Scene

The joy of joysticks

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
1
The joy of joysticks

GAMER On a sunny Sunday afternoon in late June, the crush of body-painted, thonged masses surged down Market Street, a trail of gold confetti, empty bottles, and promotional debris in its wake. Downtown was full to bursting with what seemed like everyone in the Bay Area celebrating Pride. But only a few blocks away, a very different scene was unfolding.

South Town Arcade is easy to miss. Tucked into a corner at the mouth of the Stockton Tunnel, its vivid green awning is all that stands out from the other small doorways at the periphery of Union Square. If you’re serious about video game arcades, South Town is a godsend: the cabinets are all sit-down, Japanese “candy cabs” with ultra-precise parts. And there is no shortage of skilled competition.

This particular day, the arcade was a locus of activity. Much like the teeming blocks nearby, South Town was packed with people, although not nearly as uncomfortably. About two dozen men and a handful of women were talking amicably, sketching in notebooks, or glued to a screen in rapt attention.

Every now and then a group of girls in thigh-high fringed moccasins and tie-dye tank tops, or someone in heels without pants, wandered past. It was a little surreal, but no one at South Town seemed to notice. Everyone was too absorbed with Super Street Fighter IV: Arcade Edition (which I was assured is the end-all, be-all of cabinet games these days) tournament that had been underway since noon. When contestants were evenly matched and a good game was in the works, everyone crowded around, enrapt as Hadoukens, as the sounds of two digital characters pummeling each other mixed with the emanations of around a dozen other cabinets and the eight-bit coming over the stereo. The tension was palpable, but you definitely couldn’t hear a pin drop.

There were cheers throughout the matches as someone landed a combo or dodged a sweep, and discussions in between as players and audience members (though basically everyone in the audience was also in the tournament) dissected what went right or wrong. There was a sense of community and camaraderie, something that Simon Truong, who runs the arcade along with Arturo Angulo and Cameron Berkenpas, points out is at the very heart of South Town.

“We wanted to build a community. Playing online is fine, but it’s totally different when you can actually see your opponent. You could, you know, talk shit if you want,” he said, laughing. “But mostly, the people who play in our arcade, if they lose, they talk. They figure out, how can I beat you with the same moves? They give each other tips — so basically everybody can up their level of play and represent San Francisco and Northern California. We need better players out here to represent the area.”

It seems to be working. With little or no advertising, South Town Arcade has seen the number of customers balloon in the six weeks since it opened. Some players sit down when the doors open and only leave when they close for the night, six to nine hours later. As I sat feeding my tip money into Metal Slug between tourney matches — the coin slot basically a vacuum at first, but less so as an hour of play began to hone my meager skills — I could only imagine what that amount of time playing Street Fighter IV could do for your game.

Watching Pavo Miskic, a lanky San Mateo resident, shoot his hand across the buttons before a match, it became clear to me that practice helps. But until South Town opened, the only places in the Bay Area for Miskic to get his hours in were limited to Golflands in Sunnyvale and Milpitas, and to the student centers at San Francisco and San Jose State universities. “San Francisco hasn’t really had that much of a scene for [Street Fighter IV],” Miskic says. “[South Town] is gonna help. Until then everyone was playing mostly in the San Jose area.”

After braving Pride parade traffic and finally making it to South Town, Miskic emerged six hours later as tournament champion, despite arriving late and taking a default loss. As he stepped outside to speak with me, a girl handed him a congratulatory portrait she had drawn of Balrog, his character of choice in the day’s matches. Inside, even though the tournament was over, no one seemed ready to leave. A small circle began gathering around the Street Fighter II cabinet.

“I’ll add that I’m really bad at this game,” Miskic said. “I consider myself terrible. That’s the thing that I like about it, though. Because there’s always a constant challenge between the old-school people and the new-school people coming up, once you’re around the community for long enough, people will get used to you. You’ll make friends in it. People will help each other out.” 

SOUTH TOWN ARCADE

447 Stockton, SF.

www.southtownarcade.com

 

Ghost Fleet wanderers

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
5

Scott Haefner, Stephen Freskos, and Jon Haeber aren’t the types to stand out in a crowd. Haefner is a web developer, Freskos supervises projects for an engineering firm, and Haeber has a desk job at a company that helps businesses hit high on Google — three straight-laced Bay Area professionals who blend readily into the corporate world.

But everyone’s got their thing — a way to break out of bounds, or scratch the itch of some incessant curiosity.

For these three friends in their late-20s to mid-30s, their thing entails prowling around in rundown deserted places by the light of the full moon, at times taking great pains to avert detection by security patrols. “We go into places that most people don’t go,” Haefner says. They’ve been traipsing into the unknown and documenting their discoveries together for years, motivated as much by art as adrenaline.

This past May, after weighing the consequences, they publicized one of their boldest excursions yet: Sneaking aboard the Mothball Fleet in Suisun Bay to spend entire weekends roaming the bowels of the mildewed vintage ships, while dodging the beams of patrol-boat searchlights.

Unlike many nocturnal wanderers magnetically drawn to abandoned spaces — squatters, taggers, or scrappers, for instance — they don’t break in, vandalize, or steal. Instead, they adopt the same sense of reverence in decaying, chemical-laden industrial places that conscientious hikers assume on backwoods trails. They shoot night photos with professional quality gear, occasionally using flashlights to achieve a technique called light painting.

Haefner, Freskos and Haeber consider themselves advanced practitioners in the art of urban exploration (a.k.a. urbex or UE), an underground activity that’s grown trendier as it draws in adventuresome novices. Now that they’ve publicized their caper aboard the Mothball Fleet, however, they’ve also come under the watchful eye of the feds.

 

EXPIRATION DATE

At first they thought it was a pipe dream. Doubting their ability to access the Mothball Fleet was saying a lot, considering they’d once snuck onto the Vandenberg Air Force Base and wandered amid abandoned missile silos, absorbing the gravity of the military history those Cold War artifacts represented. Another time they’d managed a nighttime excursion to Neverland Ranch, the famed private amusement park of the late Michael Jackson.

But the ghost ships moored at Suisun Bay seemed out of their league. The rows of hulking, government-owned vessels were locked up and berthed offshore, surrounded by a security headquarters and a shoreline barricade plastered with “No Trespassing” signs. Patrol boats equipped with searchlights circled the docks 24 hours a day, and the prospect of climbing aboard without being spotted seemed crazy.

But then they got word that the last of the aging ships would soon be towed away and destroyed. For Haeber, the history nut of the bunch, this changed everything. “It was about the urgency of making sure these ships were documented,” he explained. “Getting them in the current state that they’re in is so important.”

Alternatively known as the Mothball Fleet and the Ghost Fleet, the ships are part of the National Defense Reserve Fleet, a collection of cargo ships, tankers, and military auxiliaries overseen by the U.S. Maritime Administration (MARAD). Created in 1946 to be ready for deployment in case a national emergency arose, the fleet consisted of 2,277 ships at its height in 1950, strategically stationed at eight anchorages nationwide. For most of the vessels, the call to service never came, and they declined into obsolescence. By April, the entire fleet had dwindled to just 178 ships, at dock in Suisun Bay; Fort Eustis, Va.; and Beaumont, Texas.

The ships that have been moored at Suisun Bay for decades have long since deteriorated, and now they’re being hauled off to the scrap yard bit by bit, though the spot will continue to serve as an anchorage for newer additions to the National Defense Reserve Fleet.

Some were constructed in the World War II era, while others date back to the 1960s and 1970s. While many are tankers or merchant vessels, there are also warships, relics of history deployed in World War II, the Korean War, the Vietnam War, and Operation Desert Storm.

Many of the roughly 70 dilapidated ships have become ecological hazards, leaching toxins and heavy metals into the tidal estuary, which flows into San Francisco Bay. The monumental task of removing and dismantling them began late last year, providing badly needed blue-collar jobs on Mare Island, in the economically depressed city of Vallejo.

By 2017, the last of the ghost ships will have met with torch cutters. At least one will be salvaged: the USS Iowa (BB-61) — a 1938 lead battleship that shuttled President Franklin D. Roosevelt to and from the Tehran Conference during World War II — will be donated and turned into a museum.

Aside from being scrapped, outmoded ships meet with a variety of fates. Some are donated for educational use while others are deliberately sunk to create artificial reefs. Still others are used for target practice in the Navy’s sink-at-sea live-fire training exercises program (SINKEX).

“We saw that these things were going to be gone,” Haefner said. “So we planned it out.”

Haeber examined satellite imagery on Google Earth. Freskos, who’d spent time at sea, studied the tidal patterns. The three scoured the Internet for online photos of the Ghost Fleet. They conducted a scouting mission with binoculars in hand, and gained a sense of when they could take advantage of windows of opportunity between the 30-minute patrol boat rounds.

Long before they even discovered a navigable slough that snaked through a marsh into Suisun Bay or spotted the Craigslist post advertising an inflatable raft for sale, Freskos went up to shoreline gate where the “No Trespassing” signs were posted. He peered through at the tantalizing rows of mothballed ships, and hollered as loud as he could. Nobody responded.

 

DECAYED TIME CAPSULES

After the months of planning left them confident that it was indeed possible to access the Mothball Fleet, the trio of photographers set out for their first visit, with about 700 pounds of gear in tow. They split the cost of a 12-foot inflatable Fish Hunter raft with a Minn Kota trolling motor. They carried the raft and their gear through a muddy expanse to a marshy spot where the low-profile craft could be set into a narrow slough, safely out of view.

“We always went on or exited at nighttime,” Haefner said. “We would go on nights near the full moon so we could take pictures. It makes it look even more ghostly.”

Their first target was Row F, a line of ships docked in a straight shot from where the slough filtered into the bay. They maneuvered down the narrow channel in their raft, dodging submerged obstacles along the way. Keeping tabs on the whereabouts of the security boat, they started rowing once they reached the open water, and managed to bridge the 800-foot distance to the first ship.

“Our plans were kept secret to all except our loved ones,” Haeber wrote in an online account of that first excursion. “Nobody, other than my girlfriend, knew exactly where I was that weekend. For all intents and purposes, I was on a fishing trip with some friends.”

“Keep Off” signs announcing an invisible 500-foot barrier that was not to be breached were affixed to the hull of every ship. The intruders maneuvered their raft between two Coast Guard cutters, Planetree and Iris, and tied up.

“It can be kind of a challenge getting on,” Haefner explained. “We’re risking ourselves, obviously, but we also brought a bunch of expensive camera gear.” He was the first one to climb aboard the Iris, reaching high to grab onto a bumper that he could then pull himself up on to gain access to the ship. While Freskos kept watch, Haeber handed the gear up to Haefner bit by bit. Once all three were aboard with their backpacks and camera equipment, they hauled up the raft and deflated it.

The Iris was commissioned in 1944. In 1970, it responded to the scene of an oil-rig fire in Galveston, Texas. In 1987, it assisted with cleanup operations in Prince William Sound after the Exxon-Valdez spill. It was decommissioned in 1995, so their entrance likely marked the first time anyone other than MARAD employees had been aboard in 16 years.

A handy feature of ghost ship exploration is that once aboard a ship, it’s possible to access any ship along the entire row, thanks to gangplanks connecting the vessels. So while many of the mothballed vessels were completely secured, there was always the chance that the next one down would have an unlocked entranceway. Part of the ethos of urban exploration is to avoid breaking anything, so they only accessed the interiors of unsecured ships. “They are fairly vigilant about keeping doors locked up tight,” Haefner said. “But there are just so many doors.”

Haeber found a single open door on the SS Exxon Gettysburg, a mammoth oil tanker constructed in 1957, and entered the ship alone, enthralled. The interior, he later wrote, smelled like a mix of mold, benzene, and soggy newspaper. He turned on his flashlight and began tiptoeing through the corridors and peering into the cabins. “They were like time capsules, untouched since the 1970s,” Haeber said.

“Some of the ships were 15 stories deep, like a maze,” Freskos said. “We’d get lost inside.” The trio split from Row F before sunrise and managed to get back to the slough without any mishaps, but they returned on a handful of other occasions with sleeping bags and enough food and water to last a weekend. On those subsequent journeys, they’d seek out places to sleep, often crashing in the once-luxurious captain’s quarters. They slept by day, so that entire nights could be devoted to wandering in awe of the decayed, post-apocalyptic industrial environs, shooting hundreds of photographs.

They visited rooms where crews once hung out playing board games, still littered with cigarettes. They photographed molded interiors, dark cavernous stairwells, engine parts, navigational equipment, and abandoned cabins with peeling wallpaper. “We found personal letters, cards, things people left,” Haefner said. “We were always looking for signs of life.” They wandered through mess halls, engine rooms, bathrooms, galleys, even chilling places with operating chairs and overhead spotlights. They climbed around on the decks in the open night air, wandering through derricks and cranes.

The old ships would make eerie creaking noises when the tide rushed in, and there was always that mild sensation that one experiences on a boat, of things not staying still. “It was like a cacophony of sound when the current was coming in,” Freskos recalled. Hawks, osprey, and owls nested aboard some of them, so the creaking noises were sometimes accompanied by screeching birds of prey.

“The place is steeped in history,” Freskos said. “I’d always think of what this room was used for, or what went on here, when people were experiencing the suffering, craziness, and nervousness of war.”

 

HIGHLIGHTS AND HAIR-RAISERS

A highlight of their journeys aboard the Mothball Fleet was stumbling across the sleek black Sea Shadow, a stealth ship, which was ensconced within a barge on Row G. Shrouded in secrecy, the angular vessel was developed by Lockheed for the U.S. Navy to test how low of a radar profile could be achieved, and it served as inspiration for a stealth ship featured in a James Bond film. According to the MARAD website, “Sea Shadow was constructed and tested under a high degree of secrecy; until the Navy made its existence public in 1993, all tests were conducted at night.” The ship entered the Suisun Bay Reserve Fleet in September 2006.

They also found their way aboard the USS Iowa, which bears the distinction of being the only U.S. Navy warship ever outfitted with a bathtub, so FDR could have a soak while crossing the Atlantic. While they didn’t manage to go inside, an eerie photograph of three enormous guns on deck conveys the magnitude of the battleship.

One of Haeber’s most cherished discoveries was a three-story-tall mural he photographed inside the SS President Lincoln, an American President Lines ship constructed in San Francisco in 1961. An early version of a containerized cargo vessel, the Lincoln doubled as a cruise ship catering to a small number of elite passengers, and remnants of the elegant interior décor remained. The ship has since been hauled to the scrap yard.

It wasn’t always smooth sailing for the three urban explorers. Once they narrowly dodged a work crew aboard a ship — “but we saw or heard them before they saw us,” Haefner said. Another time, while paddling back to the slough, they discovered their raft was punctured and had to manually pump air into it as they traveled. Then, at the tail end of their final journey to the Ghost Fleet, they found themselves fully illuminated by the dreaded patrol-boat searchlight for a full 10 seconds. They froze, convinced they’d been caught. But nothing happened, so they powered up and rowed like hell to get back ashore, and never returned.

Of course, posting interior photographs of the Mothball Fleet all over the Internet and delivering a public slideshow about their sneak-aboard escapades has attracted the attention of the federal government. “The Department of Homeland Security has been looking into it,” said Haefner, who can tell by monitoring web traffic on his blog. “I know that they know.” He also noticed hits from the U.S. State Department and the U.S. Department of Justice, but so far, none have come knocking.

In response to a Guardian request for comment about the Mothball Fleet photographers, Kim Riddle, a spokesperson for MARAD, e-mailed an official statement. “We were aware of the intrusion,” she wrote. “We are concerned about the safety of individuals onboard our ships. This is a dangerous industrial site, and we take significant precautions for our own workers when they are onboard the fleet to make sure that areas are safe for them to enter. While trespassing on federal property, these photographers put themselves in a very dangerous position and could have been severely injured or killed from a fall or by entering an enclosed space that doesn’t have enough oxygen. Since learning of this incident, we took additional security steps, reviewed our procedures, and reinforced training with our employees to stop these kinds of intrusions.”

Freskos touched on the safety issue in an online discussion about the project. “There were many long discussions about oxygen-deprived spaces such as anchor chain lockers and ballast tanks,” he wrote. “There were contingency plans made for injuries. We carried a medical kit, we wore [life jackets], and took many other precautions.” He also responded to those who questioned the wisdom of publicizing their late-night excursions to the Mothball Fleet. “I think I speak for the three of us when I say that we are well aware of the consequences,” Freskos wrote. “But it’s a passion of ours, and it’s worth it.”

The photographers’ work can be viewed here, here, and here.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 


Na Nach hey hey

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
2
Na Nach hey hey

marke@sfbg.com

SUPER EGO My ever-ahead Hunky Beau just introduced me to Na Nach techno — and I’ve been kinda freaking out about it, like I would about 3-D animated GIF nail polish, that you could upload Hipstamatic photo booth pics of you and your friends to, reenacting tacky 1980s movie dance montages, but happening on your nails, in 3-D, if it even existed, which it doesn’t, so why don’t you just get off your boring global warming-proving ass and do something fabulous about that, Mr. Scientist. I already know the weather’s weird. I want Footloose on my fingernails!

Na Nach is the name of a newish Hasidic Jewish subsect of followers of Rebbe Nachman of Breslov, the kabbalist mystic who lived 200 years ago. But unlike the larger Breslovian following, it has mobile rave units. Driving around Israel in white vans graffitied with giant Hebrew letters, the Na Nach stop at intersections and come tumbling out, blasting homemade electro trance, chanting “Na Nach Nachma Nachman Me’uman” (the Rebbe’s name spelled out), and dancing ecstatically in outfits that are part typical Orthodox dude and part Ali G. It’s basically a glorious logical conclusion to the whole “trance music as religious experience” thing. Of course the Sufis already got there centuries ago but, one suspects, without the aid of JBL 18-inch portable subwoofers and a pirated copy of Ableton Live.

The happy, energetic music and mood are actually pretty infectious. And the Na Nach, some of them former ravers and gangsters, have become so ubiquitous that hilarious parodies have started springing up — including one by the great gay Tel Aviv party Arisa (whose video flyers rule the homo Web right now.) Have a Na Nach look and listen at www.sfbg.com/nanach.

 

TABOO

DJ David Harness’s lovely, deep-yet-breezy party anchored San Francisco’s soulful house scene throughout the early 2000s, one of those joints where you could use the words “vibe” and “spiritual” and not feel like you were tossing up disco clichés. Yes, there were candles and, er, incense involved, and quite a few flowers tucked behind perked-up ears — hands snaking luxuriously up into the air as well. Now the party returns, finding a new biweekly Oakland evening home at the spacious Bench and Bar. Organic sounds, no labels.

Thurs/7, 6 p.m.–midnight, free. Bench and Bar, 510 17th St., Oakl. www.bench-and-bar.com

 

TIPPER SOUND EXPERIENCE

Cosmic, Burner-like blasts of time-warped bass and cheeky step from multimedia mindblower Tipper, the modest Brit who takes his audio technology fetish to another level. Gotta love it when he drops the lingo: “Featuring a five-way crossover sound system in a Quadraphonic Array with specialized subwoofers dedicated to 45 hertz and below … ” With a six-screen projection rig thrown in, you’ll basically be entering the electronic space-pod of your ear dreams. It’s an experience.

Fri/8, 8 p.m., $22.50. Regency Ballroom, 1290 Sutter, SF. www.theregencyballroom.com

 

LEE BURRIDGE

The bloke from Bournemouth who was crucial in spreading the acid house gospel in the ’80s — and brought rave to Asia, with his storied seven-year stint in Hong Kong — has become a reliably sunny, techno-twisty force on Top 100 DJs lists and better global dance floors. Good, solid fun is had whenever he gets to town (and sometimes I just randomly prance around and drop to his xylo-yummy 2010 track “Wongel” in my head) so go already. Nikola Baytala, Rooz, and other locals work the build-up.

Fri/8, 10 p.m.–late, $15. Mighty, 119 Utah, SF. www.mighty119.com

 

LEE FOSS

Guess it’s a battle of the Lees this week — luckily there’s some after-hours leeway to hit up both. This Lee comes to us from the Midwest via Los Angeles and London, were his chiseled looks and dreamboat eyes were at first as much of a talking point as his music. Luckily he overcame that crippling handicap to inject some bouncy tech-funk flavor into the trademark R ‘n’ B house of the Wolf and Lamb set. Call it the new New Jack Swing sound if you like. And you will like, especially when grouped at Public Works with Beats in Space radio host Tim Sweeney and my not-so-secret French house crush, Le Loup. (I love his little fuzzy mustache!)

Fri/8, 10 p.m.–3 a.m., $12. Public Works, 161 Erie, SF. www.publicsf.com

Stage Listings

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
0

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

THEATER

OPENING

Act One, Scene Two SF Playhouse, Stage Two, 533 Sutter, SF; (415) 869-5384, www.un-scripted.com. $10-20. Opens Thurs/7, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Aug 20. Un-Scripted Theater Company hosts a different playwright each night, performing the first scene of an unfinished play and then improvising its finish.

Not Getting Any Younger Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Opens Thurs/7, 8pm. Runs Thurs, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Through July 24. Marga Gomez presents a workshop production of her new comedy, her ninth solo show.

Salty Towers Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; (415) 673-3847, www.theexit.org. $15-25. Opens Thurs/8, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through July 23. Thunderbird Theatre Company performs a farce that combines Greek mythology with a tale of sea creatures running a two-star hotel.

Twilight Zone Live: Season 8 Dark Room, 2263 Mission, SF; www.ticketturtle.com. $20 ($5 discount if you use the code word “maggie”). Opens Fri/8, 8pm. Runs Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through July 29. The Dark Room Theater presents its eighth annual tribute to classic Twilight Zone episodes.

BAY AREA

Macbeth Dominican University of California, Forest Meadows Amphitheater, 1475 Grand, San Rafael; (415) 499-4488, www.marinshakespeare.org. $20-35. Previews Fri/8-Sun/10, 8pm. Opens July 15, 8pm. Performance times vary; check website for schedule. Through Aug 14. Marin Shakespeare Company takes on the Scottish play, opening under a full moon, no less.

The Verona Project Bruns Amphitheater, 100 California Shakespeare Theater Way, Orinda; (510) 548-9666, www.calshakes.org. $35-66. Previews Wed/6-Fri/8, 8pm. Opens Sat/9, 8pm. Runs Tues-Thurs, 7:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also July 30, 2pm); Sun, 4pm. Through July 31. California Shakespeare Theater performs a world-premiere play (inspired by The Two Gentlemen of Verona) by Amanda Dehnert.

ONGOING

All Atheists Are Muslim Stage Werx, 533 Sutter, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $20. Sun/10, 7pm. Zahra Noorbakhsh returns with her timely comedy.

Assisted Living: The Musical Imperial Palace, 818 Washington, SF; 1-888-88-LAUGH, www.assistedlivingthemusical.com. $79.59-99.50 (includes dim sum). Sat-Sun, noon (also Sun, 5pm). Through July 31. Rick Compton and Betsy Bennett’s comedy takes on “the pleasures and perils of later life.”

Billy Elliot Orpheum Theater, 1192 Market, SF; www.shnsf.com/shows/billyelliot. $35-200. Tues-Sat, 8pm (also Wed, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through Sept. 17. As a Broadway musical, Billy Elliot proves more enjoyable than the film. The movie’s T. Rex score may have been a major selling point, but it was a bit maudlin for a story that needed no help in that department. The musical naturally has a sentimental moment or three, but it’s much more often funny, muscular in its staging (with repeatedly inspired choreography from Peter Darling), and expansive in its eclectic score (Elton John) and well-wrought book and lyrics (Lee Hall). Moreover, Stephen Daldry (who also directed the 2000 film) plays up bracingly the too-timely class politics of the modest 1980s English mining town besieged by Margaret Thatcher’s neoliberal regime in the latter’s ultimately successful bid to crush the once-powerful miners union. The cast is likewise very strong, beginning with opening night’s impressive J.P. Viernes in the title role. Broadway’s Faith Prince is an especially engaging presence as the ballet teacher who takes an interest in Billy’s inherent talent, setting him on a course out of the doomed town and into London’s Royal Ballet School — much to the violent disgust of his predominantly male and prickly household. The first act is a nearly perfect balance of bawdy humor, aggressive staging, adept scene-setting and character development and a potent tide of song and group choreography that is hard to resist. There are some unfortunate choices later on, like a bit of Peter Pan wire work that has Billy twirling over the stage (an excessive display that hovers awkwardly over dullsville) and in general the second act is not as strong as the first. It’s also the point where the working-class politics paid homage to by the script gets seriously blunted by a concomitant streak of middle-class individualism. But as crowd-pleasing entertainment the musical burrows deep and more often than not comes up with gold. (Avila)

The Book of Liz Custom Made Theatre, 1620 Gough, SF; www.custommade.org. $10-29. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through July 31. Custom Made Theatre performs David and Amy Sedaris’ comedy about an unconventional nun.

