credit for her own ideas — and when she stages a small rebellion, Christine’s revenge is cruelly out of scale, a high-heeled boot brought down to squash an ant. Halfway through an act of vengeance occurs that is shocking and satisfying, even if it leaves the remainder of Corneau and Nathalie Carter’s clever screenplay deprived of the very thing that had made it such a sardonic delight so far. Though it’s no masterpiece, Love Crime closes the book on his Corneau’s career Corneau (he died at age 67 last August) not with a bang but with a crisp, satisfying snap. (1:46) Albany, Clay, Piedmont, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

Midnight in Paris Owen Wilson plays Gil, a self-confessed “Hollywood hack” visiting the City of Light with his conservative future in-laws and crassly materialistic fiancée Inez (Rachel McAdams). A romantic obviously at odds with their selfish pragmatism (somehow he hasn’t realized that yet), he’s in love with Paris and particularly its fabled artistic past. Walking back to his hotel alone one night, he’s beckoned into an antique vehicle and finds himself transported to the 1920s, at every turn meeting the Fitzgeralds, Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates), Dali (Adrien Brody), etc. He also meets Adriana (Marion Cotillard), a woman alluring enough to be fought over by Hemingway (Corey Stoll) and Picasso (Marcial di Fonzo Bo) — though she fancies aspiring literary novelist Gil. Woody Allen’s latest is a pleasant trifle, no more, no less. Its toying with a form of magical escapism from the dreary present recalls The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), albeit without that film’s greater structural ingeniousness and considerable heart. None of the actors are at their best, though Cotillard is indeed beguiling and Wilson dithers charmingly as usual. Still — it’s pleasant. (1:34) Albany, Embarcadero, Piedmont, Presidio. (Harvey)

*The Names of Love Arthur (Jacques Gamblin) is a 40-ish scientist being interviewed about the threat of a bird flu epidemic when his radio broadcast is interrupted by 20-something Baya (Sara Forestier), who denounces him on-air as a “fascist” for frightening the public. But then, Baya tends to use that label rather indiscriminately, applying it to anyone who might conceivably have views to the right of the dial — and Arthur is in fact a solid liberal, which means she can bed him for love. As opposed to the many, many other men she beds as a self-described “political whore,” seeking out conservative types in order to seduce them and hopefully induce an idealogical shift by whispering sweet nothings (“Not all Arabs are thieves,” etc.) as they orgasm. Raised by parents whose emotions are so tightly wound his mother won’t acknowledge her parents were Jews killed at Auschwitz, Arthur has a hard time adjusting to a relationship with a lover who is faithful emotionally but sees promiscuity as her propagandic gift to the world. Meanwhile Baya’s largely Algerian family treats garrulous political argument as the very air they breathe. This odd-couple story written by Baya Kasmi and director Michel Leclerc deals with serious issues in both humorous and respectful fashion, making for one of the more novel, delightful and depthed French romantic comedies in a long time. Added plus: lots of antic gratuitous nudity. (1:42) Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

*One Day Why do romantic comedies get such a bad rap? Blame it on the lame set-up, the contrived hurdles artificially buttressed by the obligatory chorus of BFFs, the superficial something-for-every-demographic-with-ADD multinarrative, and the implausible resolutions topped by something as simple as a kiss or as conventional as marriage, but often no deeper, more crafted, or heartfelt than an application of lip gloss. Yet the lite-as-froyo pleasures of the genre don’t daunt Danish director Lone Scherfig, best known for her deft touch with a woman’s story that cuts closer to the bone, with 2009’s An Education. Her new film, One Day, based on the best-selling novel by David Nicholls, flirts with the rom-com form — from the kitsch associations with Same Time, Next Year (1978) to the trailer that hangs its love story on a crush — but musters emotional heft through its accumulation of period details, a latticework of flashbacks, and collection of encounters between its charming protagonists: upper-crusty TV presenter Dexter (Jim Sturgess) and working-class aspiring writer Emma (Anne Hathaway). Their quickie university friendship slowly unfolds, as they meet every St. Swithin’s Day, July 15, over a span of years, into the most important relationship of their lives. Despite the blue-collar female lead and UK backdrop that it shares with An Education, One Day feels like a departure for Scherfig, who first found international attention for her award-winning Dogme 95-affiliated Italian for Beginners (2000). (1:48) 1000 Van Ness, Piedmont. (Chun)

