[[UPDATE 6/4 : COMMENTS ARE WORKING AGAIN, SO LET’R RIP, TROLLERATI]] We at the Bay Guardian moved in with the San Francisco Examiner this week and things are going great so far, with the only exception being a few technical difficulties, including the fact that our blog comments aren’t working yet. But we’re aware of the issue, we’re working on it, and we hope to have the problem fixed as soon as tomorrow. Thanks for your patience.
San Francisco
Lee avoids budget drama, but other fiscal fights loom
When Mayor Ed Lee unveiled his proposed $7.3 billion city budget today, it was a sharp contrast to the annual budget rituals of his predecessor, Gavin Newsom, both in style and substance. Not only did Lee present a budget without employee layoffs or cuts to critical social services, but he capped months of collaborative work with the Board of Supervisors by presenting his proposal in Board Chambers.
Newsom preferred to offer his budgets during press conferences in his office or at media-friendly events outside City Hall, and his budgets were developed with little input from supervisors and almost always included controversial cuts to programs favored by progressive supervisors or constituencies, triggering an angry backlash that created an air of acrimony around the board’s budget hearings.
“It’s a very good budget. We’re very pleased with the process the mayor followed, and with the outcome in most cases,” Sup. David Campos told us, later adding, “The fact that the budget was presented in chambers was a good thing and a real change.”
Flanked at the podium by Board President David Chiu and Budget Committee Chair Carmen Chu, Lee began his address to the capacity crowd of department heads and other interested parties by noting, “As many of you know, I’m a person who does not like a whole lot of drama.”
He thanked those who have worked on the budget over the last six months – which included tough negotiations with labor unions that were tempered by higher-than-expected city revenues – and said the budget “really is an expression of our values as a city.” And this time, it was a statement and set of priorities that even progressives could agreed with.
“At a time of state cuts, protecting our social safety net is more important than ever,” Lee said as he announced that his budget included full funding for public health, human services, and HIV/AIDS prevention and treatment programs, all of which were cut by Newsom, with the supervisors then having to find funding to restore them.
Lee credited his economic development programs with this year’s budget turnaround – commenting that “San Francisco’s economy has recovered and our reserves are growing” – and it is true that the payroll taxes paid by businesses came in about $65 million above projections.
But an even bigger factor in this year’s projected budget deficit shrinking from $263 million to $170 million was the increase in the real estate transfer tax on properties over $5 million, proposed by progressives and approved by voters in 2010. The real estate transfer tax is expected to bring in more than $200 million in the coming fiscal year, $85 million more than this year. By comparison, the 5 percent across-the-board budget cuts that Lee ordered earlier this year amounted to just $58 million.
How to view the improving city budget situation is critical right now as Lee and his business community allies finalize negotiations over their fall ballot proposals to reform the city’s business tax structure and to create a housing trust fund to subsidize affordable residential development. Each needs to be in final form by the end of June, and Lee told us both are still being negotiated behind closed doors.
Lee has insisted the business tax reform be revenue-neutral, but SEIU Local 1021, the largest city employee union, wants it to bring in an additional $30-50 million per year, which represents how much the city has lost every year since 2001 when the biggest downtown corporations sued to invalidate the city’s gross receipts tax.
That union recently commissioned a study from researcher David Kersten of Kersten Communications that shows the city’s budget picture is actually better than presented in the mayor’s budget, which relies on revenue projections from March even though revenues have continued to increase since then. “I think it’s a little dishonest to put out deficit figures that are so out of date,” Kersten told us, arguing that it was a deliberate effort to maintain a sense of fiscal crisis in the city.
“We know that revenues are coming in higher than it was in March,” the union’s Gabriel Haaland told us. “They need to be honest with what the fiscal picture is.”
Indeed, despite the absence of the major doom-and-gloom that has marked past budget proposals, this year’s budget – the city first two-year budget proposal, thanks to voters approving Prop. A last year – continues to project a city government in decline in the coming years.
While Lee managed to avoid deep social service cuts, and propose a beefing up of the Police and Fire departments, it predicts that “General Administrative and Finance” functions will drop to $834.3 million in 2012-13 and $831.1 million in 2013-14, and that “General City Responsibilities” will fall to $615.2 million in 2012-13 and $579.7 million in 2013-14.
Campos said that it’s important to reverse the deep cuts that city government has undergone every year for more than decade, starting with a business tax reform measure that brings in new revenue as it broadens the tax base. “We can’t forget there have been sacrifices that have been made,” he said. “Revenue enhancement has to be part of the solution.”
Lee and his supporters in the business community have portrayed the stimulation of economic growth as the key to the city’s fiscal salvation, even as they create business tax exemptions for Twitter and other companies to create that growth. But tech companies with venture capital funding can end up increasing rents and other costs on the rest of the economy, as Lee acknowledged in his speech.
“I know there are anxieties out there because rents are starting to sneak up,” Lee said, arguing for a housing trust fund to subsidize “more housing for people at every income level.”
After his speech, Lee acknowledged that he still hasn’t struck a deal on the proposal – which commercial landlords are opposing because it would be funded by an increase in the real estate transfer tax – saying they were discussing the possibility of a new funding mechanism. “We have a little gap and we’re trying to figure that out,” Lee said.
Asked by reporters how he was able to avoid the deep cuts of previous budgets, Lee credited the improving revenue situation and said, “I think we’re incredibly lucky.”
SEIU deal could undermine progressive coalition
I stumbled on the oddest deal on a union-gossip website, but I’ve checked it out and it’s really happening — and it could be a total trainwreck for progressive politics in San Francisco.
The deal, still in draft form, is an “agreement on political unity” between SEIU Local 1021, one of the most progressive unions in the state and part of the voice of the left in San Francisco, and SEIU-UHW, a much more moderate union that has been taken over by the international. (One example of the tension between the two: Local 1021 has been and remains a strong supporter of Sup. John Avalos, and UHW leader Leon Chow is challenging him in District 11, something that even Randy Shaw, who increasingly disagrees with my politics, finds distasteful.) UHW has attacked the hotel workers union and split with most of the rest of labor around CPMC.
The way the deal would work is this: Both unions would choose a candidate. If they disagreed, the head of the international, Mary Kay Henry, would appoint a mediator to essentially break the tie. That person could unilaterally “direct the joint endorsment of one candidate.”
It would be a radical change — for the first time, the members of Local 1021 would cede final control of their endorsements to the international.
Ed Kinchley, a co-chair of Local 1021’s political action commitee, told me he finds the proposal troubling. “I’m not at all interested in having the international have a say in who we endorse,” he said. “Decisions about endorsements should be in the hands of our members.”
He said he’s all in favor of trying to find areas of agreement between the two SEIU locals — “but do I want to have something enforced on us if we can’t agree? No.”
The agreement specificially exempts the Avalos-Chow race and it calls for UHW to endorse Eric Mar and David Campos. Campos is basically unbeatable, so that doesn’t matter. The nod from UHW to Mar will be helpful to him.
But overall, this could dilute the progressive force of one of the most important voices in local politics. Local 1021 is more than just a city employee union; it’s a part of the progressive coalition, part of the left in this town. Forcing a joint endorsement with a union that is distinctly not part of the progressive coalition can only undermine Local 1021’s historical role.
And it’s odd; as the Stern Burger with Fries blog puts it:
If you’re Local 1021, why would you sign this deal? Local 1021 is a big political player in San Francisco with lots of members, money and foot soldiers. [UHW leader Dave] Regan has shown again and again that he’s hostile to the priorities of Local 1021’s members. Basically, he’s bedded down with the business community. So, if you’re [Local 1021’s Roxanne] Sanchez, why would you agree to this so-called “unity” deal? It hands over control of Local 1021’s political destiny to Regan and some SEIU bureaucrat in DC. Plus, when push comes to shove, everyone knows that [International head] Mary Kay Henry is going to back Regan over Sanchez. If Local 1021 accepts this deal, they’re basically declaring unilateral disarmament as far as their political future.
I couldn’t reach Sanchez and her phone isn’t taking messages. But I spoke with Chris Daly, the former supervisor and now Local 1021 political director, who told me he wasn’t there when the deal was negotiated. But he said “we’ve had many internal discussions on this” and that “the policy of speaking with one voice makes sense.”
When I told him I thought this was a progressive fumble, he said: “I disagree with your analysis.”
The proposal is scheduled to come before the SEIU 1021 COPE June 7.
Destroyer’s Dan Bejar on Orson Welles, desert island records, and more
Destroyer’s Dan Bejar is a songwriter’s songwriter, revered within indie rock circles for his dense, erratic lyric sheets, and sharp, confrontational vocal delivery. So, naturally, when he dove head-first into synth-laden yacht-rock on last year’s Kaputt, the Interwebs went abuzz.
The current Destroyer lineup is set to grace the Fillmore next Tuesday, for their second SF appearance since the album’s release. I interviewed Bejar about the upcoming tour over the phone last week, and unsurprisingly, he’s quite a talker. So much so, that my Destroyer feature in this week’s issue only scratched the surface.
For more juice on Kaputt, musings on Dean Martin and Orson Welles, and an impulsive list of desert island records, read on:
SFBG Your lyrics and your vocal delivery on Kaputt evoke this really strong sense of personality and point of view that I haven’t quite heard on another Destroyer record. I’ve read comparisons to Humphrey Bogart, to Bill Murray, to Dean Martin. Any way you cut it, there’s this sense of cool detachment at the center that makes people think of specific personalities. Were the lyrics on Kaputt, written and delivered with an established personality in mind?
Dan Bejar That’s kind of an interesting question. I think of them as kind of the most natural and least constructed lyrics and vocal turns that I’ve ever done. So, it’s funny that they evoke a strong sense of persona, because what I was trying to evoke was as much blankness as possible.
Just like, iterate the words, and try and hit the notes, and leave as much room for the music, you know? And, the sense of space was always very important. There’s probably half the word count that there is on any other Destroyer album.
It’s kinda like… that’s actually the exact opposite of how I picture it, but you never know when your intentions and when the reality of what you’re doing match up. I just tried to keep it real natural and simple. Maybe I am a Dean Martin character and I just don’t know it. Which would be cool, but you’d think someone would have told me by now.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=puu3IvKnSb4&ob=av2e
SFBG Another big talking point in discussing your career is these transitions, namely Kaputt and Your Blues in 2004. Are there any artists, musicians, you take inspiration from when you’re making a stylistic shift with your career?
DB You mean, like people who have jumped around a lot, and not fallen on their face completely, doing it?
SFBG Right.
DB I don’t know… I don’t really think of it as that, that forest, or like me putting on different Halloween costumes. I just think the traditional rock-band model didn’t really fit, you know? I think, if you look at the career of most singer-songwriter types, any of them who’ve managed to last more than ten years, they’ve probably jumped around a fair bit.
I think, for the most part Kaputt‘s an exception, the writing and the singing is fairly consistent. If you scroll the credits of Destroyer records, all nine of them, you’ll probably find a lot of the same names, you know, but just doing different stuff, or in different formations.
I kind of like the jazz model, where everyone plays on different records, and it’s just more like, session based, as opposed to everyone having to dress up in leather jackets and act like a gang. Most of my inspiration comes from Miles Davis, on a daily basis, anyway.
SFBG There’s a rhythm and a density to your lyrics, that people compare to… Bob Dylan’s thrown around a lot, Joni Mitchell sometimes. But, beyond songwriters, are there any authors, or actors, or public figures, whose patterns of speech and word choice you take inspiration from in your work?
DB Beyond authors?
SFBG Authors included.
DB Oh, authors included. Just beyond songwriters, yeah. There’s too many to choose from. That was the entire project of Destroyer, from the first record up until Kaputt, where the project kind of shifted to become, like I said before, like a singer, and not a chest with poetry.
But, before then, the entire thing was to try and insert words that you would find from outside of a typical rock song, into a typical rock song. That was, kind of, half the thing… Whether it was, like, Orson Welles, or Shakespeare. Or, actually, specifically, Orson Welles’ Shakespeare. That’d be a good one. [Laughs].
Actually, most of Destroyer is inspired by Orson Welles’ take on Shakespeare… [but] I will say that Kaputt is the first record to take most of its inspiration from nonverbal things.
SFBG When you come through San Francisco to tour, hang out, whatever, what do you like doing here?
DB Man, I’d love to have an actual free day in San Francisco, just to walk around. Generally, when I’m on tour, I don’t take too much advantage of where I am. I’m more like a gladiator who paces the bus, or a dank back-room and then is let out of his cage to go onstage. I might hit a bookstore or something.
Finally, Bejar’s impulsive list of five records he finds inspiring, right now. In no particular order:
– The Tony Bennett / Bill Evans Album (1975)
– Bark Psychosis: Hex (1994)
– Charlie Haden: Liberation Music Orchestra (1969)
– The Church: Priest=Aura (1992)
– Cliff Martinez: Solaris OST (2002)
Destroyer
With Sandro Perri, Colossal Yes
Tue/5, 9pm, $25
Fillmore
1805 Geary, SF
(415) 346-6000
www.thefillmore.com
Stop the presses: Sup. Elsbernd blasts B3 for Impertinent Questions on sunshine
Elsbern answers Impertinent Questions from B3 and James Chaffee (Scroll down)
First off, to your reference about still looking for me at Que
Syrah, or one of the other great West Portal establishments, you have been
saying this to me repeatedly for a long time now. Initially, it was a bit
funny, a nice little inside joke (although since you post on your blog our
e-mail exchanges, not so “inside”) between a couple of people who really do
not see eye to eye on many issues.
However, as you continued to perpetuate
this inside joke, it transitioned from being a bit funny, to a bit odd. If
you’d like to meet with me, let’s schedule a time. Thus far, you have only
offered Que Syrah’s happy hour time, which I have explained to you, on at
least two occasions, does not work for me as it is a weeknight immediately
after work – a time I reserve for my wife and son. I can meet with you
during the day most week days, or later in the evening after I put my son
to bed
Now, if I am wrong here, and just misreading your intentions by
misunderstanding the tone in your e-mails, I apologize. I know you are a
journalist and like to write, but maybe we would do better if you picked up
the phone and called me rather than solely initiating communication with me
by e-mail. If it is simply your intent to catch me in the act of enjoying a
meal on West Portal, I plan on having breakfast there this Saturday at 8:00
am at the Village Grill with my son – come join us if you’d like, although
to warn you, breakfast with a 3 year old is not necessarily that conducive
to a productive policy discussion. (B3: Sorry I couldn’t make your date but let’s reschedule. I didn’t phone because I wanted your reply in writing and on the written record.)
Second, congratulations to you on the sale of the Guardian and the
associated real property, assuming the recent media reports are true. I am
thrilled that the economic climate in San Francisco is allowing you to make
a little bit of money. As an aside, I hope you complete the real estate
transaction before the November election; there is a proposed property
transfer tax increase on the November ballot that could hamper your
profits. B3: As a small business, the Guardian pays high business and property taxes.
We don’t get Twitter type tax breaks nor friendly PG&E/Recology monopoly concessions. And we are annoyed
that the wealthy individuals and businesses intown are shifting more and more taxes to small businesses and residents,
I hope you can work on this.
Third, on to the Chaffee letter and his points. I do agree with his
point that what happened on Tuesday has happened before. In fact, on March
8, 2011, at a meeting of the full Board of Supervisors, the full Board was
asked to approve the nominations of the Rules Committee for three seats on
the Citizen’s Committee on Community Development. Nicole Rivera was one of
the 3 nominees approved by the Rules Committee; Charles Scianmas applied
and appeared before the Rules Committee, but was not put forward as one of
the 3 nominees. At the full Board meeting, Supervisor John Avalos moved,
with Supervisor David Campos seconding the motion, to remove Ms. Rivera and
replace her with Mr. Scianmas. The full Board approved this motion to
amend (Avalos, Campos, Chiu, Kim, Mar, and Mirkarimi voting aye), and then
appointed Mr. Scianmas. They did all this without taking any public
comment on Supervisor Avalos’s motion. This is the exact same process
Supervisor Weiner used when he moved to amend the item on Tuesday.
Refresh my memory – did you write Supervisor Avalos an e-mail asking
him why he did this after the March 8, 2011 Board meeting without taking
public comment? Did you contact any of the other five Board members who
voted for this motion without taking public comment first? Did you blog
about why the Board majority took this action without taking public
comment? Did the Guardian publish an article about why the Board took this
action without taking public comment? Or, in the converse, did the Guardian
trumpet this move by Supervisor Avalos because it liked the result?
Obviously, the point I am making is that you are criticizing a
process today because you simply do not like the outcome. If the outcome
was one of which you approved, I doubt very much you would be forwarding meMr. Chaffee’s letter. And, in fact, your past practice proves my point. B3: Your coup sabotaged the sunshine ordinance and task force on behalf of the Willie Brown gang and the boys and girls in the back room. It particularly galls me and others when it is done in violation of the spirit and letter of the city’s sunshine ordinance. Your vote for the developer’s shady last minute maneuvers on the Park Merced deal in your district is a good example.
Finally, to your general concerns about replacing the Sunshine Task
Force incumbents with new citizens, I believe Supervisor Weiner articulated
the need for this action quite well during the Board meeting. Frankly,
let’s be honest, if any other City Board, commission, or task force decided
to take it upon themselves, ignore every bit of City Attorney legal advice
and every known precedent under the Charter and Robert’s Rules of Order, to
take official actions even when a quorum is not present, the Guardian would
be critiquing, if not execrating said body and all of its members. Wait, I
take that back. If LAFCO took that action, it would probably get a pass
too.
Sincerely,
Sean
P.S. Please let me know if I should get a booth for two or three this
Saturday morning.
From: Bruce Brugmann <bruce@sfbg.com>
To: Sean Elsbernd <sean.elsbernd@sfgov.org>
Date: 05/24/2012 10:57 AM
Subject: On Guard: Some more questions on “The Return of Willie
Brownism to the sunshine task force”
Dear Sup. Elsbernd, (Chaffee letter below) I am still looking for you
at Que Syrah and this morning at the Manor and last week at the Village
Grill
I am now sending you a copy of an open letter from James Chaffee to the
board (dated Tuesday, May 22, the day of the 6-5 vote) that was done with
the intention in my view (and that of many others) of knocking out the
knowledgeable and experienced people from the task force and in effect
gutting the body. I would appreciate your comments on his points that the
maneuvering and his point that the the vote “was the perfect example of a
failure to follow the Sunshine Ordinance that led to the sort of problem
that it was intended to forestall.” Chaffee served with me as the chair
on the sunshine task force and was the chair. He is a longtime proponent
of open government. I would also appreciate any comments you have on the
bruce blog I sent you earlier, “The Return of Willie Brownism to the
sunshine task force.”
In short, why are you and Sup. Wiener and Farrell making this attack on
open government and the sunshine ordinance/task force.? Many thanks, b3
—– Forwarded Message —–
From: “James Chaffee” <chaffeej@pacbell.net>
To: “board of supervisors” <board.of.supervisors@sfgov.org>, “Carmen Chu”
<Carmen.Chu@sfgov.org>, “Christina Olague” <Christina.Olague@sfgov.org>,
“David Campos” <David.Campos@sfgov.org>, “David Chiu”
<David.Chiu@sfgov.org>, “Eric L. Mar” <Eric.L.Mar@sfgov.org>, “Jane Kim”
<Jane.Kim@sfgov.org>, “John Avalos” <John.Avalos@sfgov.org>, “Malia Cohen”
<Malia.Cohen@sfgov.org>, “Mark Farrell” <Mark.Farrell@sfgov.org>, “Scott
Wiener” <Scott.Wiener@sfgov.org>, “Sean Elsbernd” <Sean.Elsbernd@sfgov.org>
Cc: mpetrelis@aol.com, Pmonette-shaw@earthlink.net, “rita august”
<rita_august@msn.com>, hopeannette@earthlink.net, hgarfolocgj@yahoo.com,
dougcomz@mac.com, amwashburn@comcast.net, kimo@webnetic.net, “jay costa09”
<jay.costa09@gmail.com>, “ben rosenfeld” <ben.rosenfeld@comcast.net>,
grossman356@mac.com, smanneh@newamericamedia.org, han467@yahoo.com,
editorcitireport@gmail.com, “mother ed” <mother_ed@bigeds.com>,
missforties@hotmail.com, libraryusers2004@yahoo.com,
derekonvanness@aol.com, bruce@sfbg.com, rwhartzjr@sbcglobal.net,
karenrolph@hotmail.com, sotf@brucewolfe.net, “Richard Knee”
<rak0408@earthlink.net>
Sent: Wednesday, May 23, 2012 12:18:34 AM
Subject: Chaffee — Perfect Example, Sunshine Appointment Today
Dear Friends,
Today’s Board of Supervisor’s meeting included an item for approval of
appointments to the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force.