“Fury Factory 2011” Various venues and prices; www.brownpapertickets.com. Through Tues/12. Over 30 Bay Area and national companies participate in this bi-annual theater festival.

Indulgences in the Louisville Harem Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason, SF; 1-800-838-3006, www.offbroadwaywest.org. $20-40. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through July 30. Two spinster sisters find unlikely beaux in Off Broadway West Theatre’s production of John Orlock’s play.

The Pride New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; (415) 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $24-40. Wed/6-Sat/9, 8pm; Sun/10, 2pm. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs the West Coast premiere of Alexi Kaye Campbell’s love-triangle time warp drama.

*Vice Palace: The Last Cockettes Musical Thrillpeddlers’ Hypnodrome, 575 10th St; (800) 838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $30-35. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through July 31. Hot on the high heels of a 22-month run of Pearls Over Shanghai, the Thrillpeddlers are continuing their Theatre of the Ridiculous revival with a tits-up, balls-out production of the Cockettes’ last musical, Vice Palace. Loosely based on the terrifyingly grim “Masque of the Red Death” by Edgar Allan Poe, part of the thrill of Palace is the way that it weds the campy drag-glamour of Pearls Over Shanghai with the Thrillpeddlers’ signature Grand Guignol aesthetic. From an opening number set on a plague-stricken street (“There’s Blood on Your Face”) to a charming little cabaret about Caligula, staged with live assassinations, an undercurrent of darkness runs like blood beneath the shameless slapstick of the thinly-plotted revue. As plague-obsessed hostess Divina (Leigh Crow) and her right-hand “gal” Bella (Eric Tyson Wertz) try to distract a group of stir-crazy socialites from the dangers outside the villa walls, the entertainments range from silly to salacious: a suggestively-sung song about camel’s humps, the wistful ballad “Just a Lonely Little Turd,” a truly unexpected Rite of Spring-style dance number entitled “Flesh Ballet.” Sumptuously costumed by Kara Emry, cleverly lit by Nicholas Torre, accompanied by songwriter/lyricist (and original Cockette) Scrumbly Koldewyn, and anchored by a core of Thrillpeddler regulars, Palace is one nice vice. (Gluckstern)

What Mamma Said About Down There SF Downtown Comedy Theater, 287 Ellis, SF; www.sfdowntowncomedytheater.com. $15. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through August 20. Sia Amma returns with her solo comedy.

BAY AREA

All My Children Cabaret at Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Through July 23. Not the soap opera — it’s Seattle Improv co-founder Matt Smith in his comedy about a middle-aged man with boundary issues.

East 14th: True Tales of a Reluctant Player Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat, 8:30pm; Sun, 7pm. Through Aug 7. Don Reed’s hit solo comedy receives one last extension before Reed debuts his new show (a sequel to East 14th) in the fall.

Metamorphosis Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; (510) 843-4822, www.auroratheatre.org. $10-55. Tues and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm); Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through July 17. Aurora Theatre Company performs a terrifying yet comic adaptation of Kafka’s classic by David Farr and Gísli Örn Gardarsson.

A Raisin in the Sun Pear Avenue Theatre, 1220 Pear, Mtn. View; (650) 254-1148, www.thepear.org. $15-30. Thurs/7-Sat/9, 8pm; Sun/10, 2pm. Lorraine Hansberry’s classic play comes to life on the Pear Avenue Theatre stage.

2012: The Musical! Cedar Rose Park, 1300 Rose, Berk; www.sfmt.org. Free. Sat/9-Sun/10, 2pm. Continues through Sept. 25 at various Bay Area venues. San Francisco Mime Troupe mounts their annual summer musical; this year’s show is about a political theater company torn between selling out and staying true to its anti-corporate roots.

*Working for the Mouse La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; www.impacttheatre.com. $10-20. Thurs/7-Fri/8, 8pm. It might not come as a surprise to hear that even “the happiest place on earth” has a dark side, but hearing Trevor Allen describe it during this long overdue reprise of 2002’s Working for the Mouse, will put a smile on your face as big as Mickey’s. With a burst of youthful energy, Allen bounds onto the tiny stage of Impact Theatre to confess his one-time aspiration to never grow up — a desire which made auditioning for the role of Peter Pan at Disneyland a sensible career move. But in order to break into the big time of “charactering,” one must pay some heavy, plush-covered dues. As Allen creeps up the costumed hierarchy one iconic cartoon figure at a time, he finds himself unwittingly enmeshed in a world full of backroom politics, union-busting, drug addled surfer dudes with peaches-and-cream complexions, sexual tension, showboating, job suspension, Make-A-Wish Foundation heartbreak, hash brownies, rabbit vomit, and accidental decapitation. Smoothly paced and astutely crafted, Working for the Mouse will either shatter your blissful ignorance or confirm your worst suspicions about the corporate Disney machine, but either way, it will probably make you treat any “Casual Seasonal Pageant Helpers” you see running around in their sweaty character suits with a whole lot more empathy. (Gluckstern)

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

Front Line Theatre CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Fri/8-Sun/10, 8pm. Also July 21-23, 8pm, Garage, 975 Howard, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Both venues, $20. The company presents the world premiere of Rare Earth, a verse-and-movement comedy about waste and the past.

Miguel Gutierrez Garage, 975 Howard, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Fri-Sun, 8pm. $15. The choreographer performs his 2010 work Heavens What Have I Done as part of Verge, the Garage’s workshop series.

LINES Ballet Summer Program Cowell Theater, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; www.linesballet.org. Tues/12, 7:30pm. $15. The LINES Ballet Summer Program celebrates its 10th anniversary with the first of two student showcases.

“OMFG! The Internet Dating Musical” ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; www.odctheater.org. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through July 17. $15-18. ODC Theater Resident Artist Chris Winslow presents his new comedy about a couple who both fear they can’t live up to reality after meeting online.

“Project Bust” Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Wed/6 and Aug 3, 8pm. $15. Malinda LaVelle presents her evening-length dance-theater piece.

“Sympathetic: An Aerial Dance Performance Honoring Labor” Rincon Annex Post Office, 121 Spear, SF; (415) 564-4010. Sat, 1 and 3pm. Free. The Labor Archives and Research Center, San Francisco State University, and Flyaway Productions present this work honoring the 1934 San Francisco General Strike by choreographer Jo Kreiter and musician Pamela Z.

“The Tinker Show” Stage Werx, 533 Sutter, SF; www.thetinkershow.com. Thurs-Fri, 8pm. $18-20. “Old school immaturity” via live sketch comedy and improv, plus original short films.

Yubiwa Hotel Performing Arts Company NOHspace, 2640 Mariposa, SF; www.sfiaf.org. Fri, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. $12. The company performs the play Mesujika Doe, a Japanese-American collaboration from Shirotama Hitsujiya and Trista Baldwin.

Film Listings

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
0

Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Kimberly Chun, Michelle Devereaux, Peter Galvin, Max Goldberg, Dennis Harvey, Johnny Ray Huston, Louis Peitzman, Lynn Rapoport, Ben Richardson, and Matt Sussman. For rep house showtimes, see Rep Clock. For first-run showtimes, see Movie Guide. Due to the Fourth of July holiday, theater information was incomplete at presstime.

OPENING

A Better Life Demian Bichir (Weeds) stars in this drama about an immigrant family struggling to realize the American dream. (1:38)

Horrible Bosses Jason Bateman and Jennifer Aniston star in this workplace comedy. (1:33)

How to Live Forever After his mother died, documentarian Mark S. Wexler began to seriously contemplate aging and, inevitably, his own death. A certain amount of baby boomer naval-gazing is the inevitable result, but Wexler is curious enough to expand his quest into realms beyond his own graying hair and expanding midsection. The film’s (mostly) tongue-in-cheek title comes into play as he visits scientists, inventors, new age types, cryonics-facility workers, and doctors with various anti-aging philosophies and agendas. But probably the most compelling long-life widsom comes from the elderly folks he visits for practical advice. While the Guinness record-holding 114-year-olds aren’t much for coherent communication, quite a few of the 80-, 90- and 100-somethings Wexler talks to suggest that simply being a spitfire is a key to longevity. Highlights include the late fitness guru Jack LaLanne, enviably energetic in his mid-90s; a 104-year-old Brit who’s a smoker, drinker, and aspiring marathoner; and an 80-year-old tap dancer who decides to compete in a beauty pageant for senior citizens. “I’m older than he is,” she giggles of her boyfriend. “But he can drive at night!” (1:34) (Eddy)

Vincent Wants to Sea An anorexic, an obsessive-compulsive, and someone with Tourette syndrome go on a roadtrip: it’s not the setup to a bad joke, it’s the gist of Vincent Wants to Sea, a mostly fun, sometimes touching, but often improbable film. When Vincent’s mother dies, his father (Heino Ferch) decides it’s time for Vincent (Florian David Fitz — who also wrote the screenplay) to once and for all eradicate his tics and spasms and sequesters him at a summer camp-esque institution in the German countryside. The subsequent escape and journey to the Italian coast (where Vincent hopes to scatter his mother’s ashes) with two fellow patients, the anorexic Marie (Karoline Herfuth) and the Bach-loving compulsive Alex (Johannes Allmayer), is rife with self-discovery and uplifting music, so much so that it sometimes resembles a Levi’s ad more than a feature film. There’s real heart and humor beneath the cheese, but there’s a lot of cheese. (1:36) (Cooper Berkmoyer)

Zookeeper Kevin James graduates from policing mall rats to hanging with talking zoo animals. (1:42)

ONGOING

The Art of Getting By The Art of Getting By is all about those confusing, mixed-up and apparently sexually frustrating months before high school graduation. George (Freddie Highmore) is a trench coat-wearing misanthrope — an old soul, as they say — whose parents and teachers are always trying to put him inside a box and tell him how to think. He finds a kindred sprit in Sally (Emma Roberts) who smokes and watches Louis Malle films. Hot. Heavily scored by the now-ancient songs of early ’00s blog bands, it may all sound like indie bullshit but this one has charm and wit despite its post-trend package. Like a sad little crayon, Highmore is a competent Michael Cera surrogate du jour. Writer-director Gavin Wiesen embraces hell of clichés, but he suitably sums up a generational angst along the way. The film may not always feel real, but it does have real feeling. Look out for great performances from Blair Underwood and Alicia Silverstone. (1:24) (Ryan Lattanzio)

Bad Teacher Jake Kasdan, the once-talented director of a few Freaks and Geeks episodes and 2002’s underrated Orange County, seems hell-bent on humiliating everyone in the cast of Bad Teacher. Cameron Diaz is Elizabeth, the title’s criminally bad pedagogue who prefers the Jack Daniels method to the Socratic. Her impetus for pounding Harper Lee into her middle school students’ bug-eyed little heads is to cash in on a bonus check to fund her breast-y ambitions and woo Justin Timberlake and his baby voice. The only likable onscreen presence is Jason Segal as a sad sack gym teacher in love with Elizabeth. But he could do so much better. There’s no shortage of racist jokes and potty humor in this R-rated comedy pandering to those 17 and below. When asked if she wants to go out with her coworkers, Elizabeth ripostes, “I’d rather get shot in the face!” That scenario is likely a better alternative than suffering this steaming pile of cash cow carcass. (1:29) (Lattanzio)

*Beginners There is nothing conventional about Beginners, a film that starts off with the funeral arrangements for one of its central characters. That man is Hal (Christopher Plummer), who came out to his son Oliver (Ewan McGregor) at the ripe age of 75. Through flashbacks, we see the relationship play out — Oliver’s inability to commit tempered by his father’s tremendous late-stage passion for life. Hal himself is a rare character: an elderly gay man, secure in his sexuality and, by his own admission, horny. He even has a much younger boyfriend, played by the handsome Goran Visnjic. While the father-son bond is the heart of Beginners, we also see the charming development of a relationship between Oliver and French actor Anna (Mélanie Laurent). It all comes together beautifully in a film that is bittersweet but ultimately satisfying. Beginners deserves praise not only for telling a story too often left untold, but for doing so with grace and a refreshing sense of whimsy. (1:44) (Peitzman)

*Bill Cunningham New York To say that Bill Cunningham, the 82-year old New York Times photographer, has made documenting how New Yorkers dress his life’s work would be an understatement. To be sure, Cunningham’s two decades-old Sunday Times columns — “On the Street,” which tracks street-fashion, and “Evening Hours,” which covers the charity gala circuit — are about the clothes. And, my, what clothes they are. But Cunningham is a sartorial anthropologist, and his pictures always tell the bigger story behind the changing hemlines, which socialite wore what designer, or the latest trend in footwear. Whether tracking the near-infinite variations of a particular hue, a sudden bumper-crop of cropped blazers, or the fanciful leaps of well-heeled pedestrians dodging February slush puddles, Cunningham’s talent lies in his ability to recognize fleeting moments of beauty, creativity, humor, and joy. That last quality courses through Bill Cunningham New York, Richard Press’ captivating and moving portrait of a man whose reticence and personal asceticism are proportional to his total devotion to documenting what Harold Koda, chief curator at the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, describes in the film as “ordinary people going about their lives, dressed in fascinating ways.” (1:24) (Sussman)

Bride Flight Who doesn’t love a sweeping Dutch period piece? Ben Sombogaart’s Bride Flight is pure melodrama soup, enough to give even the most devout arthouse-goer the bloats. Emigrating from post-World War II Holland to New Zealand with two gal pals, the sweetly staid Ada (Karina Smulders) falls for smarm-ball Frank (Waldemar Torenstra, the Dutchman’s James Franco) and kind of joins the mile high club to the behest of her conscience. The women arrive with emotional baggage and carry-ons of the uterine kind. As the harem adjusts to the country mores of the Highlands, Frank tries a poke at all of them in a series of sex scenes more moldy than smoldery. This Flight, set to a plodding score and stuffy mise-en-scene, never quite leaves the runway. Not to mention the whole picture, pale as a corpse, resembles one of those old-timey photographs of your great grandma’s wedding. These kinds of pastoral romances ought to be put out to, well, pasture. (2:10) (Lattanzio)

*Bridesmaids For anyone burned out on bad romantic comedies, Bridesmaids can teach you how to love again. This film is an answer to those who have lamented the lack of strong female roles in comedy, of good vehicles for Saturday Night Live cast members, of an appropriate showcase for Melissa McCarthy. The hilarious but grounded Kristen Wiig stars as Annie, whose best friend Lillian (Maya Rudolph) is getting hitched. Financially and romantically unstable, Annie tries to throw herself into her maid of honor duties — all while competing with the far more refined Helen (Rose Byrne). Bridesmaids is one of the best comedies in recent memory, treating its relatable female characters with sympathy. It’s also damn funny from start to finish, which is more than can be said for most of the comedies Hollywood continues to churn out. Here’s your choice: let Bridesmaids work its charm on you, or never allow yourself to complain about an Adam Sandler flick again. (2:04) (Peitzman)

Buck This documentary paints a portrait of horse trainer Buck Brannaman as a sort of modern-day sage, a sentimental cowboy who helps “horses with people problems.” Brannaman has transcended a background of hardship and abuse to become a happy family man who makes a difference for horses and their owners all over the country with his unconventional, humane colt-starting clinics. Though he doesn’t actually whisper to horses, he served as an advisor and inspiration for Robert Redford’s The Horse Whisperer (1998). Director Cindy Meehl focuses generously on her saintly subject’s bits of wisdom in and out of a horse-training setting — e.g. “Everything you do with a horse is a dance” — as well as heartfelt commentary from friends and colleagues. In the harrowing final act of the film, Brannaman deals with a particularly unruly horse and his troubled owner, highlighting the dire and disturbing consequences of improper horse rearing. (1:28) Smith Rafael. (Sam Stander)

Cars 2 You pretty much can’t say a bad thing about a Pixar film. Cars 2 is by no means Ratatouille (2007) or Wall-E (2008), but the sequel to the 2006 hit Cars offers plenty of sleek visuals and one-note gags under its hollow hood. If nothing else, Pixar seems to have overcome the dingy, dark glaze that plagues 3-D films. Directors John Lasseter and Joe Ranft return to beloved autos Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) and the “extremely American” Mater (Larry the Cable Guy). This time around, secret agents Finn McMissile (Michael Caine) and Holley Shiftwell (Emily Mortimer) come along for the ride while working to expose sabotage in the alternative fuel industry. Compelling chase sequences, explosions and more than a few jabs at cultural stereotypes follow suit. This is the lightest, silliest Pixar film to date, but you probably don’t have any business seeing it unless you’ve got a kid in tow. (1:52) Balboa. (Lattanzio)

*Cave of Forgotten Dreams The latest documentary from Werner Herzog once again goes where no filmmaker — or many human beings, for that matter — has gone before: the Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc Cave, a heavily-guarded cavern in Southern France containing the oldest prehistoric artwork on record. Access is highly restricted, but Herzog’s 3D study is surely the next best thing to an in-person visit. The eerie beauty of the works leads to a typically Herzog-ian quest to learn more about the primitive culture that produced the paintings; as usual, Herzog’s experts have their own quirks (like a circus performer-turned-scientist), and the director’s own wry narration is peppered with random pop culture references and existential ponderings. It’s all interwoven with footage of crude yet beautiful renderings of horses and rhinos, calcified cave-bear skulls, and other time-capsule peeks at life tens of thousands of years ago. The end result is awe-inspiring. (1:35) (Eddy)

Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop seems less of a movie title and more like a hushed comment shared between one of the many hangers-on during the filming of the “Legally Prohibited From Being Funny On Television Tour.” Throughout 23 cities’ worth of footage, O’Brien seethes, paces, sweats, yells and beats dead jokes so hard that they spring back to life, as he is wont to do. At this point, the Leno/Coco drama is a bit stale — at least in internet time — but the documentary is a fascinating comedian character study nonetheless. It may be hard to sympathize with a man nursing a bruised ego as he cashes a $45 million dollar check, but it’s easy to see that he’s one of the best late night hosts (temporarily off) the air. Split primarily between clips of O’Brien performing songs on stage with a myriad of celebrity guests and bemoaning how exhausted and frustrated he is, Can’t Stop derives most of its hilarity from the off-the-cuff comments that pepper Conan’s everyday conversations. (1:29) (David Getman)

*The Double Hour Slovenian hotel maid Sonia (Ksenia Rappoport) and security guard Guido (Filippo Timi) are two lonely people in the Italian city of Turin. They find one another (via a speed-dating service) and things are seriously looking up for the fledgling couple when calamity strikes. This first feature by music video director Giuseppe Capotondi takes a spare, somber approach to a screenplay (by Alessandro Fabbri, Ludovica Rampoldi, and Stefano Sardo) that strikingly keeps raising, then resisting genre categorization. Suffice it to say their story goes from lonely-hearts romance to violent thriller, ghost story, criminal intrigue, and yet more. It doesn’t all work seamlessly, but such narrative unpredictability is so rare at the movies these days that The Double Hour is worth seeing simply for the satisfying feeling of never being sure where it’s headed. (1:35) (Harvey)

Empire of Silver Love, not money, is at the core of Empire of Silver — that’s the M.O. of a Shanxi banking family’s libertine third son, or “Third Master” (Aaron Kwok) in this epic tug-of-war between Confucian duty and free will. The Third Master pines for his true love, his stepmother (Hao Lei), yet change is going off all around the star-crossed couple in China at the end of the 19th century and the start of the 20th, and the youthful scion ends up pouring his passion into the family business, attempting to tread his own path, apart from his Machiavellian father (Tielin Zhang). Much like her protagonist, however, director (and Stanford alum) Christina Yao seems more besotted with romance than finance, bathing those scenes with the love light and sensual hues reminiscent of Zhang Yimou’s early movies. Though Yao handles the widescreen crowd scenes with aplomb, her chosen focus on money, rather than honey, leaches the action of its emotional charge. It doesn’t help that, on the heels of the Great Recession, it’s unlikely that anyone buys the idea of a financial industry with ironclad integrity — or gives a flying yuan about the lives of bankers. (1:52) (Chun)

Green Lantern This latest DC Comics-to-film adaptation fails to recognize the line between awesome fantasy-action and cheeseball absurdity, often resembling the worst excesses of the Christopher Reeve Superman movies. A surprisingly palatable Ryan Reynolds stars as Hal Jordan, the cocky test pilot who is chosen to wield a power ring as a member of an intergalactic police force called the Green Lantern Corps. He must face down Parallax, an alien embodiment of fear, who appears here as a chuckle-inducing floating head surrounded by tentacles. Peter Sarsgaard is effectively nauseating as Hector Hammond, who becomes Parallax’s crony after he is transformed by a transfusion of fear energy. The acting is all over the map, with Blake Lively’s blank-faced love interest caricature as the weakest link, and the effects are hit-or-miss, but scenes featuring alien Green Lanterns should please fans, and you could probably do worse if you’re looking for an entertaining popcorn flick. (1:45) (Stander)

The Hangover Part II What do you do with a problematic mess like Hangover Part II? I was a fan of The Hangover (2009), as well as director-cowriter Todd Phillips’ 1994 GG Allin doc, Hated, so I was rooting for II, this time set in the East’s Sin City of Bangkok, while simultaneously dreading the inevitable Asian/”ching-chang-chong” jokes. Would this would-be hit sequel be funnier if they packed in more of those? Doubtful. The problem is that most of II‘s so-called humor, Asian or no, falls completely flat — and any gross-out yuks regarding wicked, wicked Bangkok are fairly old hat at this point, long after Shocking Asia (1976) and innumerable episodes of No Reservations and other extreme travel offerings. This Hangover around, mild-ish dentist Stu (Ed Helms) is heading to the altar with Lauren (The Real World: San Diego‘s Jamie Chung), with buds Phil (Bradley Cooper) and Doug (Justin Bartha) in tow. Alan (Zach Galifianakis) has completely broken with reality — he’s the pity invite who somehow ropes in the gangster wild-card Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong). Blackouts, natch, and not-very-funny high jinks ensue, with Jeong, surprisingly, pulling small sections of II out of the crapper. Phillips obviously specializes in men-behaving-badly, but II‘s most recent character tweaks, turning Phil into an arrogant, delusional creep and Alan into an arrogant, delusional kook, seem beside the point. Because almost none of the jokes work, and that includes the tired jabs at tranny strippers because we all know how supposedly straight white guys get hella grossed out by brown chicks with dicks. Lame. (1:42) (Chun)

Happy Happy, a documentary by Roko Belic (1999’s Genghis Blues), traces the contented lifestyles of men and women around the globe. Manoj Singh is a Kolkata rickshaw driver sustained by his son’s smile. Anne Bechsgaard’s life is enriched by her co-housing community in Denmark. These soothingly sentimental profiles are intercut with commentary from leading neuroscientists and psychologists. They provide a cursory guide to the rare balancing act that is happiness in the 21st century. A brisk 75 minutes, the film is saturated with thought-provoking tidbits (the Bhutan government aims for gross national happiness instead of GDP) and an ambient backing track that’s heavy on the chimes. However, sometimes there’s the sense that these mechanics of happiness aren’t cinematically compelling enough, and that rifling through a couple Wikipedia pages might offer just as much insight. At its best, Happy sparks a reflection on how many of the unofficial criteria for joy one has fulfilled, and suggests ideas for simple happiness boosters. (1:15) Roxie. (Getman)

Kung Fu Panda 2 The affable affirmations of 2008’s Kung Fu Panda take a back seat to relentlessly elaborate, gag-filled action sequences in this DreamWorks Animation sequel, which ought to satisfy kids but not entertain their parents as much as its predecessor. Po (voiced by Jack Black), the overeating panda and ordained Dragon Warrior of the title, joins forces with a cavalcade of other sparring wildlife to battle Lord Shen (Gary Oldman), a petulant peacock whose arsenal of cannons threatens to overwhelm kung fu. But Shen is also part of Po’s hazy past, so the panda’s quest to save China is also a quest for self-fulfillment and “inner peace.” There’s less character development in this installment, though the growing friendship between Po and the “hardcore” Tigress (Angelina Jolie) is occasionally touching. The 3-D visuals are rarely more than a gimmick, save for a series of eye-catching flashbacks in the style of cel-shaded animation. (1:30) (Stander)