*Our Idiot Brother If you thought 1998’s The Big Lebowski had eked all the humor that it could from the Dude, well, screenwriter (and Vanity Fair contributor) Evgenia Peretz, her not-so-idiotic brother (director Jesse Peretz), and star Paul Rudd would differ. They correctly guessed that there are still laughs to be wrung from a shaggy stoner in floral jams, only this time with less fuuuck-s and more benevolent, idiot-savant good vibrations. Dazed and confused broheim 2.0 (Rudd) is glimpsed through the jaded, harried prism of his three dysfunctional, supposedly normal sisters: frumpadelic mom Liz (Emily Mortimer), queen-bitch Vanity Fair writer Miranda (Elizabeth Banks), and slatternly would-be comedian Natalie (Zooey Deschanel). A good-hearted naïf who’s easily entrapped by a uniformed police officer claiming to need some pity doobage, Ned has just emerged from the joint and is now couch-surfing among his sibs, exposing the hypocrisies of bourgie-hipster Brooklyn, as well as the infidelities and vanities of family, friends, and partners (Steve Coogan, Rashida Jones, Adam Scott, and Hugh Dancy) as he goes, in his own good-natured, aw-shucks way. As innocuous (and desexualized) as Andy Griffith beneath the hippie trappings, this dude-with-a-little-d knows where his real family is — with his dog, Willie Nelson, who loves him just as unconditionally. Beastie besties have never seemed so innocent as they are in this proudly feel-good comedy, and despite a cringe-y, saccharine soundtrack and lackadaisical pacing, Rudd’s charismatic sunny slacker and some pointed jabs at the follies of the cooler-than-thou save this indie-that-could. (1:36) Four Star, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

*Point Blank Not for nothing did Hollywood remake French filmmaker Fred Cavaye’s last film, Anything for Her (2008) as The Next Three Days (2010) — Cavaye’s latest, tauter-than-taut thriller almost screams out for a similar rework, with its Bourne-like handheld camera work, high-impact immediacy, and noirish narrative economy. Point Blank — not to be confused with the 1967 Lee Marvin vehicle —kicks off with a literal slam: a mystery man (Roschdy Zem) crashing into a metal barrier, on the run from two menacing figures until he is cornered and then taken out of the action by fate. His mind mainly on the welfare of his very pregnant wife Nadia (Elena Anaya), nursing assistant Samuel (Gilles Lellouche) has the bad luck to stumble on a faux doctor attempting to make sure that the injured man never rises from his hospital bed. As police wrangle over whose case this exactly is — the murder of an industrialist seems to have expanded the powers of the stony-faced, monolithic Commandant Werner (Gerard Lanvin) — Samuel gets sucked into the mystery man’s lot, a conspiracy that allows them to trust no one, and seemingly impossibly odds against getting out of the mess alive. Cavaye never quite stops applying the pressure in this clever, unrelenting cat-and-mouse and mouse-and-his-spouse game, topping it with a nerve-jangling search through a messily chaotic police station. (1:24) Lumiere. (Chun)

*Puzzle Careful as she does it: director Natalia Smirnoff displays a deft hand with a woman’s portrait in her debut feature, Puzzle. Argentinian middle-aged housewife and mother Maria (Maria Onetto) is so busy taking care of others and running her household, down to baking her own 50th birthday cake, that she’s lost touch with herself, her own pleasures, and her own sense of accomplishment. After reassembling a shattered plate, she discovers an aptitude for puzzle solving, leading her to sign up for a competition. Her partner is a wealthy, worldly man (Arturo Goetz) she meets after answering an ad at a puzzle store. It’s the minutiae, the little things, that matter in Puzzle — namely watching Maria pierce together her identity, along with her puzzles, via handheld shots bathed in a gentle golden light — adding up to pure satisfaction. (1:29) SFFS New People Cinema. (Chun)