Supervisor Weiner moved to amend the motion to delete Bruce Wolfe from the
recommendation that was passed out of committee and replace him with David
Todd. That amendment passed.
As almost everyone knows, there is no public comment on a motion that was
heard at a committee. It has been accepted by the Supervisors in the past
and acknowledged by the City Attorney’s Office that if the motion that was
heard in committee is changed substantially so that what is being
considered no longer reflects what was passed out of committee, public
comment needs to be taken again. This is designed to give people time to
lobby the supervisors, or point out any mistakes, and not to be subjected
to surprises. As a matter of fact, it has been past practice for the
Supervisors to list the appointee’s names on the agenda. This is the first
time I have noticed it was not done. Is this another example of the
Supervisors hiding a proposed action to give them “flexibility.”
Yet the Supervisors passed the amended motion without taking public
comment.
As probably everyone but Scott Weiner knows, the Sunshine Ordinance at
§67.30(a) states that: “At all times the task force shall include at least
one member who shall be a member of the public who is physically
handicapped and who has demonstrated interest in citizen access and
participation in local government.”
Bruce Wolfe has been filling that requirement on the Task Force. Is David
Todd physically handicapped? What plan do the supervisors have to assure
that this requirement is fulfilled?
If there had been the required public comment, someone could have brought
it up? As a matter of fact, the idea for public comment is not just to
make the commenter feel better. The primary idea is that public decisions
will benefit from the collective wisdom of the citizens.
This is the perfect example of a failure to follow the Sunshine Ordinance
that led to the sort of problem that it was intended to forestall, namely
the Supervisors taking an action without being informed of what they are
doing. If Scott Weiner and David Chui and the rest of the crew did not
consider the citizens the enemy and exercise judgment about whether they
were complying with the spirit of open government rather than just shaving
off letter of the law as closely as possible, this could have been avoided.
Of course, I don’t know for a fact that Todd David is not physically
handicapped. I took a look at his application and he is self employed as
an investor, obtained a B.A. from Stanford in 1993, has never attended a
Task Force meeting, and left the statement of his qualifications blank. I
took a look at the video of the May 17, Rules Committee meeting and he had
no obvious physical handicap. It is easy to see why Scott Weiner likes
him; he said it would be a long road before he would go against the City
Attorney’s office, and when it came to constitutional law he would place
the City Attorney’s opinion above his own because the City Attorney is an
“expert.”
James Chaffee
City attorney responds on sunshine task force attacks
B3 note: Here are responses from City Attorney Dennis Herrera to Impertinent Questions from B3 on why the city attorney helped facilitate the supervisorial attack on the sunshine ordinance and task force (See previous B3 sunshine blogs).
Regarding recommended SOTF candidates
Section 67.30 (a) of the San Francisco Sunshine Ordinance provides that the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force’s eleven voting members be “appointed by the Board of Supervisors.” That same section designates that a total of four members be appointed by the Board from names submitted for consideration by: the local chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists; the League of Women Voters; and New California Media. I’m informed that when the Board’s Rules Committee conducted its hearing and interviewed SOTF applicants, only one person was recommended for each seat by these entities. The Rules Committee then continued action on those seats until the entities submitted additional names. Legally, there is nothing problematic about such a continuance.
Regarding designated seats
Section 67.30 (a) includes specific designations for each of the seats on the SOTF. It additionally provides that one of those seats be a person with a disability, although it does not prescribe which of the 11 seats be designated to a person with a disability. I’ll be honest here: I’m not aware of whether Mr. Todd has a disability or not. But given that the Board still has to fill four remaining vacant SOTF seats, it will comply with the Sunshine Ordinance so long as one of the SOTF seats is timely filled by “a member of the public who is physically handicapped and who has demonstrated interest in citizen access and participation in local government.”
Regarding public comment
Public comment occurs in board committees. Each SOTF applicant spoke at the Rules Committee, and members of the public had the opportunity there to offer their comments on all of the applicants. Although the Rules Committee forwarded six recommendations out of committee, the record transmitted to the full Board included the entire file — including all the other applicants. The City Attorney’s Office has long advised the Board of its authority to amend appointing motions, and to instead appoint someone else, so long as that appointee’s name and application was before the Rules committee, and so long as it was subject to public comment. That was indeed the case here. At the committee level, applicants speak; members of the public speak about the applicants; and then public comment is closed. The committee then decides on its recommended appointments — but public comment is not reopened to comment on the committee’s choices.
Regarding the role of the City Attorney
With respect to your question about why the City Attorney is “allowing” certain actions by clients, I should briefly address the role of the City Attorney under San Francisco Charter § 6.102. Beyond the particular set of circumstances addressed in this email, most questions about what the City Attorney “allows” or “disallows” really misinterpret the office’s function. In many contexts over many years, the office has reiterated that “[t]he City Attorney is not a policy maker.” (See: http://www.sfcityattorney.org/modules/showdocument.aspx?documentid=953 ) The City Attorney’s Good Government Guide (pages 19-21) addresses at length the role the City Attorney plays in providing legal counsel to the City and its elected officers, commissions and employees (See: http://www.sfcityattorney.org/Modules/ShowDocument.aspx?documentid=686 )
This office provides legal advice to clients, while also acknowledging that the policy-making authority of the Board and Mayor includes the prerogative to assess for itself the relative legal risks of its actions, understanding that this office will defend its actions “so long as there are legally tenable arguments to support doing so.” In that sense, the role is no different from that of any lawyer providing advice to a client: attorneys counsel; but clients, ultimately, decide.
Best,
MATT DORSEY
Press Secretary to City Attorney Dennis Herrera
B3 comment: The city attorney has made the case for the task force to get independent legal advice and to bring in an independent attorney to represent the task force. More: It is yet another reason to have an independent attorney as a task force member who is strong enough to go up against the city attorney as appropriate on critical issues. This was the original reason for SPJ, with its experience in public access and First Amendment issues and litigation, to nominate an experienced attorney. This was the first time the supervisors rejected the SPJ nominee (and nominees from other organizations as mandated by the charter) without a proper explanation or apology or a nice word of thanks. .He helped Willie Brownism prevail for the first time with the sunshine ordinance and task force.
Sunshine eclipse: Supervisors ramp up their war on sunshine
And so the San Francisco supervisors ramped up their war on sunshine on Tuesday (May 22) when they rejected five qualified candidates for the sunshine task force and substituted five in experienced in candidates with no experience or visible qualifications.
The key vote was to reject Bruce Wolfe, an experienced task force member, and substitute Todd David, a self-employed investor whose application for the task force said he had never attended a task force meeting and left blank the statement of his qualifications. Here’s the story I wrote for the current Guardian:
http://www.sfbg.com/2012/05/30/sunshine-eclipsed
Bikes and business, a new and evolving union in SF
Building Owners and Managers Association of San Francisco (BOMA) is being honored by the San Francisco Bicycle Coalition at next week’s annual Golden Wheel Awards, recognizing BOMA’s help earlier this year in passing a city law requiring commercial landlords to let workers bring their bikes indoors or another secure bike parking area.
It is a strange and noteworthy honor for BOMA, a downtown force that is usually at odds with SFBC and progressive political entities, including opposing an effort to pass similar bikes-in-buildings legislation a decade ago. But this time, BOMA was an early partner on legislation sponsored by progressive Sup. John Avalos, an indicator of just how much the politics surrounding urban cycling have changed in recent years, particularly in San Francisco.
In the city where Critical Mass was born 20 years ago this fall – since then exported to dozens of cities around the world, globalizing urban cyclists’ demand for the equal right to use roadways often built mainly for automobiles – the bicycle has moved from the preferred mode of rebels, children, and the poor into a mainstream transportation option recognized even by the suits in the corner offices.
“They’re responding to a market demand. They see lots of employees looking for bike access in their buildings,” San Francisco Bicycle Coalition Executive Director Lean Shahum said BOMA.
It was a point echoed by John Bozeman, BOMA’s government and public affairs manager and a regular cyclist. “Ten years ago, our members didn’t see it as something their tenants were asking of them,” Bozeman told us. “With the rise of young workers coming into our buildings, there was a greater demand for better bike access.”
But there are different ways of looking at this switch, which could undermine the progressive movement in San Francisco as SFBC increasingly adopts a more neoliberal approach of reliance on corporate support, rather than relying primarily on the political strength of their 12,000-plus members. For example, the Sunday Streets road closures that SFBC helped initiate are sponsored by a long list of corporations looking to improve their public image, including Bank of America (whose representative recently joined SFBC and city officials at a press conference announcing an expansion of the program), California Pacific Media Center, and Clear Channel, and in the past PG&E and Lennar.
“It reflects that bicycling sells real estate, and that’s a recent trend in hip, tech-focused cities,” says Jason Henderson, a San Francisco State University geography professor now finishing up a book on the politics of transportation, which explores these shifting dynamics.
The relationship with and dependence upon the business community could diminish SFBC’s willingness to champion bold reforms to our transportation system, such as congestion pricing charges for cars entering the city core during peak hours or demanding public transit mitigation fees of downtown corporations.
“On the other hand, it’s helping legitimize the bike as a legitimate form of transportation when the power elite accept it,” Henderson said.
Whatever the case, SFBC decision to honor BOMA with an award – which will be presented on the evening of June 5 during an event at the swank War Memorial Building – represents a new and evolving political dynamic for San Francisco.
“San Francisco has become a very different place in terms of embracing bicycling,” Shahum said. “There is a strong understanding that biking is good for the economy.”
This Week’s Picks
WEDNESDAY 5/30
A Behanding in Spokane
Martin McDonagh, Oscar-winning author of the movie In Bruges and the equally dark hit play Pillowman, brings us another demented fable, already receiving rave reviews from the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. All we need to know is that protagonist Carmichael has lost his hand, and although it has been more than 30 years, he is still pissed as hell. Violence and sexually twisted elements are guaranteed in any McDonagh production, and this stage performance includes special effects as gruesome as you could find on the big screen. Do not be too scared off by the talk of gore though — his work is psychologically thrilling as well, and this black comedy brings some fantastic actors to the stage. (Shauna C. Keddy)
Ongoing, through June 30 Tue-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm)
8pm, $30-40
533 Sutter, SF
(415) 677-9596
www.sfplayhouse.org
WEDNESDAY 5/30
Kids on a Crime Spree
These Kids embrace the idea that a simple pop song can be so much more — their music contains darker lyrics hidden under sunny melodies. Their records are captured on analog tape and harken back to the days when Phil Spector was recording bands in New York’s famous Brill Building, and not just a crazy-haired freak. Based on a driving drum line and drenched in reverb guitar, this Crime Spree creates all the messy fun you could ask for, but it’s safe to say you can walk away from this controlled chaos without any trouble with the law. This is not just the sound of kids having some rowdy fun, the Oakland rockers have some truly memorable tunes. (Keddy)
9pm, $5
El Rio
3158 Mission, SF
(415) 282-3325
www.elriosf.com
THURSDAY 5/31
“The Water is Clear and Still”
Liss Fain has always chosen her visual and musical collaborators with great care. A choreographer of uncommon intelligence and taste, every new work is the result of careful deliberations and satisfying for that reason alone. Last year she stepped away from the proscenium stage into an installation format inside YBCA’s Forum. In her new “The Water is Clear and Still,” based on Jamaica Kincaid’s tiny but hugely resonating short stories, she is taking the concept further by using the more complex space of Z Space’s lobby and theater. Again the audience will be invited to wander. Joining Fain’s seven dancers will be actor Delia MacDougall for Kincaid’s text. Longtime collaborator Matthew Antaky has signed on one more time for the lighting and set design. Dan Wool composed the score. (Rita Felciano)
Through Sat/2, 8pm; Sun/3, 2pm; $15–$25
Z Space
450 Florida St., S.F.
(800) 838-3006
www.lissfaindance.org
THURSDAY 5/31
“City Scenes: Installments One and Two”
Owned by the San Francisco Neighborhood Theater Foundation, the circa 1910 Vogue Theatre is, appropriately, a single-screen theater smack-dab in the middle of a neighborhood — no shopping malls need apply. With SFNTF partners CinemaSF at the programming helm, the Vogue shows first-run films, but also hosts unique cultural events you won’t find elsewhere. Case in point: CinemaSF’s new venture with promoters folkYEAH, “City Scenes,” which pairs local musicians with SF-centric films for two nights of rockin’ and movie-watchin’. Tonight, Vetiver curates the 1978 Goldie Hawn-Chevy Chase comedy Foul Play; tomorrow, Chuck Prophet presents Francis Ford Coppola’s tense drama The Conversation (1974). (Cheryl Eddy)
Through Fri/1
8pm (music); 9pm (film), $20
Vogue Theatre
3290 Sacramento, SF
cinemasf.com/vogue
THURSDAY 5/31
Hospitality
One of the highlights at the most recent Noise Pop festival, Brooklyn’s Hospitality is also responsible for one of the best releases this year, its self-titled debut on Merge Records. Amber Papini sings with an appealing lilt and unlocatable accent, and her storytelling style has the punch of Attractions-era Elvis Costello with the tenderness of Belle and Sebastian. Featuring production from guitarist-solo artist-Papini’s husband Nathan Michel and Shane Stoneback (Vampire Weekend, Sleigh Bells), the resulting album is ten tracks of unimpeachable pop, immediately relatable to anyone that’s endured a third decade of ennui, reevaluating friendships and that useless degree. (Ryan Prendiville)
With Waterstrider, Popscene DJs
9:30pm, $13
Rickshaw Stop
155 Fell, SF
(415) 861-2011
www.rickshawstop.com
THURSDAY 5/31
2012 San Francisco Nightlife Awards
This is your chance, San Francisco, to throw your tired arms up then bend over and take a vote. More accurately: to celebrate all your creative nightlife creatures, venues, and parties with awards and accolades. The California Music and Culture Association is throwing this second annual meeting of the nightlife minds, where DJs from some of SF’s favorite parties will spin, and all the voting will take place during the actual event. Yes, attendees get in on that hot voting action (Best Live Venue, Best Festival, Best Designer, etc). The winners will then be announced on the spot in a grand ceremony hopefully befitting for such luster. (Emily Savage)
With DJs from Debaser, Future Perfect, Hard French, Lights Down Low
Hosted by Anna Conda and Marke B.
8pm-midnight; Members $5, Non-Members $10
Mezzanine
444 Jessie, SF
Facebook: 2012 San Francisco Nightlife Awards
FRIDAY 6/1
Annie Bacon and Her OSHEN
Some nights you need to rock out to hardcore, other nights you want sweet and tender vocals over a folk-y melody, the kinds of songs in which the lyrics mean something, and the music carries you right along. Annie Bacon, also known for her “Folk Opera” work, offers that soothing sound you may yearn for at her album release show with Her OSHEN band (for new album Light to See Dark). Think Americana, with an emotionally driven undertone. (Keddy)
With Adios Amigo, Al Lover, the Hates, My Second Surprise
9pm, $10
Cafe Du Nord
2170 Market, SF
(415) 861-5016
www.cafedunord.com
FRIDAY 6/1
“Reap What You Zoa”
If you’ve visited Oakland Art Murmur — the city’s super-cool monthly art walk, which last month turned into an Occupy-style dance party that took over Telegraph Avenue for hours — then you’ve probably seen the flaming Fluxcycle and its beautiful, stylish crew from Flux Foundation. Wanna go home with them? Mmm, of course you do. You’ll get the chance after this month’s Art Murmur when the crew brings the party back to its home base at American Steel for a rockin’ afterparty to benefit Zoa, its creation for this year’s Burning Man. The event features live music, a gallery show, Chester the Fire Breathing Art Car, the Front Porch, Oaktown Hall, a full bar staffed by the legendary Flash Hopkins, and other artsy surprises, all in a fantastic industrial warehouse. (Steven T. Jones)
With American Nomad
7pm-1am, $10–$20 donation
American Steel
1960 Mandela Parkway, Oakl. (enter on 20th)
www.americansteelstudios.com
www.fluxfoundation.org
FRIDAY 6/1
Omar Souleyman
The prominent ambassador of Syrian folk-dance-party-Dabke music to the US, Omar Souleyman is perhaps known best for his live performances. Releases on the Sublime Frequencies record label — drawing from reportedly over 500 cassettes created over the course of a decade plus, the majority of which were recorded at weddings and parties — has brought increased exposure for the musician and his band, and some ire from more “traditional” world music fans. Souleyman’s style of overdriven, synthesizer-embracing, unrelenting beats and fire-spitting vocals inevitably leads to those who immediately can’t stand it, and those who can’t resist it. Incidentally, this category includes Bjork, for whom Souleyman recently remixed a series of songs including “Crystalline.” (Prendiville)
With DJ Dragonfly, 3 Leafs
8pm, $20 Mezzanine 444 Jessie, SF (415) 625-8880 www.mezzaninesf.com
FRIDAY 6/1
Balam Acab
Tri Angle Records wunderkind Alec Koone, better known as Balam Acab, creates hauntingly beautiful music. The 2011 LP Wander / Wonder solidified Koone as a singular player in the vogue witch house scene. Although the term “witch house” is a four-letter word among some contemporaries, Balam Acab’s music fits all the criteria: inherently electronic, atmospheric, warped, hazy and dragged out. The 20-something Pennsylvanian embarked on a sound that has helped characterize the Tri Angle aesthetic; label mates include Clams Casino, How to Dress Well, Holy Other and oOoOO. Koone made his San Francisco debut with a live performance at Public Works in December. This time around, Elbo Room should prove to be a more intimate experience for fans of his moody music, sure to be set to fog and lasers. (Julia B. Chan)
With S4NtA_MU3rTE, Nako, PLANET DEATH, oOoOO
10pm, $8 Advance
Elbo Room
647 Valencia, SF
(415) 552-7788
www.elbo.com
SATURDAY 6/2
Barn Owl
Barn Owl is often marginalized as a “drone” outfit, but its much too versatile for that description. Evoking the thick-as-molasses stoner sludge of Sunn O))), the astral jazz explorations of Alice Coltrane, and the shimmery moodiness of Can via Future Days, the SF duo has always incorporated the tonal shifts and genre-hopping necessary to keep its hypnosis in check. Having just finished a European tour, in support of its critically acclaimed 2011 album Lost in the Glare, this homecoming appearance ought to be a wild, unpredictable ride through Barn Owl’s veritable maze of sonic influences. (Taylor Kaplan)
With Suishou No Fune, Tone Volt
9:30pm, $7
Hemlock Tavern
1131 Polk, SF
(415) 923-0923
www.hemlocktavern.com
SATURDAY 6/2
Ernest Ranglin
Legendary Jamaican guitarist Ernest Ranglin helped form what would become the ska scene back in the 1950s with his distinctive “scratching” style of playing, and has performed with everybody from Bob Marley and Jimmy Cliff to the Skatalites. Fans are invited to help the musical icon celebrate his 80th birthday tonight here in the city with a special concert featuring Ranglin backed by local favorites Vinyl performing hits from his massive back catalog along with selections from his newest album, Avila, which hit stores this week. (Sean McCourt)
With DJ Dukey
9pm, $20–$24
Great American Music Hall
859 O’Farrell St., SF
(415) 885-0750 www.slimspresents.com The Guardian listings deadline is two weeks prior to our Wednesday publication date. To submit an item for consideration, please include the title of the event, a brief description of the event, date and time, venue name, street address (listing cross streets only isn’t sufficient), city, telephone number readers can call for more information, telephone number for media, and admission costs. Send information to Listings, 71 Stevenson Street, Second Floor, SF, CA 94105 or email (paste press release into email body — no attachments, please) to listings@sfbg.com. Digital photos may be submitted in jpeg format; the image must be at least 240 dpi and four inches by six inches in size. We regret we cannot accept listings over the phone.