Larry Crowne While Transformers: Dark of the Moon may be getting all the attention for being the most terrible summer movie, I’d like to propose Larry Crowne as the bigger offender. No, it doesn’t have the abrasive effects of a Michael Bay blockbuster, but it’s surely just as incompetent. And coming from an actor as talented as Tom Hanks — who co-wrote, directed, produced, and stars in the film —Larry Crowne is insulting. The plot, insofar as there is one, centers around the titular Larry (Hanks), a man who goes to community college, joins a scooter gang led by Wilmer Valderrama, and ends up falling for his cranky, alcoholic teacher Mercedes (Julia Roberts). The scenes are thrown together hapharzadly, with no real sense of character development or continuity. Larry Crowne doesn’t even feel like a romantic comedy until a drunk Mercedes begins kissing and dry humping her student. But hey, who can resist a shot of Larry’s middle-aged bottom as he tries to wriggle into jeans that are just too small? (1:39) (Peitzman)

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

Monte Carlo (1:48)

Mr. Nice By the second hour of Mr. Nice, star Rhys Ifans and company have exhausted every possible pot smoking flourish. There’s the seductive French inhale by the pool, the suggestive mouth to mouth, the euphoric dragon release in the deserts of Pakistan: all rendered in extreme close-up with improbably thick plumes of white smoke. Mr. Nice is mostly sexy drug use tutorial, though it’s also part biography of real-life drug smuggler Howard Marks. His claim to fame — at least according to the movie’s tagline — is the sheer number of aliases, phone lines, and children he had (43, 89, and 4, respectively). Unexpectedly, it’s the period costuming, cinematography, and the enchanting listlessness of Chloe Sevigny that redeem the film. Mr. Nice is captivatingly interlaced with vintage news and scenery clips from the period and it’s shot in a way that is both hyper-stylized and erratic. Those twists and turns of Marks’s life turn out to be not nearly as suspenseful onscreen as they should be, making the movie less of a traditional drug thriller and more of a mildly interesting reflection on the culture of the period. (2:01) (Getman)

Mr. Popper’s Penguins (1:35)

*My Perestroika Robin Hessman’s very engaging documentary takes one very relatable look at how changes since glasnost have affected some average Russians. The subjects here are five thirtysomethings who, growing up in Moscow in the 70s and 80s, were the last generation to experience full-on Communist Party indoctrination. But just as they reached adulthood, the whole system dissolved, confusing long-held beliefs and variably impacting their futures. Andrei has ridden the capitalist choo-choo to considerable enrichment as the proprietor of luxury Western menswear shops. But single mother Olga, unlucky in love, just scrapes by, while married schoolteachers Lyuba and Boris are lucky to have inherited an apartment (cramped as it is) they could otherwise ill afford. Meanwhile Ruslan, once member of a famous punk band (which he abandoned on principal because it was getting “too commercial”), both disdains and resents the new order just as he did the old one. Home movies and old footage of pageantry celebrating Soviet socialist glory make a whole ‘nother era come to life in this intimate, unexpectedly charming portrait of its long-term aftermath. (1:27) Balboa. (Harvey)

*Page One: Inside the New York Times When Andrew Rossi’s documentary premiered at Sundance this January, word of mouth on it was respectable but qualified, with nearly everyone opining that it was good … just not what they’d been led to expect. What they expected was (in line with the original subtitle A Year Inside the New York Times) a top-to-bottom overview of how the nation’s most respected — and in some circles resented — arbiter of news, “style,” and culture is created on a day-to-day as well as longer term basis. That’s something that would doubtless fascinate anyone still interested in print media, or even that realm of web media not catering to the ADD nation. But that big picture and the wealth of minute cogs within isn’t Page One‘s subject. Instead, Rossi focuses on the Gray Lady’s wrestling with admittedly fast-changing times in which newspapers and any other information source on paper seem to constitute an endangered species. This particular Times, however, is such a special case that that crisis might better have been explored by training a camera on a less fabled publication, perhaps one of the many that have succumbed to a once unthinkable, market-shrunk mortality in recent years. The film finds its colorful protagonist in David Carr, an ex-crack addict turned media columnist who retains his cranky, nonconformist edge even as he defends the Times itself from the same out-with-the-old cheerleaders who 15 years ago were inflating the dot-com boom till it burst. Facing one particularly smug champion of the blogosphere at a forum, Carr notes that without a few remaining outlets — like the Times — doing the hard work of serious research and reportage, the web would have nothing to purloin or offer but its own unending trivia and gossip. Page One does what it does entertainingly well, but if you’re looking for insight toward this not-dead-yet U.S. institution as a whole, you’d be better off simply picking up this week’s Sunday edition and reading every last word. (1:28) Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

*Super 8 The latest from J.J. Abrams is very conspicuously produced by Steven Spielberg; it evokes 1982’s E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial as well as 1985’s The Goonies and 1982’s Poltergeist (so Spielbergian in nature you’d be forgiven for assuming he directed, rather than simply produced, the pair). But having Grandpa Stevie blessing your flick is surely a good thing, especially when you’re already as capable as Abrams. Super 8 is set in 1979, high time for its titular medium, used by a group of horror movie-loving kids to film their backyard zombie epic; later in the film, old-school celluloid reveals the mystery behind exactly what escaped following a spectacular train wreck on the edge of their small Ohio town. The PG-13 Super 8 aims to frighten, albeit gently; there’s a lot of nostalgia afoot, and things do veer into sappiness at the end (that, plus the band of kids at its center, evoke the trademarks of another Grandpa Stevie: Stephen King). But the kid actors (especially the much-vaunted Elle Fanning) are great, and there’s palpable imagination and atmosphere afoot, rare qualities in blockbusters today. Super 8 tries, and mostly succeeds, in progressing the fears and themes addressed by E.T. (divorce, loneliness, growing up) into century 21, making the unknowns darker and the consequences more dire. (1:52) (Eddy)

*13 Assassins 13 Assassins is clearly destined to be prolific director Takashi Miike’s greatest success outside Japan yet. It’s another departure for the multi-genre-conquering Miike, doubtless one of the most conventional movies he’s made in theme and execution. That’s key to its appeal — rigorously traditional, taking its sweet time getting to samurai action that is pointedly not heightened by wire work or CGI, it arrives at the kind of slam-dunk prolonged battle climax that only a measured buildup can let you properly appreciate. In the 1840s, samurai are in decline but feudalism is still hale. It’s a time of peace, though not for the unfortunates who live under regional tyrant Lord Naritsugu (Goro Inagaki), a li’l Nippon Caligula who taxes and oppresses his people to the point of starvation. Alas, the current Shogun is his sibling, and plans to make little bro his chief adviser — so a concerned Shogun official secretly hires veteran samurai Shinzaemon (Koji Yakusho) to assassinate the Lord. Fully an hour is spent on our hero doing “assembling the team” stuff, recruiting other unemployed, retired, or wannabe samurai. When the protagonists finally commence their mission, their target is already aware he’s being pursued, and he’s surrounded by some 200 soldiers by the time Miike arrives at the film’s sustained, spectacular climax: a small village which Shinzaemon and co. have turned into a giant boobytrap so that 13 men can divide and destroy an ogre-guarding army. A major reason why mainstream Hollywood fantasy and straight action movies have gotten so depressingly interchangeable is that digital FX and stunt work can (and does) visualize any stupid idea — heroes who get thrown 200 feet into walls by monsters then getting up to fight some more, etc. 13 Assassins is thrilling because its action, while sporting against-the-odds ingeniousness and sheer luck by our heroes as in any trad genre film, is still vividly, bloodily, credibly physical. (2:06) (Harvey)

Transformers: Dark of the Moon I’ll never understand the wisdom behind epic-length children’s movies. What child — or adult, for that matter — wants to sit through 154 minutes of assaultive popcorn entertainment? It’s an especially confounding decision for this third installment in the Transformers franchise because there’s a fantastic 90-minute movie in there, undone at every turn by some of the worst jokes, most pointless characters, and most hateful cultural politics you’re likely to see this summer. But when I say a fantastic movie, I mean a fantastic movie. It took two very expensive earlier attempts before director Michael Bay figured out that big things require a big canvas. Every shot of Dark of the Moon‘s predecessors seemed designed to hide their effects by crowding the screen. Finally we get the full view — the scale is now rightly calibrated to operatic and ridiculous. The marquee set pieces are inspired and terrifying, eliciting a sense of vertigo that’s earned for once, not imposed by the editing. The human hijinks are less consistent but ingratiatingly batshit, and without resorting to preening self-awareness and elaborately contrived mea culpas. But unfortunately Bay is too unapologetic even to walk back the ethnic buffoonery that not only upsets hippies like me but also seems defiantly disharmonious with the movie he’s trying to make. Bay is like that guy at the party who thinks amping up the racism will prove he’s not a racist. It’s that kind of garbage (plus, I guess, some universal primal hatred of Shia LaBeouf that I don’t really get) that makes people dismiss these movies wholesale. This time it’s just not deserved. I wouldn’t want to meet the asshole who made this thing, but credit where credit is due. It’s a visual marvel with perfectly integrated, utterly tactile, brilliantly choreographed CG robotics — a point that’ll no doubt be conceded in passing as if it’s not the very reason the movie exists. As if it’s not a feat of mastery to make a megaton changeling truck look graceful. (2:34) (Jason Shamai)

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

*The Trip Eclectic British director Michael Winterbottom rebounds from sexually humiliating Jessica Alba in last year’s flop The Killer Inside Me to humiliating Steve Coogan in all number of ways (this time to positive effect) in this largely improvised comic romp through England’s Lake District. Well, romp might be the wrong descriptive — dubbed a “foodie Sideways” but more plaintive and less formulaic than that sun-dappled California affair, this TV-to-film adaptation displays a characteristic English glumness to surprisingly keen emotional effect. Playing himself, Coogan displays all the carefree joie de vivre of a colonoscopy patient with hemorrhoids as he sloshes through the gray northern landscape trying to get cell reception when not dining on haute cuisine or being wracked with self-doubt over his stalled movie career and love life. Throw in a happily married, happy-go-lucky frenemy (comic actor Rob Brydon) and Coogan (TV’s I’m Alan Partridge), can’t help but seem like a pathetic middle-aged prick in a puffy coat. Somehow, though, his confused narcissism is a perverse panacea. Come for the dueling Michael Caine impressions and snot martinis, stay for the scallops and Brydon’s “small man in a box” routine. (1:52) Smith Rafael. (Devereaux)

*Trollhunter Yes, The Troll Hunter riffs off The Blair Witch Project (1999) with both whimsy and, um, rabidity. Yes, you may gawk at its humongoid, anatomically correct, three-headed trolls, never to be mistaken for grotesquely cute rubber dolls, Orcs, or garden gnomes again. Yes, you may not believe, but you will find this lampoon of reality TV-style journalism, and an affectionate jab at Norway’s favorite mythical creature, very entertaining. Told that a series of strange attacks could be chalked up to marauding bears, three college students (Glenn Erland Tosterud, Tomas Alf Larsen, and Johanna Morck) strap on their gumshoes and choose instead to pursue a mysterious poacher Hans (Otto Jespersen) who repeatedly rebuffs their interview attempts. Little did the young folk realize that their late-night excursions following the hunter into the woods would lead at least one of them to rue his or her christening day. Ornamenting his yarn with beauty shots of majestic mountains, fjords, and waterfalls, Norwegian director-writer André Ovredal takes the viewer beyond horror-fantasy — handheld camera at the ready — and into a semi-goofy wilderness of dark comedy, populated by rock-eating, fart-blowing trolls and overshadowed by a Scandinavian government cover-up sorta-worthy of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009). (1:30) (Chun)

*X-Men: First Class Cynics might see this prequel as pandering to a more tweeny demographic, and certainly there are so many ways it could have gone terribly wrong, in an infantile, way-too-cute X-Babies kinda way. But despite some overly choppy edits that shortchange brief moments of narrative clarity, X-Men: First Class gets high marks for its fairly first-class, compelling acting — specifically from Michael Fassbender as the enraged, angst-ridden Magneto and James McAvoy as the idealistic, humanist Charles Xavier. Of course, the celebrated X-Men tale itself plays a major part: the origin story of Magneto, a.k.a. Erik Lehnsherr, a Holocaust survivor, is given added heft with a few tweaks: here, in an echo of Fassbender’s turn in Inglourious Basterds (2009), his master of metal draws on his bottomless rage to ruthlessly destroy the Nazis who used him as a lab rat in experiments to build a master race. The last on his list is the energy-wrangling Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon), who’s set up a sweet Bond-like scenario, protected by super-serious bikini-vixen Emma Frost (January Jones). The complications are that Erik doesn’t ultimately differ from his Frankensteins — he pushes mutant power to the detriment of those puny, bigoted humans — and his unexpected collaborator and friend is Xavier, the privileged, highly psychic scion who hopes to broker an understanding between mutants and human and use mutant talent to peaceful ends. Together, they can move mountains—or at least satellite dishes and submarines. Jennifer Lawrence as Raven/Mystique and Nicholas Hoult as Hank McCoy/Beast fill out the cast, voicing those eternal X-Men dualities — preserving difference vs. conformity, intoxicating power vs. reasoned discipline. All core superhero concerns, as well as teen identity issues — given a fresh charge. (2:20) (Chun)

Our Weekly Picks, July 6-12, 2011

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
0

WEDNESDAY 6

DANCE/THEATER

Project Bust

Malinda LaVelle’s Project Bust tackles tits and ass without A Chorus Line. Presented as part of the San Francisco Conservatory of Dance’s second annual Summer Dance Series, Project Bust is the culmination of 18 months of research and creation with eight women in their 20s. A group of SF Conservatory of Dance-trained performers make up LaVelle’s company, Project Thrust, and for this evening-length dance theater work, they address some of the ups and downs of being young and female. This fresh crew marries athletic prowess with a fearless attitude, and their work is not complete without a competitive pillow fight. (Julie Potter)

Wed/6 and Aug. 3, 8 p.m., $15

Z Space

450 Florida, SF

(415) 626-0453

www.zspace.org

 

MUSIC

Rosebuds

Honestly, talking about this band at all makes me feel creepy. I blame their publicist. Since the release of The Rosebuds Make Out and over the course of four albums, Ivan Howard and Kelly Crisp were not just a band, they were married. Ideally, they were in love. It’s the sort of biographical information that can’t be glossed, but also overwhelmingly frames the musical relationship. Now that the pair are divorced, is their new album, Loud Planes Fly Low, truly as plaintively sad as it sounds? Onstage is it just an act? Does Howard seem happier in GAYNGS? Maybe Crisp’s latest blog post has the answers. (Ryan Prendiville)

With Other Lives

8 p.m., $14

Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

(415) 771-1421

www.theindependentsf.com

 

THURSDAY 7

FILM

San Francisco Frozen Film Festival

San Francisco has more film festivals than people I think. But — like the star of Last Fast Ride: The Life, Love, and Death of a Punk Goddess — the San Francisco Frozen Film Festival stands out from the pack. Last Fast Ride, which is screening at the fest, documents the late Marion Anderson: dominatrix, performance artist, and native San Franciscan whose stint as lead vocalist of the Insaints (and arrest at 924 Gilman; hint: it involves nudity and a banana) will forever secure her legacy as one of the wildest and most outspoken women ever to pick up a microphone. Also screening at the festival are several enormously varied collections of short films, as well as other full-length documentaries including Color Me Obsessed: A Film About the Replacements and Ocean Monk, which follows the surfing disciples of weightlifting spiritualist Sri Chinmoy. (Cooper Berkmoyer)

Thurs/7–Sat/9, $11

Roxie Theater

3117 16th St., SF

(415) 863-1087

www.frozenfilmfestival.com

 

VISUAL ART

“Chroma: About Color”

The summer months call for color and spontaneity; the newest exhibit at Cain Schulte Contemporary Art offers both. Tonight’s opening reception rings in a monthlong show featuring bright hues rendered in all kinds of media by five different artists. The gallery consistently spotlights artists on the rise and those just hitting their stride. This show is no different. Jessica Snow displays pieces on canvas and paper; Carrie Seid uses aluminum and silk; David Buckingham constructs with metal; Joel Hoyer with panel; and Eileen Goldenberg encaustic works. Don’t be blue if you can’t make it tonight: the art is on display for most of the summer. (David Getman)

Through Aug. 20

5:30–7:30 p.m., free

Cain Schulte Contemporary Art

251 Post, SF

(415) 543-1550

www.cainschulte.com

 

THEATER

Act One, Scene Two

Here’s a unique idea from a theater company that takes its name to heart: Un-Scripted’s Act One, Scene Two, which every night hosts a different playwright wielding an unfinished script. After an onstage debriefing with the author, the company takes the stage to perform the first scene from the first act, reading through the lines for the first time. The flyin’-by-the-seats-of-our-pants theme continues as Un-Scripted shifts to full-on improv mode, finishing out the play using their own wits but guided by information shared by the writer in that on-stage interview about his or her writing process, influences, etc. Sophisticated spontaneity (and likely some decent doses of impulsive humor) awaits. (Cheryl Eddy)

Through Aug. 20

Thurs.–Sat., 8 p.m., $10–$20

SF Playhouse, Stage Two

533 Sutter, SF

(415) 869-5384

www.un-scripted.com

 

FRIDAY 8

FILM

“Watching Big Brother: A Tribute to the Summer of 1984”

Ah, 1984: “Like a Virgin,” Boy George, Mary Lou Retton, Ronald Reagan — er, anyway. Politics aside, it was a magnificent year if you were an elementary-school kid obsessed with pausing the VCR to better analyze each second of every new Duran Duran video. The movies from 1984 weren’t too shabby, either, with a top 10 filled with now-classics: Ghostbusters, Beverly Hills Cop, Footloose … trust me, you’ve seen ’em all. Midnites for Maniacs salutes one of the greatest years for film (suck it, 1939) with a two-day cinematic throwdown. The event’s title, “Watching Big Brother,” nods to the Orwellian tone of the times, but the films are (mostly) pure fun, from big hits like Gremlins and The Karate Kid to more culty choices: The Pope of Greenwich Village, starring the original faces of Eric Roberts and Mickey Rourke; immortal sci-fi new-wave nugget The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension; and a Midnites for Maniacs favorite, Diane Lane punk-noir musical relic Streets of Fire. (Eddy)

Fri/8, 7:30 p.m.; Sat/9, 2:30 p.m., $12–$13

Castro Theatre

429 Castro, SF

(415) 621-6120

www.castrotheatre.com

 

MUSIC

“Let Her Dance”

How high can your hair go? Like, 1962 high? Better get to back-combing, because “Let Her Dance” is a recreation of a prom circa the early ’60s, with a lineup of local musicians crooning tunes from the era (think Ike and Tina, the Bobby Fuller Four, Curtis Mayfield, and the like). The elegant Verdi Club, which could actually serve as a prom venue, has a big dance floor, so you can twist, mashed-potato, watusi, and frug to the sounds of DJ Primo Pitmo, plus Heidi Alexander and Grace Cooper (the Sandwitches), Shannon “And the Clams” Shaw, Quinn Deveaux, and others breathing new life into retro jams, with back-up help from the Goldstar Band. (Eddy)

8 p.m., $15

Verdi Club

2424 Mariposa, SF

www.letherdance.eventbrite.com

 

MUSIC

Limp Wrist

As punk rock begins yet another agonizing mutation into a marketable consumer good, a process that seems to ebb and flow with each passing lustrum, it’s easy to forget that bands can still be fierce. With a fearsome live show (I have seen the band rip a microphone cord in half, which, if you’ve ever tried — though I don’t know why you would — ou know is not easy) and songs like “I Love Hardcore Boys, I Love Boys Hardcore” and “Recruiting Time,” Limp Wrist strikes terror into the hearts of homophobes everywhere with wit, intelligence, and wicked-fast power chords. Vocalist Martin, also of the infamous Los Crudos, is a hairy-chested, short-shorts-wearing bomb who goes off when drum blasts start and queercore reaches its blitzkrieg zenith. (Berkmoyer)

With Drapetomania and Brilliant Colors

9 p.m., $7

El Rio

3158 Mission, SF

(415) 282-3325

www.elriosf.com

 

MUSIC

“The Tipper Sound Experience!”

There is an arms race taking place right now in the electronic music scene. The DJ booth has become a launching pad for a complete sensory assault. Tipper is not new to the fight, having built up a reputation by stuffing cars with a dangerous quantity of speakers (Funktion Ones — only the best), and blowing up crowds. This latest project not only continues the weaponization of glitchy breakbeats and wobbly down- tempo, but escalates it through Tipper’s extensive research into holographic surround sound, for 360 degrees of musical bombardment. (Prendiville)

With VibesquaD, Dov, and Hypnotech; visuals by Johnathan Singer

9 p.m., $25–$40

Regency Ballroom

1300 Van Ness, SF

1-800-745-3000

www.theregencyballroom.com

 

MUSIC

“A Benefit for Cheb I Sabbah”

Algerian-born DJ turned world musician Cheb I Sabbah been a part of San Francisco’s music scene since the 1980s; he’s the kind of innovative, constantly evolving musician who can’t help but influence other creative types he’s met along the way. That community, as well as his many fans, are uniting to help Cheb I, who is uninsured, cover medical bills after a devastating diagnosis of stage four stomach cancer. As you might suspect, the benefit boasts a massive lineup, with artists drawn from Anon Salon, Hookahdome, Opel Productions, Non Stop Bhangra, and Six Degrees Records, plus Fat Chance Bellydance dancers and DJs Syd Gris, Janaka Selecta, Turbo Tabla, DJ Sep, and many more. There will also be a raffle (win private belly dance lessons!) and if you can’t make the show, you can donate directly to the cause at Cheb I’s website. (Eddy)

9 p.m.–4 a.m., $15 and up

1015 Folsom, SF

www.chebisabbah.com


SATURDAY 9

EVENT

“Ugly Sweater Scavenger Hunt”

CLASH’s Ugly Sweater Scavenger Hunt finally gives you an excuse to bust out that Christmas gift from Grandma on a summer Saturday night. The hunt is stitched together by so-bad-it’s-good fashion, flowing alcohol, and scavenger accomplishments beamed in by social networking. Four to six people team up to complete funky challenges that might include coercing clues from characters planted in the city, thumb wrestling children, and sparking impromptu street dance parties. CLASH (which stands for California League of Adult Scavenger Hunters) pledges to “avoid the raunchy” but warns of a “light suggestive undertone at times” to shake things up. Luckily, anyone age 21 to 87 is welcome, so feel free to bring along the original gifter! (Getman)

8 p.m., $20

Blackthorn Tavern

834 Irving, SF

(415) 623-9629

www.clashsf.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, the Guardian Building, 135 Mississippi St., SF, CA 94107; fax to (415) 487-2506; or e-mail (paste press release into e-mail body — no text 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.

Vicki Marlane, 1934-2011

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
2
Vicki Marlane, 1934-2011

San Francisco lost true drag royalty today when Ms Vicki Marlane, “the Girl with the Liquid Spine” who performed with the weekend Hot Boxxx Girls revue at Aunt Charlie’s Lounge, passed away at 7:04 a.m. at San Francisco General Hospital. No official cause of death was immediately available, but her co-entertainer Gina la Divina said she “had been down for a while,” presumable meaning she had been ill. (This information was passed on to me this morning by Matt Slusarenko of Queerty.com, and he’s just posted his tribute.) From circus sideshow act in the 50s to drag road warrior in the swinging 70s — she lived a life, honey. That life was documented in a fantastic film released last year, “Forever’s Gonna Start Tonight.”

Besides enjoying her performances countless times, I had the pleasure of interviewing her for the Winter 2008 edition of our nightlife guide SCENE.

Vicki Marlane, seated third from left next to Gina La Divina. Photo by Matthew Reamer.

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lRdj_2Ex_cY

The Fourth of July in Rock Rapids, Iowa, 1940-53

-
5

(Note: In July of l972, when the Guardian was short a Fourth of July story, I sat down and cranked out this one for the front page on my trusty Royal Typewriter. I now reprint it each year on the Bruce blog (by popular demand, of course), with some San Francisco updates and postscripts. My update for  this year’s Fourth  is the story on  today’s Chronicle front page that reports sadly, “Leaner budgets douse fireworks shows.” But, if you read to the end of this piece, I will point you to a little known spot in town where the amateurs and semi-pros  and parents with children will go to fire off their cherry bombs and Roman candles.

Back where I come from, a small town beneath a tall standpipe in northwestern Iowa, the Fourth of July was the best day of a long, hot summer.