*Rise of the Planet of the Apes “You gotta love a movie where the animals beat up on the humans,” declared my Rise of the Planet of the Apes companion. Indeed, ape must not kill ape, and this Planet of the Apes prequel-cum-remake of Conquest of the Planet of the Apes (1972) takes the long view, back to the days when ape-human relations were still high-minded enough to forbid smart apes from killing those well-armed, not-so-bright humanoids. I was a fan of the original series, but honestly, I approached Rise with trepidation: I dreaded the inevitable scenes of human cruelty meted out to exploited primates — the current wave of chimp-driven films seems focused on holding a scary, shaming mirror up to the two-legged mammalian violence toward their closest living genetic relatives. It’s a contrast to the original series, which provided prisms with which to peer at race relations and generational conflict. But I needn’t have feared this PG-13 “reboot.” There’s little CGI-driven gore, apart from the visceral opening and the showdown, though the heartbreak remains. Scientist Will (James Franco, brow perpetually furrowed with worry) is working to find a medicine designed to supercharge the brain in the wake of Alzheimer’s — a disease that has struck down his father (John Lithgow). When the experimental chimp that responds to his serum becomes violently aggressive, the project is shut down, although the primate leaves behind a surprise: a baby chimp that Will and his father name Caesar and raise like a beloved child in their idyllic Bay Area Victorian. Growing in intelligence as he matures, Caesar finds himself torn by an existential dilemma: is he a pet or a mammal with rights that must be respected? Rise becomes Caesar’s story, rendered in heart-wrenching, exhilarating ways — to director Rupert Wyatt and his team’s credit you don’t miss the performance finesse of Roddy McDowell and Kim Hunter in groundbreaking prosthetic ape face in the original movies — while resolving at least one question about why humans gave up the globe to the primates. One can only imagine the next edition will take care of the lingering question about how even the cleverest of apes will feed themselves in Muir Woods. (1:50) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Sarah’s Key (1:42) Four Star, Opera Plaza.

*Senna When Ayrton Senna died in 1994 at the age of 34, he had already secured his legacy as one of the greatest and most beloved Formula One racers of all time. The three-time world champion was a hero in his native Brazil and a respected and feared opponent on the track. This eponymous documentary by director Asif Kapadia is nearly as dynamic as the man himself, with more than enough revving engines and last minute passes to satisfy your lust for speed and a decent helping Ayrton’s famous personality as well. Senna was a champion, driven to win even as the sometimes-backhanded politics of the racing world stood in his way. A tragic figure, maybe, but a legend nonetheless. You don’t have to be an F1 fan to appreciate this film, but you may wind up one by the time the credits roll. (1:44) Balboa, Lumiere, Smith Rafael, Sundance Kabuki. (Berkmoyer)

*Shaolin There’s a lot to like about Shaolin, from Andy Lau, as a warlord turned passionate monk, to the return of Jackie Chan, as a stir-frying Shaolin, to its overall Buddhistic message (by way of heaps of chopsocky, blood-spitting violence), to its many action scenes, complete with mucho ax-throwing and horsing around with out-of-control carriages. We’re at the dawn of China’s republic, and the warlords are squabbling over the country’s spoils. General Hou Jie (Lau) appears to be the most ruthless of them all, following his second in command Cao Man (Nicholas Tse) into the Shaolin Temple to pursue an enemy with a golden secret and arrogantly leaving his mark on the sanctuary signage. But tragedy turns Hou around and sends him in the temple once more, where he finds real brotherhood with the good-hearted monks. Lau has reteamed here with director Benny Chan, and the results effectively recast the star, sometimes too easily pictured as a villain with his hawkish looks, as a hero once again, all while foregrounding Buddhism and giving it to the white devils at the end — an anti-imperialism message that has become rote in recent years, little wonder considering China’s growing might and the hardening of positions on the front lines of the global economy. (2:11) Four Star. (Chun)

Shark Night 3D (1:31) 1000 Van Ness.

Sholem Aleichem: Laughing in the Darkness This documentary cuts to the chase right at the beginning: yeah, Sholem Aleichem was the guy who wrote the Tevye stories that inspired Fiddler on the Roof. But filmmaker Joseph Dorman isn’t trying to make Fiddler: Behind the Musical. Instead, he takes an in-depth look at the life, writing career, and cultural significance of “one of the great modern Jewish writers — and our greatest Yiddish writer,” per the film’s press notes. Fans of Jewish lit will be particularly engaged by Sholem Aleichem’s tale; raised in a shtetl in what’s now the Ukraine, he moved around Europe and to the United States pursuing various careers, but always writing the popular stories that addressed not just Jewish life, but broader issues facing turn-of-the-last-century Jews, including the cross-generational conflicts that make up much of Fiddler‘s plot and humor. That said, this film does rely an awful lot on PBS-style slow pans over black-and-white photos and intellectual talking heads; one suspects the subject himself (so devoted was he to entertaining the regular folk who gobbled up his tales) would’ve preferred his life story to unfold in a livelier fashion. (1:33) Balboa. (Eddy)