Little runaways
arts@sfbg.com
FILM It’s hard to make any grand pronouncements about Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom. Does the Boy King of Quirk’s new film mark a live-action return to form after 2007’s disappointingly wan Darjeeling Limited? More or less. Does it tick all the Andersonian style and content boxes? Indubitably.
In the most obvious deviation Anderson has taken with Moonrise, aside from a new font for the title sequence (Futura, we hardly knew ye), he gives us his first period piece. The tale is set in 1965, when New Penzance Island (entirely fictional, but ostensibly off the New England coast) is populated by children who would rather listen to educational records about British composer Benjamin Britten on their portable turntables than the latest Stones album — ironically, this is perhaps Anderson’s only film not to feature any ’60s British Invasion pop. (There is, however, plenty of Hank Williams on the soundtrack to lend some low-fi kitsch.)
After a chance encounter at a church play (Noye’s Fludde, Britten’s operatic version of Noah and the ark), pre-teen Khaki Scout Sam (newcomer Jared Gilman) instantly falls for the raven-suited, sable-haired Suzy Bishop (Kara Hayward, ditto). It’s not hard to understand why — Hayward’s sad doe eyes and petulant mouth bring to mind a mini-version of the prototypical Godard femme fatale; she’s Anna Karina in a training bra. The two become pen pals, and quickly bond over the shared misery of being misunderstood by both authority figures and fellow kids.
The bespectacled, corncob pipe–smoking Sam is an orphan, ostracized by his foster parents and scout troop (much to the dismay of its straight-arrow leader Edward Norton). Suzy despises her clueless attorney parents, played with gusto by Bill Murray and Frances McDormand in some of the film’s funniest and best scenes (they both call each other “counselor” when arguing). Suzy’s mother has cuckolded her dad by having an affair with island cop Bruce Willis (in full middle-age-man mode, looking a bit like a decrepit Tintin), who takes an interest in the troubled Sam.
But that interest can’t stop the two kids from running off together into the woods to play Blue Lagoon. It’s hard to blame them. “Does it concern you that your daughter’s just run away from home?” Mrs. Bishop asks her husband. “That’s a loaded question,” he responds after a significant beat. The whole thing begins to resemble a kind of tween version of Godard’s 1965 lovers-on the-lam fantasia Pierrot le Fou. (Suzy even stabs a boy with scissors in a pivotal scene.) But like most of Anderson’s stuff, it has a gauzy sentimentality more akin to Truffaut than Godard.
Imagine if the sequence in 2001’s The Royal Tenenbaums where Margot and Richie run away to the Museum of Natural History had been given the feature treatment. It’s a simple yet inspired idea. And it becomes a charming little tale of the perils of growing up and selling out the fantasy. It’s also very funny — any movie that features Tilda Swinton, bedecked in navy cape and jaunty hat, as a soulless bureaucrat who refers to herself exclusively as “Social Services,” can’t be all wrong.
Still, something is missing. Much of Anderson’s wit and charm stems from a postmodern out-of-time quality, a sense of existence just this side of real. But that ironic detachment seems to be methodically sapping his ability to make a different kind of love connection: the one between his onscreen romance and his audience’s collective heart. Yes, it’s beautiful, exotic, lovely, and romantic (in both the lower-case and upper-case “R” senses). But it doesn’t feel remotely risky. And so it doesn’t seem real. In a word, it’s simply too damn tame.
Even when Hurricane Maybelline descends on the island, there is never any sense of mortal danger, emotional or otherwise. At one point Sam gets cold-cocked by a bolt of lightning, quickly rises as his head still smokes, and announces, “I’m okay.” I don’t think anyone in the audience was surprised. Even the possibility of the Great Flood itself washing everything away seems a bit of a skin game.
As his characters do, Wes likes his toys. I like his toys as well. But I wonder if it might be time for him, like Sam and Suzy, to grow up a little and put away some childish things. He can feel free to hold onto the portable turntable, though — especially if he puts on some old Stones records.
MOONRISE KINGDOM opens Fri/1 in San Francisco.
Destroy build destroy
arts@sfbg.com
MUSIC “Harsh urban space, with a light misting.” That’s how Dan Bejar describes 2011’s Kaputt, his ninth full-length under the Destroyer moniker; listen to it with headphones, on a foggy day in San Francisco, and you just might agree.
Much has been made of the stylistic shift the Vancouver singer-songwriter has initiated on this record. Awash with fretless bass, lite-jazz sax noodling, and a syrupy synth-haze reminiscent of Avalon by Roxy Music, Kaputt comes across as subdued and wistful, in contrast to the baroque, acerbic tone of his previous output.
Bejar spoke with me over the phone from his home in Vancouver, detailing the second Destroyer lineup since the release of Kaputt, and their renewed approach to the material, as, “more dynamic and muscular than the aesthetic of the production… it’s mostly just a disco band, really,” he explains, with a tinge of sarcasm. “Yeah, hard-rock disco.”
However, while the previous tour was almost exclusively concerned with translating Kaputt to the stage, Bejar suggests that his current octet has, “probably learned twice as much material as any other Destroyer band before it.” The upcoming tour will find Destroyer approaching older, guitar and piano-based songs with trumpet, sax, and mega-synths for the first time. “We’ve not necessarily Kaputtified [the older material],” he explains, “but definitely given things a new sound.”
Kaputtified? Bejar wouldn’t likely be using this word if the album didn’t possess such a distinct, consistent atmosphere. The production aesthetic of Kaputt has inspired countless nerd-debates over the past year or so, largely concerning the merits of tributing a musical era — the early 1980s — that some listeners find questionable these days.
“I think there’s some things on the record that, some people might find repellent,” Bejar observes. “Not necessarily younger people so much as people my age, or a bit older, who maybe lived through the late ’70s and the ’80s, and were kind of just bludgeoned with really bad examples of production techniques and instrumentation that went down.”
That said, Bejar himself is hesitant to slap the “’80s” tag on Kaputt, despite this strong reaction from the blogosphere. “You never know when your intentions, and when the reality of what you’re doing, match up,” he admits, “[but] I always just think the songs are distinct enough that they can just grab hold of whatever style they feel like, and still come out sounding like their own voice.”
Another common misconception about Kaputt is the suggestion that it was written and recorded from a nostalgic perspective. After all, Bejar was a mere nine years of age when Avalon came out. “I don’t think it’s really nostalgic,” he insists. “I’ve always thought of it more as, say, someone on their deathbed, pumped full of morphine, maybe seeing what visions go wafting by.”
This deathbed image sheds some light on what Bejar describes as a “blankness” at the heart of Kaputt‘s songwriting and vocal delivery. “The sense of space was always important,” he contends. “There’s probably half the word count than there is on any other Destroyer album.” This relative economy of words is reflected in Kaputt‘s relaxed, unhurried pacing, which provides a stark contrast to the freewheeling energy of, say, 2006’s Destroyer’s Rubies.
In describing his aesthetic influences, Bejar mentions, “most of my inspiration comes from Miles Davis, on a daily basis, anyway,” Thinking within that context, Kaputt very well might be Destroyer’s In a Silent Way: a deeply transitional affair steeped in lush ambiance, with the ability to go hog-wild, but the class, restraint, and wisdom to keep things at a simmer.
It’s an ideal soundtrack to this city at its grayest. A light misting, indeed.
DESTROYER
With Sandro Perri, Colossal Yes
Tue/5, 9pm, $25
Fillmore
1805 Geary, SF
(415) 346-6000
Oakland gets jilted
By Frank Artrage
news@sfbg.com
After a secret whirlwind courtship that lasted a mere five months, Mayor Ed Lee and the Golden State Warriors tied the knot May 22 at Piers 30-32, announcing their unexpected union at the site they intend to occupy with a new basketball arena by 2017.
The Warriors’ entrepreneurial new owners — Joe Lacob and Peter Guber — say they love this “iconic site” and promised to build a “spectacular sports and entertainment complex” that is “architecturally significant.”
But what about Oakland, the team’s unceremoniously jilted current homemaker? The perception from the East Bay is that Lacob and Guber were duplicitous and underhanded in their dealings with city officials that were desperately trying to retain the city’s three main sports franchises — the Oakland Athletics baseball club, the Oakland Raiders football team, and the Golden State Warriors basketballers — all of whom have recently signaled interest in moving.
Several sources told us that the Warriors’ new owners have been lying to Oakland officials about their intentions for months. For example, Oakland City Councilmember Larry Reid told me “that when our staff had conversations with the new owners, they always indicated they hadn’t yet come to a final decision.”
Reid told me what happened next. “I get a call Sunday night at 9:30 telling me about their move like a thief in the night.” Reid said. “It’s upsetting.”
On the fan site GoldenStWarriors, Lacob seemed to belittle Oakland. In an 18-minute video, Lacob predicts that Oakland will be left with only one sports team someday. “I think they’re challenged,” he said when asked what’s wrong with Oakland, adding the city is in “a difficult situation.”
Sports talk radio hosts, fan sites, and bloggers, however, seem to be evenly divided on the move. Even hardcore Oakland and Warriors blogger Ethan Sherwood Strauss prefers the San Francisco site. At his Warriorsworld site, Strauss wrote: “I’d never leave Oakland…. I have everything at arm’s length. There’s food from around the world, teeming farmers markets, lush green hills, Redwood trees, Mosswood Park, Grand Lake Theatre — this is all within two miles.”
But: “Guess which is the better place for the Golden State Warriors? It’s that west bay city national broadcasters keep showing during Warriors games while pretending Oakland doesn’t exist.”
Thus far, neither Oakland Mayor Jean Quan nor Mayor Lee have made any comments regarding the other side’s situation or whether their mutually reported “good relationship” has been strained. But it must be devastating to Quan, given all of her work and hoopla over her recent announcements surrounding her ambitious plans for the “Coliseum City” project.
Not unlike the Warriors’ “world class arena” planned for their new San Francisco home, Coliseum City, according to Quan, will be a “world-class sports and entertainment district.” Ryan Phillips, writing on the Oakland North blog in March, said that the project includes “building hotels, retail, office and residential space in the Coliseum complex…as well as building an Oakland Airport Business Park just across the freeway on the way to the airport. The business park will be developed to attract tech companies.”
Mayor Quan issued a press release following the Warriors’ bombshell to announce that she remains “bullish” on her Coliseum City project. Her new spin is that, “Coliseum City is a long-term development project that was never dependent on any one tenant. It was always a larger project than just one sports team.”
But if there’s even one team missing from the original trinity, then they have no choice but to lower their expectations and scale back their plans. Therefore, the Warriors’ move could trigger a complete unraveling of not only her recent plans to keep the Oakland A’s baseball team in Oakland, but also efforts to keep any team there.
For example, a case study published by the Airport Area Business Association (AABA) in conjunction with Coliseum City principal and manager Oakland-based JRDV Urban International, and students at UC Berkeley’s Haas School of Business found, “The Coliseum complex presents a unique opportunity to prepare a pioneering business model that generates revenue for both public and private interests.”
Presciently, in the wake of this announced move by the Warriors and how that hurts Oakland, the study asked: “Are the withdrawal of redevelopment monies, the negative perception of Oakland (and especially Deep East Oakland) by investors and the soft commercial real estate market insurmountable? Can the City of Oakland and Alameda County garner the public support required to approve the necessary public financing and inspire investor confidence?”
Manning up, Councilmember Reid told me that Oakland bears some responsibility for this fiasco. “I’ve been agitating for 10 years to get this Coliseum project going. But let me tell you about two critical mistakes Oakland has made over the last decade,” he said. “One, Oakland has always taken the position that these teams had no place to go. Well, you see where that thinking got us today…Two, 10 years ago the decision was made to invest in the old [Oakland] Army Base. Yet, to this day, not one spade of dirt has been unearthed to symbolize any kind of progress is underway there. In fact, the whole project is at a standstill.”
Maybe, but Oakland and Warriors’ fans should not despair. It is not a done deal because a million things could go wrong. For example, this will be the fifth attempt to develop Piers 30-32 into something spectacular over the last several years.
Also, environmental groups and local activists are already squawking about the site. It has to pass a notoriously tough approval process of at least four major agencies. Financing might fall through, at least until Warriors ownership present to the press, government, and citizens some details: Tuesday’s press conference was basically a pep rally — the only thing missing were the pom-poms. Finally, Pier 30-32 and the site have yet to pass muster over the environmental and safety concerns and myriad other requirements of the California Environmental Quality Act (CEQA).
If any obstacle dooms the Warriors’ plans, Oakland’s Assistant City Administrator Fred Blackwell said they’d keep the door open for these prodigal owners: “And in the end, we will leave a space for the Warriors after they are exhausted from the CEQA litigation and cost increases required to be on the San Francisco Waterfront.”
“In a nutshell,” according to a City Hall press aide, Blackwell “means that waterfront development is expensive and requires an extensive and complex environmental review and permitting process involving review and approval by a number of local, state, and sometimes federal agencies.”
But what if it is a success? Oakland loses even more than just the Warriors. At least one politician pointed out, and I also heard this on 95.7 FM The Game, that what’s to stop circuses, ice shows, and major rock stars from ditching Oakland and following the Warriors to this splashy and scenic new entertainment venue?
Housing and highrise offices
EDITORIAL It's something of a civic shame that the only way San Francisco can build a new transit terminal is to sell a private developer the rights to stick a 1,070-foot highrise office tower on public land. In fact, it's a sad statement on the city, state, and local government: Once upon a time — and it wasn't the long ago — tax dollars collected through a progressive system paid for major infrastructure projects.
But there's no easy way to raise $4 billion in tax money for the Transbay Terminal — even though it ought to be seen as part of the high-speed rail project, and the federal and state government ought to be picking up the tab. So San Francisco ambles forward, selling land and lease rights to the highest bidder.
In this case, Gerald Hines of Houston won the right to build the largest highrise west of the Mississippi on property owned by the Transbay Joint Powers Authority. There are all sorts of drawbacks to the deal — among other things, it will cast shadows on a number of city parks, all the way to Portsmouth Square in Chinatown. Like any massive office complex, it will put pressure on Muni, on city streets, on police and fire and other city services — and no commercial office building ever pays its fair share of that burden. And since in this case the major recipient of the money from the project will be the TJPA, the city's General Fund will suffer.
Oh, and the building is ugly.
Meanwhile, city planners want to increase height limits all around the Transbay Terminal and allow hundreds of units of new (luxury) housing and more commercial office space. It's going to be a new highrise neighborhood, complete with a rooftop park and a few little patches of ground-level open space, which won't get a whole lot of sun, particularly in the morning and evening.
And at this point, there's been very little focus on what ought to be the defining issue of this and the other major developments on the city's planning horizon, and that's affordable housing.
This city has a terrible jobs-housing mix. The vast majority of the people who currently work in San Francisco can't afford to buy a house here, and many of them can only rent if they pay for more than the federal standard of one-third of their income for housing. So people who work in hotels and restaurants and city, state and federal offices and hospitals and even financial district companies wind up living far from the city and commuting. Nobody thinks that's a sound environmental policy.
And this kind of full-scale rezoning and development will only make it worse. According to the City Planning Department, the Hines project will pay about $27 million into the city's affordable housing fund, enough to pay for maybe 60 or 70 housing units. That won't even begin to cover the need created by the thousands of employees who will fill that tower. The market-rate housing on the site will almost certainly be beyond the reach of most San Franciscans, and probably many of the office workers who fill the Hines building. And only 35 percent of the new housing — at maximum — will be affordable.
San Francisco has to get a grip. The city can't keep allowing more high-end housing and highrise office space without a plan to meet its housing needs. We're glad to see the mayor talking about a $50 million a year fund, but that will barely meet existing needs; it can't possible keep pace with new development.
So before the supervisors rush ahead to approve this ambitious new downtown district, they need to ask Hines, and the TJPA, and any other developer who comes along, how it intends to meet the demonstrated need for affordable housing that these projects will create — and demand a much higher level of payment that what's currently on the city's books.
Reduce, re-use, replace
yael@sfbg.com
Greg Gaar knows the names, characteristics, and birds and butterflies attracted by every plant in the native plant nursery that he tends. Last week, he proudly toured me through the garden, pointing out plants like Yarrow ("great for bees and butterflies") and the beautiful flowers of the Crimson Columbine, of which Gaar believes there are "only two others left in San Francisco."
Gaar has been working at 780 Frederick St., where he now tends the garden, for decades. His mother went to high school on the same block, the old site of Polytechnic High. Before Gaar became the gardener, he ran the recycling center that Haight Ashbury Neighborhood Council (HANC) operates next to the garden. Now, the pioneering green operation he helped build may shut down.
At the center, people can recycle their bottles, cans, paper products, and even used vegetable oil, and make some cash along the way. Those who use the center say it's a green and dignified way to make some money.
But residents in the surrounding area have complained for years that the center is loud and attracts homeless people. They also say that, due to their proximity to the recycling center, the chance that their trash will get rifled through at night is greater than in other parts of the city.
Citing these concerns, the center's landlord, the San Francisco Recreation and Parks Department (RPD), has spent the past few years trying to evict the HANC recycling center. The center got an eviction notice in December 2010. HANC's lawyer, Robert DeVries, successfully challenged the eviction. RPD sued for eviction again in June 2011, and that matter may finally come to a close June 6 when it will be heard by a three-judge panel in SF Superior Court.
DELIVERING THE GARDEN
RPD officials cite neighbor concerns, claims that the recycling center's services are outdated and obsolete, and the idea of planting a community garden in its place. In fact, the Planning Commission approved a community garden in the place of the recycling center last year.
Since then, HANC staff got to work building its own community garden. In just a year, they erected 50 beds from recycled wood, and according to Gaar, about 100 neighbors have plots that they currently tend.
As the recycling center's director, Ed Dunn, tells it, the infrastructure already in place at the recycling center made building the garden come naturally. HANC was able to fund it with income from the recycling operation, and plant it with seeds from the native plant nursery.
Dunn emphasizes that no city money was used to build the current community garden. The city had laid out a $250,000 budget for the garden after it was approved and designed in 2010.
A bundle of documents containing arguments against HANC, provided by RPD, includes details of the Golden Gate Park Master Plan, surveys indicating a great need for community gardens in San Francisco, and letters and statements from neighbors complaining about the recycling center.
A 2004 survey discussed in the documents found that community gardens are among the top "recreation facilities most important to respondent households." Community gardens came in fifth in importance, after walking and biking trails, pools, fitness facilities, and running and walking tracks. The documents include a detailed map of the "Golden Gate Park community garden preliminary plan," imagined at HANC's current site.
The map was drawn up in November 2010, the same month that a meeting of the Recreation and Parks Commission laid out the reasons that HANC had to go. Minutes from the meeting include the city's need for community gardens as well as some neighbors' disdain for the recycling center in that site. It argues that the needs of recyclers can be well met with other recycling centers in the city.