The Fourth came after YMCA camp and Scout camp and church camp, but before the older boys had to worry about getting into shape for football. It was welcome relief from the scalding, 100-degree heat in a town without a swimming pool and whose swimming holes at Scout Island were usually dried up by early July. But best of all, it had the kind of excitement that began building weeks in advance.
The calm of the summer dawn and the cooing of the mourning doves on the telephone wires would be broken early on July Fourth: The Creglow boys would be up by 7 a.m. and out on the lawn shooting off their arsenal of firecrackers. They were older and had somehow sent their agents by car across the state line and into South Dakota where, not far above the highway curves of Larchwood, you could legally buy fireworks at roadside stands.

Ted Fisch, Jim Ramsey, Wiener Winters, the Cook boys, Hermie Casjens, Jerry Prahl, and the rest of the neighborhood would race out of their houses to catch the action. Some of them had cajoled firecrackers from their parents or bartered from the older boys in the neighborhood: some torpedoes (the kind you smashed against the sidewalk); lots of 2 and 3-inchers, occasionally the granddaddy of them all, the cherry bomb (the really explosive firecracker, stubby, cherry red, with a wick sticking up menacingly from its middle; the kind of firecracker you’d gladly trade away your best set of Submariner comics for).

Ah, the cherry bomb. It was a microcosm of excitement and mischief and good fun. Bob Creglow, the most resourceful of the Creglow boys who lived next door,  would take a cherry bomb, set it beneath a tin can on a porch, light the fuse, then head for the lilac bushes behind the barn.

“The trick,” he would say, imparting wisdom of the highest order, “is to place the can on a wood porch with a wood roof. Then it will hit the top of the porch, bang, then the bottom of the porch, bang. That’s how you get the biggest clatter.”

So I trudged off to the Linkenheil house, the nearest front porch suitable for cherry bombing, to try my hand at small-town demolition. Bang went the firecracker. Bang went the can on the roof. Bang went the can on the floor. Bang went the screen door as Karl Linkenheil roared out in a sweat, and I lit out for the lilacs behind the barn with my dog, Oscar.

It was glorious stuff – not to be outdone for years, I found out later, until the Halloween eve in high school when Dave Dietz, Ted Fisch, Ken Roach, Bob Babl, and rest of the Hermie Casjens gang and I made the big time and twice pushed a boxcar loaded with lumber across Main Street and blocked it for hours. But that’s another story in my annual  Halloween blog.

Shooting off fireworks was, of course, illegal in Rock Rapids, but Chief of Police Del Woodburn and later Elmer “Shinny” Sheneberger used to lay low on the Fourth. I don’t recall ever seeing them about in our neighborhood and I don’t think they ever arrested anybody, although each year the Rock Rapids Reporter would carry vague warnings about everybody cooperating to have “a safe and sane Fourth of July.” My father, a bit of a law and order sort, would take Jimmy DeYoung and me  five miles north of town and across the state line to Minnesota where it was legal to shoot off fireworks. 

Perhaps it was just too dangerous for them to start making firecracker arrests on the Fourth – on the same principle, I guess, that it was dangerous to do too much about the swashbuckling on Halloween or start running down dogs without leashes (Mayor Earl Fisher used to run on the platform that, as long as he was in office, no dog in town would have to be leashed. The neighborhood consensus was that Fisher’s dog, a big, boisterous boxer, was one of the few that ought to be leashed).

We handled the cherry bombs and other fireworks in our possession with extreme care and cultivation; I can’t remember a single mishap. Yet, even then, the handwriting was on the wall. There was talk of cutting off the fireworks supply in South Dakota because it was dangerous for young boys. Pretty soon, they did cut off the cherry bomb traffic and about all that was left, when I came back from college and the Roger boys had replaced the Creglow boys next door, was little stuff appropriately called ladyfingers.

Fireworks are dangerous, our parents would say, and each year they would dust off the old chestnut about the drugstore in Spencer that had a big stock of fireworks and they caught fire one night and much of the downtown went up in a spectacular shower of roman candles and sparkling fountains.

The story was hard to pin down, and seemed to get more gruesome every year – but, we were told, this was why Iowa banned fireworks years before, why they were so dangerous and why little boys shouldn’t be setting them off. The story, of course, never made quite the intended impression; we just wished we’d been on the scene.
My grandfather was the town druggist (Brugmann’s Drugstore, “where drugs and gold are fairly sold,” since 1902) and he said he knew the Spencer druggist personally. Fireworks put him out of business and into the poorhouse, he’d say, and walk away shaking his head.

In any event, firecrackers weren’t much of an issue past noon – the Fourth celebration at the fairgrounds was getting underway and there was too much else to do. Appropriately, the celebration was sponsored by the Rex Strait post of the American Legion (Strait, so the story went, was the first boy from Rock Rapids to die on foreign soil during World War I); the legionnaires were a bunch of good guys from the cleaners and the feed store and the bank who sponsored the American Legion baseball team each summer.

There was always a big carnival, with a ferris wheel somewhere in the center for the kids, a bingo stand for the elders, a booth where the ladies from the Methodist Church sold homemade baked goods, sometimes a hootchy dancer or two, and a couple of dank watering holes beneath the grandstand where the VFW and the Legion sold Grainbelt and Hamms beer  at 30¢ a bottle to anybody who looked of age.

Later on, when the farmboys came in from George and Alvord, there was lots of pushing and shoving, and a fist fight or two.

In front of the grandstand, out in the dust and the sun, would come a succession of shows that made the summer rounds of the little towns. One year it would be Joey Chitwood and his daredevil drivers. (The announcer always fascinated me: “Here he comes, folks, rounding the far turn…he is doing a great job out there tonight…let’s give him a big, big hand as he pulls up in front on the grandstand…”)

Another year it would be harness racing and Mr. Hardy, our local horse trainer from nearby  Doon, would be in his moment of glory. Another year it was tag team wrestling and a couple of barrel-chested goons from Omaha, playing the mean heavies and rabbit-punching their opponents from the back, would provoke roars of disgust from the grandstand. ( The biggest barrel-chest would lean back on the ropes, looking menacingly at the crowd and yell, “ Aw, you dumb farmers. What the hell do you know anyway?” And the grandstand would roar back in glee.)

One year, Cedric Adams, the Herb Caen of Minneapolis and the Star-Tribune, would tour the provinces as the emcee of a variety show. “It’s great to be in Rock Rapids,” he would say expansively, “because it’s always been known as the ‘Gateway to Magnolia.” (Magnolia, he didn’t need to say, was a little town just over the state line in Minnesota which was known throughout the territory for its liquor-by-the-drink roadhouses. It was also Cedric Adams’ hometown: his “Sackamenna.”) Adams kissed each girl (soundly) who came on the platform to perform and, at the end, hushed the crowd for his radio broadcast to the big city “direct from the stage of the Lyon County Fairgrounds in Rock Rapids, Iowa.”

For a couple of years, when Rock Rapids had a “town team,” and a couple of imported left-handed pitchers named Peewee Wenger and Karl Kletschke, we would have some rousing baseball games with the best semi-pro team around, Larchwood and its gang of Snyder brothers: Barney the eldest at shortstop, Jimmy the youngest at third base, John in center field, Paul in left field, another Snyder behind the plate and a couple on the bench. They were as tough as they came in Iowa baseball.

I can remember it as if it were yesterday at Candlestick, the 1948 game with the Snyders of Larchwood. Peewee Wenger, a gawky, 17-year-old kid right off a high school team, was pitching for Rock Rapids and holding down the Snyder artillery in splendid fashion. Inning after inning he went on, nursing a small lead, mastering one tough Larchwood batter after another, with a blistering fastball and a curve that sliced wickedly into the bat handles of the right-handed Larchwood line-up.

Then the cagey Barney Snyder laid a slow bunt down the third base line. Wenger stumbled, lurched, almost fell getting to the ball, then toppled off balance again, stood helplessly holding the ball. He couldn’t make the throw to first. Barney was safe, cocky and firing insults like machine gun bullets at Peewee from first base.

Peewee, visibly shaken, went back to the mound. He pitched, the next Larchwood batter bunted, this time down the first base line. Peewee lurched for the ball, but couldn’t come up with it. A couple more bunts, a shot through the pitcher’s mound, more bunts and Peewee was out. He could pitch, but, alas, he was too clumsy to field. In came Bill Jammer, now in his late 30’s, but in his day the man who beat the University of Iowa while pitching at a small college called Simpson.

Now he was pitching on guts and beer, a combination good enough for many teams and on good days even to take on the Snyders. Jammer did well for a couple of innings, then he let two men on base, then came a close call at the plate. Jammer got mad. Both teams were off the bench and onto the field and, as Fred Roach wrote in the Rock Rapids Reporter, “fisticuffs erupted at home plate.” When the dust cleared, Jammer has a broken jaw, and for the next two weeks had to drink his soup through a straw at the Joy Lunch. John Snyder, it was said later, came all the way in from center field to throw the punch, but nobody knew for sure and he stayed in the game. I can’t remember the score or who won the game, but I remember it as the best Fourth ever.

At dusk, the people moved out on their porches or put up folding chairs on the lawn. Those who didn’t have a good view drove out to the New Addition or parked out near Mark Curtis’ place or along the river roads that snaked out to the five-mile bridge and Virgil Hasche’s place.

A hush came over the town. Fireflies started flickering in the river bottom and, along about 8:30, the first puff of smoke rose above the fairgrounds and an aerial bomb whistled into the heavens. BOOM! And the town shook as if hit by a clap of thunder.

Then the three-tiered sky bombs – pink, yellow, white, puff, puff, puff. The Niagara Falls and a gush of white sparks.

Then, in sudden fury, a dazzling display of sizzling comets and aerial bombs and star clusters that arched high, hung for a full breath and descended in a cascade of sparks that floated harmlessly over the meadows and cornfields. At the end, the flag – red, white and blue – would burst forth on the ground as the All-American finale in the darkest of the dark summer nights. On cue, the cheers rolled out from the grandstand and the cars honked from the high ground and the people trundled up their lawn chairs and everybody headed for home.

Well, I live in San Francisco now, and I drive to Daly City with my son, Danny, to buy some anemic stuff in gaudy yellow and blue wrapping and I try unsuccessfully each year to get through the fog or the traffic to see the fireworks at Candlestick. But I feel better knowing that, back where I come from, everybody in town will be on their porches and on the backroads on the evening of the Fourth to watch the fireworks and that, somewhere in town, a little boy will put a big firecracker under a tin can on a wood porch, then light out for the lilacs behind the barn.

P.S. Our family moved in l965 from Daly City to a house in the West Portal area of San Francisco. There are, I assure you, few visible fireworks in that neighborhood. However, down where we work at the Guardian building at the bottom of Potrero Hill, the professional and amateur action is spectacular.

From the roof of the Guardian building at 135 Mississippi, and from any Potrero Hill height, you can see the fireworks in several directions: the waterfront fireworks in the city, fireworks on the Marin side of the Golden Gate bridge, fireworks at several points in the East Bay, fireworks along the Peninsula coast line.

And for the amateur action, parents with kids, kids of all ages, spectators in cars and on foot, congregate after dusk along Terry Francois Boulevard in San Francisco along the shoreline between the Giants ballpark and Kellys Mission Rock restaurant.

The action is informal but fiery and furious: cherry bombs, clusters, spinning wheels, high flying arcs, whizzers of all shapes and sizes. The cops are quite civilized and patrol the perimeter but don’t bother anybody. I go every year. I think it’s the best show in town. B3.

Cryptic cave wave

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
0
Cryptic cave wave

SOUND TO SPARE “What show are you here for?” asked what looked like a curious 10-year-old as I took care of business at the urinal. “I’m here to see Uzi Rash,” I answered matter-of-factly. But I wasn’t so sure he was curious about the bands by the way he stared at what makes it the men’s room. Apparently Oakland’s the New Parish (www.thenewparish.com) took the phrase “all ages show” to heart.

After that somewhat disturbing run-in, I settled into the bar excited for a night of firsts. It would be my first time at the venue, as well as my first time seeing openers Terry Malts. They were fine, but like I told the tiny Peeping Tom, I wanted to check out the East Bay’s Uzi Rash (www.myspace.com/uzirash). I hadn’t seen them since they did a memorable night of Monks’ covers on Halloween, where their performance included theatrical embellishments like shaved monk-like heads and makeshift robes.

This night’s scene was different. The onset of a rare heat wave was kicking in while the murky, cave-wave sounds of the mutable band — these days, a seven-piece stage outfit — took charge with a commanding and cacophonous presence. The Rash seems to be sitting on a backlog of sludgy, lo-fi treasure: current LP Palmwine Rumpus Vol. 2 (Party Ngg! Records) precedes a September release on Volar Records titled I Was 30 in 2012. Next month the band plans to start recording another full-length album, Whyte Rash Time — not a play on “white trash,” but a reference to the Monks’ Black Monk Time — which will hopefully see the light of day before the year’s end and they embark on a West Coast tour.

I caught up with Max Nordlie, the band’s toenail-painted, jorts-wearing guitarist and vocalist. He gave me a peek into his philosophy on degeneration and premonitions. (With song titles like “Bag of Dirt” and “I’m a Trashbag,” it’s tempting to see Uzi Rash as emblematic of the self-deprecating sounds I often notice oozing out of Oakland.)

Nordlie directly references 2012 as the year of the band’s apocalyptic demise, and explains how the Rash players were “born grown” four years ago. “The band sound was much more the same of itself than it could possibly be now,” Nordlie says cryptically, going on to cite a permanent need for regression. I hear that yearning for regression in the music — at times it reminds me of an unpolished version of Devo’s de-evolution.

That night, the ensemble’s delivery of what Nordlie calls “beach party squelch and shimmy” included electro-sax, keys, and cool-looking guitars. The band looked sort of like a low-budget version of Sly and the Family Stone: keyboardist Thee Whyte Bitch in her long white wig hammering out some discord and bassist Mateo Luv looking svelte in his long johns.

Their performance is raw and charged, and while the front man looks as if he’s working out some serious emotion, Nordlie assures me that he’s aiming at “getting it right” in an expressive sense — he just wants a playfully spirited “twist-and-shout-up.”

I asked Nordlie if the constant revolving door of musicians in the band dizzies him. “Stability, much like ability, is overrated,” he replied. “We seek to compensate for the traditional rock spectacle of ritual with monstrous unpredictability — even to ourselves,” he said, before quipping that the forthcoming Volar record is simultaneously “sophisticated and appalling.” That sounds like a great introduction to 2012, end times or no.

There will be a few more local opportunities to catch Uzi Rash this summer — most notably the 1-2-3-4 Go! Records 10-year anniversary show July 22 at Oakland Metro Operahouse (www.oaklandmetro.org) — before it goes on tour with Unnatural Helpers.

Music Listings

Maria Poblet
-
0

Music listings are compiled by Cheryl Eddy. Since club life is unpredictable, it’s a good idea to call ahead to confirm bookings and hours. Prices are listed when provided to us. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

WEDNESDAY 29

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Autumn Sky, Rabbit Quinn Hotel Utah. 8pm, $10.

Bell’s Roar, Quiet Coyote El Rio. 9pm, $5.

Burlap to Cashmere, Rob Drabkin Café Du Nord. 8pm, $10.

La Corde, Octant, Tender Frame Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Drift, Il Gato, Matinees Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.

Dropkick Murphys, Chuck Ragan, Parkington Sisters Warfield. 7:30pm, $32.

David Landon Biscuits and Blues. 8 and10pm, $15.

Lumps, Th Mrcy Hot Sprngs, Meat Packers Knockout. 10pm, $5.

Magical School Bus, Viking Moses, Assateague, Eriksen Goetz Kimo’s. 9pm, $6.

Vows, Rosa Grande, Cellar Doors Elbo Room. 9pm, $6.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Cat’s Corner with Nathan Dias and Christine Savanna Jazz. 9pm, $10.

Cosmo Alleycats Le Colonial, 20 Cosmo, SF; www.lecolonialsf.com. 7pm.

Dink Dink Dink, Gaucho, Michael Abraham Amnesia. 7pm, free.

“Guerrilla Cabaret” Martuni’s, 4 Valencia, SF; www.dragatmartunis.com. 7pm, $5. With Tom Shaw Trio.

Jazz organ party with Graham Connah Royal Cuckoo, 3202 Mission, SF; www.royalcuckoo.com. 7:30pm, free.

“Kim Nalley Sings Nina Simone” Rrazz Room. 8pm.

Ben Marcato and the Mondo Combo Top of the Mark. 7:30pm, $10.

Michael Parsons Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:30pm, free.

Quartet San Francisco Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $20.

DANCE CLUBS

Booty Call Q-Bar, 456 Castro, SF; www.bootycallwednesdays.com. 9pm. Juanita Moore hosts this dance party, featuring DJ Robot Hustle.

Buena Onda Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, free. Funk, swing, rare grooves, and more with Dr. Musco and guests.

Full-Step! Tunnel Top. 10pm, free. Hip-hop, reggae, soul, and funk with DJs Kung Fu Chris and Bizzi Wonda.

Mary Go Round, the New Generation Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; www.lookoutsf.com. 10pm, $5. Drag with Suppositori Spelling, Mercedez Munro, and Ginger Snap.

No Room For Squares Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 6-10pm, free. DJ Afrodite Shake spins jazz for happy hour.

 

THURSDAY 30

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

A B and the Sea, Young Digerati Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $10. With Popscene DJs.

Devil’s Own, Sweet Chariot, Gypsy Moonlight Band Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.

Bobby Joe Ebola and the Children MacNuggets, Dead Westerns, Reaction, Emily’s Army, Freedom Club Thee Parkside. 9:30pm, $8.

Emily Anne, Patsychords, Bye and Byes Café Du Nord. 8pm, $10.

Female Trouble, Laura Jean, Tomorrow Men El Rio. 8pm, $7.

Hashishen Knockout. 9:30pm.

Howlin Rain, Assemble Head in Sunburst Sound, Meg Baird Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $8.

Dom Kennedy, DJ Jack Slim’s. 8pm, $18.

Johnny Rawls Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

Sir Lord Von Raven, Apache, Warm Blood Amnesia. 9pm, $7-10.

Tubes Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $28.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Cosmo Alleycats with Ms. Emily Wade Adams Blondie’s, 540 Valencia, SF; (415) 864-2419. 9pm, free.

Dave Parker Quartet Purple Onion, 140 Columbus, SF; (415) 956-1653. 7:30-10:30pm, free.

Dave Scott Quartet Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:30pm, free.

“Kim Nalley Sings Nina Simone” Rrazz Room. 8pm.

Organsm featuring Jim Gunderson and “Tender” Tim Shea Bollyhood Café. 6:30-9pm, free.

Pink Martini with San Francisco Symphony Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness, SF; www.sfsymphony.org. 8pm, $20-115.

Savanna Jazz Jam Session Savanna Jazz. 7:30pm, $5.

Soul jazz party with Chris Siebert Royal Cuckoo, 3202 Mission, SF; www.royalcuckoo.com. 7:30pm, free.

Stompy Jones Top of the Mark. 7:30pm, $10.

DANCE CLUBS

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $5. DJs Pleasuremaker and Señor Oz spin Afrobeat, Tropicália, electro, samba, and funk.

Club Cornhole Stud. 9pm, $3.99. With DJ Phatima Unclear, DJ MF, Lady Bear, Broads, Joan Crawford’s Old Baguettes, and more.

Culture Corner Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; www.kokococktails.com. 10pm, free. Roots reggae, dub, rocksteady, and classic dancehall with DJ Tomas, Yusuke, Vinnie Esparza, and Basshaka and ILWF.

Guilty Pleasures Gestalt, 3159 16th St, SF; (415) 560-0137. 9:30pm, free. DJ TophZilla, Rob Metal, DJ Stef, and Disco-D spin punk, metal, electro-funk, and 80s.

1984 Mighty. 9pm, $2. The long-running New Wave and 80s party features video DJs Mark Andrus, Don Lynch, and celebrity guests.

Supersonic Bollyhood Café. 10pm, $5. Fly the friendly skies with SF’s Tasty Crew, spinning wold beats from the Balkans, Brazil, Colombia, and more.

Thursday Special Tralala Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 5pm, free. Downtempo, hip-hop, and freestyle beats by Dr. Musco and Unbroken Circle MCs.

Thursdays at the Cat Club Cat Club. 9pm, $6 (free before 9:30pm). Two dance floors bumpin’ with the best of 80s mainstream and underground with Dangerous Dan, Skip, Low Life, and guests.

Tropicana Madrone Art Bar. 9pm, free. Salsa, cumbia, reggaeton, and more with DJs Don Bustamante, Apocolypto, Sr. Saen, Santero, and Mr. E.

 

FRIDAY 1

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Battlehooch, Ghost and the City, Sun Hop Fat, Panhandlers Independent. 9pm, $13.

Grady Champion Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

Donkeys, He’s My Brother She’s My Sister, Red Pony Clock Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $8.

Giant Squid, Judgement Day, Cormorant Thee Parkside. 9pm, $8.

Group Doueh, Nick Waterhouse and the Tarots, Mark Gergis DJ set Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $14.

Scene of Action, Fighting the Villain, 5606, Hometown Bottom of the Hill. 9:30pm, $10.

Sonny and the Sunsets, Calvin Johnson, Sandwitches, Wounded Lion Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $13.

Stymie and the Pimp Jones Luv Orchestra, Gun and Doll Show, Last Men on Earth, Naked Fiction Café Du Nord. 8pm, $10.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Black Market Jazz Orchestra Top of the Mark. 9pm, $10.

“Kim Nalley Sings Nina Simone” Rrazz Room. 8pm.

Ottmar Liebert and Luna Negra Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $25-30.

Pink Martini with San Francisco Symphony Davies Symphony Hall, 201 Van Ness, SF; www.sfsymphony.org. 8pm, $20-115.

Soul jazz party with Jules Broussard and Chris Siebert Royal Cuckoo, 3202 Mission, SF; www.royalcuckoo.com. 7:30pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Afro Bao Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $5. Afro and world music with rotating DJs including Stepwise, Steve, Claude, Santero, and Elembe.

Derrick Carter Public Works, 161 Erie, SF; www.publicsf.com. 9:30pm, $10-15. With Honey Soundsystem DJs, Rouzbeh, Galen, and Chris Smith.

Duniya Dancehall Blue Macaw, 2565 Mission, SF; (415) 920-0577. 10pm, $10. With live performances by Duniya Drum and Dance Co. and DJs dub Snakr and Juan Data spinning bhangra, bollywood, dancehall, African, and more.

Haight Street Hop Milk. 10pm, $5. With DJs Tanoa Samoa Boy and Rockin’ Raul spinning vintage 45s, plus burlesque dancers and more.

Low End Theory 103 Harriet, SF; www.1015.com. 10pm, $15. With TOKiMONSTA, Death Grips, and Free the Robots.

Oldies Night Knockout. 9pm, $2-4. Doo-wop, one-hit wonders, soul, and more with DJs Primo, Daniel, and Lost Cat.

120 Minutes Elbo Room. 10pm. Witch house with DJs Whitch, Nako, and oOoOO.

Strangelove: Military Fashion Show Cat Club. 9:30pm, $3-7. Goth and industrial with DJs Tomas Diablo, Joe Radio, Orko, and Xander. Military or military fetish attire encouraged.

That 90s Dance Party DNA Lounge. 9pm, $7-9. Pop, rock, and alternative from the 90s with BaconMonkey, Omar, Sage, and Sparkle.

Vintage Orson, 508 Fourth St, SF; (415) 777-1508. 5:30-11pm, free. DJ TophOne and guest spin jazzy beats for cocktalians.

 

SATURDAY 2

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Animals and Men, Grass Widow, Rank/Xerox Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $10.

Attitude Adjustment, Psychosomatic, Zombie Holocaust, Abrupt Slim’s. 8:30pm, $13.

Coliseum, Futur Skullz, Blown to Bits, Pins of Light Thee Parkside. 9:30pm, $8.

Dominique Leone, Kapowski, Dinosaur Feathers Amnesia. 9pm, $7-10.

Lost Puppy Thee Parkside. 3pm, free.

Lumerians, Young Prisms, Bronze Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $13.

Le Panique, Shell Corporation, Survival Guide Café Du Nord. 9pm, $12.

Royal Baths, Nucular Animals, Psychic Feline, Dadfag Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.

Ty Segell, Audacity, Mikal Cronin, No Boss Independent. 9pm, $10.

Sweet Baby J’ai Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

“Fillmore Jazz Festival” Fillmore between Jackson and Eddy, SF; www.fillmorejazzfestival.com. 10am-6pm, free.

Jazz organ party with Graham Connah Royal Cuckoo, 3202 Mission, SF; www.royalcuckoo.com. 7:30pm, free.

“Kim Nalley Sings Nina Simone” Rrazz Room. 8pm.

Ottmar Liebert and Luna Negra Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $30.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

“Red, White, and Bluegrass” Music Store, 66 West Portal, SF; www.shelbyashpresents.com. 2-4pm, free. With Kemo Sabe and MilkDrive.