*Shut Up Little Man! An Audio Misadventure Once upon a time (1987 to be exact), two young men moved to San Francisco from the Midwest. Eddie Lee “Sausage” and Mitchell “Mitch D” Deprey wound up living in a somewhat derelict apartment in the Lower Haight. The paint was peeling and the walls were thin, but the rent was cheap. What Eddie and Mitch didn’t count on was having Peter J. Haskett and Raymond Huffman as their neighbors. “You blind cocksucker. You wanna fuck with me? You try to touch me and I will kill you in a fucking minute.” “Shut up! Shut up! Shut up! Shut up little man!” The insults, tantrum throwing, and threats of violence coming from next door were constant. Eddie and Mitch started to lose sleep; after one failed attempt at complaining to Raymond’s face (he threatened death), they started tape-recording the endless geyser of vitriol — first, as possible future evidence, but also out of a growing voyeuristic fascination with these two seniors who had to be the world’s oddest and angriest odd couple. The rest is history. Mitch and Eddie started including snippets of Peter and Ray’s bickering on mix tapes for friends. Somehow, the editor of the now-defunct SF noise music zine Bananafish heard a snippet and approached Mitch and Eddie about distributing compilations of the recordings to a large network of found sound fans. Gradually “Peter and Raymond” became known and much-beloved characters. Their warped repartee inspired several theatrical adaptations, short animated films, pages of comic book panels by artists such as Dan Clowes, and even a one-off single from Devo side project the Wipeouters. Matthew Bate’s documentary Shut Up Little Man! An Audio Misadventure is much an attempt to comprehensively recount the above long, strange trip from start to finish; it is also the newest chapter in the now 20-year saga of Peter, Raymond, Mitch, and Eddie. (1:30) Roxie. (Sussman)

The Tree of Life Mainstream American films are so rarely adventuresome that overreactive gratitude frequently greets those rare, self-conscious, usually Oscar-baiting stabs at profundity. Terrence Malick has made those gestures so sparingly over four decades that his scarcity is widely taken for genius. Now there’s The Tree of Life, at once astonishingly ambitious — insofar as general addressing the origin/meaning of life goes — and a small domestic narrative artificially inflated to a maximally pretentious pressure-point. The thesis here is a conflict between “nature” (the way of striving, dissatisfied, angry humanity) and “grace” (the way of love, femininity, and God). After a while Tree settles into a fairly conventional narrative groove, dissecting — albeit in meandering fashion — the travails of a middle-class Texas household whose patriarch (a solid Brad Pitt) is sternly demanding of his three young sons. As a modern-day survivor of that household, Malick’s career-reviving ally Sean Penn has little to do but look angst-ridden while wandering about various alien landscapes. Set in Waco but also shot in Rome, at Versailles, and in Saturn’s orbit (trust me), The Tree of Life is so astonishingly self-important while so undernourished on some basic levels that it would be easy to dismiss as lofty bullshit. Its Cannes premiere audience booed and cheered — both factions right, to an extent. (2:18) Lumiere, Shattuck. (Harvey)

*Warrior Those wondering why the mixed martial arts scene has captured the imagination of so many can finally understand what the fuss is all about, now that it comes filtered through a melodramatic narrative akin to The Fighter (2010). Warrior‘s mis-en-scene is immediately recognizable: a prodigal returns, in the form of Tom Conlon (Tom Hardy). Once a talented teenage wrestler, the now-battered man is the damaged youngest son of alcoholic ex-boxer Paddy Conlon (Nick Nolte). Tom wants his father to train him for a major mixed martial arts tournament with a multimillion-dollar purse, though the two obviously still have a deadly hold on each other — the repentant Paddy is on the wagon and the emotionally bruised Tom harbors secrets he won’t reveal — and battle with cutting comments rather than fists. Tom isn’t the only prodigal in the house: Paddy has lost the trust of Tom’s bro, Brendan (Joel Edgerton), a former fighter and present-day physics high school teacher who’s struggling to make ends meet with an underwater mortgage. Though Warrior is no Raging Bull (1980), it almost outdukes The Fighter in terms of its brutal bouts, conveying the swift, no-holds-barred action of MMA in the ring, while giving actors plenty of drama to wrap their jowls ’round — particularly in Nolte’s case. His tore-up turn as an all-excuses patriarch is as heartbreaking as a solid kick to the jaw. (2:19) California, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Chun)

The Whistleblower (1:58) Smith Rafael.