Seventeen other recycling centers operate in San Francisco. Most are located in neighborhoods on the city's edges, with a few in the Outer Sunset and Excelsior, although most are located in Bayview-Hunters Point.
But the commission doesn't seem concerned with potential nuisance to neighbors in directing more traffic to these other recycling centers, or with the difficulty poor recyclers have in getting out there. "The San Francisco Department of the Environment is confident that recyclers that use the facility will take their material to another existing site for proper handling," according to the meeting's minutes.
The commission is, however, concerned about a nuisance that the recycling center creates for Haight-Ashbury neighbors, according to the minutes. The notes cite "neighborhood noise, truck traffic, litter, and public safety concerns as negative impacts related to continuing operations at the site."
AGAINST THE POOR?
But is this really just another case of resentment against people who are poor and homeless?
HANC's Dunn argues that, in fact, much of the material that those who use the center bring in isn't taken from residential waste bins. Besides, it's not technically "HANC's CRV redemption program" that encourages recycling as a revenue source for the less fortunate. State law requires that consumers be able to redeem bottles and cans for cash.
The meeting minutes argue that the recycling center "enables illegal camping and illicit and unhealthy behavior in Golden Gate Parks' eastern end and in neighborhoods in close proximity to the site."
Supposed evidence for the position cites letters to the editor published in the San Francisco Chronicle, a frequent outlet for anger at the homeless. One concerned resident, Karen Growney, asserts that the center "provides no benefit to people living in Haight/Cole Valley."
HANC disputes this, saying that many neighbors use the center. They have beneficial relationships with many nearby businesses, including New Ganges restaurant just across the street. Its website, kezargardens.com, shows many smiling neighbors who use the center to recycle.
Notable among them is actor/activist Danny Glover, a Haight resident since 1957. In a video on the website, Glover — interviewed while in his car dropping off recycling at the center — says, "I would be dismayed and not happy if we close this wonderful recycling center down…It would be a tragedy, and a great loss to this city and this community."
In her letter, Growney also laments that her family "had to pay a considerable amount to build a wrought-iron, locked gate to keep people out of our trash." Another letter, written by neighborhood resident Curtis Lee, asks that the city "eliminate the Haight Ashbury Recycling Center," saying that, "It is a blight on the neighborhood and an attraction to rodents and homeless carts."
Of course, those carts come with people. HANC takes issue with the assertion that their services "enable" or "encourage" homelessness, as well as the assumption that the recycling center only serves the homeless.
Dunn says that many of the recycling center' clientele are elderly immigrants, often housed, who contribute to their family income with cash from recyclables. He also insists that "most of the people that use the recycling center don't camp in the park."
Homeless people certainly do use the center, but it's not clear whether its presence truly "enables illegal camping and illicit and unhealthy activity." Dunn finds it laughable to say that "the center creates homelessness." It's a lot of work to cart around recyclables all day, he says, and the dedicated recyclers are generally not the same people that ask tourists on Haight Street for spare change.
THE RECYCLERS
There is a great diversity in how homeless San Franciscans spend their days, and recycling is in many ways a specialized, committed way of life. In her 2010 ethnography of homeless San Franciscans, Hobos, Hustlers and Backsliders, Teresa Gowan focuses on the "recyclers," the segment of the homeless population who have made a habit of collecting bottles and cans as a way of getting by.
"The phenomenon that captured my interest was the steady stream of shopping carts loaded high with glass, cans, cardboard, and scrap metal rolling past my door," she wrote.
Some of her interview subjects show disdain for the recyclers, who work hard all day and don't get much cash out of it. Dealing drugs, stealing, or panhandling can be more lucrative and less backbreaking. One subject, a man named Del who, according to Gowan, mostly stayed in the Tenderloin, thought the "20, 25 bucks on a big load" that recyclers usually made was pathetic. "'And that's for heaving around a big old rattling buggy all day,' Del said pityingly. 'I can make 15 bucks inside'a two minutes.'"
But many of her interview subjects prefer to recycle anyway. Gowan describes another subject, Sam, as "a champion recycler, muscular and persistent, who often put in nine, ten hours on the trot." She quotes Sam saying, "Without this, I'd kill myself. Couple a days, I'd do myself in…. You get some guys, seems like they can deal with homelessness. I'm not one of them."
The book argues that "pro recyclers" included a "large core group who had created an intense web of meaning around their work as a kind of blue-collar trade."
PIONEERING HANC
Recycling for cash may not be a respected or taxed job "blue collar" job. But it's certainly green.
Since the center began operating in the 1970s, mainstream attitudes towards environmentalism and sustainability have shifted dramatically. The HANC recycling center was a product of the environmental movement, and helped usher in the widespread support for recycling.
Now, with curbside recycling fully functional in San Francisco, many call the recycling center's work obsolete. But HANC argues that the city needs all the help it can get if it is to reach its goal for zero waste in 2020. It also employs 10 people, and Dunn argues that it would be foolish of the city to eliminate those stable green jobs.
HANC has also helped move along the trend towards community gardens that RPD is now embracing so thoroughly that, ironically, it could lead to the recycling center's demise. HANC helped underwrite the Garden for the Environment project as well as the Victory Garden planted outside City Hall in 2008. Dunn says that the staff enjoyed the challenge of building the garden, and would be interested in helping the city by creating more gardens without city money.
Gaar says he's committed to continuing to work for a healthier planet, regardless of what happens to the center. He and the other HANC staff have come to see the eviction process as symbolic of a direction in which the city's heading, that also includes last year's Sit-Lie Ordinance: decisions designed to shuffle homeless people out of wealthy neighborhoods.
The arguments for the community garden, however, seem to indicate a strong desire for a greener city. It's not easy balancing environmental initiatives with NIMBY woes — especially when your backyard is Golden Gate Park.
Sunshine eclipsed
As an advocate for the passage of the San Francisco Sunshine Ordinance in the early 1990s, I felt obligated to take my first and only City Hall position and serve as a founding member of the Sunshine Ordinance Task Force. I served for l0 years and helped with many other good members to build the task force into a strong and respected agency for helping citizens get access to records and meetings and hold city officials accountable for suppressing access and information.
The task force is the first and best local sunshine task force of its kind in the country, if not the world. It is the only place where citizens can file an access complaint without an attorney or a fee and force a city official, including the mayor, to come before the task force for questioning and a ruling on whether they had violated sunshine laws. The task force lacked enforcement powers, but it still annoyed city officials, including Mayor Willie Brown.
In fact, Brown spent a good deal of time trying to kick me off the task force. He used one jolly maneuver after another, even getting an agent to make a phony complaint against me for violating the ordinance with an email (The complaint went nowhere). I refused to budge and decided to stay on until Brown left office—on the principle that neither the mayor nor anybody else from City Hall could arbitrarily kick members off the task force.
That principle held until about 3pm last Thursday (May 17) at the meeting of the Board of Supervisors Rules Committee to appoint candidates to the task force. At that meeting, without proper notice, advance warning, explanation, apology, or even a nice word or two, the supervisors suddenly turned a normal drowsy committee meeting into an unprecedented bloodbath for the task force and its independence. Sup. Mark Farrell played the heavy, Jane Kim was the facilitating chair, and David Campos was the reluctant third party, working together to bring Willie Brownism back at the task force with a vengeance.
The committee rejected four qualified candidates from three organizations who are mandated by the Sunshine Ordinance to choose representatives for the task force because of the organizations’ special open government credentials. (Doug Comstock, editor of the West of Twin Peaks Observer; Attorney Ben Rosenfeld from the Northern California chapter of Society of Professional Journalists, sponsor of the ordinance; Allyson Washburn from the League of Women Voters and Suzanne Manneh from America New Media.)
The committee without blushing asked the organizations to come up with a “list of names,” a whiff of grapeshot aimed at members and organizations who had served the public well for years. Who wants to go before the supervisors on a list of names for a bout of public character assassination? Meanwhile, while knocking off the qualified, knowledgeable candidates, the committee approved four neophytes without experience and then unanimously appointed David Pilpel, a former task force member known for delaying meetings with bursts of nitpicking. He almost always comes down on the side of City Hall and against citizens with their complaints.
Farrell also tried to bounce Bruce Wolfe, an excellent member, but Kim and Campos supported him and his name was sent on to the full board for approval.
Then, when Wolfe’s name got to the board on May 22, it was a repeat of Willie Brownism and this time to the max. Sup. Scott Wiener moved to amend the motion and substituted Todd David. Farrell seconded. The vote was 6-5, meaning that Willie Brownism wiped the sunshine slate clean of anybody who would raise a pesky question of city officials and the City Attorney’s Office.
The infamous votes against Wolfe: Wiener (ah, yes, the heir of the Harvey Milk and Harry Britt seat in the Castro), Farrell (where is Janet Reilly when we need her?), Malia Cohen (who comes from the Potrero Hill/Bay View/Hunters Point district that needs all the sunshine it can get in facing an Oklahoma-style land rush of development), David Chiu (who was reportedly angry over the unanimous task force opinion finding he violated the Sunshine Ordinance with late submission of documents before the controversial vote to redevelop Parkmerced), Carmen Chu and Sean Elsbernd (neighborhood supes way out in West Portal and the Sunset who almost always vote the downtown line at City Hall). The good votes for Wolfe: John Avalos, Eric Mar, Cristina Olague, Jane Kim, and David Campos.
Campos told me that the organization candidates were “eminently qualified,” that they should have been appointed, and that he would fight for them. He advised the organizations to “stand by their candidates.” He is urging that the issue of organization candidates come back to the next Rules Committee.
Rick Knee, SPJ’s mandated journalist on the task force surveying the carnage, said the supervisors’ actions stem “partly from a desire by some supervisors to sabotage the task force and ordinance itself, and partly from a vendetta by certain supervisors after the task force found several months ago that the board violated local and state open meeting laws when it railroaded some last minute changes to a contract on the Parkmerced development project without allowing sufficient time for public review and comment.”
Knee is right, and it isn’t just Parkmerced, but all the high-stakes development deals flowing through City Hall these days, with their advocates preferring to cut backroom deals rather than being subjected to the full scrutiny of the public and the task force.
James Chaffee, a former chair of the task force, watched the board proceedings with outrage and fired off a letter to all supervisors later that day. He charged that the board in sacking Wolfe violated the Sunshine Ordinance on several counts. Among them: the board changed the committee recommendation on Wolfe without allowing public comment and it passed over Wolfe even though the ordinance requires at least one member of the task force to be “physically handicapped.” That was Wolfe.
Thus, Chaffee wrote, the orchestrated coup was “the perfect example of a failure to follow the sunshine ordinance that led to the sort of problem that it was intended to forestall, namely the supervisors taking an action without being informed of what they are doing. If Scott Weiner and David Chiu and the rest of the crew did not consider the citizens the enemy and exercize judgment about whether they were complying with the spirit of open government rather than just shaving off the letter of the law as closely as possible, this could have been avoided.”
Chaffee said he couldn’t tell if David was physically handicapped but he said nothing in his application for the task force nor was any disability apparent from the video of the rules committee meeting.
Chaffee said David’s application showed he was “self-employed as an investor, obtained a BA from Stanford in 1993, has never attended a task force meeting, and left the statement of his qualifications blank.”
Chaffee said, “It’s easy to see why Scott Wiener likes him. He said it would be a long road before he would go against the city attorney’s office and when it came to constitutional law, he would place the city attorney’s opinion above his own because the city attorney is an ‘expert.'”
I sent Chaffee’s letter and my Bruce Blog post ( “The return of Willie Brown to the Sunshine Task Force,” 5/21) to City Attorney Dennis Herrera for comment: How can his office sit by while the letter and spirit of the sunshine laws are being violated in the move to sabotage the sunshine ordinance and task force? I also sent Chaffee’s letter, with the Bruce blog, to the supervisors with similar questions: Why are you violating the sunshine laws to kick out the best candidates? For their answers (coming) and the latest on this evolving controversy, follow along at www.sfbg.com/bruce.
There you have it: the state of sunshine and open government in city hall in San Francisco in May of 2012. Todd David over Bruce Wolfe. David Pilpel uber alles. Five inexperienced candidates over five experienced candidates. David Pilpel uber alles. A city attorney who rolls over and over and over again. And a whiff of grapeshot for the three organizations mandated by the charter to have represenatives on the task force because of their open government and public access credentials (the Northern California chapter of the Society of Professional Journalists, the League of Women Voters, and America New Media.) On guard, b3
Tricky sings
MUSIC Compared with the smooth operator currently installed in the Oval Office, how nervous Richard Nixon looks now as a representative of America abroad, all stiff grins, rumpled shiftiness, outbursts of awkward rhetoric. Reviewing vintage footage of him recently, I half expected a rappin’ granny to suddenly appear, and goofy Uncle Dick to start “breaking it down.” And yet, 40 years after California’s second-most problematic political progeny (pace, zombie Reagan) went to Beijing to “open China” — ending 25 years of separation and going on to win re-election in a landslide, despite the growing Watergate scandal — might it be time to look past the jerky, jowly image of Tricky Dick and reassess the character of the man and the moment, to keep us on our toes?
“Nixon was an incredibly complicated man, whose intellect constantly got in his way,” Canadian opera director Michael Cavanagh told me over the phone during a wide-ranging interview. “And it’s especially relevant to examine him now in that light, with a certain distance of history. We tend to stop at the jowls, the scandal, and the Republicanism. But it’s often been remarked during this election cycle that there’s no way in hell Nixon would ever be considered for the Republican ballot now. He was too small ‘r’ republican, too centrist. So there’s this complexity to him that confronts lefties with their own stereotypes, assuming most patrons of the arts lean left. That’s something I really like.”
Cavanagh’s complexifying occasion will be his production of John Adams’ 1987 Nixon in China, part of the San Francisco Opera’s nifty-looking summer season. The opera, with a luminescent libretto by poet Alice Goodman and an engrossing, fever-dream score by Adams, whose melodies, time signatures, and musical reference points churn and shift like memory itself, takes us from the moment Nixon’s Spirit of ’76 touches down on the tarmac (Kissinger in tow), through his historic meetings with Chou En-Lai and Mao Tse-Tung, along with First Lady Pat on an eventful factory tour, and finally into the major characters’ bedrooms, memories, and fantasies. It’s a sensually intoxicating work, full of barnstorming arias sung by a multi-ethnic cast (you will have “I am the wife of Mao Tse-Tung” stuck in your head for days) that examines media spectacle, modern myth-making, and cultural difference on a truly, well, operatic scale.
San Francisco Bay Guardian Nixon was Californian, Adams is a longtime Bay Area resident. It’s the 40th anniversary of the China visit, and also an insanely contentious election year. The Bay Area as a huge Chinese population — many families escaped Mao’s Cultural Revolution. Do you feel any particular pressure bringing this production here, now?
Michael Cavanagh I feel a tremendous amount of responsibility, but I also feel a lot of freedom. Of course, the events the opera depicts and its roots in the Bay Area will resonate, and that’s hugely exciting. But this isn’t a documentary, it’s a rumination, more of a poem. As Nixon says in the beginning of the opera, “News has a kind of mystery” — and I feel that’s what Adams and Goodman were really expanding upon with this.
I do think that this production, especially, will bring up memories for a lot of people. I myself had an inkling of this whole thing happening when I was really young — it’s something that a lot of the world shares, a memory of this iconic moment, even if that memory is only a glimpse of pavement or a handshake, kind of like my own. The opera works with that abstraction, those fuzzy frames of memory that overlay images of the past, while still sharpening some of the more historically relevant moments. I hope people can relate to it on all of those levels.
SFBG Twenty-five years separate us from the opera’s premiere in Houston in 1987 — and yet China remains, to use a slightly loaded term, as inscrutable as ever to many Americans, yet as enmeshed in their daily lives as ever. What relevance do you think the opera may hold today?
MC I think it has an eerie relevance. Even back when Nixon in China premiered, China was still remote and threatening to many, and this was before the reform machine revved into life, before China’s emerging economic dominance. In one scene, in Mao’s library, Mao goes off quite poetically about the revolution, and how things were changing, and he plays fast and loose with the concepts of capitalism and communism, almost as if he foresees the necessary reforms ahead, that came to pass.
Beyond that, the opera is very prescient about the evolution of the media — this was one of the first major world events to be broadcast on a global scale, to be covered as the kind of spectacle we base much of our opinions and thoughts on today. We think of Nixon as shifty-eyed, but he was really just trying to figure out where the cameras were most of the time, trying to acclimate to this new kind of fishbowl environment in which political figures were treated like movie characters. The opera records the beginnings of all that, and ends with them reviewing their memories of everything that’s occurred as if it was all this footage, which it is quite actually on stage.
Basically, though, the deepest relevance a work can have is by connecting to the audience through its characters. Take Pat Nixon. We hurt for Pat Nixon. She’s been betrayed. Nixon promised her a simple home life, the comforts of family and a man at home, and here she is traveling all the way to China! She’s bewildered, but as First Lady there’s really no place for that, so she forges her own, I think very American kind of resolve that cracks a couple times, but still gets her through.
It’s a very poignant psychological and emotional study, projected on the world stage, and amplified as only opera can. That’s what opera does better than any other art form: it amplifies life.
SFBG You’re a Canadian — have you caught any flack for interpreting these events that are so associated with the US?
MC You know, despite appeals to the contrary, our two countries really share the same history. This version of the opera was premiered in Vancouver during the Olympic Festival — it’s what Canada chose to represent itself will to the entire world. And when it comes down to it, really, everything you do effects us Canadians just as much. We sleep with the elephant. *
NIXON IN CHINA
June 8-July 3, times and prices vary
War Memorial Opera House
301 Van Ness, SF.
(415) 861-4008
On utopian frequencies
arts@sfbg.com
CULTURE It’s the tangible buzz I notice first, a tingling awareness of something important about to occur, followed swiftly by the realization that there are free quesadillas courtesy of the Great Tortilla Conspiracy, silk-screened with chocolate sauce and rabble-rousing sentiment: “Eat the Rich.”
It’s opening night for the ambitious Streetopia festival, and the scene outside the Luggage Store Gallery is vibrant and chocolate-scented. On the sidewalk, Brontez Purnell scrawls ritual sigils in bright pink chalk, while a watchful Amara Tabor-Smith, in Butoh face paint and bare feet, leans against a tree, waiting to enter the circle and begin her ceremonial dance. Festival co-curator (with Kal Spelletich and Erick Lyle) Chris Johanson is overheard gushing unselfconsciously about the “vibe,” and among the gathered throng of artists and tourists, Sixth Street residents and urban activists, bookworms and cinephiles, tastemakers and thinkers, old punks and new parents, it’s as apt a descriptor of the electric excitement as any.
Inside the Luggage Store itself, a fanciful reimagining of the space awaits, just past the heavily-graffitied stairwell and the bright shock of Day-Glo paint and black light of the entryway. A multi-level, wooden loft structure dominates the gallery itself, crammed with little nooks in which one might find a contemplative interactive art project involving paper boats, a tribute to Valerie Solanas, a solitary disco ball, a pirate radio set-up, a “live open letter office,” and countless murals, photographs and sculptures — frankly too much to absorb in one sweep through.
Down Market Street, beneath the Renoir Hotel, the cacophonous screech and throb from Shaun O’Dell’s noise installation “THE SOMETHING” attracts the curious, with amplifier knobs to twiddle, an out-of-tune ukulele to bang, synthesizers to desynchronize, and numerous cameras to record the emphatically spontaneous proceedings on. A rare opportunity for the public to visit the San Francisco Drug Users Union to view an art installation by Barry McGee, plus the promise of free food at the Tenderloin National Forest/Luggage Store Annex at 509 Ellis, entices the intrepid to wander further afield, into the TL night.