“Red, White, and Bluegrass” Plough and Stars. 9:30pm, $6-10. With Windy Hill and TED.

DANCE CLUBS

Afro Bao Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $5. Afro and world music with rotating DJs including Stepwise, Steve, Claude, Santero, and Elembe.

Bootie SF DNA Lounge. 9pm, $8-15. Mash-ups.

Debaser Knockout. 10pm, $5. Alternative dance party with Jamie Jams and Emdee spinning 90s music.

DJ Grandmaster Flash Yoshi’s San Francisco. 10:30pm, $20.

DJ MartyParty Public Works, 161 Erie, SF; www.publicsf.com. 10pm, $10-12.

Sanafrica Bollyhood Café. 9pm, $7-10. West African and Latin fusion party with Jose Luis, DJ Nado, and DJ Mignane.

Saturday Night Soul Party Elbo Room. 10pm, $10. Sixties soul with DJs Lucky, Phengren Oswald, and Paul Paul.

 

SUNDAY 3

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Blind Willies, Red Weather, Horny Brass Band Make-Out Room. 7:30pm, $8.

Neko Case, Dodos Sigmund Stern Grove, 19th Ave at Sloat, SF; www.sterngrove.org. 2pm, free.

Philistines, Truxton, Excuses for Skipping Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

Retro Electric Café Du Nord. 9pm, $10.

Th Mrcy Hot Sprngs, Blind Shake Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $7.

Andre Thierry and Zydeco Magic Knockout. 6-10pm, $8. With DJ Dr. Scott.

Twice As Good Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

“Fillmore Jazz Festival” Fillmore between Jackson and Eddy, SF; www.fillmorejazzfestival.com. 10am-6pm, free.

Jazz organ party with Lavay Smith and Chris Siebert Royal Cuckoo, 3202 Mission, SF; www.royalcuckoo.com. 7:30pm, free.

Kally Price Old Blues and Jazz Band, Emperor Norton’s Jazz Band Amnesia. 9pm, $5.

“Kim Nalley Sings Nina Simone” Rrazz Room. 7pm.

Ottmar Liebert and Luna Negra Yoshi’s San Francisco. 7 and 9pm, $25.

Tom Lander Duo Medjool, 2522 Mission, SF; www.medjoolsf.com. 6-9pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Batcave Cat Club. 10pm, $5. Death rock, goth, and post-punk with Steeplerot Necromos and c_death.

Boom DNA Lounge. 9pm, $12-15. House and hip-hop with Stanley Frank, Joshua J., Sidekick, and Juanita More, plus the Some Thing Drag Show.

Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $6. Dub, roots, and classic dancehall with Vinnie Esparza and Maneesh the Twister.

45 Club: 100 Yards of Funky Soul Records Knockout. 10pm, $2. Soul, funk, and more with Dirty Dishes, English Steve, and dX the Funky Gran Paw.

Ceremony City Nights, 715 Harrison, SF; www.sfclubs.com. 5pm-midnight, $40. With Moto Blanco, Jay Santos, and DJ Grind.

Jock Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; www.lookoutsf.com. 3pm, $2. Raise money for LGBT sports teams while enjoying DJs and drink specials.

La Pachanga Blue Macaw, 2565 Mission, SF; www.thebluemacawsf.com. 6pm, $10. Salsa dance party with live Afro-Cuban salsa bands.

 

MONDAY 4

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

“El Rio Big Time Freedom Festival” El Rio. 3:30pm, $8. With John Vanderslice, Low Red Land, Finn Figgins, Tartufi, Whisperlights, and Walking In Sunlight.

DANCE CLUBS

Death Guild DNA Lounge. 9:30pm, $3-5. Gothic, industrial, and synthpop with Joe Radio, Decay, and Melting Girl. This week: wear a kilt or plaid skirt and get in free.

M.O.M. Madrone Art Bar. 6pm, free. DJs Timoteo Gigante, Gordo Cabeza, and Chris Phlek playing all Motown every Monday.

Recovery: 4th of July Edition Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; www.lookoutsf.com. 3-8pm, free. Hostess Pollo Del Mar serves “jello injectors” as DJ Guy Ruben spins.

Sausage Party Rosamunde Sausage Grill, 2832 Mission, SF; (415) 970-9015. 6:30-9:30pm, free. DJ Dandy Dixon spins vintage rock, R&B, global beats, funk, and disco at this happy hour sausage-shack gig.

 

TUESDAY 5

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Horsefly, Kate Fiano El Rio. 7pm, free.

Ted Nugent, Brent James and the ContraBand Independent. 8pm, $55.

Paul Collins Beat, King Lollipop, Garbo’s Daughter, DJ Shindog Thee Parkside. 8pm, $8.

Religious Girls, Zorch, Primary Colors Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

J-Roddy Walston and the Business, Maxim Ludwig and the Santa Fe Seven Café Du Nord. 8pm, $12.

 

Film Listings

Maria Poblet
-
0

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

OPENING

Happy Happy, a documentary by Roko Belic (1999’s Genghis Blues), traces the contented lifestyles of men and women around the globe. Manoj Singh is a Kolkata rickshaw driver sustained by his son’s smile. Anne Bechsgaard’s life is enriched by her co-housing community in Denmark. These soothingly sentimental profiles are intercut with commentary from leading neuroscientists and psychologists. They provide a cursory guide to the rare balancing act that is happiness in the 21st century. A brisk 75 minutes, the film is saturated with thought-provoking tidbits (the Bhutan government aims for gross national happiness instead of GDP) and an ambient backing track that’s heavy on the chimes. However, sometimes there’s the sense that these mechanics of happiness aren’t cinematically compelling enough, and that rifling through a couple Wikipedia pages might offer just as much insight. At its best, Happy sparks a reflection on how many of the unofficial criteria for joy one has fulfilled, and suggests ideas for simple happiness boosters. (1:15) Roxie. (David Getman)

Larry Crowne A recently unemployed man (Tom Hanks, who also co-wrote and directs the film) starts attending college, where he promptly becomes hot for teacher (Julia Roberts). (1:39) Four Star, Piedmont, Presidio, Shattuck.

Monte Carlo Selena Gomez, Leighton Meester, and Katie Cassidy play friends who fake their way to an awesome European vacation. (1:48)

Mr. Nice By the second hour of Mr. Nice, star Rhys Ifans and company have exhausted every possible pot smoking flourish. There’s the seductive French inhale by the pool, the suggestive mouth to mouth, the euphoric dragon release in the deserts of Pakistan: all rendered in extreme close-up with improbably thick plumes of white smoke. Mr. Nice is mostly sexy drug use tutorial, though it’s also part biography of real-life drug smuggler Howard Marks. His claim to fame — at least according to the movie’s tagline — is the sheer number of aliases, phone lines, and children he had (43, 89, and 4, respectively). Unexpectedly, it’s the period costuming, cinematography, and the enchanting listlessness of Chloe Sevigny that redeem the film. Mr. Nice is captivatingly interlaced with vintage news and scenery clips from the period and it’s shot in a way that is both hyper-stylized and erratic. Those twists and turns of Marks’s life turn out to be not nearly as suspenseful onscreen as they should be, making the movie less of a traditional drug thriller and more of a mildly interesting reflection on the culture of the period. (2:01) Lumiere, Shattuck. (Getman)

*Page One: Inside the New York Times When Andrew Rossi’s documentary premiered at Sundance this January, word of mouth on it was respectable but qualified, with nearly everyone opining that it was good … just not what they’d been led to expect. What they expected was (in line with the original subtitle A Year Inside the New York Times) a top-to-bottom overview of how the nation’s most respected — and in some circles resented — arbiter of news, “style,” and culture is created on a day-to-day as well as longer term basis. That’s something that would doubtless fascinate anyone still interested in print media, or even that realm of web media not catering to the ADD nation. But that big picture and the wealth of minute cogs within isn’t Page One‘s subject. Instead, Rossi focuses on the Gray Lady’s wrestling with admittedly fast-changing times in which newspapers and any other information source on paper seem to constitute an endangered species. This particular Times, however, is such a special case that that crisis might better have been explored by training a camera on a less fabled publication, perhaps one of the many that have succumbed to a once unthinkable, market-shrunk mortality in recent years. The film finds its colorful protagonist in David Carr, an ex-crack addict turned media columnist who retains his cranky, nonconformist edge even as he defends the Times itself from the same out-with-the-old cheerleaders who 15 years ago were inflating the dot-com boom till it burst. Facing one particularly smug champion of the blogosphere at a forum, Carr notes that without a few remaining outlets — like the Times — doing the hard work of serious research and reportage, the web would have nothing to purloin or offer but its own unending trivia and gossip. Page One does what it does entertainingly well, but if you’re looking for insight toward this not-dead-yet U.S. institution as a whole, you’d be better off simply picking up this week’s Sunday edition and reading every last word. (1:28) Bridge, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

Transformers: Dark of the Moon Just wondering how Michael Bay could possibly improve on the previous film’s robot balls. (2:34) Presidio.


ONGOING

The Art of Getting By The Art of Getting By is all about those confusing, mixed-up and apparently sexually frustrating months before high school graduation. George (Freddie Highmore) is a trench coat-wearing misanthrope — an old soul, as they say — whose parents and teachers are always trying to put him inside a box and tell him how to think. He finds a kindred sprit in Sally (Emma Roberts) who smokes and watches Louis Malle films. Hot. Heavily scored by the now-ancient songs of early ’00s blog bands, it may all sound like indie bullshit but this one has charm and wit despite its post-trend package. Like a sad little crayon, Highmore is a competent Michael Cera surrogate du jour. Writer-director Gavin Wiesen embraces hell of clichés, but he suitably sums up a generational angst along the way. The film may not always feel real, but it does have real feeling. Look out for great performances from Blair Underwood and Alicia Silverstone. (1:24) Sundance Kabuki. (Ryan Lattanzio)

Bad Teacher Jake Kasdan, the once-talented director of a few Freaks and Geeks episodes and 2002’s underrated Orange County, seems hell-bent on humiliating everyone in the cast of Bad Teacher. Cameron Diaz is Elizabeth, the title’s criminally bad pedagogue who prefers the Jack Daniels method to the Socratic. Her impetus for pounding Harper Lee into her middle school students’ bug-eyed little heads is to cash in on a bonus check to fund her breast-y ambitions and woo Justin Timberlake and his baby voice. The only likable onscreen presence is Jason Segal as a sad sack gym teacher in love with Elizabeth. But he could do so much better. There’s no shortage of racist jokes and potty humor in this R-rated comedy pandering to those 17 and below. When asked if she wants to go out with her coworkers, Elizabeth ripostes, “I’d rather get shot in the face!” That scenario is likely a better alternative than suffering this steaming pile of cash cow carcass. (1:29) Marina, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck, SF Center. (Lattanzio)

*Beginners There is nothing conventional about Beginners, a film that starts off with the funeral arrangements for one of its central characters. That man is Hal (Christopher Plummer), who came out to his son Oliver (Ewan McGregor) at the ripe age of 75. Through flashbacks, we see the relationship play out — Oliver’s inability to commit tempered by his father’s tremendous late-stage passion for life. Hal himself is a rare character: an elderly gay man, secure in his sexuality and, by his own admission, horny. He even has a much younger boyfriend, played by the handsome Goran Visnjic. While the father-son bond is the heart of Beginners, we also see the charming development of a relationship between Oliver and French actor Anna (Mélanie Laurent). It all comes together beautifully in a film that is bittersweet but ultimately satisfying. Beginners deserves praise not only for telling a story too often left untold, but for doing so with grace and a refreshing sense of whimsy. (1:44) Embarcadero, Piedmont, Sundance Kabuki. (Peitzman)

*Bill Cunningham New York To say that Bill Cunningham, the 82-year old New York Times photographer, has made documenting how New Yorkers dress his life’s work would be an understatement. To be sure, Cunningham’s two decades-old Sunday Times columns — “On the Street,” which tracks street-fashion, and “Evening Hours,” which covers the charity gala circuit — are about the clothes. And, my, what clothes they are. But Cunningham is a sartorial anthropologist, and his pictures always tell the bigger story behind the changing hemlines, which socialite wore what designer, or the latest trend in footwear. Whether tracking the near-infinite variations of a particular hue, a sudden bumper-crop of cropped blazers, or the fanciful leaps of well-heeled pedestrians dodging February slush puddles, Cunningham’s talent lies in his ability to recognize fleeting moments of beauty, creativity, humor, and joy. That last quality courses through Bill Cunningham New York, Richard Press’ captivating and moving portrait of a man whose reticence and personal asceticism are proportional to his total devotion to documenting what Harold Koda, chief curator at the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, describes in the film as “ordinary people going about their lives, dressed in fascinating ways.” (1:24) Opera Plaza. (Sussman)

Bride Flight Who doesn’t love a sweeping Dutch period piece? Ben Sombogaart’s Bride Flight is pure melodrama soup, enough to give even the most devout arthouse-goer the bloats. Emigrating from post-World War II Holland to New Zealand with two gal pals, the sweetly staid Ada (Karina Smulders) falls for smarm-ball Frank (Waldemar Torenstra, the Dutchman’s James Franco) and kind of joins the mile high club to the behest of her conscience. The women arrive with emotional baggage and carry-ons of the uterine kind. As the harem adjusts to the country mores of the Highlands, Frank tries a poke at all of them in a series of sex scenes more moldy than smoldery. This Flight, set to a plodding score and stuffy mise-en-scene, never quite leaves the runway. Not to mention the whole picture, pale as a corpse, resembles one of those old-timey photographs of your great grandma’s wedding. These kinds of pastoral romances ought to be put out to, well, pasture. (2:10) Opera Plaza. (Lattanzio)

*Bridesmaids For anyone burned out on bad romantic comedies, Bridesmaids can teach you how to love again. This film is an answer to those who have lamented the lack of strong female roles in comedy, of good vehicles for Saturday Night Live cast members, of an appropriate showcase for Melissa McCarthy. The hilarious but grounded Kristen Wiig stars as Annie, whose best friend Lillian (Maya Rudolph) is getting hitched. Financially and romantically unstable, Annie tries to throw herself into her maid of honor duties — all while competing with the far more refined Helen (Rose Byrne). Bridesmaids is one of the best comedies in recent memory, treating its relatable female characters with sympathy. It’s also damn funny from start to finish, which is more than can be said for most of the comedies Hollywood continues to churn out. Here’s your choice: let Bridesmaids work its charm on you, or never allow yourself to complain about an Adam Sandler flick again. (2:04) Marina, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Peitzman)

Buck This documentary paints a portrait of horse trainer Buck Brannaman as a sort of modern-day sage, a sentimental cowboy who helps “horses with people problems.” Brannaman has transcended a background of hardship and abuse to become a happy family man who makes a difference for horses and their owners all over the country with his unconventional, humane colt-starting clinics. Though he doesn’t actually whisper to horses, he served as an advisor and inspiration for Robert Redford’s The Horse Whisperer (1998). Director Cindy Meehl focuses generously on her saintly subject’s bits of wisdom in and out of a horse-training setting — e.g. “Everything you do with a horse is a dance” — as well as heartfelt commentary from friends and colleagues. In the harrowing final act of the film, Brannaman deals with a particularly unruly horse and his troubled owner, highlighting the dire and disturbing consequences of improper horse rearing. (1:28) Embarcadero, Shattuck, Smith Rafael, Sundance Kabuki. (Sam Stander)

Cars 2 You pretty much can’t say a bad thing about a Pixar film. Cars 2 is by no means Ratatouille (2007) or Wall-E (2008), but the sequel to the 2006 hit Cars offers plenty of sleek visuals and one-note gags under its hollow hood. If nothing else, Pixar seems to have overcome the dingy, dark glaze that plagues 3-D films. Directors John Lasseter and Joe Ranft return to beloved autos Lightning McQueen (Owen Wilson) and the “extremely American” Mater (Larry the Cable Guy). This time around, secret agents Finn McMissile (Michael Caine) and Holley Shiftwell (Emily Mortimer) come along for the ride while working to expose sabotage in the alternative fuel industry. Compelling chase sequences, explosions and more than a few jabs at cultural stereotypes follow suit. This is the lightest, silliest Pixar film to date, but you probably don’t have any business seeing it unless you’ve got a kid in tow. (1:52) Balboa, Empire, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Lattanzio)

*Cave of Forgotten Dreams The latest documentary from Werner Herzog once again goes where no filmmaker — or many human beings, for that matter — has gone before: the Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc Cave, a heavily-guarded cavern in Southern France containing the oldest prehistoric artwork on record. Access is highly restricted, but Herzog’s 3D study is surely the next best thing to an in-person visit. The eerie beauty of the works leads to a typically Herzog-ian quest to learn more about the primitive culture that produced the paintings; as usual, Herzog’s experts have their own quirks (like a circus performer-turned-scientist), and the director’s own wry narration is peppered with random pop culture references and existential ponderings. It’s all interwoven with footage of crude yet beautiful renderings of horses and rhinos, calcified cave-bear skulls, and other time-capsule peeks at life tens of thousands of years ago. The end result is awe-inspiring. (1:35) SF Center, Shattuck. (Eddy)

Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop seems less of a movie title and more like a hushed comment shared between one of the many hangers-on during the filming of the “Legally Prohibited From Being Funny On Television Tour.” Throughout 23 cities’ worth of footage, O’Brien seethes, paces, sweats, yells and beats dead jokes so hard that they spring back to life, as he is wont to do. At this point, the Leno/Coco drama is a bit stale — at least in internet time — but the documentary is a fascinating comedian character study nonetheless. It may be hard to sympathize with a man nursing a bruised ego as he cashes a $45 million dollar check, but it’s easy to see that he’s one of the best late night hosts (temporarily off) the air. Split primarily between clips of O’Brien performing songs on stage with a myriad of celebrity guests and bemoaning how exhausted and frustrated he is, Can’t Stop derives most of its hilarity from the off-the-cuff comments that pepper Conan’s everyday conversations. (1:29) Lumiere, Shattuck. (Getman)

*The Double Hour Slovenian hotel maid Sonia (Ksenia Rappoport) and security guard Guido (Filippo Timi) are two lonely people in the Italian city of Turin. They find one another (via a speed-dating service) and things are seriously looking up for the fledgling couple when calamity strikes. This first feature by music video director Giuseppe Capotondi takes a spare, somber approach to a screenplay (by Alessandro Fabbri, Ludovica Rampoldi, and Stefano Sardo) that strikingly keeps raising, then resisting genre categorization. Suffice it to say their story goes from lonely-hearts romance to violent thriller, ghost story, criminal intrigue, and yet more. It doesn’t all work seamlessly, but such narrative unpredictability is so rare at the movies these days that The Double Hour is worth seeing simply for the satisfying feeling of never being sure where it’s headed. (1:35) Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

Empire of Silver Love, not money, is at the core of Empire of Silver — that’s the M.O. of a Shanxi banking family’s libertine third son, or “Third Master” (Aaron Kwok) in this epic tug-of-war between Confucian duty and free will. The Third Master pines for his true love, his stepmother (Hao Lei), yet change is going off all around the star-crossed couple in China at the end of the 19th century and the start of the 20th, and the youthful scion ends up pouring his passion into the family business, attempting to tread his own path, apart from his Machiavellian father (Tielin Zhang). Much like her protagonist, however, director (and Stanford alum) Christina Yao seems more besotted with romance than finance, bathing those scenes with the love light and sensual hues reminiscent of Zhang Yimou’s early movies. Though Yao handles the widescreen crowd scenes with aplomb, her chosen focus on money, rather than honey, leaches the action of its emotional charge. It doesn’t help that, on the heels of the Great Recession, it’s unlikely that anyone buys the idea of a financial industry with ironclad integrity — or gives a flying yuan about the lives of bankers. (1:52) Four Star. (Chun)

Green Lantern This latest DC Comics-to-film adaptation fails to recognize the line between awesome fantasy-action and cheeseball absurdity, often resembling the worst excesses of the Christopher Reeve Superman movies. A surprisingly palatable Ryan Reynolds stars as Hal Jordan, the cocky test pilot who is chosen to wield a power ring as a member of an intergalactic police force called the Green Lantern Corps. He must face down Parallax, an alien embodiment of fear, who appears here as a chuckle-inducing floating head surrounded by tentacles. Peter Sarsgaard is effectively nauseating as Hector Hammond, who becomes Parallax’s crony after he is transformed by a transfusion of fear energy. The acting is all over the map, with Blake Lively’s blank-faced love interest caricature as the weakest link, and the effects are hit-or-miss, but scenes featuring alien Green Lanterns should please fans, and you could probably do worse if you’re looking for an entertaining popcorn flick. (1:45) 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Stander)

The Hangover Part II What do you do with a problematic mess like Hangover Part II? I was a fan of The Hangover (2009), as well as director-cowriter Todd Phillips’ 1994 GG Allin doc, Hated, so I was rooting for II, this time set in the East’s Sin City of Bangkok, while simultaneously dreading the inevitable Asian/”ching-chang-chong” jokes. Would this would-be hit sequel be funnier if they packed in more of those? Doubtful. The problem is that most of II‘s so-called humor, Asian or no, falls completely flat — and any gross-out yuks regarding wicked, wicked Bangkok are fairly old hat at this point, long after Shocking Asia (1976) and innumerable episodes of No Reservations and other extreme travel offerings. This Hangover around, mild-ish dentist Stu (Ed Helms) is heading to the altar with Lauren (The Real World: San Diego‘s Jamie Chung), with buds Phil (Bradley Cooper) and Doug (Justin Bartha) in tow. Alan (Zach Galifianakis) has completely broken with reality — he’s the pity invite who somehow ropes in the gangster wild-card Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong). Blackouts, natch, and not-very-funny high jinks ensue, with Jeong, surprisingly, pulling small sections of II out of the crapper. Phillips obviously specializes in men-behaving-badly, but II‘s most recent character tweaks, turning Phil into an arrogant, delusional creep and Alan into an arrogant, delusional kook, seem beside the point. Because almost none of the jokes work, and that includes the tired jabs at tranny strippers because we all know how supposedly straight white guys get hella grossed out by brown chicks with dicks. Lame. (1:42) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Chun)

Kung Fu Panda 2 The affable affirmations of 2008’s Kung Fu Panda take a back seat to relentlessly elaborate, gag-filled action sequences in this DreamWorks Animation sequel, which ought to satisfy kids but not entertain their parents as much as its predecessor. Po (voiced by Jack Black), the overeating panda and ordained Dragon Warrior of the title, joins forces with a cavalcade of other sparring wildlife to battle Lord Shen (Gary Oldman), a petulant peacock whose arsenal of cannons threatens to overwhelm kung fu. But Shen is also part of Po’s hazy past, so the panda’s quest to save China is also a quest for self-fulfillment and “inner peace.” There’s less character development in this installment, though the growing friendship between Po and the “hardcore” Tigress (Angelina Jolie) is occasionally touching. The 3-D visuals are rarely more than a gimmick, save for a series of eye-catching flashbacks in the style of cel-shaded animation. (1:30) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Stander)

*Making the Boys In 1968 The Boys in the Band revolutionized Broadway and opened a lot of minds by being a hit play (and film) about NYC homosexuals. Yet on the cusp of “Gay Liberation” and for many years thereafter, much of the actual gay community hugely objected to author Mart Crowley’s fictive portrait of its ‘mos as insular, shallow, classist, bitchy, and guilt-ridden. It was (as interviewee Edward Albee notes here) a picture ideally suited to straight Broadway audiences who lined up to see queers rendered pitiful if still identifiably human. Crayton Robey’s absorbing documentary chronicles the bumpy road of Boys and its creators — Crowley never had another hit, floundering until he moved into TV series scripting. The cast of the 1970 movie version, directed by William Friedkin (one year before The French Connection, followed by The Exorcist), saw their big break turn into a virtual industry blacklisting. Exceptions were unimpeachably heterosexual thespians Laurence Luckinbill and Cliff Gorman, who only “played” gay. This engrossing document recalls a work that trailblazed, was rejected as politically correct, then re embraced as an important touchstone in gay visibility and self-empowerment. (1:33) Roxie. (Harvey)

Midnight in Paris Owen Wilson plays Gil, a self-confessed “Hollywood hack” visiting the City of Light with his conservative future in-laws and crassly materialistic fiancée Inez (Rachel McAdams). A romantic obviously at odds with their selfish pragmatism (somehow he hasn’t realized that yet), he’s in love with Paris and particularly its fabled artistic past. Walking back to his hotel alone one night, he’s beckoned into an antique vehicle and finds himself transported to the 1920s, at every turn meeting the Fitzgeralds, Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates), Dali (Adrien Brody), etc. He also meets Adriana (Marion Cotillard), a woman alluring enough to be fought over by Hemingway (Corey Stoll) and Picasso (Marcial di Fonzo Bo) — though she fancies aspiring literary novelist Gil. Woody Allen’s latest is a pleasant trifle, no more, no less. Its toying with a form of magical escapism from the dreary present recalls The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), albeit without that film’s greater structural ingeniousness and considerable heart. None of the actors are at their best, though Cotillard is indeed beguiling and Wilson dithers charmingly as usual. Still — it’s pleasant. (1:34) Albany, Balboa, Embarcadero, 1000 Van Ness, Piedmont, Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

Mr. Popper’s Penguins (1:35) 1000 Van Ness.