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

On Guard!

Andrew Lam
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0
On Guard!

news@sfbg.com

BART’S CRACKDOWN

For weeks now, protesters have descended on Bay Area Rapid Transit (BART) stations to denounce the fatal July 3 shooting of homeless passenger Charles Hill by a BART Police officer, and to call for the agency’s long-controversial police force to be disbanded. Commuters have had to contend with service disruptions and delays, and costs to the transit agency have exceeded $300,000. Yet it isn’t just bullhorn-wielding protesters who’ve been thrust into the spotlight — BART’s police force is also facing scrutiny for its conduct under pressure.

BART drew the ire of numerous media outlets after a Sept. 8 protest when transit cops detained members of the press along with protesters on suspected violation of California Penal Code Section 369i, which prohibits interfering with the operations of a railroad. Most journalists were eventually released, but the protest resulted in 24 arrests.

Although BART police later contended that they issued dispersal orders prior to closing in, many who were encircled and detained (including me) insisted they’d heard no such announcement. BART police also instructed San Francisco Police Department (SFPD) officers who were on hand to assist to seize reporters’ SFPD-issued press passes — a move that SFPD spokesperson Troy Dangerfield later told the Guardian was an error that went against normal SFPD protocol.

In a Sept. 10 editorial, the San Francisco Chronicle blasted BART police for placing Chronicle reporter Vivian Ho in handcuffs despite being informed that she was there as a journalist. Ho’s experience was mild compared with that of Indybay reporter David Morse (aka Dave Id), who told the Guardian he was singled out for arrest by BART Deputy Police Chief Daniel Hartwig and isolated from the scene — even though Hartwig is familiar with Morse and knows he’s been covering protests and BART board meetings for the free online publication. Asked why Morse was arrested when other journalists detained for the same violation were released, BART spokesperson Jim Allison told us, “The courts will answer that, won’t they?”

No Justice, No BART — a group that was instrumental in organizing the Sept. 8 protest — telegraphed to media and police at the outset that they intended to test BART’s assertions that people’s constitutionally guaranteed rights to free speech would be upheld as long as they remained outside the paid areas of the station, in what was dubbed a “free speech zone.” (Rebecca Bowe)

 

CHRON VS. WIENER(S)

Scott Wiener tried to do something eminently reasonable, and ask the naked guys in the Castro to put down a towel before they sit on public benches. Although the Department of Public Health hasn’t made any statements about the issue (and people put their naked butts on public toilet seats without creating major social problems), it’s pretty much an ick factor thing — and using a towel is an unwritten (sometimes written) rule at almost every nudist resort in the country.

The whole thing is a bit ironic, since it’s already illegal for fully clothed poor people to sit on the street — but so far, it’s not illegal for naked people to sit on benches. So far.

Wiener’s move set off an anti-nudity campaign at the San Francisco Chronicle, starting with columnist C.W. Nevius suggesting that the nudies are all perverts: “If these guys were opening a trench coat and exposing themselves to bystanders in a supermarket parking lot we’d call them creeps.” A Chron editorial called for a new law banning nudity in the city (an excellent use of time for a police department that already says it can’t afford community policing). The national (right-wing) press is having a field day. The commenters on sfbg.com are arguing about whether the pantsless men are shedding scrotal hair, or whether they’re mostly shaved. For the record, we haven’t checked.

And for the record, in a couple of months it’s going to get way too cold and rainy for this sort of thing anyway. (Tim Redmond)

 

HERRERA’S SMACKDOWNS

City Attorney Dennis Herrera has always been limited by his office’s neutral role in criticizing city policies and officials. But as a mayoral candidate, he seems to have really discovered his political voice, offering more full-throated criticisms of Mayor Ed Lee and his policies than any of the other top-tier candidates.

“I think it’s kind of liberating for him that he can talk policy instead of just about legal issues,” Herrera’s longtime spokesperson Matt Dorsey, who recently took a leave from his city job to work on the campaign full-time, told the Guardian.

Perhaps not surprisingly, Herrera’s shift began a little more than a month ago when Lee bowed to pressure from Willie Brown, Rose Pak, and other top power brokers to get into mayor’s race, prompting Herrera’s biting analysis that, “Ed Lee’s biggest problem isn’t that he’s a dishonest man — it’s that he’s not his own man. The fact is, if Ed Lee is elected mayor, powerful people will continue to insist on things. And I don’t think San Franciscans can be blamed for having serious doubts about whether Ed Lee would have the courage to say no.”