Impressively all-encompassing by any measure, Streetopia’s first weekend (it opened May 18) included nods to almost every possible artistic discipline with participants from all corners of the country. It gave space to panel talks, such as AIDS chronicler and former ACT UP activist Sarah Schulman’s “A Gentrification of the Mind” (an event co-curator Erick Lyle was eager to point out represented “the multi-generational teaching and sharing aspect of Streetopia”). It reinvigorated the idea of food as communion with Sy Wagon’s Free Café, the previously-mentioned Great Tortilla Conspiracy, and the War Gastronomy Food Cart; precipitated an off-site “spirit gardening” event at the Hayes Valley Farm with performance artist-musician Ryder Cooley; and hosted the kickoff to “endurance” performer Marshall Weber’s 72-hour poetry reading — a marathon that made that morning’s Bay to Breakers run look even more inconsequential than usua l.
My favorite moment of the project thus far, however, came on the evening of May 20 at the Tenderloin National Forest during an all-too rare performance by dark folk minstrels Hazy Loper, currently a duo comprised of Devon Angus and Patrick Kadyk. Torn between our desire to listen to the mournful melodies and observe the onset of the solar eclipse, the entire crowd wound up in the street squinting at the sun through postcard pinholes, loosely-clenched fists, the holes of a colander, and the leaves of a nearby tree, while the band gamely finished their set out on the curb for the whole neighborhood to enjoy. It was an experience that, for me, best encapsulated a straying from the script that the entire Streetopia project seems designed to encourage: offering a framework for building lasting interpretations of an urban utopia, rather than an experience ready-made and soon forgotten.
STREETOPIA
Through June 23
Various venues, SF
Seafaring
APPETITE Fish makes me happy. Raw, grilled, seared, any which way. One new restaurant and one established favorite are glorifying the fish, and seafood in general, in many formats.
LOCAL'S CORNER
Local's Corner just opened in March on a mellow corner of the Mission's east side. The sunny space is mostly white, evoking a cozy-chic New England seafood restaurant serving exquisite California fare. Dinner service was just launched mid-April, a delicate array of tastes of the mostly seafaring kind, though the menu simultaneously lists a "land" section.
Prior to opening, I was excited for this new seafood restaurant offering the likes of sardines and smaller, more sustainable fish, and they do deliver. The immediate downside is how quickly dishes add up. Small plates hover in the low teens while no dish tops more than the mid-20s, but as you finish each plate, hunger is not exactly satiated. There is little in terms of heartier fare, which is fine — you don't come here for "hearty." But $100 later (for two with a glass of wine), I left a couple dishes away from satisfied.
Crisp and bright as the equally crisp, bright space, a nice range of rosés and white wines pair ideally with fish offerings and rotating oysters ($2.50-3.50 each). A small plate of uni ($14) is alluringly punctuated by English peas, preserved Meyer lemon, and mint leaves, while Dungeness crab ($13) arrives glistening with snap peas, Cara Cara oranges, and spring onion. Cured halibut ($13) dances with radishes, grapefruit, and dill. Each is delicate, slight, tickling the taste buds.
Two flavorsome bites are cured anchovies and guanciale (Italian bacon made from pig's jowl or cheek) on toasts ($10), or a dollop of smoked trout rillettes and crème fraîche ($12), also with toasts. Both delight, but are so small-portioned, one is just hooked when they're gone. For $22, an entree of black cod on top of leeks, carrots, and watercress is likewise minimal and subdued. I was more satisfied with a "land" offering of beef tartare in a small pot, topped with quail egg ($15). Bread is (again) the filler, while the raw beef is glisteningly fresh.
Brunch is such a pleasant experience in the sunny space, it is tough having few seafood choices (just one currently) and a prix fixe only: now $18 for toast, two courses, and coffee or juice. Weekday lunch offers more seafood, which is primarily what one comes here for, though still few options compared to dinner.
Local's Corner is still in its infancy, exhibiting promising meticulousness and fresh tastes. I realize upping portions of the likes of uni and abalone is a costly thing while maintaining delicacy is crucial with such ingredients. It seems a worthy mission: satisfying appetite alongside artistry.
2500 Bryant, SF. (415) 800-7945, www.localscornersf.com
BAR CRUDO
One place that has long cornered artistry and appetite in my estimation is Bar Crudo, one of my top SF restaurants since its early days in the tiny Bush Street space, where Bouche is located now. Though the cavernous but narrow Divisadero space lacks the quirky charm and warm glow of the original location, service remains such that even as the place is packed nightly and waits are common, staff comes by offering wine, keeping me informed of the wait time.
The crudo, essentially Italian-style sashimi, are small and delicate (a sampler is $13 for 4 pieces, $25 for eight) but so uniquely delightful, they're worth every dollar. A visit here would not be complete without a bite of raw arctic char, lively with horseradish crème fraîche, wasabi tobiko and dill, or creamy butterfish crudo topped with apples, pear vinaigrette, and beet saffron caviar.
One easily fills up here, supplementing ethereal crudo with whole-roasted fish. Recently, I enjoyed a branzino ($26) with two friends. With the large fish, two smaller shared plates and a crudo sampler, we left full. The fish is generously sized, buttery, flaky. We devoured the cheeks, the head, every part, resting in butter beans, Swiss chard, oyster mushrooms, poblano peppers, and orange oil.
A flavor explosion comes in large head-on Louisiana prawns ($14) swimming in a spicy red brood, vivid and savory with shishito peppers and fresno chilies. I nearly drank it up. To fill up, there's always Bar Crudo's classic seafood chowder ($7/$14), a creamy, rich bowl of fish, mussels, squid, shrimp, potatoes, and applewood smoked bacon that elicits a moan of pleasure at first spoonful.
Coupled with a strong wine list (by glass or bottle) and equally strong craft and Belgian beer list, Bar Crudo remains not only one of San Francisco's seafood treasures. *
655 Divisadero, SF. (415) 409-0679, www.barcrudo.com
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A different world
arts@sfbg.com
DANCE Moving, especially when it’s not by choice, is never fun. Losing your home after some 30 years of relative comfort and security is really the pits. That’s how I felt when I heard that the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival — my first encounter with the Bay Area’s voluptuous dance culture — would not be able to continue performing at the Palace of Fine Arts because of the Doyle Drive reconstruction.
Yet EDF has survived; the new, smaller, more varied venues have encouraged the re-thinking of what had become a comfortable format. One more time EDF is taking its shows on the road — to Fort Mason Center’s Cowell Theater and Firehouse, and to the de Young Museum, the Asian Art Museum, and the Novellus Theater at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Presentations range from intimate lecture formats to full-throttle multi-company performances.
Unlike previous years, however, the popular January auditions (where you could get your fill, or a least a taste of what world dance is all about, for a $10 day pass) had to be cancelled for financial reasons. Like other arts organizations, EDF is struggling, though the 34-year-old fest has been hit particularly hard. “We were forced into an expansion of projects at a time when the economy was contracting,” says Carlos Carvajal, EDF’s co-artistic director along with CK Ladzepko. The Novellus Theater also seats 200 fewer people than the Palace, a significant loss of earned income.
The Ghana-born Ladzekpo founded his African Music and Dance Festival in 1973 and has introduced generations of artists into the intricacies of African rhythms and traditions. Carvajal started folk dancing when he was in high school in San Francisco and has performed with SF Ballet and European and South American companies. Both men have been closely involved with the Festival for years — as adjudicators and observers and now as artistic directors.
The absence of auditions allowed the two curators to go for the best and the brightest for this year’s 30 slots. They were particularly looking for innovation because, as Carvajal quotes Ladzekpo, “We can’t hide behind tradition.” Master artists whose primary concern was the preservation and dissemination of specific traditions started many of these ensembles. But more and more, this generation of ethnic dancers feels free to reinterpret and experiment what used to be considered inviolate practices.
Today’s artistic directors very likely have not only encountered other global dance forms but probably have studied modern dance, choreography, and even ballet. Many of them are as willing to test the boundaries of their fields as their colleagues in other art forms. This year’s line-up, while still offering plenty of what we all have come to love — Chinese Dragon dance, Native American hoop dance, rites of passages rituals from Liberia, temple ceremonies from Bali — offers plenty of contemporary choreography grounded in specific cultural traditions. It’s global dance in all its complexity.
Two different gamelans working together — as the Balinese Gamelan Sekar Jaya and the Sundanese Pusaka Sunda are for the new Bayangan Jiwa — would have been unheard of two decades ago (not to speak of them using very cutting-edge shadow-light technology). Neither would you have had an Uzbek percussionist (Abbos Kosimov) pair up with a Tajikistani dancer (Mariam Gaibova). And, “We specifically asked Abhinaya Dance Company to return with San Jose Taiko,” Carvajal says. It took guts and imagination to bring (successfully) together Japanese Taiko and Indian Bharata Natyam.
Carvajal is also delighted by how Carola Zertuche has revitalized Theatre Flamenco of San Francisco. For EDF, the Company will perform flamenco barefoot, milonga style, reconnecting the dance with its Moorish and Gypsy roots and also reminding us that flamenco’s percussive qualities originated in a musician’s use of a cane and not the dancer’s heels.
Maybe OngDance Company personifies EDF at its most sophisticated. At Dance Mission Theater in January they showed themselves profoundly steeped in Korean tradition, absolutely contemporary in their perspective and brilliant in the art of stagecraft. They’ll present Shadow of Cheoyong during the festival’s third weekend of performances. *
SAN FRANCISCO ETHNIC DANCE FESTIVAL
June 2-July 1, $12-$20
Various venues, SF
Stage Listings
Stage listings are compiled by Guardian staff. Performance times may change; call venues to confirm. Reviewers are Robert Avila, Rita Felciano, and Nicole Gluckstern. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.
THEATER
OPENING
The Full Monty Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.roltheatre.com. $25-36. Opens Thu/31, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through June 30. Ray of Light Theatre performs the hit musical.
100 Saints You Should Know Thick House, 1695 18th St, SF; www.therhino.org. $10-30. Previews Thu/31, 7:30pm and Fri/1, 8pm. Opens Sat/2, 8pm. Runs Wed-Thu, 7:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through June 17. Theatre Rhinoceros performs Kate Fodor’s comedy-drama about family love, homosexuality, and adolescence.
BAY AREA
Black n Blue Boys/Broken Men Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-73. Opens Wed/30, 8pm. Runs Tue, Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 7pm). Through June 24. Berkeley Rep presents a world premiere from writer-performer Dael Orlandersmith (a Pulitzer finalist for 2002’s Yellowman).
The Tempest Bruns Amphitheater, 100 California Shakespeare Theater Way, Orinda; (510) 809-3290, www.calshakes.org. $35-71. Previews Wed/30-Fri/1, 8pm. Opens Sat/2, 8pm. Runs Tue-Thu, 7:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also June 23, 2pm); Sun, 4pm. Through June 25. California Shakespeare Theater opens its season with this dance-filled interpretation of the Bard’s classic tale.
ONGOING
Endgame and Play American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary, SF; (415) 749-2228, www.act-sf.org. $10-95. Wed/30-Sat/2, 8pm (also Wed/30, Sat/2-Sun/3, 2pm). The stage is bare save for three cocoon-like urns in a row, each containing an emergent head, literally trapped side by side as in an existentialist’s nightmare. In staccato bursts of speech punctuated by the rapid jumping of a follow-spot, the three heads (Anthony Fusco, Annie Purcell, and René Augesen) narrate their respective sides of an adulterous triangle, not once, but twice, incorporating subtle variations on delivery and cadence during the second go-round. The static staging and deconstructed syntax of Samuel Beckett’s seldom-produced short Play is a good introduction to Beckett’s sensibilities, and sets the mood for the main event, the better-known Endgame. This ferocious exploration of habit, habitat, cruelty and fealty has a lot of food for thought to chew on no matter who produces it, but ACT’s version does lack a certain meaty heft. There’s just something a little too smooth in Bill Irwin’s manner as the chairbound, petty tyrant Hamm, and all too often his poisonous ire comes off as merely petulant. Nick Gabriel, as his beleaguered servant Clov, fares somewhat better (or in fact worse), inhabiting his painful mobility with an appropriately long-suffering manner and frustrated despair, and Hamm’s two legless “cursed progenitors” Nell (Barbara Oliver) and Nagg (Giles Havergal) inject some much appreciated warmth into the generally bleak atmosphere. (Gluckstern)
Fwd: Life Gone Viral Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Thu, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Through June 10. The internet becomes comic fodder for creator-performers Charlie Varon and Jeri Lynn Cohen, and creator-director David Ford.
My Tia Loca’s Life of Crime Bindlestiff Studio, 185 Sixth St, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $20. Thu/31-Sat/2, 8pm. “No Human is Illegal,” the immigrant rights activists like to remind, a message adeptly conveyed by Roy Conboy’s My Tia Loca’s Life of Crime, presented by Guerrilla Rep at Bindlestiff Studio. A pointed yet comical commentary on the “crimes” of one Tia Loca (Cat Callejas) which include sneaking back over the border between Mexico and the US after being illegally deported from her actual native country by “La Migra” and impersonating a plainclothes cop in order to find her long-lost daughter, the central message of the play is one of solidarity — familia first. The family bond is most strikingly evident between Callejas’ feisty, independent eccentric and Melvign Badiola as her goofy nephew Memo, who shares her tendency for extralegal action as well as a love for mole. The comedic chemistry between the two is tough and tender, and full of casually hilarious, bickering repartee. The staging is mostly a delight with great jams provided by Brandon Bigelow and Jonah Pavon, strong acting support from Lainey Garrity, Matt Gunnison, and Kirsten Broadbear, and a snappy pace. Regrettably the play’s ending, a dreamlike nod to magical realism and low-riders, feels somewhat tacked on and not fully plotted out, unlike the down-to-earth retelling of events that illustrate Tia’s “criminal” past. But “life aint no pinche bowl of cherries,” and even imperfect, Tia is important. (Gluckstern)
Othello Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $15-18. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through June 9. Ninjaz of Drama performs Shakespeare’s classic in a contemporary setting.
Slipping New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through July 1. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs Daniel Talbott’s drama about a gay teen who finds new hope after a traumatic breakup.
The Waiting Period MainStage, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Extended through July 7. Brian Copeland (comedian, TV and radio personality, and creator-performer of the long-running solo play Not a Genuine Black Man) returns to the Marsh with a new solo, this one based on more recent and messier events in Copeland’s life. The play concerns an episode of severe depression in which he considered suicide, going so far as to purchase a handgun — the title coming from the legally mandatory 10-day period between purchasing and picking up the weapon, which leaves time for reflections and circumstances that ultimately prevent Copeland from pulling the trigger. A grim subject, but Copeland (with co-developer and director David Ford) ensures there’s plenty of humor as well as frank sentiment along the way. The actor peoples the opening scene in the gun store with a comically if somewhat stereotypically rugged representative of the Second Amendment, for instance, as well as an equally familiar “doood” dude at the service counter. Afterward, we follow Copeland, a just barely coping dad, home to the house recently abandoned by his wife, and through the ordinary routines that become unbearable to the clinically depressed. Copeland also recreates interviews he’s made with other survivors of suicidal depression. Telling someone about such things is vital to preventing their worst outcomes, says Copeland, and telling his own story is meant to encourage others. It’s a worthy aim but only a fitfully engaging piece, since as drama it remains thin, standing at perhaps too respectful a distance from the convoluted torment and alienation at its center. (Avila)
BAY AREA
Crevice La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; www.impacttheatre.com. $10-20. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through June 9. Just in case you were feeling panicked about the persistently recessed state of the economy and what might be your own less than ideal place in it, the Impact Theatre and Playground co-presentation of Lauren Yee’s Crevice might help to put your woes into perspective. That’s because slacker sibs Liz (Marissa Keltie) and Rob (Timothy Redmond) are only slightly exaggerated representatives of Generation Next whose penchant for making lackluster life choices has sentenced them to an indefinite prison term of couch-surfing and Teen Mom marathons in their childhood home. Naturally, they desire change, but it’s not until their mother (Laura Jane Bailey) starts having a hot fling with a younger man that things do. In an egregious breach of the TMI line, it appears that Mom’s orgasms open a “crevice” into an alternate reality that Rob and Liz subsequently fall into. Thus removed from the entropy of their former reality they begin testing the parameters of their new one, quickly coming to the realization that sometimes the alternatives to what you already have are even worse. Getting home again is a convoluted, not fully mapped-out process, but in the interim, their navigation of their erstwhile wonderland offers most of the play’s best lines as well as the uncomfortably effective transformation of Reggie D. White from Liz’s nerdish best buddy to multi-lingual Mafia killer and casual sadist. (Gluckstern)
God of Carnage Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller, Mill Valley; www.marintheatre.org. $34-55. Tue and Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat/2 and June 16, 2pm; Tue/7, 1pm); Wed, 7:30pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through June 17. Marin Theatre Company performs Yasmina Reza’s Tony-winning comedy about two sets of parents who meet after their children get into a schoolyard fight.
The Great Divide Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $20-30. Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through June 24. Shotgun Players performs Adamn Chanzit’s drama about the hot topic of fracking, inspired by Ibsen’s An Enemy of the People.
The Kipling Hotel: True Misadventures of the Electric Pink ’80s New venue: Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Extended through June 10. This new autobiographical solo show by Don Reed, writer-performer of the fine and long-running East 14th, is another slice of the artist’s journey from 1970s Oakland ghetto to comedy-circuit respectability — here via a partial debate-scholarship to UCLA. The titular Los Angeles residency hotel was where Reed lived and worked for a time in the 1980s while attending university. It’s also a rich mine of memory and material for this physically protean and charismatic comic actor, who sails through two acts of often hilarious, sometimes touching vignettes loosely structured around his time on the hotel’s young wait staff, which catered to the needs of elderly patrons who might need conversation as much as breakfast. On opening night, the episodic narrative seemed to pass through several endings before settling on one whose tidy moral was delivered with too heavy a hand, but if the piece runs a little long, it’s only the last 20 minutes that noticeably meanders. And even with some awkward bumps along the way, it’s never a dull thing watching Reed work. (Avila)
Not Getting Any Younger Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Extended through June 30. Marga Gomez is back at the Marsh, a couple of too-brief decades after inaugurating the theater’s new stage with her first solo show — an apt setting, in other words, for the writer-performer’s latest monologue, a reflection on the inevitable process of aging for a Latina lesbian comedian and artist who still hangs at Starbucks and can’t be trusted with the details of her own Wikipedia entry. If the thought of someone as perennially irreverent, insouciant, and appealingly immature as Gomez makes you depressed, the show is, strangely enough, the best antidote. Note: review from the show’s 2011 run at the Marsh San Francisco. (Avila)
The Odyssey Angel Island; (415) 547-0189, www.weplayers.org. $40-76 (some tickets include ferry passage). Sat-Sun and Fri/1, 10:30am-4pm (does not include travel time to island). Through July 1. We Players present Ava Roy’s adaptation of Homer’s epic poem: an all-day adventure set throughout the nature and buildings of Angel Island State Park.
The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh Berkeley, TheaterStage, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Fri, 6pm; Sun/3, June 10, 16, 24, and 30, 11am. Through June 30. Louis “The Amazing Bubble Man” Pearl returns with this kid-friendly, bubble-tastic comedy.
PERFORMANCE/DANCE
“The Bilarious Show” LGBT Center Rainbow Room, 1800 Market, SF; www.qcomedy.com. Sat/2, 7:30pm, $12. The National Queer Arts Festival presents this all-bi line-up of comedy, music, and performance.
“Elect to Laugh” Studio Theater, Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. Tue, 8pm. Ongoing through Nov 6. $15-50. Will Durst and friends perform in this weekly political humor show that focuses on the upcoming presidential election.