*My Perestroika Robin Hessman’s very engaging documentary takes one very relatable look at how changes since glasnost have affected some average Russians. The subjects here are five thirtysomethings who, growing up in Moscow in the 70s and 80s, were the last generation to experience full-on Communist Party indoctrination. But just as they reached adulthood, the whole system dissolved, confusing long-held beliefs and variably impacting their futures. Andrei has ridden the capitalist choo-choo to considerable enrichment as the proprietor of luxury Western menswear shops. But single mother Olga, unlucky in love, just scrapes by, while married schoolteachers Lyuba and Boris are lucky to have inherited an apartment (cramped as it is) they could otherwise ill afford. Meanwhile Ruslan, once member of a famous punk band (which he abandoned on principal because it was getting “too commercial”), both disdains and resents the new order just as he did the old one. Home movies and old footage of pageantry celebrating Soviet socialist glory make a whole ‘nother era come to life in this intimate, unexpectedly charming portrait of its long-term aftermath. (1:27) Balboa. (Harvey)

Submarine (1:37) Opera Plaza.

*Super 8 The latest from J.J. Abrams is very conspicuously produced by Steven Spielberg; it evokes 1982’s E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial as well as 1985’s The Goonies and 1982’s Poltergeist (so Spielbergian in nature you’d be forgiven for assuming he directed, rather than simply produced, the pair). But having Grandpa Stevie blessing your flick is surely a good thing, especially when you’re already as capable as Abrams. Super 8 is set in 1979, high time for its titular medium, used by a group of horror movie-loving kids to film their backyard zombie epic; later in the film, old-school celluloid reveals the mystery behind exactly what escaped following a spectacular train wreck on the edge of their small Ohio town. The PG-13 Super 8 aims to frighten, albeit gently; there’s a lot of nostalgia afoot, and things do veer into sappiness at the end (that, plus the band of kids at its center, evoke the trademarks of another Grandpa Stevie: Stephen King). But the kid actors (especially the much-vaunted Elle Fanning) are great, and there’s palpable imagination and atmosphere afoot, rare qualities in blockbusters today. Super 8 tries, and mostly succeeds, in progressing the fears and themes addressed by E.T. (divorce, loneliness, growing up) into century 21, making the unknowns darker and the consequences more dire. (1:52) California, Empire, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio. (Eddy)

*13 Assassins 13 Assassins is clearly destined to be prolific director Takashi Miike’s greatest success outside Japan yet. It’s another departure for the multi-genre-conquering Miike, doubtless one of the most conventional movies he’s made in theme and execution. That’s key to its appeal — rigorously traditional, taking its sweet time getting to samurai action that is pointedly not heightened by wire work or CGI, it arrives at the kind of slam-dunk prolonged battle climax that only a measured buildup can let you properly appreciate. In the 1840s, samurai are in decline but feudalism is still hale. It’s a time of peace, though not for the unfortunates who live under regional tyrant Lord Naritsugu (Goro Inagaki), a li’l Nippon Caligula who taxes and oppresses his people to the point of starvation. Alas, the current Shogun is his sibling, and plans to make little bro his chief adviser — so a concerned Shogun official secretly hires veteran samurai Shinzaemon (Koji Yakusho) to assassinate the Lord. Fully an hour is spent on our hero doing “assembling the team” stuff, recruiting other unemployed, retired, or wannabe samurai. When the protagonists finally commence their mission, their target is already aware he’s being pursued, and he’s surrounded by some 200 soldiers by the time Miike arrives at the film’s sustained, spectacular climax: a small village which Shinzaemon and co. have turned into a giant boobytrap so that 13 men can divide and destroy an ogre-guarding army. A major reason why mainstream Hollywood fantasy and straight action movies have gotten so depressingly interchangeable is that digital FX and stunt work can (and does) visualize any stupid idea — heroes who get thrown 200 feet into walls by monsters then getting up to fight some more, etc. 13 Assassins is thrilling because its action, while sporting against-the-odds ingeniousness and sheer luck by our heroes as in any trad genre film, is still vividly, bloodily, credibly physical. (2:06) Four Star, Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Harvey)

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

*The Trip Eclectic British director Michael Winterbottom rebounds from sexually humiliating Jessica Alba in last year’s flop The Killer Inside Me to humiliating Steve Coogan in all number of ways (this time to positive effect) in this largely improvised comic romp through England’s Lake District. Well, romp might be the wrong descriptive — dubbed a “foodie Sideways” but more plaintive and less formulaic than that sun-dappled California affair, this TV-to-film adaptation displays a characteristic English glumness to surprisingly keen emotional effect. Playing himself, Coogan displays all the carefree joie de vivre of a colonoscopy patient with hemorrhoids as he sloshes through the gray northern landscape trying to get cell reception when not dining on haute cuisine or being wracked with self-doubt over his stalled movie career and love life. Throw in a happily married, happy-go-lucky frenemy (comic actor Rob Brydon) and Coogan (TV’s I’m Alan Partridge), can’t help but seem like a pathetic middle-aged prick in a puffy coat. Somehow, though, his confused narcissism is a perverse panacea. Come for the dueling Michael Caine impressions and snot martinis, stay for the scallops and Brydon’s “small man in a box” routine. (1:52) Albany, Clay, Smith Rafael. (Devereaux)

*Trollhunter Yes, The Troll Hunter riffs off The Blair Witch Project (1999) with both whimsy and, um, rabidity. Yes, you may gawk at its humongoid, anatomically correct, three-headed trolls, never to be mistaken for grotesquely cute rubber dolls, Orcs, or garden gnomes again. Yes, you may not believe, but you will find this lampoon of reality TV-style journalism, and an affectionate jab at Norway’s favorite mythical creature, very entertaining. Told that a series of strange attacks could be chalked up to marauding bears, three college students (Glenn Erland Tosterud, Tomas Alf Larsen, and Johanna Morck) strap on their gumshoes and choose instead to pursue a mysterious poacher Hans (Otto Jespersen) who repeatedly rebuffs their interview attempts. Little did the young folk realize that their late-night excursions following the hunter into the woods would lead at least one of them to rue his or her christening day. Ornamenting his yarn with beauty shots of majestic mountains, fjords, and waterfalls, Norwegian director-writer André Ovredal takes the viewer beyond horror-fantasy — handheld camera at the ready — and into a semi-goofy wilderness of dark comedy, populated by rock-eating, fart-blowing trolls and overshadowed by a Scandinavian government cover-up sorta-worthy of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009). (1:30) Lumiere. (Chun)

*X-Men: First Class Cynics might see this prequel as pandering to a more tweeny demographic, and certainly there are so many ways it could have gone terribly wrong, in an infantile, way-too-cute X-Babies kinda way. But despite some overly choppy edits that shortchange brief moments of narrative clarity, X-Men: First Class gets high marks for its fairly first-class, compelling acting — specifically from Michael Fassbender as the enraged, angst-ridden Magneto and James McAvoy as the idealistic, humanist Charles Xavier. Of course, the celebrated X-Men tale itself plays a major part: the origin story of Magneto, a.k.a. Erik Lehnsherr, a Holocaust survivor, is given added heft with a few tweaks: here, in an echo of Fassbender’s turn in Inglourious Basterds (2009), his master of metal draws on his bottomless rage to ruthlessly destroy the Nazis who used him as a lab rat in experiments to build a master race. The last on his list is the energy-wrangling Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon), who’s set up a sweet Bond-like scenario, protected by super-serious bikini-vixen Emma Frost (January Jones). The complications are that Erik doesn’t ultimately differ from his Frankensteins — he pushes mutant power to the detriment of those puny, bigoted humans — and his unexpected collaborator and friend is Xavier, the privileged, highly psychic scion who hopes to broker an understanding between mutants and human and use mutant talent to peaceful ends. Together, they can move mountains—or at least satellite dishes and submarines. Jennifer Lawrence as Raven/Mystique and Nicholas Hoult as Hank McCoy/Beast fill out the cast, voicing those eternal X-Men dualities — preserving difference vs. conformity, intoxicating power vs. reasoned discipline. All core superhero concerns, as well as teen identity issues — given a fresh charge. (2:20) 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

 

PRIDE TOP 5: Horse Meat Disco

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
-
1
PRIDE TOP 5: Horse Meat Disco

Magical UK disco foursome Horse Meat Disco (the four horsemen of the discopocalypse?) are joining House of Stank at Juanita More’s super-kiki Pride party on Sunday — and hottie Jim Stanton from the quartet has gifted us with his Pride Top 5. Get ready to twirl, because there’s also a hot-hot Horsemeat minimix after the jump, celebrating the upcoming July 4 release of their third compilation disc, Horsemeat III (holy mirrorballs, Duck Man, just check out this track list). Get into it.

Macho, “I’m a Man” (Prelude), 1978
Macho is a proper disco song that reminds me of San Francisco because of the leather scene. It is sooo gay and hard! Perfect for that “dark room” action. Haha!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-VbLB4UEFvw

Locussolus, “I Want It  (Prins Tomas Remix)” (International Feel/UK), 2011
Prins Tomas turns DJ Harvey’s celebrated epic club track into a funky Dr Buzzard’s Original Savannah Band-style work out for our new disco generation. BIG!

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3EDtfBDSWug


Ava Cherry, “You Never Loved Me” (RSO), 1980
EVERYTHING you want from  a disco track jam-packed into 8 minutes. Bitterness, heartache and regret? Check! Searing strings? Check! Brass section to die for? Check! And that trippy break HIT!!!

 

Run Baby Run, “Let No Man Put Asunder (Ron Hardy Edit)” (Salsoul), 1983
I love the original a lot, BUT I like Ron Hardy’s “raw” side! A proper Chicago legend. I edit this to another level. Soo ENERGETIC!!!Always in my set.


Paul Parker, Right On Target (Megatone), 1982
A muscular slab of energetic and frisky true San Francisco. Non-stop heavy action from Patrick Cowley the godfather of hi-NRG.

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

And check out this minimix!!

 

<< <Horse Meat Disco III Mini-Mix by Strut

Hot sexy events: June 22-28

Andrew Lam
-
0
Hot sexy events: June 22-28

Apparently we got everyone a little too hot and bothered with our bike messenger sex post a few weeks back — the bicycle coitus backlash has already begun!

This news from LA, where the super fly Midnight Ridazz ride ran into some complications in the form of a drunk, cell phone-using driver smashing into a group stopped on the side of a road, injuring 11 cyclists. The police were quick to point fingers — at the cyclists. After all, “alcohol, condoms, and marijuana” were found near the scene of the crime, as ABC Channel 7 reported. Clearly, the Ridazz were gearing up (ha!) for a late night bike orgy. You know how that saddle friction gets everyone all randy.

LAPD did offer this PSA-type release, which I suppose is intended to act as a mea culpa for being all sassy about adult beverages, smoking weed, and safe sex? At any rate, “bike orgy” should surely be the SF Bike Party’s next theme ride. And now onto sex events for Pride Week! 

 

Oh!

Dirty young gentlemen, be aware: you’re not to miss this grimy-beated, well-meated party time at SF’s cruisey queer watering hole. Details? Write the story yourself — all we can tell you is that DJs Taco Tuesday and Guy Ruben will be getting the soundtrack hot like a skin flick. 

Wed/22 10 p.m.-2 a.m., $5

Powerhouse

1347 Folsom, SF

www.powerhouse-sf.com

 

“Heart/Hand/Art: Erotic Moments from San Francisco’s Lesbian Underground”

In a recent SF Station interview, Phyllis Christopher insists she “never, never wanted to shock people. I was having these amazing experiences and I wanted to talk about it.” Surely shocking is not the right word for Christopher’s florid shots of women in the throes of passion — titty grabbing, peeking out between fishnetted leg passion — we only flash on “sexy.” But Christopher’s intent was to document the lives of San Francisco lesbians. The erotica she captured is gorgeous — a flattering portrayal of women loving women in the City by the Bay. 

Thurs/23 6-8 p.m., free

Good Vibrations

1620 Polk, SF

(415) 345-0500

www.goodvibes.com

 

Lexington Club Pride weekend

Let’s be honest, it’s a rat race trying to name your Pride parties with the sluttiest monikers in the city — there’s just too much competition out there. But the Lex surely has a leg way up, if there is such a contest. Honestly, it wins based on sheer quantity: Thursday dances out with “DTF,” Friday flirts hard with “No Strings Attached,” on Saturday you can “Tap That,” and Sunday’s climax (after a super-slutty brunch party — oh, and the official Pride blowout, of course) is “Hit It and Quit It.” Straddle you a lady lez and get down — just don’t spill that Pabst on her cut-offs unless you’re trying to lick it off. 

Thurs/23-Sun/26, free

Lexington Club

3464 19th St., SF

(415) 863-2052

www.lexingtonclub.com

 

Mr. Kok Kontest

Kok Bar’s keeping it hard and slutty for you all weekend, but the new kid on the Folsom block has some extra special for you planned for Saturday night: a contest to see who has the biggest dick — though wait, isn’t that the point of Pride Week itself? Anyways, it’s been formalized here, so pack your binoculars, not much else, and head down.

Sat/25, free before 10 p.m., $4 afterwards

Kok Bar

1225 Folsom, SF

www.kokbarsf.com

 

Pansexual Pride Party

Cap off your Pride celebrations (or gear up for Sunday night) at the Citadel’s all-inclusive dungeon play party. Featured will be a demonstration by Mr. SF Citadel 2011 on how to successfully dominate a bottom twice your size. The website promises that it will produce experiences akin to “a chihuahua picking on a rottweiler.” 

Sun/26 5-8 p.m., $10 

SF Citadel 

1277 Mission, SF

www.sfcitadel.org

 

“Sex, Death, Laughter, and Disease: Writing and the Body”

Empower your body (and your prose) with this course, which will teach the skill of writing the corporeal form as protagonist. Sound a little English Lit-y for you? Instructor Lorelei Lee is an NYU creative writing professor, but check her clips before you dismiss this event from this column: lady’s been featured in $pread Magazine, the anthologies Hos, Hookers, Call Girls and Rent Boys: Professionals Writing on Life and Love and Off the Set: Porn Stars and Their Partners — plus, she’s currently penning a script with Stephen Elliott. 

Tues/28 (through Aug. 2) 7:30-9 p.m., $325

Center for Sex and Culture

1349 Mission, SF

(415) 902-2071

www.sexandculture.org

 

She’s got the look

Andrew Lam
-
0
She’s got the look

culture@sfbg.com

QUEER Apparently being a lesbian is the hottest new trend — so much so that middle-aged white dudes are posing as gay ladies, writing famous blogs and filling entire websites with lesbian content. (Yes, I’m talking to you, “Amina” and “Paula.”) Really?

Fortunately, there are plenty of actual queer women who can blog for themselves, thank you very much. Catherine “Cat” Perez, is one of those real-life queer women — verified by an in-person chat at the Wild Side West bar — posting real-life depictions of other actual lesbians on her blog Lesbians in San Francisco, a tribute to girls who like girls in America’s gay capital.

The layout is simple: each featured lez gets one photo and three fun facts of her choosing (“She won a s’mores eating contest as a Girl Scout.” “She doesn’t know how to whistle.” “She is related to Chuck Norris.”) Perez started LISF last summer with the intention of giving queer women of the Bay some flattering but honest representation.

“I just think in terms of the queer community, women can get bypassed and overlooked,” she told me, flicking her cigarette. “I want to educate people about what queer women look like, what they’re interested in, what they do. It may not always be what people assume.”

Perez began by photographing her friends, then opened it to anyone in the Bay Area, aiming for an accurate depiction of the city’s diversity. She swears there is no screening process. Although the aim is inclusion, the final product looks pretty tailored. Beauty may reside in the eye of the beholder — but it’s undeniable that these super-fashionable, adorably hipster girls are hot.

“Yes, there is definitely a ‘scene’ element to it. But that’s not the point,” Perez shakes her head and throws up her hands. “I’m only one person and I work a nine-to-five. People need to actively pursue a shoot with me.”

And it’s that simple — send Perez an e-mail, brainstorm your idea for the shoot, and show up. It’s an offer she often won’t refuse. So why are only a specific type of lezzies contacting LISF? Vanity? A need for self-promotion? Has LISF become a showcase of our local celesbians? Maybe it’s time for the rest of the community to get our faces up there, too.

“I wouldn’t consider myself a celesbian — I don’t know how I feel about that term,” Perez said with a laugh. “If I had to choose a label, I would identify as a queer woman,” embracing the broader, more inclusive mode of thinking. The title of the blog has discouraged some women from participating, but Perez says she has no plans to change it anytime soon.

“Growing up, I always wondered what queer communities looked like outside of my home in New Jersey,” she says. With its general-interest name, her blog comes up pretty high on Google searches. “I just want to shed some light on the people who live here. That’s it.”

Through the end of the month at the Lexington Club (www.lexingtonclub.com), Perez is exhibiting a collection of blog-inspired photos called “Stereo,” which simultaneously celebrates and debunks lesbian stereotypes. Perez selected 15 queer women and photographed them each twice: once in a stereotypical role (softball player, gym teacher, high femme) and once as themselves. As one might imagine, there’s a lot of overlap.

“Some girls were dressing up as other’s stereotypes,” she says. “Stereotypes don’t have to be negative. These photos embrace that, because, yeah, sometimes we are the stereotype.”

Lust for Life: The true meaning of Gay Christmas

Andrew Lam
-
22
Lust for Life: The true meaning of Gay Christmas

Yeah, Pride’s got its problems – but that doesn’t mean it can’t be epic

Every year without fail, my friends and I talk about how June is Gay Christmas in San Francisco. We pronounce it like it has to be capitalized and ends with an exclamation point. Sometimes I even sing the words a little — “Gaaay Christmas! La-la!” — like the holiday comes complete with its own carols. 

Sometimes I say “Gay Christmas” with a hint of irony and sarcasm. I bitch every year about how the Pride parade in San Francisco has become a big corporate conglomeration (not unlike Actual Christmas, right?). I bitch about how Pride has become an expensive and boozy festival celebrating the worst, most consumerist, most assimilationist parts of queer culture. I bitch about how Pride is a festival that has amazing roots and history and import, but at least in San Francisco, it has lost its way. That Pride has morphed from being a glittering and debauched radical celebration of queer love and life into a hokey tourist trap designed to sell rainbow key chains and pink triangle tea towels. 

The disgusting thing is that it is dangerous to hold a Pride festival in most parts of the world, even in other parts of the U.S. (have you seen what’s been happening in Texas lately, let alone in Uganda or Russia?). I’d like to think that when our brethren in other places are seriously RISKING MURDER to march down a city block and declare their queerness and gender variance, those of us in the privileged position of living in the queer Oz would be doing more to help them out. I’ve dedicated my life to queer activism, but I’m implicating myself here, too: not knowing how to help in situations that are so desperate and scary can feel hopeless and overwhelming, and the whole mess just ends up making me cynical about Pride in the Bay Area. 

I will probably always be cynical about the big corporate festival on Sunday, but the rest of June in San Francisco is a privilege to experience, a wonder to behold if you chill out and count your blessings and get some perspective. So in that spirit, I wanna tell you about my best Pride – what Pride can be like when you’re inspired and enthused, when everything feels alive and shimmering. 

Pride 2008 was my best Pride. I was 25 and newly, deeply, madly, stupidly in love. The kind of love that pumped my heart up so big I thought it was going to expand like a balloon and fill my entire ribcage. The kind of love where I threw all responsibility and caution to the wind. 

I took the week off work to stay home and fuck my new long-distance girlfriend. I didn’t say that to my job, of course, I said “my girlfriend is visiting from Oregon for Pride,” but I’m fairly sure my supervisor knew what I’d be doing when I asked for the vacation time (it was a queer non-profit). Me and this girlfriend have since broken up (in classic dyke fashion, we’re friends and artistic collaborators now). But the memory of the Pride week we spent together still makes me grin.

We had eight days together, and we made the most of it. We rolled around in my bed, in alleyways, in parks. One night she threw me up against a fence by the UC Extension school at the bottom of Hayes Valley, slipped her hand up my skirt in full view of all those cars and pedestrians. 

But eventually the San Francisco summer evening fog won out, and we made our way back to my apartment to warm up. Aside from public sex, we ventured out of my bed for the following: Take-out Thai food on my couch, pancakes at It’s Tops (the preciously tiny 1930s art-deco diner), a movie at Frameline, the last Queer Open Mic hosted by Cindy Emch, the Trans March, the Dyke March, and a porn shoot. 

I’m amazed that she and I managed to get so much done, fucking as much as we did. For queer people in love during the gayest week of the year, we were extremely productive. Our productivity was probably bolstered by the fact that we didn’t sleep much. We’d crash out at five a.m. after having sex for hours, and then we were up again at 10, but we wouldn’t manage to actually remove ourselves from each other or my room till two in the afternoon. We’d roll out of my bed hungry and bleary-eyed, covered in the salt of each other’s come and sweat, utterly and deliriously fuck drunk. 

So we’d shower together, lather up our hair and skin with her rose castile soap. Sometimes the smell of rosewater still makes me think of her. Then it would be time to put on sexy outfits and go off on another adventure.

It was a magic and manic way to spend Pride, getting lost in my best girl, my sweetest butch, the smartest kindest hottest person I’d ever met. (Falling in love makes me prone to hyperbole.) It makes me feel radiant, brilliant, witty, and drop-dead gorgeous, it makes me feel like I can change the world in one fell swoop. 

And me and my girl, we were gonna start a revolution together. We shot a scene for her porn movie that week, the movie that would become Doing It Ourselves: The Trans Women Porn Project – which is actually a revolutionary project, the first and only film of it’s kind: a porn movie made by, for, and about trans women and their partners. I was fucking a total genius, and I was thrilled and proud to have her on my arm. “Yeah, that’s right!” I felt like shouting to every single passer-by, “My girlfriend is BAD ASS, and so am I!”

My girl bought me bondage rope the exact color of the magenta streaks in my hair. She’d picked it out for me before she came to San Francisco, carefully looking for just the right the color for me. That week was like waking up every morning and opening up a present. It was like Christmas, goddammit! Every day was an adventure! There was a hot girl in my bed! There were awesome friends to hang out with who told us what a cute couple we were! There was pad thai and French toast with nutella & bananas to eat! Fences to get thrown up against! Movies to see! Marches to march in! Porn to shoot! Spin the Bottle to be played in Dolores Park! Could life get more amazing?! I felt Crazy With Love!, like all my emotions had to be capitalized and end with an exclamation point. Suddenly Gay Christmas made a lot of sense.

That Saturday we marched in the first ever Femme Sharks and Sea Creature Allies contingent in the San Francisco Dyke March. Forty femmes paraded down 18th Street wearing hot pink fake-satin fins on their heads and backs, fins that were cobbled together with cotton balls and staples, precariously taped to us with Scotch tape or tied to us with yarn. People carried signs: “THE IMF CAN KISS MY DORSAL FIN!” “FEMME SHARKS CAN FUCK YOUR ASS AND CHANGE YOUR OIL!” We chanted: “FEMME SHARKS WANT JUSTICE – AND WE WANNA GET BANGED!” And when she and I got home, she tied me up with the magenta rope she’d bought just for me. Afterwards, we spooned and moped about the fact that she was leaving the next day.

Falling in love over Gay Christmas made the original intent of Pride feel real to me – the glitter, the fun, the exhausted exhilaration, and that feeling of being absolutely enthralled with how brilliant and awesome we are, how much we can accomplish as a community when we put our big, pumped-up, loved-up hearts to it. 

So, reader, for this Gay Christmas, I wish that for you. I hope that you fall in love, and I don’t just mean with a sweetheart. I mean I hope that you feel love with your whole body and heart. Love a political movement, an art piece, yourself. Put on your best duds. Treat your lover or yourself to some rope, a cockring, a strap-on that matches your hair or your signature eyeshadow. Eat some chocolate-chip pancakes at an art deco diner and make sure to ask for extra whipped cream. Stay up till 5 in the morning having sex or masturbating. Above all, remember how fabulous and brave and bad-ass you are, and celebrate it.