Herrera followed up last week by providing an example of something Lee and most other mayoral candidates don’t have the courage to say no to: the Central Subway project, with its runaway price tag and growing number of critics that say it’s a wasteful and inefficient boondoggle that will worsen Muni’s operating budget deficit.

“Fiascos aren’t born that way. They typically grow from the seeds of worthy idea, and their laudable promise is betrayed in subtle increments over time,” was how Herrera began a paper he released Sept. 8 called “It’s time to rethink the Central Subway,” in which he calls for a reevaluation of a project that he and the entire Board of Supervisors once supported.

He notes that the project’s costs have tripled and its design flaws have been criticized by the Civil Grand Jury and numerous transit experts. “Let’s look at this thing and see if it still makes sense,” Herrera told us, a stand that was greeted as blasphemy from the project’s supporters in Chinatown, who called at least two press conferences to decry that they called a “cheap political stunt.”

While the stand does indeed help distinguish Herrera from a crowded mayoral field, he insists that it was the grand jury report and other critiques that prompted him to raise the issue. “Good policy is good politics, so let’s have a debate on it and let the validity of the project stand or fall on its merits,” he said.

Herrera and fellow candidate John Avalos were also the ones who called out Lee on Sept. 2 for praising Pacific Gas & Electric Co. as “a great company that get it” for contributing $250,000 to a literacy program, despite PG&E’s deadly negligence in the San Bruno pipeline explosion and its spending of tens of millions of dollars to sabotage public power efforts and otherwise corrupt the political process.

“It shows insensitivity to victims’ families, and poor judgment for allowing his office to be used as a corporate PR tool. No less troubling, it ignores the serious work my office and others have done to protect San Franciscans from PG&E’s negligence,” Herrera said in a prepared statement.

Now, his rhetoric isn’t quite up to that of Green Party mayoral candidate Terry Baum, who last week called for PG&E executives to be jailed for their negligence, but it’s not bad for a lawyerly type. Herrera insists that he’s always wielded a big stick, expressed through filing public interest lawsuits rather than campaign missives, “but the motivation in how I do either is not really different.” (Steven T. Jones)

 

JACK IS BACK

The mayor’s race just got a new player, someone who is guaranteed to liven things up. His name is Jack Davis — and he’s already gone on the attack.

Davis, the infamous bad boy of political consulting who is so feared that Gavin Newsom paid him handsomely just to stay out of the 2003 mayor’s race, has been keeping a low profile of late. But he’s come out of semi-retirement to work for Jeff Adachi, the public defender who is both running for mayor and promoting Prop. D, his pension-reform plan.

Davis and Adachi first bonded when Adachi ran against appointed incumbent Kim Burton in 2002. Now, Davis has begun firing away at Mayor Ed Lee, with a new mailer that calls the competing Lee pension plan a “backroom deal.” The piece features a shadowy figure (who looks nothing like Ed Lee) slipping through a closing door, a fancy ashtray full of cigars and an allegation that Lee gave the cops a sweet pension deal in exchange for the police union endorsement.

Trust us, that’s just the start. (tr)

 

PENSION PALS

Meanwhile, Adachi sent Lee a letter on Sept. 8 challenging him to debate the merits of their rival pension measures — Lee spearheaded the creation of Prop. C, with input from labor unions and other stakeholders — sometime in the next month.

“I believe there is a vital need — if not an obligation — for us to ensure that the voters of San Francisco understand both the severity of our pension crisis as well as the significant differences between our two proposals,” Adachi wrote, later adding, “As the two principals behind the competing ballot measures, I hope that we can work together to increase awareness of this important issue and work toward a better future for our city.”

Lee’s campaign didn’t respond directly to Adachi, but Lee’s ever-caustic campaign spokesperson Tony Winnicker told the Guardian that the request was “the oldest political trick in book” and one they were rejecting, going on to say, “Voters deserve to hear from all the candidates on pension reform, not just two of them.”

Perhaps, but given the mind-numbing minutiae that differentiates the two measures, some kind of public airing of their differences might be good for all of us. Or I suppose we can just trust all those dueling mailers headed our way, right? (stj)

For more, visit our Politics blog at www.sfbg.com.

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