“Larry Hankin’s Street Stories” Marsh San Francisco, Studio Theater, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. Fri/1-Sat/2, 8pm. $20-35. The San Francisco comedy legend performs his solo show.
“The News” Somarts Cultural Center, 934 Brannan, SF; www.somarts.org. Tue/5, 7:30pm. $5. New and experimental queer performance works from Nic Alea, Hallie Dalsimer, and more.
“Parkour Deux” CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF; www.counterpulse.org. Fri/1-Sun/3, 8pm (also Sun/3, 2pm). $15-22. Scott Wells and Dancers perform new work.
“The Romane Event Comedy Show” Make-Out Room, 3225 22nd St, SF; romaneeventcomedyshow.eventbrite.com. Wed/30, 7:30pm. $10. Stand-up with Ms. Pat and the Bay Area Comedy All-Stars.
San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival Fort Mason Center, Cowell Theater, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.worldartswest.org. Sat/2, 4pm; Sun/3, 4pm. $12-20. Weekend one of the 34th annual festival, “The World United Through Dance,” features a world premiere by Bay Area troupe Gamelan Sekar Jaya, in collaboration with Sudanese gamelan Pusaka Sunda.
“Sex and the City: Live!” Rebel, 1760 Market, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Tue, 7 and 9pm. Through June 26. $25. Heklina, D’Arcy Drollinger, Lady Bear, Trixxie Carr play the fab four in this drag-tastic homage to the HBO series.
“Shadow of a Doubt” Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St, SF; www.dancecontinuumsf.org. Fri/1-Sun/3, 8pm. $20. Dance Continuum SF performs a dance-theater concert with four premieres and one repertory work.
“Voca People” Marines’ Memorial Theatre, 609 Sutter, Second Flr, SF; www.marinesmemorialtheatre.com. Tue-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 6:30 and 9:30pm; Sun, 3 and 6pm. Through June 17. $49-75. A capella from outer space.
“The Water is Clear and Still” Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Thu/31-Sat/2, 8pm; Sun/3, 2pm. $25. Liss Fain Dance performs a world premiere performance installation inspired by short stories by Jamaica Kincaid.
“X” Garage, 715 Bryant, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. June 5-7, 8pm. $10-20. Australian performer Sunny Drake presents his new show in conjunction with the National Queer Arts Festival.
BAY AREA
“Dances for Oakland” Laney College Theater, 900 Fallon, Oakl; www.savagejazz.org. Thu/31-Sat/2, 8pm; Sun/3, 3pm. $5-20. Savage Jazz Dance Company performs in celebration of its 20th anniversary.
“RoCo Dance Onstage” Marin Veterans’ Memorial Auditorium, Marin Center, 10 Avenue of the Flags, San Rafael; (415) 499-6800. Fri/1, 8pm; Sat/2, 7pm. $19.50-29. RoCo Dance and Fitness presents two nights of performance featuring over 700 dancers of all ages. *
Our Weekly Picks
WEDNESDAY 5/30
A Behanding in Spokane
Martin McDonagh, Oscar-winning author of the movie In Bruges and the equally dark hit play Pillowman, brings us another demented fable, already receiving rave reviews from the New York Times and the Wall Street Journal. All we need to know is that protagonist Carmichael has lost his hand, and although it has been more than 30 years, he is still pissed as hell. Violence and sexually twisted elements are guaranteed in any McDonagh production, and this stage performance includes special effects as gruesome as you could find on the big screen. Do not be too scared off by the talk of gore though — his work is psychologically thrilling as well, and this black comedy brings some fantastic actors to the stage. (Shauna C. Keddy)
Ongoing, through June 30 Tue-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm)
8pm, $30-40
533 Sutter, SF
(415) 677-9596
WEDNESDAY 5/30
Kids on a Crime Spree
These Kids embrace the idea that a simple pop song can be so much more — their music contains darker lyrics hidden under sunny melodies. Their records are captured on analog tape and harken back to the days when Phil Spector was recording bands in New York's famous Brill Building, and not just a crazy-haired freak. Based on a driving drum line and drenched in reverb guitar, this Crime Spree creates all the messy fun you could ask for, but it's safe to say you can walk away from this controlled chaos without any trouble with the law. This is not just the sound of kids having some rowdy fun, the Oakland rockers have some truly memorable tunes. (Keddy)
9pm, $5
El Rio
3158 Mission, SF
(415) 282-3325
THURSDAY 5/31
"The Water is Clear and Still"
Liss Fain has always chosen her visual and musical collaborators with great care. A choreographer of uncommon intelligence and taste, every new work is the result of careful deliberations and satisfying for that reason alone. Last year she stepped away from the proscenium stage into an installation format inside YBCA's Forum. In her new "The Water is Clear and Still," based on Jamaica Kincaid's tiny but hugely resonating short stories, she is taking the concept further by using the more complex space of Z Space's lobby and theater. Again the audience will be invited to wander. Joining Fain's seven dancers will be actor Delia MacDougall for Kincaid's text. Longtime collaborator Matthew Antaky has signed on one more time for the lighting and set design. Dan Wool composed the score. (Rita Felciano)
Through Sat/2, 8pm; Sun/3, 2pm; $15–$25
Z Space
450 Florida St., S.F.
(800) 838-3006
THURSDAY 5/31
"City Scenes: Installments One and Two"
Owned by the San Francisco Neighborhood Theater Foundation, the circa 1910 Vogue Theatre is, appropriately, a single-screen theater smack-dab in the middle of a neighborhood — no shopping malls need apply. With SFNTF partners CinemaSF at the programming helm, the Vogue shows first-run films, but also hosts unique cultural events you won't find elsewhere. Case in point: CinemaSF's new venture with promoters folkYEAH, "City Scenes," which pairs local musicians with SF-centric films for two nights of rockin' and movie-watchin'. Tonight, Vetiver curates the 1978 Goldie Hawn-Chevy Chase comedy Foul Play; tomorrow, Chuck Prophet presents Francis Ford Coppola's tense drama The Conversation (1974). (Cheryl Eddy)
Through Fri/1
8pm (music); 9pm (film), $20
Vogue Theatre
3290 Sacramento, SF
cinemasf.com/vogue
THURSDAY 5/31
Hospitality
One of the highlights at the most recent Noise Pop festival, Brooklyn's Hospitality is also responsible for one of the best releases this year, its self-titled debut on Merge Records. Amber Papini sings with an appealing lilt and unlocatable accent, and her storytelling style has the punch of Attractions-era Elvis Costello with the tenderness of Belle and Sebastian. Featuring production from guitarist-solo artist-Papini's husband Nathan Michel and Shane Stoneback (Vampire Weekend, Sleigh Bells), the resulting album is ten tracks of unimpeachable pop, immediately relatable to anyone that's endured a third decade of ennui, reevaluating friendships and that useless degree. (Ryan Prendiville)
With Waterstrider, Popscene DJs
9:30pm, $13
Rickshaw Stop
155 Fell, SF
(415) 861-2011
THURSDAY 5/31
2012 San Francisco Nightlife Awards
This is your chance, San Francisco, to throw your tired arms up then bend over and take a vote. More accurately: to celebrate all your creative nightlife creatures, venues, and parties with awards and accolades. The California Music and Culture Association is throwing this second annual meeting of the nightlife minds, where DJs from some of SF's favorite parties will spin, and all the voting will take place during the actual event. Yes, attendees get in on that hot voting action (Best Live Venue, Best Festival, Best Designer, etc). The winners will then be announced on the spot in a grand ceremony hopefully befitting for such luster. (Emily Savage)
With DJs from Debaser, Future Perfect, Hard French, Lights Down Low
Hosted by Anna Conda and Marke B.
8pm-midnight; Members $5, Non-Members $10
Mezzanine
444 Jessie, SF
Facebook: 2012 San Francisco Nightlife Awards
FRIDAY 6/1
Annie Bacon and Her OSHEN
Some nights you need to rock out to hardcore, other nights you want sweet and tender vocals over a folk-y melody, the kinds of songs in which the lyrics mean something, and the music carries you right along. Annie Bacon, also known for her "Folk Opera" work, offers that soothing sound you may yearn for at her album release show with Her OSHEN band (for new album Light to See Dark). Think Americana, with an emotionally driven undertone. (Keddy)
With Adios Amigo, Al Lover, the Hates, My Second Surprise
9pm, $10
Cafe Du Nord
2170 Market, SF
(415) 861-5016
FRIDAY 6/1
"Reap What You Zoa"
If you've visited Oakland Art Murmur — the city's super-cool monthly art walk, which last month turned into an Occupy-style dance party that took over Telegraph Avenue for hours — then you've probably seen the flaming Fluxcycle and its beautiful, stylish crew from Flux Foundation. Wanna go home with them? Mmm, of course you do. You'll get the chance after this month's Art Murmur when the crew brings the party back to its home base at American Steel for a rockin' afterparty to benefit Zoa, its creation for this year's Burning Man. The event features live music, a gallery show, Chester the Fire Breathing Art Car, the Front Porch, Oaktown Hall, a full bar staffed by the legendary Flash Hopkins, and other artsy surprises, all in a fantastic industrial warehouse. (Steven T. Jones)
With American Nomad
7pm-1am, $10–$20 donation
American Steel
1960 Mandela Parkway, Oakl. (enter on 20th)
FRIDAY 6/1
Omar Souleyman
The prominent ambassador of Syrian folk-dance-party-Dabke music to the US, Omar Souleyman is perhaps known best for his live performances. Releases on the Sublime Frequencies record label — drawing from reportedly over 500 cassettes created over the course of a decade plus, the majority of which were recorded at weddings and parties — has brought increased exposure for the musician and his band, and some ire from more "traditional" world music fans. Souleyman's style of overdriven, synthesizer-embracing, unrelenting beats and fire-spitting vocals inevitably leads to those who immediately can't stand it, and those who can't resist it. Incidentally, this category includes Bjork, for whom Souleyman recently remixed a series of songs including "Crystalline." (Prendiville)
With DJ Dragonfly, 3 Leafs
8pm, $20 Mezzanine 444 Jessie, SF (415) 625-8880 www.mezzaninesf.com
FRIDAY 6/1
Balam Acab
Tri Angle Records wunderkind Alec Koone, better known as Balam Acab, creates hauntingly beautiful music. The 2011 LP Wander / Wonder solidified Koone as a singular player in the vogue witch house scene. Although the term "witch house" is a four-letter word among some contemporaries, Balam Acab's music fits all the criteria: inherently electronic, atmospheric, warped, hazy and dragged out. The 20-something Pennsylvanian embarked on a sound that has helped characterize the Tri Angle aesthetic; label mates include Clams Casino, How to Dress Well, Holy Other and oOoOO. Koone made his San Francisco debut with a live performance at Public Works in December. This time around, Elbo Room should prove to be a more intimate experience for fans of his moody music, sure to be set to fog and lasers. (Julia B. Chan)
With S4NtA_MU3rTE, Nako, PLANET DEATH, oOoOO
10pm, $8 Advance
Elbo Room
647 Valencia, SF
(415) 552-7788
SATURDAY 6/2
Barn Owl
Barn Owl is often marginalized as a "drone" outfit, but its much too versatile for that description. Evoking the thick-as-molasses stoner sludge of Sunn O))), the astral jazz explorations of Alice Coltrane, and the shimmery moodiness of Can via Future Days, the SF duo has always incorporated the tonal shifts and genre-hopping necessary to keep its hypnosis in check. Having just finished a European tour, in support of its critically acclaimed 2011 album Lost in the Glare, this homecoming appearance ought to be a wild, unpredictable ride through Barn Owl's veritable maze of sonic influences. (Taylor Kaplan)
With Suishou No Fune, Tone Volt
9:30pm, $7
Hemlock Tavern
1131 Polk, SF
(415) 923-0923
SATURDAY 6/2
Ernest Ranglin
Legendary Jamaican guitarist Ernest Ranglin helped form what would become the ska scene back in the 1950s with his distinctive "scratching" style of playing, and has performed with everybody from Bob Marley and Jimmy Cliff to the Skatalites. Fans are invited to help the musical icon celebrate his 80th birthday tonight here in the city with a special concert featuring Ranglin backed by local favorites Vinyl performing hits from his massive back catalog along with selections from his newest album, Avila, which hit stores this week. (Sean McCourt)
With DJ Dukey
9pm, $20–$24
Great American Music Hall
859 O'Farrell St., SF
(415) 885-0750
www.slimspresents.com
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Film Listings
Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Kimberly Chun, Max Goldberg, Dennis Harvey, and Lynn Rapoport. For rep house showtimes, see Rep Clock. Due to the Memorial Day holiday, theater information was incomplete at press time.
OPENING
A Cat in Paris This year’s Best Animated Film nominees: big-budget entries Kung Fu Panda 2, Puss in Boots, and eventual winner Rango, plus Chico and Rita, which opened just before Oscar night, and French mega-dark-horse A Cat in Paris. Sure, Jean-Loup Felicioli and Alain Gagnol’s film failed to cash in on 2011’s Paris craze, but it’s still a charming if featherweight noir caper, being released stateside in an English version that features the voices of Marcia Gay Harden and Anjelica Huston. A streetwise kitty named Dino spends his days hanging with Zoey, a little girl who’s gone mute since the death of her father — a cop killed in the line of duty. Zoey’s mother (Harden), also a cop, is hellbent on catching the murderer, a notorious crook named Costa who runs his criminal empire with Reservoir Dogs-style imprecision. At night, Dino sneaks out and accompanies an affable burglar on his prowlings. When Zoey falls into Costa’s clutches, her mom, the thief, and (natch) the feisty feline join forces to rescue her, in a series of rooftop chase scenes that climax atop Notre Dame. At just over an hour, A Cat in Paris is sweetly old-fashioned and suitable for audiences of all ages, though staunch dog lovers may raise an objection or two. (1:07) (Eddy)
Chely Wright: Wish Me Away Grab a jumbo-sized box of tissues for this doc, which follows country singer Chely Wright as she counts down the days until her very public coming-out — via full-court-press media blitz. In candid interviews (which feel more like therapy sessions) and some extremely emotional, self-shot home video footage, a fragile Wright recounts the reasons why she stayed closeted for so long: her troubled upbringing in small-town Kansas, a steely determination to make it in a biz not known for open-mindedness, and her own deeply-held religious beliefs. Hiding who she was led to years of personal agony, even as her career took off (her biggest hit: 1999 number-one “Single White Female”). With this level of honest, raw build-up, Wright’s decision to come out feels like a full-scale personal revolution. It’s an inspiring tale. (1:36) Elmwood. (Eddy)
The Color Wheel See “Two For the Road.” (1:23) Roxie, Smith Rafael.