Gina de Vries is a queer writer, performer, activist, writing instructor, cultural worker, and native San Franciscan. She has a long history doing political organizing and arts work within queer, trans and gender-variant, and sex worker communities, and has performed, taught, and lectured everywhere from chapels to leatherbar backrooms to the Ivy League. She’s currently pursuing her master in fiction writing at SF State, where she’s working on a book. Find out more at www.ginadevries.com and queershoulder.tumblr.com.

Our Weekly Picks: June 22-28, 2011

Maria Poblet
-
0

WEDNESDAY 22

DANCE

Hard Core: Getting Raw

Finding your identity is tough unless you are a vegetable. Asserting your identity — going against mom and dad — can be tough. However, if who you are and who you want to be goes against societal norms, be prepared to fight for your life. People have died doing it. It’s what the Queer Arts Festival is all about: paying tribute to and celebrating being “out there.” It’s most appropriate that hip-hop — street-born, street-nourished — is part of this yearly event. Hard Core: Getting Raw is a multimedia show put together by Josh Klipp and members of the Freeplay Dance Crew in which each artist (Klipp, Liz Angoff, Kevan Arrington, Hana Azman, and Molly Tsongas) tells a story about a journey undertaken. (Rita Felciano)

Wed/22–Thurs/23, 8 p.m., $15

Garage

975 Howard, SF

(415) 518-1517

www.brownpapertickets.com


THURSDAY 23

EVENT

Manic D Press showcase

In concert with this month’s Pride festivities, the recently relocated Modern Times Bookstore hosts a reading to spotlight luminaries from the queer independent scene. Many affiliated artists stop by, none of whom are exclusively tied to the literary scene but many of whom are pursuing a more experimental approach instead The night features poet Daphne Gottlieb (author of nine books), zinester Larry-Bob Roberts (he’s been called “the Stephen Colbert of queer culture”), badass trans musician-performer Lynn Breedlove, and performance artist extraordinaire Alvin Orloff. With such an eclectic collection of artists of the queer community gathered in one space, the night looks to be a classy, entertaining classy bookend to the flashier parties and parades to come. (David Getman)

7 p.m., free

Modern Times Bookstore

2919 24th St., SF

(415) 282-9246

www.mtbs.com


EVENT

Mara Hvistendahl

On glimpsing the title of Science magazine correspondent Mara Hvistendahl’s new book Unnatural Selection: Choosing Boys Over Girls, and the Consequences of a World Full of Men, I immediately thought what any reasonable boy-crazy person would: yeeeeesssss! Because in the meat-marketplace of a society burdened by a capitalistic priapism, the more infinite the choices, the better. But as usual, first impressions are incomplete. Join Hvistendahl as she explains the repercussions of selective sex abortion and the resulting 160 million women missing from Asia. How is this imbalance tweaking entire nations, and what does the West have to do with it (aside from having invented the ultrasound)? Can I get some ladies here? (Kat Renz)

6 p.m., $5–$15

World Affairs Council Auditorium

312 Sutter, Suite 200, SF

(415) 293-4600

www.itsyourworld.org


FRIDAY 24

PERFORMANCE

I Love Being Me, Don’t You?

A cherished comedian, singer, actress, gay deity, and recent Sarah Palin pummeler, Sandra Bernhard comes to town with a new show and new songs from a new album (both show and album are called I Love Being Me, Don’t You?) as well as dependably cutting observations about the world as such — all in time for Pride. Judging by reports from New York City’s sold-out Town Hall appearance, Bernhard — also working on a new musical with Justin Vivian Bond titled Arts and Crafts — flourishes trademark comedic and vocal chops while keeping outspoken, outrageous, and just plain out. (Robert Avila)

Fri/24–Sat/25, 7 p.m., $45–$75

Marines’ Memorial Theatre

609 Sutter, Second Floor., SF

(415) 771-6900

www.marinesmemorialtheatre.com


MUSIC

Brainfeeder Records Showcase

Started in 2008, the Brainfeeder label has essentially the same musical genetics as its founder, Flying Lotus: bass, hip-hop, electronic, things that go bleep-bloop, and jazz (all with a distinctively experimental bent). Following performances in New York City and L.A., Flying Lotus and a collection of labelmates will be bringing a showcase to 103 Harriet. Of particular interest will be 20-year-old Austin Peralta, a composer and jazz keyboardist who has drawn comparisons to McCoy Tyner and Chick Corea. His album, Endless Planets, has a sense of continuity with the forward elements of the genre (that seemed in part to stall outside of Japan in the ’70s) modernized for the 21st century. (Ryan Prendiville)

With Flying Lotus, Thundercat, Austin Peralta, Teebs, and Strangeloop

9 p.m., $22.50

103 Harriet, SF.

(415) 431-1200

www.1015.com


EVENT

“World’s Ugliest Dog Contest”

Festival season has arrived, and if the tie-dye at the Haight Ashbury Street Fair and the impending smolder of the Queer Tango Fest (June 29-July 3) hasn’t yet reminded you of the all-consuming special-ness of the Bay Area, I hereby announce the entrance of the ugly dogs. Yes, the Sonoma-Marin Fair was the birthplace of the snaggle-toothed, wonky-tailed trend of funky puppy adulation that has since made its way from The Tonight Show with Jay Leno show to Europe and back again. The day culminates in the crowning of another freaky furry friend (the 23rd annual!), but get to the fair early to enjoy dog training lessons, treat demonstrations, and, oh yes, the rest of the pig-and-pie county fair action. (Caitlin Donohue)

6 p.m. (fair hours, noon–midnight), $8–$15

Sonoma-Marin Fairgrounds

175 Fairgrounds, Petaluma

www.sonoma-marinfair.org


FILM

San Francisco United Film Festival

As per its mission statement, the San Francisco United Film Festival draws from an impressively varied pool of films for its third year in the city. From Bhopali, a somber look at the 1984 Union Carbide disaster in Bhopal, India, to The Dead Inside, a zombie-centric musical (the first?), there are strong indicators that the oft-used mantra “something for everyone” is apropos. Documentaries are the meat of this year’s selection and provide some of the more outstanding picks. Eat the Sun examines the practice of sun-gazing, or staring directly into the sun for prolonged periods of time in the belief that this will provide miraculous sustenance, and Superheroes dives mask-first into the world of real-life costumed vigilantes. Superheroes particularly holds promise as a crowd favorite as director Michael Barnett follows avengers Mr. Extreme on patrol and in their daily lives. Super! (Cooper Berkmoyer)

June 24–30, $10.75 (all-film pass, $25–$50)

Roxie Theater

3117 16th St., SF

(415) 863-1087

www.theunitedfest.com/sanfrancisco


SATURDAY 25

MUSIC

San Francisco Free Folk Festival

What better place than a middle school to host a wholesome folk festival? San Francisco’s 35th annual Free Folk Festival features music, dance, and art performances, workshops, and jam sessions for toddlers, teens, 20-somethings, and tried and true folks of any age. The festival provides a great opportunity to fine-tune your Gypsy jazz guitar, pennywhistle, left-handed mandolin, and countless other highly specialized instruments in hour-long workshops throughout the day. If listening and dancing are more your thing, there’ll be storytelling, Moroccan dance, jug band swing, and Bohemian national polka sessions galore. It seems no pocket of culture around the world will go untapped. On the off chance that you think something’s been overlooked, there’s a plain old open mic, too. (Getman)

Sat/25–Sun/26, noon–10 p.m., free

Presidio Middle School

450 30th Ave., SF

www.sffolkfest.org


MUSIC

“Rites of Massive”

Opulent Temple, the SF-based Burning Man camp that has been rocking the playa since 2003, is going big again on Treasure Island, drawing in a wide variety of Burning Man DJs, sculptures, performers, art cars, and music lovers. After filling Building 180 two years ago for its Massive Cox party featuring DJ Carl Cox, OT is moving to the larger Hangar 3 space for Rites of Massive (playing off this year’s Burning Man art theme “Rites of Passage”). Internationally acclaimed headliners DJ Dan, Christopher Lawrence, and Elite Force join notable local DJs on six stages, with burner sound collectives Distrikt, Symbiosis, and others joining the Opulent Temple hosts. Get ready to go big. (Steven T. Jones)

9 p.m.–4 a.m., $30–$50

Hangar 3, 600 California

Treasure Island, SF

www.opulenttemple.org


MUSIC

Cibo Matto

They’ve become hyperactive again. Prior to Cibo Matto’s split in 2001, the duo of instrumentalist Yuka Honda and singer Miho Hatori were responsible for some of the most infectious and bizarre sweet, sweet music of the 1990s. Based in New York City, Cibo Matto had a tendency to be mistaken for a J-Pop band at first listen, in part because of a consistent, aforementioned energy level, but in truth it skipped across the musical spectrum with a complete disregard for genres. The trip-hopping of “Sugar Water.” The ray-gun blap rap of “Working for Vacation.” The tropicalia version of “About a Girl.” Reunited for a Japanese benefit and now a small tour, the band is reportedly working on a new album. (Prendiville) With Chain Gang of 1974

9 p.m., $25

1025 Columbus, SF

(415) 474-0365

www.bimbos365club.com


SUNDAY 26

FILM

“Sand Up Your Vortex”

Since beach dreams rarely come true ’round these foggy, windy parts, why not ditch the S.P.F. and stuff your wild bikini at the Vortex Room instead? Tonight’s quadruple feature kicks off with Roger Corman’s 1957 Attack of the Crab Monsters (nukes made ’em giant; human flesh makes ’em hungry); Jack Curtis’ 1964 The Flesh Eaters (contains Nazis, beatniks, and — again — gruesomely gourmet human flesh); Monster from the Surf (1965), perhaps best explained by its alternate title, The Beach Girls and the Monster; and Nate Watt’s 1961 The Fiend of Dope Island (“He took everything and everyone he wanted!”), which is firmly ensconced on my list (along with 1976’s Shriek of the Mutilated and 1981’s Make Them Die Slowly) of all-time best movie titles. (Cheryl Eddy)

7 p.m., $5

Vortex Room

1082 Howard, SF

www.myspace.com/thevortexroom 


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, the Guardian Building, 135 Mississippi St., SF, CA 94107; fax to (415) 487-2506; or e-mail (paste press release into e-mail body — no text 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.

 

Film Listings

Maria Poblet
-
0

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

FRAMELINE

The 35th San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival runs through Sun/26 at the Castro, 429 Castro, SF; Rialto Cinemas Elmwood, 2966 College, Berk; Roxie, 3117 16th St., SF; and Victoria, 2961 16th St., SF. For tickets (most films $9-$15) and complete schedule, visit www.frameline.org.

OPENING

Bad Teacher Cameron Diaz don’t need no education. (1:29) Shattuck.

Buck This documentary paints a portrait of horse trainer Buck Brannaman as a sort of modern-day sage, a sentimental cowboy who helps “horses with people problems.” Brannaman has transcended a background of hardship and abuse to become a happy family man who makes a difference for horses and their owners all over the country with his unconventional, humane colt-starting clinics. Though he doesn’t actually whisper to horses, he served as an advisor and inspiration for Robert Redford’s The Horse Whisperer (1998). Director Cindy Meehl focuses generously on her saintly subject’s bits of wisdom in and out of a horse-training setting — e.g. “Everything you do with a horse is a dance” — as well as heartfelt commentary from friends and colleagues. In the harrowing final act of the film, Brannaman deals with a particularly unruly horse and his troubled owner, highlighting the dire and disturbing consequences of improper horse rearing. (1:28) Embarcadero, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Sam Stander)

Cars 2 Owen Wilson, Larry the Cable Guy, Michael Caine, and others give voice to the autos in this spy-themed Pixar sequel. (1:52) Balboa, Shattuck.

Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop Conan O’Brien Can’t Stop seems less of a movie title and more like a hushed comment shared between one of the many hangers-on during the filming of the “Legally Prohibited From Being Funny On Television Tour.” Throughout 23 cities’ worth of footage, O’Brien seethes, paces, sweats, yells and beats dead jokes so hard that they spring back to life, as he is wont to do.

At this point, the Leno/Coco drama is a bit stale — at least in internet time — but the documentary is a fascinating comedian character study nonetheless. It may be hard to sympathize with a man nursing a bruised ego as he cashes a $45 million dollar check, but it’s easy to see that he’s one of the best late night hosts (temporarily off) the air. Split primarily between clips of O’Brien performing songs on stage with a myriad of celebrity guests and bemoaning how exhausted and frustrated he is, Can’t Stop derives most of its hilarity from the off-the-cuff comments that pepper Conan’s everyday conversations. (1:29) Lumiere, Shattuck. (David Getman)

Oki’s Movie See review at www.sfbg.com. (1:20) Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

*Viva Riva! Gritty, riveting, and even heartbreaking, Viva Riva!, the first Congolese feature film to get distribution in the states, is much like its small-time crook of an anti-hero, Riva (Patsha Bay Mukuna) — in love with life and prepared to laugh in the face of death when it comes knocking. Director Djo Tunda Wa Munga’s African Movie Academy Award winner tumbles with the grimy details of its Kinshasa, Congo, backdrop, and rarely stumbles. A mere foot soldier in a sprawling crime world, Riva has seized his chance at breaking into the big time, with a score of stolen gasoline, and has returned home. His eyes are on an unlikely prize, Nora (Marie Malone), the well-guarded moll of a Kinshasa gangster. As Riva stalks his lithe prey, he’s tailed by the ruthless Angolan crime boss he’s crossed (Hoji Fortuna) and a local military commander under the thug’s thumb (Marlene Longage). As sexy and violent as a contemporary noir, and as familiar as a folk tale unraveled round a campfire, Viva Riva! holds your attention with all the bruised bravado of its Stagger Lee-like protagonist, catching you in with the way the gorgeous Nora undulates at an outdoor gathering at one moment, then squats in the dirt to take a piss at the next. (1:36) Lumiere, Shattuck. (Chun)

ONGOING

*L’Amour Fou Pierre Thoretton’s documentary L’amour fou opens with two clips of men bidding farewell. The first, from 2002, is of the French-Algerian couturier Yves Saint Laurent announcing his retirement in a moving and emotional speech worthy of his favorite writer Marcel Proust. The second is of Pierre Bergé, Saint Laurent’s longtime business partner and former lover, eulogizing his departed friend at the designer’s memorial service six years later. Thoretton’s film is suffused with goodbyes, many tender and candid, some portentous and rehearsed. To be sure, L’amour fou is a touching portrait of the powerful and tempestuous bond between Saint Laurent and Bergé, a bond that lasted close to five decades and resulted in one of the great empires of 20th century fashion. But it is also, alongside David Teboud’s two 2002 YSL documentaries, another entry in the hagiography of Saint Laurent, one cannily steered by Bergé as much as by Thoretton. Well-spoken and charming, Bergé still comes off as the punchy entrepreneurial foil to Saint Laurent’s dazzling but fragile genius. He can be both hyperbolic (praising Saint Laurent’s gifts) but also forthcoming (discussing the designer’s demons). Former muses Loulou de la Falaise and Betty Catroux are also interviewed, but this is clearly Bergé’s show. (1:43) Opera Plaza. (Sussman)

The Art of Getting By The Art of Getting By is all about those confusing, mixed-up and apparently sexually frustrating months before high school graduation. George (Freddie Highmore) is a trench coat-wearing misanthrope — an old soul, as they say — whose parents and teachers are always trying to put him inside a box and tell him how to think. He finds a kindred sprit in Sally (Emma Roberts) who smokes and watches Louis Malle films. Hot. Heavily scored by the now-ancient songs of early ’00s blog bands, it may all sound like indie bullshit but this one has charm and wit despite its post-trend package. Like a sad little crayon, Highmore is a competent Michael Cera surrogate du jour. Writer-director Gavin Wiesen embraces hell of clichés, but he suitably sums up a generational angst along the way. The film may not always feel real, but it does have real feeling. Look out for great performances from Blair Underwood and Alicia Silverstone. (1:24) 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Ryan Lattanzio)

*Beautiful Boy Save the children, but pity the parents. Director-cowriter Shawn Ku’s Beautiful Boy is one of two recent films concerning parents of kids who go on school killing sprees, and it’ll get potentially shortchanged due to the forthcoming We Need to Talk About Kevin‘s head-turning cast and its Hitchcockian literary source material. Still, Beautiful Boy shines in its own humble way, by dint of its quiet sense of integrity and refusal to pander. The bone-deep unhappiness suffusing the family concerned was present long before 18-year-old college student Sammy (Kyle Gallner) picked up a gun, killed more than a dozen people, then took his own life. Surviving parents Kate (Maria Bello) and Bill (Michael Sheen) already kept separate bedrooms under the same roof and led separate lives, with Bill pasting an unsettling grin on for work and Maria relentlessly pushing to make everything all right, neither noticing the barely perceptible warning signs that their only son was succumbing to despair. Belying its title, Beautiful Boy is less focused on the desperate youngster than on the adults attempting to cope with the horror he’s wrought — not necessarily cleaning up after him or picking up the pieces, but somehow finding their way through their own explosive responses. Bolstered by fine performances by Bello and Sheen, it’s yet another installment in the post-9/11 cinema of trauma — this time, attempting to imagine the unimaginable and to comprehend a kind of healing. (1:40) SF Center. (Chun)

*Beginners There is nothing conventional about Beginners, a film that starts off with the funeral arrangements for one of its central characters. That man is Hal (Christopher Plummer), who came out to his son Oliver (Ewan McGregor) at the ripe age of 75. Through flashbacks, we see the relationship play out — Oliver’s inability to commit tempered by his father’s tremendous late-stage passion for life. Hal himself is a rare character: an elderly gay man, secure in his sexuality and, by his own admission, horny. He even has a much younger boyfriend, played by the handsome Goran Visnjic. While the father-son bond is the heart of Beginners, we also see the charming development of a relationship between Oliver and French actor Anna (Mélanie Laurent). It all comes together beautifully in a film that is bittersweet but ultimately satisfying. Beginners deserves praise not only for telling a story too often left untold, but for doing so with grace and a refreshing sense of whimsy. (1:44) Embarcadero, Piedmont, Sundance Kabuki. (Peitzman)

*Bill Cunningham New York To say that Bill Cunningham, the 82-year old New York Times photographer, has made documenting how New Yorkers dress his life’s work would be an understatement. To be sure, Cunningham’s two decades-old Sunday Times columns — “On the Street,” which tracks street-fashion, and “Evening Hours,” which covers the charity gala circuit — are about the clothes. And, my, what clothes they are. But Cunningham is a sartorial anthropologist, and his pictures always tell the bigger story behind the changing hemlines, which socialite wore what designer, or the latest trend in footwear. Whether tracking the near-infinite variations of a particular hue, a sudden bumper-crop of cropped blazers, or the fanciful leaps of well-heeled pedestrians dodging February slush puddles, Cunningham’s talent lies in his ability to recognize fleeting moments of beauty, creativity, humor, and joy. That last quality courses through Bill Cunningham New York, Richard Press’ captivating and moving portrait of a man whose reticence and personal asceticism are proportional to his total devotion to documenting what Harold Koda, chief curator at the Costume Institute at the Metropolitan Museum of Art, describes in the film as “ordinary people going about their lives, dressed in fascinating ways.” (1:24) Opera Plaza. (Sussman)

Bride Flight Who doesn’t love a sweeping Dutch period piece? Ben Sombogaart’s Bride Flight is pure melodrama soup, enough to give even the most devout arthouse-goer the bloats. Emigrating from post-World War II Holland to New Zealand with two gal pals, the sweetly staid Ada (Karina Smulders) falls for smarm-ball Frank (Waldemar Torenstra, the Dutchman’s James Franco) and kind of joins the mile high club to the behest of her conscience. The women arrive with emotional baggage and carry-ons of the uterine kind. As the harem adjusts to the country mores of the Highlands, Frank tries a poke at all of them in a series of sex scenes more moldy than smoldery. This Flight, set to a plodding score and stuffy mise-en-scene, never quite leaves the runway. Not to mention the whole picture, pale as a corpse, resembles one of those old-timey photographs of your great grandma’s wedding. These kinds of pastoral romances ought to be put out to, well, pasture. (2:10) Opera Plaza. (Lattanzio)

*Bridesmaids For anyone burned out on bad romantic comedies, Bridesmaids can teach you how to love again. This film is an answer to those who have lamented the lack of strong female roles in comedy, of good vehicles for Saturday Night Live cast members, of an appropriate showcase for Melissa McCarthy. The hilarious but grounded Kristen Wiig stars as Annie, whose best friend Lillian (Maya Rudolph) is getting hitched. Financially and romantically unstable, Annie tries to throw herself into her maid of honor duties — all while competing with the far more refined Helen (Rose Byrne). Bridesmaids is one of the best comedies in recent memory, treating its relatable female characters with sympathy. It’s also damn funny from start to finish, which is more than can be said for most of the comedies Hollywood continues to churn out. Here’s your choice: let Bridesmaids work its charm on you, or never allow yourself to complain about an Adam Sandler flick again. (2:04) Empire, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Peitzman)

*Cave of Forgotten Dreams The latest documentary from Werner Herzog once again goes where no filmmaker — or many human beings, for that matter — has gone before: the Chauvet-Pont-d’Arc Cave, a heavily-guarded cavern in Southern France containing the oldest prehistoric artwork on record. Access is highly restricted, but Herzog’s 3D study is surely the next best thing to an in-person visit. The eerie beauty of the works leads to a typically Herzog-ian quest to learn more about the primitive culture that produced the paintings; as usual, Herzog’s experts have their own quirks (like a circus performer-turned-scientist), and the director’s own wry narration is peppered with random pop culture references and existential ponderings. It’s all interwoven with footage of crude yet beautiful renderings of horses and rhinos, calcified cave-bear skulls, and other time-capsule peeks at life tens of thousands of years ago. The end result is awe-inspiring. (1:35) SF Center, Shattuck. (Eddy)

*The Double Hour Slovenian hotel maid Sonia (Ksenia Rappoport) and security guard Guido (Filippo Timi) are two lonely people in the Italian city of Turin. They find one another (via a speed-dating service) and things are seriously looking up for the fledgling couple when calamity strikes. This first feature by music video director Giuseppe Capotondi takes a spare, somber approach to a screenplay (by Alessandro Fabbri, Ludovica Rampoldi, and Stefano Sardo) that strikingly keeps raising, then resisting genre categorization. Suffice it to say their story goes from lonely-hearts romance to violent thriller, ghost story, criminal intrigue, and yet more. It doesn’t all work seamlessly, but such narrative unpredictability is so rare at the movies these days that The Double Hour is worth seeing simply for the satisfying feeling of never being sure where it’s headed. (1:35) Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

Green Lantern This latest DC Comics-to-film adaptation fails to recognize the line between awesome fantasy-action and cheeseball absurdity, often resembling the worst excesses of the Christopher Reeve Superman movies. A surprisingly palatable Ryan Reynolds stars as Hal Jordan, the cocky test pilot who is chosen to wield a power ring as a member of an intergalactic police force called the Green Lantern Corps. He must face down Parallax, an alien embodiment of fear, who appears here as a chuckle-inducing floating head surrounded by tentacles. Peter Sarsgaard is effectively nauseating as Hector Hammond, who becomes Parallax’s crony after he is transformed by a transfusion of fear energy. The acting is all over the map, with Blake Lively’s blank-faced love interest caricature as the weakest link, and the effects are hit-or-miss, but scenes featuring alien Green Lanterns should please fans, and you could probably do worse if you’re looking for an entertaining popcorn flick. (1:45) 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Stander)