Crooked Arrows Erstwhile Superman Brandon Routh stars in this underdog story about a lacrosse team comprised of Native American teens that enters a prep-school tournament. (1:45)
For Greater Glory Andy Garcia headlines this action epic set during Mexico’s Cristero War of the 1920s. (2:15)
Hide Away Josh Lucas plays a grieving man who buys a substantial sailboat sight unseen (note to self: never do that) and spends months restoring it from decrepitude to a thing of beauty. All while never leaving its Lake Michigan dock — and for a while seeming hellbent on self-destruction via winter cold, alcohol, and cough syrup. Among those witnessing his solitary exile are Ayelet Zurer as a woman keeping an eye peeled from her shorefront diner; and James Cromwell as an old salt (he’s actually billed as “The Ancient Mariner”) prone to wearing a kilt, playing bagpipes, and spouting wise groaners like “Sometimes when you get to where you’re s’posed to be, it’s too soon.” Peter Vanderwall’s screenplay aims for artful minimalism, but still one might wish there were even less of it — too much of the writing is psychologically undercooked, pretentious, silly, or incongruously over-garrulous. There are too many thankless moments of under-contextualized actor exertion, and narrative elements that do not reward when they need to. But if Smoke Signals (1998) director Chris Eyres’ film is shaky as drama, it still provides aesthetic rewards as an exercise in melancholy poetics, especially via Eliot Davis’ photography of the northern Michigan environ through several seasons, and the persistent keening emotion of Tony Morales and Edward Rogers’ original soundtrack. (1:23) SF Film Society Cinema. (Harvey)
High School Pot comedy + teenagers = double entendre title that somehow hasn’t been used until the year 2012. (1:40)
I Wish It’s tempting to hold Hirokazu Kore-eda’s I Wish up to that other kids adventure story in the theaters, Wes Anderson’s Moonrise Kingdom, but that’s a disservice to Anderson: his arch look back at an age of innocence comes off as loftily contrived in contrast to this gently empathetic, ground-level view of children’s dreams and desires, one that falls well short of preciousness, thanks to Kore-eda’s acute eye for a changing Japan. Brothers Koichi and Ryunosuke (real-life sibs Koki and Ohshiro Maeda) are living apart like their two parents: the former bunks with his mother (Nene Otsuka) and grandparents in Kagoshima, where he plots to get his parents together again and frets over the ash-spewing still-active volcano; the latter is busy enabling his laid-back guitar-playing father (Jo Odagiri of 2003’s Bright Future) on the other side of the island, where he grows fava beans, eats takeout, and hangs out with pals like budding actress Megumi (Kara Uchida). These offspring of Peter Pan-like parents, who have had a tough time growing up and fulfilling their own dreams, have been forced to grow up fast — but Koichi is pinning his hopes on something faster: the new bullet train line that will link his town with his brother’s. He gets it in his mind that if a wish is made when the first trains pass each other, a miracle, like his bickering parents’ reunion, will occur. The kids conspire to grab to that magical moment, by hook or crook, and a little help from an elderly couple that might have stepped out of an older, more gracious Japan, as rhapsodized by Yasujiro Ozu. And as with his devastating portrait of abandoned kids eking out a living on their own, Nobody Knows (2004), Kore-eda effortlessly coaxes great performances out of his child actors. Like Nobody Knows‘s Akira, Koichi and Ryunosuke are determined to persevere, post-familial meltdown, through all personal Armageddons, be they triggered by volcano, tsunami, or heartbreak. (2:08) Smith Rafael. (Chun)
The Intouchables Cries of “racism” seem a bit out of hand when it comes to this likable albeit far-from-challenging French comedy loosely based on a real-life relationship between a wealthy white quadriplegic and his caretaker of color. The term “cliché” is more accurate. And where were these critics when 1989’s Driving Miss Daisy and 2011’s The Help — movies that seem designed to make nostalgic honkies feel good about those fraught relationships skewed to their advantage—were coming down the pike? (It also might be more interesting to look at how these films about race always hinge on economies in which whites must pay blacks to interact with/educate/enlighten them.) In any case, Omar Sy, portraying Senegalese immigrant Driss, threatens to upset all those pundits’ apple carts with his sheer life force, even when he’s shaking solo on the dance floor to sounds as effortlessly unprovocative, and old-school, as Earth, Wind, and Fire. In fact, everything about The Intouchables is as old school as 1982’s 48 Hrs., spinning off the still laugh-grabbing humor that comes with juxtaposing a hipper, more streetwise black guy with a hapless, moneyed chalky. The wheelchair-bound Philippe (Francois Cluzet) is more vulnerable than most, and he has a hard time getting along with any of his nurses, until he meets Driss, who only wants his signature for his social services papers. It’s not long before the cultured, classical music-loving Philippe’s defenses are broken down by Driss’ flip, somewhat honest take on the follies and pretensions of high culture — a bigger deal in France than in the new world, no doubt. Director-writer Olivier Nakache and Eric Toledano aren’t trying to innovate —they seem more set on crafting an effervescent blockbuster that out-blockbusters Hollywood — and the biggest compliment might be that the stateside remake is already rumored to be in the works. (1:52) (Chun)
Moonrise Kingdom See “Little Runaways.” (1:37)
Piranha 3DD Feedin’ time! (1:23)
Romeo and Juliet in Yiddish Reframing Shakespeare’s classic tragedy is nothing new (see: West Side Story, Baz Luhrmann, etc.) Writer-director-star Eve Annenberg’s decision to set the tale amid clashing varieties of Brooklyn-based Orthodox Jews makes sense, though it’s hampered by a rambling frame story. A harried, no-nonsense nurse named Ava (Annenberg) moonlights as a grad student tasked with translating Romeo and Juliet into Yiddish; since she’s basically at Yiddish for Dummies level with the language, she hires a trio of charming young ne’er-do-wells who’ve more or less forsaken their religion (but not their Hasidic hairstyles) to become homeless grifters. As they work on the play, it comes to life in a sort of parallel reality, with Ava playing Juliet’s nurse, the boys’ charismatic ringleader (Lazer Weiss) playing Romeo, and so on. These scenes are focused and compelling; the rest of the film, though not without its witty moments, feels thrown-together by comparison. (1:32) Vogue. (Eddy)
Snow White and the Huntsman It’s unclear why the zeitgeist has blessed us this year with two warring iterations of the Snow White fairy tale, one broadly comedic (April’s Mirror Mirror), one starkly emo. But it was only natural that Kristen Stewart would land in the latter rendering, breaking open the hearts of swamp beasts and swordsmen alike with the chaste glory of her mien. As Snow White flees the henchmen and hired killers dispatched by her seriously evil stepmother, Queen Ravenna (Charlize Theron), and traverses a blasted, virulent forest populated with hallucinogenic vapors and other life-threatening obstacles, Stewart need not act so much as radiate a dazzling benignity, weeping the tears of a martyr rather than a frightened young girl. (Unfortunately, when required to deliver a rallying declaration of war, she sounds as if she’s speaking in tongues after a heavy hit on the crack pipe.) It’s slightly uncomfortable to be asked, alongside a grieving, drunken huntsman (The Avengers’ Chris Hemsworth), a handful of dwarfs (including Ian McShane and Toby Jones), and the kingdom’s other suffering citizenry, to fall worshipfully in line behind such a creature. But first-time director Rupert Sanders’s film keeps pace with its lovely heroine visually, constructing a gorgeous world in which armies of black glass shatter on battlefields, white stags dissolve into hosts of butterflies, and a fairy sanctuary within the blighted kingdom is an eye-popping fantasia verging on the hysterical. Theron’s Ravenna, equipped in modernist fashion with a backstory for her sociopathic tendencies, is credible and captivating as an unhinged slayer of men, thief of youth, destroyer of kingdoms, and consumer of the hearts of tiny birds. (2:07) (Rapoport)
ONGOING
Battleship During idle moments before the action revs up, the aliens start menacing, and the deadly razor balls-cum-air mines start rampaging, wrap your noggin around these random brainwaves: can Taylor Kitsch be any better named? Is it possible for Alexander Skarsgård’s glassy eyes to get any deader? Where are all the Hawaiians, Asians, and people of color in this white-bread vision of Hawaii? All matters to puzzle over in this toy franchise hopeful directed by ex-Chicago Hope regular Peter Berg. The 2007 Transformers is the best this gung-ho hybrid of up-with-the-military “Army of One” commercial and alien invasion flick — with plenty of blow-’em-up-real-good explosions and a dab of J-monster movies, but the writing never quite rises to the occasion. Here, an international group of navy folk and their ships are convening in Hawaii for playful war games, though the exercises turn somewhat more serious when alien vessels splash down in the middle of the fun —and some mild, no-investment family drama: Alex (Kitsch) is the screw-up younger brother of stony-faced naval man Stone (Skarsgård) and courting the daughter (Brooklyn Decker) of the fleet commander (Liam Neesom), who seems to hate his guts. The ultimate battle with space invaders, however, promises to turn that all around, as Alex is forced to sailor up and lead crew mates like Rihanna and work with former opponents like Captain Nagata (Tadanobu Asano). Here, at least, in the shadow of Pearl Harbor, U.S. and Japanese naval dudes can heal the wounds of World War II and bond in battle against the last unimpeachable interstellar villains who couldn’t give a rat’s ass if you say “I sunk your battleship.” But Berg’s muddled direction doesn’t help when it comes to piecing out the chronology and balancing assorted perspectives in this latest effort to equate militarism with the games big and little kids play. (2:11) (Chun)
Bernie Jack Black plays the titular new assistant funeral director liked by everybody in small-town Carthage, Tex. He works especially hard to ingratiate himself with shrewish local widow Marjorie (Shirley MacLaine), but there are benefits — estranged from her own family, she not only accepts him as a friend (then companion, then servant, then as virtual “property”), but makes him her sole heir. Richard Linklater’s latest is based on a true-crime story, although in execution it’s as much a cheerful social satire as I Love You Philip Morris and The Informant! (both 2009), two other recent fact-based movies about likable felons. Black gets to sing (his character being a musical theater queen, among other things), while Linklater gets to affectionately mock a very different stratum of Lone Star State culture from the one he started out with in 1991’s Slacker. There’s a rich gallery of supporting characters, most played by little-known local actors or actual townspeople, with Matthew McConaughey’s vainglorious county prosecutor one delectable exception. Bernie is its director’s best in some time, not to mention a whole lot of fun. (1:39) Smith Rafael. (Harvey)
The Best Exotic Marigold Hotel (1:42)
The Cabin in the Woods If the name “Joss Whedon” doesn’t provide all the reason you need to bum-rush The Cabin in the Woods (Whedon produced and co-wrote, with director and frequent collaborator Drew Goddard), well, there’s not much more that can be revealed without ruining the entire movie. In a very, very small nutshell, it’s about a group of college kids (including Chris “Thor” Hemsworth) whose weekend jaunt to a rural cabin goes horribly awry, as such weekend jaunts tend to do in horror movies (the Texas Chainsaw and Evil Dead movies are heavily referenced). But this is no ordinary nightmare — its peculiarities are cleverly, carefully revealed, and the movie’s inside-out takedown of scary movies produces some very unexpected (and delightfully blood-gushing) twists and turns. Plus: the always-awesome Richard Jenkins, and in-jokes galore for genre fans. (1:35) (Eddy)
Chernobyl Diaries Despite the peripheral input of Oren Peli, who scored big with 2009’s Paranormal Activity, this sorry excuse for a horror movie offers up a sample platter of shit we’ve already seen before: the vacation-from-hell genre, the city-slickers-versus-yokels genre, the don’t-poke-around-in-the-abandoned-nuclear-facility genre. Er, all right. I will admit the setting — spooky ghost town Pripyat, which abuts the Chernobyl reactors — is inspired, which actually makes first-time director Bradley Parker’s film even more of a disappointment. Douchey college kids — characters so one-dimensional their names might as well be “I Will Die First,” “I Will Make the Obviously Stupid-Ass Decision to Run Into the Woods in the Direction of Those Strange Noises We’ve Been Hearing,” and “I Will Be the Guy Who Starts Screaming Right When We’re Trying to Hide” — get in a rickety van with a sketchy guide for an “extreme tour” of you-know-where. Turns out, in addition to providing backdrops for Facebook-wall photo ops, the ‘Nobe is home to quite the cornucopia of beasties. Suggested alternate titles: Chernobyl Hostel. Wrong Turn (Off Chernobyl’s Only Road). Don’t Go In the Basement (of Chernobyl). Piranha-nobyl. Cujo-nobyl. Night of the Things in Chernobyl That Aren’t Dead. The Chernobyls Have Eyes. (1:26) (Eddy)
Dark Shadows Conceptually, there’s nothing wrong with attempting to turn a now semi-obscure supernaturally themed soap opera with a five-year run in the late 1960s and early ’70s into a feature film. Particularly if the film brings together the sweetly creepy triumvirate of Tim Burton, Johnny Depp, and Helena Bonham Carter and emerges during an ongoing moment for vampires, werewolves, and other things that go hump in the night. Depp plays long-enduring vampire Barnabas Collins, the undead scion of a once-powerful 18th-century New England family that by the 1970s — the groovy decade in which the bulk of the story is set — has suffered a shabby deterioration. Barnabas forms a pact with present-day Collins matriarch Elizabeth (Michelle Pfeiffer) to raise the household — currently comprising her disaffected daughter, Carolyn (Chloë Grace Moretz), her derelict brother, Roger (Jonny Lee Miller), his mournful young son, David (Gulliver McGrath), David’s live-in lush of a psychiatrist, Dr. Hoffman (Carter), and the family’s overtaxed manservant, Willie (Jackie Earle Haley) — to its former stature, while taking down a lunatic, love-struck, and rather vindictive witch named Angelique (Eva Green). The latter, a victim of unrequited love, is the cause of all Barnabas’s woes and, by extension, the entire clan’s, but Angelique can only be blamed for so much. Beyond her hocus-pocus jurisdiction is the film’s manic pileup of plot twists, tonal shifts, and campy scenery-chewing by Depp, a startling onslaught that no lava lamp joke, no pallid reaction shot, no room-demolishing act of paranormal carnality set to Barry White, and no cameo by Alice Cooper can temper. (2:00) (Rapoport)
The Dictator As expected, The Dictator is, yet again, Sacha Baron Cohen doing his bumbling-foreigner shtick. Said character (here, a ruthless, spoiled North African dictator) travels to America and learns a heaping teaspoon of valuable lessons, which are then flung upon the audience — an audience which, by film’s end, has spent 80 minutes squealing at a no-holds-barred mix of disgusting gags, tasteless jokes, and schadenfreude. If you can’t forgive Cohen for carbon-copying his Borat (2006) formula, at least you can muster admiration for his ability to be an equal-opportunity offender (dinged: Arabs, Jews, African Americans, white Americans, women of all ethnicities, and green activists) — and for that last-act zinger of a speech. If The Dictator doesn’t quite reach Borat‘s hilarious heights, it’s still proudly repulsive, smart in spite of itself, and guaranteed to get a rise out of anyone who watches it. (1:23) (Eddy)
Elles Graphic sex scenes distinguish this otherwise fairly unremarkable tale of Anne (Juliette Binoche), a magazine writer whose blah life (sure, she has a luxurious apartment, but it’s populated by a distant husband, a sullen teenager, and a younger son who’d rather interface with technology than humans) becomes even more unbearable when she begins a new assignment: an article on college students who moonlight as call girls. The always-reliable Binoche brings depth to her role as a bored woman who finds herself unexpectedly titillated by her close brush with dirty thrills, but her eventual rebellion is anti-climactic after all that naughty build-up. Elles does plenty to earn its NC-17 rating, but filmmaker Malgoska Szumowska could’ve titled it Ennui instead. (1:36) (Eddy)
First Position Bess Kargman’s documentary follows a handful of exceptional young ballet dancers, ranging in age from 10 to 17, over the course of a year as they prepare for the Youth America Grand Prix, the world’s largest ballet scholarship competition. Those who make it from the semifinals (in which some 5,000 dancers aged 9 to 19 perform in 15 cities around the world) to the finals (which bring some 300 contestants to New York City) compete for scholarships to prestigious ballet schools, dance-company contracts, and general notice by both the judges and the company directors in the audience. The film’s subjects come from varied backgrounds — 16-year-old Joan Sebastian lives and studies in NYC, far from his family in Colombia; 14-year-old Michaela was born in civil war-torn Sierra Leone and adopted from an orphanage by an American couple in Philadelphia; 11-year-old Aran, an American, lives in Italy with his mother while his father serves in Kuwait. The common threads in their stories are the daily sacrifices made by them as well as their families, whose energies and other resources are largely poured into these children’s single-minded pursuit. We get a vague sense of the difficult world they are driving themselves, in nearly every waking hour, to enter. But the film largely keeps its focus on the challenges of preparing for the competition, offering us many magnificent shots of the dancers pushing their bodies to mesmerizing physical extremes both on- and offstage. (1:34) Smith Rafael. (Rapoport)
The Five-Year Engagement In 2008’s Forgetting Sarah Marshall, viewers were treated to the startling, tragicomic sight of Jason Segel’s naked front side as his character got brutally dumped by the titular perky, put-together heartbreaker. In The Five-Year Engagement, which he reunited with director Nicholas Stoller to co-write, Segel once again sacrifices dignity and the right to privacy, this time in exchange for fake orgasms (his own), ghastly hand-knit sweaters, egregious facial-hair arrangements, and various other exhaustively humiliating psychological lows — all part of an earnest, undying quest to make people giggle uncomfortably. Segel plays Tom, a talented chef with a promising career ahead of him in San Francisco’s culinary scene (naturally, food carts get a cameo in the film). On the one-year anniversary of meeting his girlfriend, Violet (Emily Blunt), a psychology postgrad, he asks her to marry him in a meticulously planned, gloriously botched proposal scene coengineered by Tom’s oafish friend Alex (Chris Pratt), little realizing that this romantic gesture will soon lead to successive frozen winters in the Midwest (Violet gets offered a job at the University of Michigan), loss of professional stature, cabin fever, mead making, bow-hunting accidents, the titular nuptial postponement, and other, more gruesome events. The humor at times descends to some banally low depths as Segel and Stoller explore the terrain of the awkward, the poorly socialized, and the playfully grotesque. But Segel and Blunt present a believable, likable relationship between two warm, funny, flawed people, and, however disgusted, no one should walk out before a scene in which Violet and her sister (Alison Brie) channel Elmo and Cookie Monster to elaborate on the themes of romantic idealism and marital discontent. (2:04) (Rapoport)
Footnote (1:45)
God Bless America Middle-aged office drone Frank (Joel Murray) is not having a good day-week-month-year-life. His ex-wife is about to happily remarry; his only child is a world-class brat who finds father-daughter time “boring;” his neighbors are a young couple who only get more loudly obnoxious when politely asked to keep the noise down. When that and insistent migraines keep Frank awake night after night, the parade of pundit and reality stupidities on TV only turn his insomnia into wide awake fury. Then he’s fired from his job for unjust reasons — on the same day he gets a diagnosis of brain cancer. Mad as hell, not-gonna-take-it-anymore, he impulsively decides to make a “statement” by assassinating a viral-video poster child for “entitlement.” This attracts admiring attention from extremely pushy, snarky teen Roxy (Tara Lynne Barr), who appoints herself Bonnie to his reluctant Clyde. They drive around the country bestowing “big dirt naps” on other exemplars of what’s wrong with America today, including religious hate mongers, rude moviegoers, and the purveyors of American Idol-type idiotainment. Comedian Bobcat Goldthwait’s latest feature as writer-director has its head in the right place, and so many good ideas, that it’s a pity this gonzo satire-rant runs out of steam so quickly. Aiming splattering paintball gun at the broadest possible targets, it covers them with disdainful goo but not as much wit as one would like. Plus, Barr’s hyper precocious smart mouth is yet another annoying Juno (2007) knockoff — never mind that she counts Diablo Cody among her (many) pet peeves. If God Bless winds up closer to Uwe Boll’s Postal (2007) than, say, Network (1976) in scattershot impact, it nonetheless almost makes it on sheer outré audacity and will alone. A movie that hates everything you hate should not be sneezed at; if only it hated them with more parodic snap, thematic depth and narrative structure. (1:44) (Harvey)
Headhunters Despite being the most sought-after corporate headhunter in Oslo, Roger (Aksel Hennie) still doesn’t make enough money to placate his gorgeous wife; his raging Napoleon complex certainly doesn’t help matters. Crime is, as always, the only solution, so Roger’s been supplementing his income by stealthily relieving his rich, status-conscious clients of their most expensive artworks (with help from his slightly unhinged partner, who works for a home-security company). When Roger meets the dashing Clas Greve (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau of Game of Thrones) — a Danish exec with a sinister, mysterious military past, now looking to take over a top job in Norway — he’s more interested in a near-priceless painting rumored to be stashed in Greve’s apartment. The heist is on, but faster than you can say “MacGuffin,” all hell breaks loose (in startlingly gory fashion), and the very charming Roger is using his considerable wits to stay alive. Based on a best-selling “Scandi-noir” novel, Headhunters is just as clever as it is suspenseful. See this version before Hollywood swoops in for the inevitable (rumored) remake. (1:40) (Eddy)
The Hunger Games Katniss Everdeen (Jennifer Lawrence) is a teenager living in a totalitarian state whose 12 impoverished districts, as retribution for an earlier uprising, must pay tribute to the so-called Capitol every year, sacrificing one boy and one girl each to the Hunger Games. A battle royal set in a perilous arena and broadcast live to the Capitol as gripping diversion and to the districts as sadistic propaganda, the Hunger Games are, depending on your viewpoint, a “pageant of honor, courage, and sacrifice” or a brutal, pointless bloodbath involving children as young as 12. When her little sister’s name comes up in the annual lottery, Katniss volunteers to take her place and is joined by a boy named Peeta Mellark (Josh Hutcherson), with whom she shares an old, unspoken bond. Tasked with translating to the screen the first installment of Suzanne Collins’s rabidly admired trilogy, writer-director Gary Ross (2003’s Seabiscuit, 1998’s Pleasantville) telescopes the book’s drawn-out, dread-filled tale into a manageable two-plus-hour entertainment, making great (and horrifying) use of the original work’s action, but losing a good deal of the narrative detail and emotional force. Elizabeth Banks is comic and unrecognizable as Effie Trinket, the two tributes’ chaperone; Lenny Kravitz gives a blank, flattened reading as their stylist, Cinna; and Donald Sutherland is sufficiently creepy and bloodless as the country’s leader, President Snow. More exceptionally cast are Woody Harrelson as Katniss and Peeta’s surly, alcoholic mentor, Haymitch Abernathy, and Stanley Tucci as games emcee Caesar Flickerman, flashing a bank of gleaming teeth at each contestant as he probes their dire circumstances with the oily superficiality of a talk show host. (2:22) (Rapoport)
Hysteria Tanya Wexler’s period romantic comedy gleefully depicts the genesis of the world’s most popular sex toy out of the inchoate murk of Victorian quackishness. In this dulcet version of events, real-life vibrator inventor Mortimer Granville (Hugh Dancy) is a handsome young London doctor with such progressive convictions as a belief in the existence of germs. He is, however, a man of his times and thus swallows unblinking the umbrella diagnosis of women with symptoms like anxiety, frustration, and restlessness as victims of a plague-like uterine disorder known as hysteria. Landing a job in the high-end practice of Dr. Robert Dalrymple (Jonathan Pryce), whose clientele consists entirely of dissatisfied housewives seeking treatments of “medicinal massage” and subsequent “parosysm,” Granville becomes acquainted with Dalrymple’s two daughters, the decorous Emily (Felicity Jones) and the first-wave feminist Charlotte (Maggie Gyllenhaal). A subsequent bout of RSI offers empirical evidence for the adage about necessity being the mother of invention, with the ever-underused Rupert Everett playing Edmund St. John-Smythe, Granville’s aristocratic friend and partner in electrical engineering. (1:35) (Rapoport)
Indie Game: The Movie Much like the film business, the video-game biz is mostly controlled by a few huge companies with thousands of employees, hell-bent on ensnaring as many of the billions of dollars spent on games annually as possible. And then, as James Swirsky and Lisanne Pajot’s documentary explores, there are the little guys, who are “not trying to be professional” or produce glossy content for the masses. Instead, these individuals (or pairs) take advantage of the miracle of digital distribution to follow their own visions and create their own games. The best-case scenarios — illustrated by San Francisco indie developer Jonathan Blow and his hugely successful Braid — can reap enormous creative and financial rewards, but getting there — as the struggles facing the creators of Super Meat Boy and Fez plainly attest — can be a mentally and physically draining process, filled with frustration and self-doubt, exacerbated by the taunts of haters online. A thoughtful, artfully-shot peek at one tiny corner of a behemoth industry, Indie Game also offers a surprisingly tense, raw look at some very bright minds struggling to triumph on their own terms. (1:36) Roxie. (Eddy)
Jiro Dreams of Sushi Celebrity-chef culture has surely reached some kind of zeitgeist, what with the omnipresence of Top Chef and other cooking-themed shows, and the headlines-making power of people like Paula Deen (diabetes) and Mario Batali (sued for ripping off his wait staff). Unconcerned with the trappings of fame — you’ll never see him driving a Guy Fieri-style garish sports car — is Jiro Ono, 85-year-old proprietor of Sukiyabashi Jiro, a tiny, world-renowned sushi restaurant tucked into Tokyo’s Ginza station. Jiro, a highly-disciplined perfectionist who believes in simple, yet flavorful food, has devoted his entire life to the pursuit of “deliciousness” — to the point of sushi invading his dreams, as the title of David Gelb’s reverential documentary suggests. But Jiro Dreams of Sushi goes deeper than food-prep porn (though, indeed, there’s plenty of that); it also examines the existential conflicts faced by Jiro’s two middle-aged sons. Both were strongly encouraged to enter the family business — and in the intervening years, have had to accept the soul-crushing fact that no matter how good their sushi is, it’ll never be seen as exceeding the creations of their legendary father. (1:21) (Eddy)
Keyhole Guy Maddin’s latest is a loose — very loose — take on Homer’s Odyssey, among other elements tossed into a fragmentary whole. Loose enough to keep 30s gangster Ulysses Pick (Jason Patric) traveling no further than between rooms in his decrepit former home. He arrives there with an inept gang, a “drowned” girl (Brooke Palsson) who sure doesn’t act like she’s already dead, a gagged kidnapping victim (David Wontner) who turns out to be his own son — our protagonist is slipshod in the realm of family responsibilities, to say the least — and a powerful desire to see his estranged wife (Isabella Rosellini), who is less than enthused. Already on the premises is the latter’s elderly father, kept naked and chained to her bed for reasons unknown. Impulsive random screwings, killings that immediately give rise to ghosts, an electric chair powered by exercycles, Udo Kier, and other miscellaneous weirdness dots the progress of this phantasmagorical, free associative work — though it’s a lot less fun than that may sound. Maddin is in an experimental mood here (working for the first time in digital, for one thing), and it’s difficult to say just what he’s aiming for, or whether he succeeds. The handsome, cluttered, black-and-white results do ultimately cast a certain spell, but this may be a reliably idiosyncratic director’s least fully realized stab at dream logic and semi-new personal terrain since Twilight of the Ice Nymphs 15 years ago. (1:34) Roxie. (Harvey)
Marley Oscar-winning documentarian Kevin Macdonald (1999’s One Day in September; he also directed Best Actor Forest Whitaker in 2006’s The Last King of Scotland) takes on the iconic Bob Marley, using extensive interviews — both contemporary (with Marley friends and family) and archival (with the musician himself) — and performance and off-the-cuff footage. The end result is a compelling (even if you’re not a fan) portrait of a man who became a global sensation despite being born into extreme poverty, and making music in a style that most people had never heard outside of Jamaica. The film dips into Marley’s Rastafari beliefs (no shocker this movie is being released on 4/20), his personal life (11 children from seven different mothers), his impact on Jamaica’s volatile politics, his struggles with racism, and, most importantly, his remarkable career — achieved via a combination of talent and boldness, and cut short by his untimely death at age 36. (2:25) Smith Rafael. (Eddy)
Marvel’s The Avengers The conflict — a mystical blue cube containing earth-shattering (literally) powers is stolen, with evil intent — isn’t the reason to see this long-hyped culmination of numerous prequels spotlighting its heroic characters. Nay, the joy here is the whole “getting’ the band back together!” vibe; director and co-writer Joss Whedon knows you’re just dying to see Captain America (Chris Evans) bicker with Iron Man (a scene-stealing Robert Downey Jr.); Thor (Chris Hemsworth) clash with bad-boy brother Loki (Tom Hiddleston); and the Hulk (Mark Ruffalo) get angry as often as possible. (Also part of the crew, but kinda mostly just there to look good in their tight outfits: Jeremy Renner’s Hawkeye and Scarlett Johansson’s Black Widow.) Then, of course, there’s Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) running the whole Marvel-ous show, with one good eye and almost as many wry quips as Downey’s Tony Stark. Basically, The Avengers gives you everything you want (characters delivering trademark lines and traits), everything you expect (shit blowing up, humanity being saved, etc.), and even makes room for a few surprises. It doesn’t transcend the comic-book genre (like 2008’s The Dark Knight did), but honestly, it ain’t trying to. The Avengers wants only to entertain, and entertain it does. (2:23) (Eddy)
Men in Black III Why not? It’s been ten years since Men in Black II (the one where Lara Flynn Boyle and Johnny Knoxville — remember them? — played the villains), Will Smith has barely aged, and he hasn’t made a full-on comedy since, what, 2005’s Hitch? Here, he does a variation on his always-agreeable exasperated-guy routine, clashing with his grim, gimlet-eyed partner Agent K (Tommy Lee Jones, and in a younger incarnation, a spot-on Josh Brolin) in a plot that involves a vicious alien named Boris (Flight of the Conchords’ Jermaine Clement), time travel, Andy Warhol, the moon (as both space-exploration destination and modern-day space-jail location), and lines that only Smith’s delivery can make funny (“This looks like it comes from planet damn.“) It’s cheerful (save a bit of melodrama at the end), crisply paced, and is neither a must-see masterpiece nor something you should mindfully sleep through if it pops up among your in-flight selections. Oh, and it’s in 3D. Well, why not? (1:42) (Eddy)
Monsieur Lazhar When their beloved but troubled teacher hangs herself in the classroom — not a thoughtful choice of location, but then we never really discover her motives — traumatized Montreal sixth-graders get Bachir Lazhar (Fellag), a middle-aged Algerian émigré whose contrastingly rather strict, old-fashioned methods prove surprisingly useful at helping them past their trauma. He quickly becomes the crush object of studious Alice (Sophie Nelisse), whose single mother is a pilot too often away, while troublemaker Simon (Emilien Neron) acts out his own domestic and other issues at school. Lazhar has his own secrets as well — for one thing, we see that he’s still petitioning for permanent asylum in Canada, contradicting what he told the principal upon being hired — and while his emotions are more tightly wrapped, circumstances will eventually force all truths out. This very likable drama about adults and children from Quebec writer-director Philippe Falardeau doesn’t quite have the heft and resonance to rate among the truly great narrative films about education (like Laurent Cantet’s recent French The Class). But it comes close enough, gracefully touching on numerous other issues while effectively keeping focus on how a good teacher can shape young lives in ways as incalculable as they are important. (1:34) (Harvey)
Once Upon a Time in Anatolia Turkish director Nuri Bilge Ceylan’s deconstructed Turkish police procedural offers little action but plenty of atmosphere. The search for a corpse by a group of men — a prosecutor, a commissar, a doctor, and their two main suspects— through the desolate, wind-scoured hills of rural Anatolia, is in fact something of a Hitchcockian MacGuffin. Ceylan’s real investigation is philosophical, zeroing in on the way in which each of these men constructs his own truth out of the re-telling and mis-telling of past events. And the drudgery of this protracted investigation, much of it depicted in real-time, provides plenty of opportunities for all of the players to tell their stories or to simply ruminate, often bitterly, about their own lives. There is palpable loneliness that courses through all the chatter, formally mirrored by Ceylan’s penchant long-takes of isolated figures swallowed by the countryside or the darkness of night. But despite the endless landscape that surrounds them, there is no exit for these small men. (2:37) SF Film Society Cinema. (Matt Sussman)
The Pirates! Band of Misfits Aardman Animations, home studio of the Wallace and Gromit series as well as 2000’s Chicken Run, are masters of tiny details and background jokes. In nearly every scene of this swashbuckling comedy, there’s a sight gag, double entendre, or tossed-off reference (the Elephant Man!?) that suggests The Pirates! creators are far more clever than the movie as a whole would suggest. Oh, it’s a cute, enjoyable story about a kind-hearted Pirate Captain (Hugh Grant) who dreams of winning the coveted Pirate of the Year award (despite the fact that he gets more excited about ham than gold) — and the misadventures he gets into with his amiable crew, a young Charles Darwin, and a comically evil Queen Victoria. But despite its toy-like, 3D-and-CG-enhanced claymation, The Pirates! never matches the depth (or laugh-out-loud hilarity) of other Aardman productions. Yo ho-hum. (1:27) (Eddy)
Polisse Comparisons to The Wire are not to be tossed around lightly, but when the Hollywood Reporter likened Polisse to an entire season of the masterpiece cop show packed into a single film, it was onto something. Director, co-writer, and star Maïwenn (the object of desire in 2003’s High Tension) hung out with real officers serving in Paris’ Child Protection Unit, drawing inspiration from their dealings with pedophiles, young rape victims, negligent mothers, pint-sized pickpockets, and the like (another TV show worth mentioning in comparison: Law & Order: SVU). But Polisse (the title is deliberately misspelled, as if by a child) is no simple procedural; it plunges the viewer directly into the day-to-day lives of its boisterous characters, who are juggling not just stressful careers but also plenty of after-hours troubles, particularly relationship issues. Between heart wrenching moments on the job (and off), the unit indulges in massive cut-loose episodes of what amounts to group therapy: charades, dance parties, and room-clearing arguments, most of which involve huge quantities of booze. Watching Polisse is a messy, emotional, rewarding experience; no wonder it picked up the Jury Prize at the 2011 Cannes Film Festival. (2:07) (Eddy)
What to Expect When You’re Expecting You needn’t direct what you know, but the first major misstep in this ensemble comedy was tapping a man, Kirk Jones (2005’s Nanny McPhee), to helm. Apparently Nicole Holofcener, Nancy Meyers, and Nora Ephron were too busy — busy making films not based on self-help bestsellers. Instead, What to Expect shows how marginal women can be to certain Hollywood blockbuster decision makers. On the surface, it’s all about the gals and their experiences, as an array of women from somewhat different, if pretty uniformly bourgie, walks of life — fitness star Cameron Diaz, baby store owner Elizabeth Banks, food truck chef Anna Kendrick, and trophy wife Brooklyn Decker — all find themselves knocked up. The odd woman out, surprisingly, is the boho photog played by Jennifer Lopez, who aspires to nest with a baby adopted from Ethiopia. But despite the frantic efforts of Banks, who shoulders the comedy burden here with hormones gone wild and gassy, and the climax, which should choke up all present and wannabe moms, the women are consistently upstaged by the bros, primarily the “Dudes Group” of dads headed up by Chris Rock and Thomas Lennon. Unlike the far-too-prominent, shruggable storyline involving an expectant father and son (Dennis Quaid and Ben Falcone), that crew gets the funniest, and perhaps most perceptive lines, in a baldly patriarchal play to the fellows forced into the cineplexes. Can’t the ladies catch a break, even as their waters are breaking? (1:50) (Chun)
Where Do We Go Now? With very real, deadly sectarian conflict on their doorstep, a group of Lebanese village women are making it up as they go along in this absurdist, ultimately inspiring dramedy with a dash of musical. Once sheltered by its isolation and the cheek-to-jowl intimacy of its denizens, the uneasy peace between Muslims and Christians in this small town threatens to shatter when the outside world begins to filter in, first through town-square TV broadcasts then tit-for-tat jabs that appear ready to escalate into violence. So the village’s women conspire to preserve harmony any way they can, even if that means importing a motley cadre of Ukrainian “exotic” dancers. What results is a post debauchery climax that almost one-ups 2009’s The Hangover — and a film that injects ground-level merriment and humanity into the headlines, thanks to director, co-writer, and star Nadine Labaki (2007’s Caramel), who has a gimlet eye and a generous spirit. (1:40) (Chun)
Whores’ Glory The final installment in Michael Glawogger’s “globalization trilogy” (following 1998’s Megacities and 2005’s Workingman’s Death), this two-hour documentary is itself a triptych, portraying life and business in three prostitution districts around the globe. The sex acts may (or may not) be the same, but the ways of conducting trade, and the attitudes toward it, are very different. In Bangkok’s upscale enterprise “Fishtank,” the invariably young, slim women sit behind a glass partition to be checked out by customers until their number is called. They punch in and out of work, have their own on-site beauty parlor, and shrug “A job is a job.” Faridpur, Bangladesh’s “City of Joy” area, by contrast, is a slum whose professional denizens are quarrelsome, foul-mouthed, high-drama, and often look well under-age. Though primly clad by Western standards, they labor under a heavy societal mantle of shame — several arrived here after being driven out of multiple prior locations. Finally, Reynosa, Mexico’s “La Zona” is home to older, hardened, philosophical women as frank as their cheerfully horny johns. It’s a falling-down-drunk party scene in which one customer allows himself to be filmed in the act as casually as a retired sex worker describes a particular specialty performed with an ice cube (“They bleat like goats”). Sans commentary or judgment, this diverse portrait of the world’s oldest employment could have used a little contextualizing. What we see is inherently interesting, but such passive observation of a trade so frequently rife with exploitation and complex moral issues can be frustrating, raising myriad questions that the director’s purist approach refuses to address. (1:59) (Harvey) *
Ash Reiter and Idea the Artist keep it sunny at Cafe Du Nord
Cafe Du Nord always feels cozy, and the sounds of Bay Area based Ash Reiter and Idea the Artist were a perfect fit for Wednesday night’s crowd of rapt listeners. Although Idea the Artist’s music was sometimes slower paced and more sentimental than Reiter’s rocking pop ballads, both vibes struck the right chord with this crowd.
A group of girls danced wildly during Reiter’s set, one wearing a glittery pink globe attached to a headband. While Idea the Artist (a.k.a. singer-songwriter Ines Beltranena) closed off the night with her soulful folk songs, Reiter’s set warmed up the audience on a chilly San Francisco night, giving us tunes to dance to and a reason to feel that the fun of summer is well on its way. And during that so-called summer, keep an eye out for Ash Reiter’s upcoming sophomore album Hola, which will be released later this summer. Along with a penchant for the warm months, the band thoroughly reps Bay Area. Lead singer Reiter and her eponymous band are based in the Berkeley Hills, and included a song called “Oakland” on most recent release release, Heatwave.
Idea the Artist’s album The Northern Lights Are On… was just released May 23, and recorded in Victoria, British Columbia (by Grammy-nominated producer Joby Baker). Her sound, recorded and in person, is lush and incredibly beautiful – it would be a perfect accompaniment to a dramatic coastal drive along Highway 1.
Beltranena’s voice is harmonized with beautifully, and also accompanied by piano, strings, guitar, bass, and drums. Purchasing a physical copy of her album is well worth it – each track is accompanied by her handcrafted artwork in the booklet, including photos of sculptures, paintings, and pastels.
She’ll be releasing a novel soon as well, which is a retelling of the Grimm Brother’s fairytales and Greek myths and legends, but according to Beltranena, darker. In her artist’s bio she explains that “ to ‘idea the artist’ is to realize that you alone are the creator of your colorful and potentially explosive existence, and that to see this, to know this, and to act on this, is to idea your artist”.
These are certainly two bands to watch for and, lucky you, both California native-led bands are set to go on tours soon. That is, California is coming to a town near you.
I Love This City’s tasteful use of confetti, fog, and lighting
When I first heard that the inaugural I Love This City festival was moved from AT&T Park to Mountain View’s Shoreline Amphitheater, I thought fate (or Live Nation) was twisting my arm.
The last time I visited Shoreline was a decade ago, when Moby headlined a nationwide tour and invited top electronic DJs to spin. One of the side stage’s top acts was a Dutch mixer taking Europe by storm: Tiësto. It was the first electronic music show I ever attended.
More than 10 years later at I Love This City, Tiësto was one of the main stage headliners and I’m pushing the age when attending an event that allows high school sophomores is questionable at best. But I was actually eager to attend ILTC. For one thing, the event promised, at the very least, a lineup chock full of well-known talent, ranging from Steve Aoki to DFA co-founder James Murphy to Man-of-the-Moment David Guetta, voted number one in DJ Magazine’s annual Top 100 List in 2011.
In full disclosure, my sentimental side was pulling for success for this inaugural event, just to soak in my trance-filled Tiësto nostalgia. Venue change and all, Live Nation did a pretty good job of holding things together. Here’s a rundown:
The Good
David Guetta: The man knows how to work a crowd, and he had to. He had to follow Tiësto, an unenviable task given the Dutch DJ’s enduring popularity. But Guetta won over listeners with his infectious grin and antics, which included dancing on the DJ equipment table and gesturing to the crowd like a conductor guides a symphony.
Crystal Method: On the Bass Stage, Los Angeles duo Scott Kirkland and Ken Jordan threw down a storming set of big beats that was only derailed by technical glitches at the very end. Kirkland was jamming buttons and strumming strings on an original and fascinating contraption, a CD turntable and a mini-keyborard fused to two guitar necks.
The Visuals: Whoever handled visuals for the main stage DJs did a tremendous job. In fact, the graphics were so stunning, I couldn’t help but wonder if the headliners had their playlists prepared in order to sync up with the montages. Regardless, the production crews should be lauded for tasteful use of confetti, fog, and lighting to lend some extra oomph to the shows. The side stages also had elaborate lighting and visual setups.
The Swaps: Transitions between sets were grab-a-beer-go-to-the-bathroom short. The production teams were well-oiled machines, setting up gear and visuals.
Shoreline was a success: The amphitheater ended up being a fantastic scene for the headliners. The effect gave a truly condensed focus on the DJ, something that might have been lacking at AT&T Park. The folks on the grass had a view and still has reams of bass blasting from the speakers. And the seats gave a much needed reprieve from concert goers, who wanted to take in music and crowd.
Food Trucks: An extremely welcome addition, though they were placed between the side stages, out of the way of the concession stands flanking the amphitheater. Thankfully, the food trucks didn’t seem too inclined to mark up the prices of their own offerings, and I very much would rather have an $8 Curry Up Now burrito over a $6 meat tube in a bun. But that’s just me.
The Bad
Where was the afterparty? The one big drawback with relocating ILTC to Shoreline was the surrounding neighborhood. Once Guetta finished his set and cooed to the restless crowd that he could not play any more music, Mountain View became Bay Area electronic music limbo just before midnight, caught between San Francisco and San Jose. If only nearby Google headquarters had been open, surely the search engine conglomerate could have thrown a kick-ass shindig.
Three stages: There was an impressive collection of talent to be had at ILTF. The Bass Stage made a lot of sense, a refuge where concert-goers could get their fill of low-end frequencies and throbbing drums. But some very good electronic artists got kind of lost in the fray at the Park Stage, which seemed like it was the everything-but-trance-and-dubstep venue. James Murphy, Holy Fuck, Apparat, and Cut Chemist all got shoehorned into an area that struggled to draw a significant following simply because of the size of the other two stages. A main stage and a strong alternate stage likely would have been sufficient.
The nickle-and-dime: $15 to park. $10 for a beer. $4.50 for bottled water. This after $60 for one-day tickets or $100 for two-days. And that’s without any, shall we say, “extracurricular activities.” Today’s electronic festival-goer seems like they have to be more part of the 1% than the 99%.
Gotye‘s ubiquity: No fewer than three main stage headliners threw in a redo of “Somebody That I Used to Know” and the crowd went absolutely crazy, shouting “You didn’t have to stoop so low” every time. C’mon DJs! You didn’t have to milk the crowd so much.
Headliners referring to the crowd as “San Francisco”. I know Tiesto, Afrojack, and David Guetta are all from Europe, but it was kind of awkward when pretty much everyone kept saying “San Francisco!” when the city was a 40-minute drive away. Then again, if the 49ers move to Santa Clara, I guess anything in between can fall under the San Francisco title.