The Hangover Part II What do you do with a problematic mess like Hangover Part II? I was a fan of The Hangover (2009), as well as director-cowriter Todd Phillips’ 1994 GG Allin doc, Hated, so I was rooting for II, this time set in the East’s Sin City of Bangkok, while simultaneously dreading the inevitable Asian/”ching-chang-chong” jokes. Would this would-be hit sequel be funnier if they packed in more of those? Doubtful. The problem is that most of II‘s so-called humor, Asian or no, falls completely flat — and any gross-out yuks regarding wicked, wicked Bangkok are fairly old hat at this point, long after Shocking Asia (1976) and innumerable episodes of No Reservations and other extreme travel offerings. This Hangover around, mild-ish dentist Stu (Ed Helms) is heading to the altar with Lauren (The Real World: San Diego‘s Jamie Chung), with buds Phil (Bradley Cooper) and Doug (Justin Bartha) in tow. Alan (Zach Galifianakis) has completely broken with reality — he’s the pity invite who somehow ropes in the gangster wild-card Mr. Chow (Ken Jeong). Blackouts, natch, and not-very-funny high jinks ensue, with Jeong, surprisingly, pulling small sections of II out of the crapper. Phillips obviously specializes in men-behaving-badly, but II‘s most recent character tweaks, turning Phil into an arrogant, delusional creep and Alan into an arrogant, delusional kook, seem beside the point. Because almost none of the jokes work, and that includes the tired jabs at tranny strippers because we all know how supposedly straight white guys get hella grossed out by brown chicks with dicks. Lame. (1:42) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Judy Moody and the Not Bummer Summer Try not trying so hard, Judy Moody. The tween paperback fave gets an OTT makeover for the cineplex, as director John Schultz and company throw as many bells, whistles, silly new slang, kooky gruesome colors, CGI twinkles, sing-along subtitles, and zany hijinks into the mix as possible, in vain hope of keeping kiddie eyeballs from drifting. Bright-eyed redhead Judy Moody (Jordana Beatty) — think Pippi Longstocking, only way more annoying — is stuck at home for the season, sans most of her pals and parentals, scuttling her plans for a Not Bummer Summer filled with weirdly competitive thrill points (her very own invention) and pointless faux adventures (ditto). Her cute, arty, wack-eee Aunt Opal (Heather Graham) offers some diverting solace, but the summer seems to find its groove only after Judy slimily co-opts younger bro Stink’s (Parris Mosteller) obsession with Bigfoot. Lovers of visceral kid stuff will appreciate Judy and mob’s affection for pee and puke references — too bad the entire enterprise just reeks of very bummer desperation. (1:31) 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

Kung Fu Panda 2 The affable affirmations of 2008’s Kung Fu Panda take a back seat to relentlessly elaborate, gag-filled action sequences in this DreamWorks Animation sequel, which ought to satisfy kids but not entertain their parents as much as its predecessor. Po (voiced by Jack Black), the overeating panda and ordained Dragon Warrior of the title, joins forces with a cavalcade of other sparring wildlife to battle Lord Shen (Gary Oldman), a petulant peacock whose arsenal of cannons threatens to overwhelm kung fu. But Shen is also part of Po’s hazy past, so the panda’s quest to save China is also a quest for self-fulfillment and “inner peace.” There’s less character development in this installment, though the growing friendship between Po and the “hardcore” Tigress (Angelina Jolie) is occasionally touching. The 3-D visuals are rarely more than a gimmick, save for a series of eye-catching flashbacks in the style of cel-shaded animation. (1:30) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Stander)

*Making the Boys In 1968 The Boys in the Band revolutionized Broadway and opened a lot of minds by being a hit play (and film) about NYC homosexuals. Yet on the cusp of “Gay Liberation” and for many years thereafter, much of the actual gay community hugely objected to author Mart Crowley’s fictive portrait of its ‘mos as insular, shallow, classist, bitchy, and guilt-ridden. It was (as interviewee Edward Albee notes here) a picture ideally suited to straight Broadway audiences who lined up to see queers rendered pitiful if still identifiably human. Crayton Robey’s absorbing documentary chronicles the bumpy road of Boys and its creators — Crowley never had another hit, floundering until he moved into TV series scripting. The cast of the 1970 movie version, directed by William Friedkin (one year before The French Connection, followed by The Exorcist), saw their big break turn into a virtual industry blacklisting. Exceptions were unimpeachably heterosexual thespians Laurence Luckinbill and Cliff Gorman, who only “played” gay. This engrossing document recalls a work that trailblazed, was rejected as politically correct, then re embraced as an important touchstone in gay visibility and self-empowerment. (1:33) Roxie. (Harvey)

Midnight in Paris Owen Wilson plays Gil, a self-confessed “Hollywood hack” visiting the City of Light with his conservative future in-laws and crassly materialistic fiancée Inez (Rachel McAdams). A romantic obviously at odds with their selfish pragmatism (somehow he hasn’t realized that yet), he’s in love with Paris and particularly its fabled artistic past. Walking back to his hotel alone one night, he’s beckoned into an antique vehicle and finds himself transported to the 1920s, at every turn meeting the Fitzgeralds, Gertrude Stein (Kathy Bates), Dali (Adrien Brody), etc. He also meets Adriana (Marion Cotillard), a woman alluring enough to be fought over by Hemingway (Corey Stoll) and Picasso (Marcial di Fonzo Bo) — though she fancies aspiring literary novelist Gil. Woody Allen’s latest is a pleasant trifle, no more, no less. Its toying with a form of magical escapism from the dreary present recalls The Purple Rose of Cairo (1985), albeit without that film’s greater structural ingeniousness and considerable heart. None of the actors are at their best, though Cotillard is indeed beguiling and Wilson dithers charmingly as usual. Still — it’s pleasant. (1:34) Albany, Balboa, Embarcadero, 1000 Van Ness, Piedmont, Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

Mr. Popper’s Penguins (1:35) 1000 Van Ness.

*My Perestroika Robin Hessman’s very engaging documentary takes one very relatable look at how changes since glasnost have affected some average Russians. The subjects here are five thirtysomethings who, growing up in Moscow in the 70s and 80s, were the last generation to experience full-on Communist Party indoctrination. But just as they reached adulthood, the whole system dissolved, confusing long-held beliefs and variably impacting their futures. Andrei has ridden the capitalist choo-choo to considerable enrichment as the proprietor of luxury Western menswear shops. But single mother Olga, unlucky in love, just scrapes by, while married schoolteachers Lyuba and Boris are lucky to have inherited an apartment (cramped as it is) they could otherwise ill afford. Meanwhile Ruslan, once member of a famous punk band (which he abandoned on principal because it was getting “too commercial”), both disdains and resents the new order just as he did the old one. Home movies and old footage of pageantry celebrating Soviet socialist glory make a whole ‘nother era come to life in this intimate, unexpectedly charming portrait of its long-term aftermath. (1:27) Balboa. (Harvey)

Submarine (1:37) Opera Plaza, SF Center.

*Super 8 The latest from J.J. Abrams is very conspicuously produced by Steven Spielberg; it evokes 1982’s E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial as well as 1985’s The Goonies and 1982’s Poltergeist (so Spielbergian in nature you’d be forgiven for assuming he directed, rather than simply produced, the pair). But having Grandpa Stevie blessing your flick is surely a good thing, especially when you’re already as capable as Abrams. Super 8 is set in 1979, high time for its titular medium, used by a group of horror movie-loving kids to film their backyard zombie epic; later in the film, old-school celluloid reveals the mystery behind exactly what escaped following a spectacular train wreck on the edge of their small Ohio town. The PG-13 Super 8 aims to frighten, albeit gently; there’s a lot of nostalgia afoot, and things do veer into sappiness at the end (that, plus the band of kids at its center, evoke the trademarks of another Grandpa Stevie: Stephen King). But the kid actors (especially the much-vaunted Elle Fanning) are great, and there’s palpable imagination and atmosphere afoot, rare qualities in blockbusters today. Super 8 tries, and mostly succeeds, in progressing the fears and themes addressed by E.T. (divorce, loneliness, growing up) into century 21, making the unknowns darker and the consequences more dire. (1:52) California, Empire, 1000 Van Ness. (Eddy)

*13 Assassins 13 Assassins is clearly destined to be prolific director Takashi Miike’s greatest success outside Japan yet. It’s another departure for the multi-genre-conquering Miike, doubtless one of the most conventional movies he’s made in theme and execution. That’s key to its appeal — rigorously traditional, taking its sweet time getting to samurai action that is pointedly not heightened by wire work or CGI, it arrives at the kind of slam-dunk prolonged battle climax that only a measured buildup can let you properly appreciate. In the 1840s, samurai are in decline but feudalism is still hale. It’s a time of peace, though not for the unfortunates who live under regional tyrant Lord Naritsugu (Goro Inagaki), a li’l Nippon Caligula who taxes and oppresses his people to the point of starvation. Alas, the current Shogun is his sibling, and plans to make little bro his chief adviser — so a concerned Shogun official secretly hires veteran samurai Shinzaemon (Koji Yakusho) to assassinate the Lord. Fully an hour is spent on our hero doing “assembling the team” stuff, recruiting other unemployed, retired, or wannabe samurai. When the protagonists finally commence their mission, their target is already aware he’s being pursued, and he’s surrounded by some 200 soldiers by the time Miike arrives at the film’s sustained, spectacular climax: a small village which Shinzaemon and co. have turned into a giant boobytrap so that 13 men can divide and destroy an ogre-guarding army. A major reason why mainstream Hollywood fantasy and straight action movies have gotten so depressingly interchangeable is that digital FX and stunt work can (and does) visualize any stupid idea — heroes who get thrown 200 feet into walls by monsters then getting up to fight some more, etc. 13 Assassins is thrilling because its action, while sporting against-the-odds ingeniousness and sheer luck by our heroes as in any trad genre film, is still vividly, bloodily, credibly physical. (2:06) Bridge, Shattuck. (Harvey)

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

*The Trip Eclectic British director Michael Winterbottom rebounds from sexually humiliating Jessica Alba in last year’s flop The Killer Inside Me to humiliating Steve Coogan in all number of ways (this time to positive effect) in this largely improvised comic romp through England’s Lake District. Well, romp might be the wrong descriptive — dubbed a “foodie Sideways” but more plaintive and less formulaic than that sun-dappled California affair, this TV-to-film adaptation displays a characteristic English glumness to surprisingly keen emotional effect. Playing himself, Coogan displays all the carefree joie de vivre of a colonoscopy patient with hemorrhoids as he sloshes through the gray northern landscape trying to get cell reception when not dining on haute cuisine or being wracked with self-doubt over his stalled movie career and love life. Throw in a happily married, happy-go-lucky frenemy (comic actor Rob Brydon) and Coogan (TV’s I’m Alan Partridge), can’t help but seem like a pathetic middle-aged prick in a puffy coat. Somehow, though, his confused narcissism is a perverse panacea. Come for the dueling Michael Caine impressions and snot martinis, stay for the scallops and Brydon’s “small man in a box” routine. (1:52) Albany, Clay, Smith Rafael. (Devereaux)

*Trollhunter Yes, The Troll Hunter riffs off The Blair Witch Project (1999) with both whimsy and, um, rabidity. Yes, you may gawk at its humongoid, anatomically correct, three-headed trolls, never to be mistaken for grotesquely cute rubber dolls, Orcs, or garden gnomes again. Yes, you may not believe, but you will find this lampoon of reality TV-style journalism, and an affectionate jab at Norway’s favorite mythical creature, very entertaining. Told that a series of strange attacks could be chalked up to marauding bears, three college students (Glenn Erland Tosterud, Tomas Alf Larsen, and Johanna Morck) strap on their gumshoes and choose instead to pursue a mysterious poacher Hans (Otto Jespersen) who repeatedly rebuffs their interview attempts. Little did the young folk realize that their late-night excursions following the hunter into the woods would lead at least one of them to rue his or her christening day. Ornamenting his yarn with beauty shots of majestic mountains, fjords, and waterfalls, Norwegian director-writer André Ovredal takes the viewer beyond horror-fantasy — handheld camera at the ready — and into a semi-goofy wilderness of dark comedy, populated by rock-eating, fart-blowing trolls and overshadowed by a Scandinavian government cover-up sorta-worthy of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo (2009). (1:30) Lumiere. (Chun)

*X-Men: First Class Cynics might see this prequel as pandering to a more tweeny demographic, and certainly there are so many ways it could have gone terribly wrong, in an infantile, way-too-cute X-Babies kinda way. But despite some overly choppy edits that shortchange brief moments of narrative clarity, X-Men: First Class gets high marks for its fairly first-class, compelling acting — specifically from Michael Fassbender as the enraged, angst-ridden Magneto and James McAvoy as the idealistic, humanist Charles Xavier. Of course, the celebrated X-Men tale itself plays a major part: the origin story of Magneto, a.k.a. Erik Lehnsherr, a Holocaust survivor, is given added heft with a few tweaks: here, in an echo of Fassbender’s turn in Inglourious Basterds (2009), his master of metal draws on his bottomless rage to ruthlessly destroy the Nazis who used him as a lab rat in experiments to build a master race. The last on his list is the energy-wrangling Sebastian Shaw (Kevin Bacon), who’s set up a sweet Bond-like scenario, protected by super-serious bikini-vixen Emma Frost (January Jones). The complications are that Erik doesn’t ultimately differ from his Frankensteins — he pushes mutant power to the detriment of those puny, bigoted humans — and his unexpected collaborator and friend is Xavier, the privileged, highly psychic scion who hopes to broker an understanding between mutants and human and use mutant talent to peaceful ends. Together, they can move mountains—or at least satellite dishes and submarines. Jennifer Lawrence as Raven/Mystique and Nicholas Hoult as Hank McCoy/Beast fill out the cast, voicing those eternal X-Men dualities — preserving difference vs. conformity, intoxicating power vs. reasoned discipline. All core superhero concerns, as well as teen identity issues — given a fresh charge. (2:20) Empire, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

 

Will another DREAMer be deported, despite ICE’s S-Comm reforms?

Mary Magee
-
51
Will another DREAMer be deported, despite ICE’s S-Comm reforms?

Last week, ICE announced reforms to its controversial Secure Communities program. Civil rights advocates denounced these changes as window dressing, and the Guardian broke the news about S-Comm’s importance to the FBI’s Next Generation Identification (NGI) initiative, which appears to be using S-Comm on undocumented folks to secure support for a fingerprint dragnet to cover a much broader segment of the population than undocumented immigrants. But now, even before folks have had a chance to fully process the potential civil liberties impacts of the FBI’s NGI’s initiative, comes word that Mandeep, a DREAM Act honors pre-med student at UC Davis, who was once voted “most likely to save the world” by her peers at Los Altos High in Mountain View, could be deported to India on Wednesday.



Mandeep is pursuing a degree in Neurology, Physiology, and Behavior at UC Davis. But she is undocumented, and thanks to Congress’ failure to pass the DREAM Act last year, she now faces deportation to a country she barely knows. Immigrant rights advocates note that it was only a  month ago that President Obama spoke about the importance of providing a path to citizenship for students like Mandeep.


“We should stop punishing innocent young people for the actions of their parents,” Obama said. “We should stop denying them the chance to earn an education or serve in the military.”


They note that Obama has authority to grant administrative relief, which would make qualified DREAM Act youth safe from deportation, but that he has said he can’t use his executive authority in that way. So they’ve been sounding the alarm about Mandeep’s plight by faxing government officials about her situation.


But weren’t ICE’s newly announced S-Comm reforms supposed to provide relief for students like Mandeep?


Immigrant rights advocates say they are concerned that the reforms may not have much real impact on Mandeep because they rely on advocates and attorneys to get attention on individual cases. They note that Mandeep and her mother turned themselves into ICE this morning because they are scheduled to be deported tonight at 1am. And that ICE released them. But it is not clear what will happen next….


Meanwhile, ICE today announced the results of a seven-day targeted “Cross Check” enforcement operation that led to the arrest of more than “2,400 convicted criminal aliens and immigration fugitives” in May, as part of its promise to focus S-Comm resources on undocumented residents who have also broken criminal laws.


“The results of this operation underscore ICE’s ongoing focus on arresting those convicted criminal aliens who prey upon our communities, and tracking down fugitives who game our nation’s immigration system,” ICE Director John Morton said. “This targeted enforcement operation is a direct result of excellent teamwork among law enforcement agencies who share a commitment to protect public safety.”


ICE notes that everyone taken into custody as part of this latest sweep had prior convictions for crimes such as armed robbery, drug trafficking, child abuse, sexual crimes against minors, aggravated assault, theft, forgery and DUI. ICE also noted that 22 percent of the individuals were immigration fugitives-convicted criminal aliens with outstanding orders of deportation who failed to leave the country.


ICE says it conducted its first successful Cross Check operation in December 2009,  and has since conducted similar operations in 37 states, but that this seven-day operation, was the largest of its kind, and involved the collaboration of more than 500 ICE agents and officers, and coordination with the U.S. Marshals Service, the U.S. Diplomatic Security Service, U.S. Customs and Border Protection, the U.S. Postal Inspection Service, and ICE’s state and local law enforcement partners throughout the United States.


Arrestees included a 32-year-old man residing in Amesbury, Mass., from the Dominican Republic, who is a registered sex offender convicted of assault, battery on a household member, indecent assault, battery on a child, and leaving the scene/person injured; a 51-year-old man residing in Denver, Colo. from Libya convicted of first degree sexual assault against a child and assault domestic violence; a 38-year-old man residing in Orlando, Fla. from the Philippines convicted of battery on a law enforcement officer, resisting officer with violence, reckless driving and refusal to submit to blood/urine test; andaA 37-year-old residing in North Hills, Calif. from Mexico convicted of aggravated felony sex crime and rape of an unconscious victim. He was also identified as re-entering the United States after deportation. He will be removed following prosecution for illegal re-entry after deportation; and a 47-year-old man residing in Magnolia, Texas from Mexico convicted of injury to a child with intent to cause bodily injury, burglary, marijuana possession, driving while license suspended and indecency with a child by sexual contact.


“ICE is focused on smart, effective immigration enforcement that prioritizes efforts first on removing those serious criminal aliens who present the greatest risk to the security of our communities, such as those charged with or convicted of homicide, rape, robbery, kidnapping, major drug offenses and threats to national security. ICE also prioritizes the arrest and removal of those who game the immigration system including immigration fugitives or those criminal aliens who have been previously deported and illegally re-entered the country, “ ICE stated.


Hmm. It sure sounds like Mandeep doesn’t fit ICE’s criminal alien profile or priorities any more…

Suhr: SFPD Tasers not a priority

Sasha Cuttler And Mary Magee
-
0
Suhr: SFPD Tasers not a priority

Asked on June 17 for an update on a San Francisco Police Department bid to research and implement the use of Tasers, Police Chief Greg Suhr indicated that it was on the back burner for now.

“I know that the Tasers and all were a huge discussion in prior administrations,” Suhr said. “I think right now with everything else that we have going, and especially with budgetary constraints right now, that in all honesty we really haven’t gotten to that yet.”

Among community concerns surrounding Tasers earlier this year were fears that adopting the so-called nonlethal weapons would overshadow a parallel effort to improve police responses to calls involving the mentally ill.

Asked about progress on the implementation of Crisis Intervention Training (CIT), a program advocated by Police Commissioner Angela Chan to train officers to better respond to calls involving the mentally ill, Suhr noted that he backed CIT and had taken preliminary steps to improve the department’s response in those situations.

“Within the first week that I was here, we put in a new policy and a procedure where every single mentally ill call is to be treated as a mini-critical incident, so a sergeant responds, takes charge of the scene, a little perimeter is set up, and unless that person is a danger to someone other than themselves, we wait. It’s basically a slowdown,” Suhr explained.

Community advocates championed CIT as an important step forward in the wake of the Jan. 4 shooting of Randal Dunklin, a wheelchair-bound, mentally ill man who was brandishing a knife outside the city’s Department of Public Health building. Dunklin allegedly stabbed an officer and suffered a nonfatal gunshot wound to the groin after he had tossed the knife.

BYO Flair: A guide to this weekend’s festival explosion

Andrew Lam
-
0
BYO Flair: A guide to this weekend’s festival explosion

If there is one thing I know about festivals it is this: the gear you pack can leave you hydrated, hip and happy — or break you down to a sunburned, schlubby hunk of bad vibes. (It’s true – shoddy preparation for Reggae on the River 2006 left me stranded in the psych tent with disoriented girlfriend during the Ziggy and Damian Marley concert. Clearly, a hipper fedora would have solved everything.) 

This weekend plays host to a freakishly large share of summer festivals, so consider this your guide to happy cavorting in the sun. Cups, caps, frocks, and foods: here, friends, are our picks for best festie flair.  

Sierra Nevada World Music Festival

The perfect weekend campout for those that can’t handle the crushing crowds of the more commercial festivals this summer. Even the little things (children) will appreciate the open-minded approach to beautiful noise here.

Bring: Consider SNWMF a three-day immersion program in getting loose. Translation: you need costumes. If you’re heading up from San Francisco, we’ve got the perfect sartorial layover for you. Sebastopol’s Funk & Flash vintage store is far enough removed from the big city that its stock hasn’t been picked to all hell by the club kid set, so festie-bound you can benefit from its racks of flowery skirts, and tons of sparkle. Go, do you! 

Fri/17-Sun/19, $60-150

Boonville Fairgrounds

CA-128, Boonville

www.snwmf.com

 

Juneteenth Festival and Parade

The website proclaims this celebration of African American heritage to be the largest gathering of blacks in Northern California, but it remains to be seen whether you’ll fixate on the cultural signifcance while attending the event itself: with an impressive classic car show and three-on-three basketball tournament, all the historical reflection might have to wait until after the festival. 

Bring: No brainer accessory: a hat from Hats of the Fillmore, an independent business that’s been holding it down on Fillmore’s main drag for years. High quality at surprisingly low prices, you can don one of these lids to fit in perfectly with the jazzy milieu of SF’s traditionally black neighborhood. 

Sat/18 11 a.m.-7 p.m., free

Fillmore and Geary, SF

www.sfjuneteenth.org

 

Alameda Sailing Festival

Hey Muffy, take a break from hating on the impending America’s Cup to catch a day of boating buoyancy. The Encinal Sailing Foundation will be providing turns on the high seas for a “nominal” fee, and there will be seminars on “pilates for sailors,” boating to Mexico, and how to get your captain’s license. Afterwards, we know some great places to get drunk in Alameda!

Bring: This really goes for every fest on the list, but possibly the most important piece of flair is a fun, functional backpack to hold your water (flask), sunscreen, cell phone, and snacks. We love the Brooklyn Circus’ BKc satchels – but for the moment you’ve gotta special order them from New York. That’s fine, this ain’t the last weekend of the summer! The store’s preppy style (without the snooty WASP-y supply chain behind it) would be divine if you’re looking to drop some dough on a nice sailing fest outfit. 

Sat/18 10 a.m.-8 p.m., free

Encinal Yacht Club

1251 Pacific Marina, Alameda

www.summersailstice.com


Bicycle Music Festival

You read our profile on Fossil Fool, so you know all about the current trend towards bike-fueled culture fun. According to all the volunteers that have been standing near Mona Caron’s bike mural behind the Church Street Safeway for the past few days, this fest will be the perfect spot to enjoy the zeitgeist. Saddle up for awesome tunes, and community-building bike rides between concert sites. 

Bring: Hedgehog mug from Gravel and Gold so you can (chicly, adorably) reap the benefits of the fest’s pedal-powered smoothie maker. It also comes in rabbit, fyi. The calories you consume in said smoothies work doubletime — once you’re done drinking, take your turn powering the generator for the drinks or one of the music stages yourself.

Sat/18 noon-11:25 p.m., free

Various locations, SF

www.bicyclemusicfestival.com


Berry Festival

You know this sun isn’t going to last past 4th of July, so now is the perfect time to up your antioxidant intake and arm the old immune system against “summer” colds. CUESA and the Ferry Building farmers market is holding this day of loving for berry season – sample the treats available in the market stalls and let chef Daniel Clayton of Nibblers Eatery and Wine Bar show you how to whip up some healthy, hearty grub with the juicy little devils. 

Bring: a nice navy sweatshirt from Mollusk for the Bay breezes and inevitable tayberry stains. 

Sat/18 11 a.m.-1 p.m., free

Ferry Building, SF

www.cuesa.org


California Big Time Indian Gathering

The Ohlones are hosting their first gathering of Native peoples in their ancestral lands in two centuries. Come to learn more about real SF locals through dance, rituals, and craft exhibitions.

Bring: Mocs that slip off easy – you’re not gonna want a layer of separations between the well-manicured lawns of Yerba Buena and your soles. 

Sat/18 noon-11 p.m., free

Yerba Buena Gardens

Howard between Second and Third St., SF

www.worldartswest.org


North Beach Festival

Sure, the neighborhood street fests all start to look the same after awhile. But there are good parts of that same: family-friendly musical acts, artery-busting festie food, and an excuse to run amok in the streets. The North Beach incarnation has been going for 56 years, and manages to sneak a couple unique facets into the standard cruise-shop-eat formula SF has perfected. 

Bring: your kitty cat companion for the yearly St. Francis of Assisi animal blessings. Also, a flirty, locally made frock from NooWorks is totally Maria from West Side Story – perfectly for the neo-Catholic-in-the-summertime vibe you’ll be channeling. 

Sat/18-Sun/19 10 a.m.-6 p.m., free

Washington Square Park

Union and Columbus, SF

www.northbeachchamber.com

 

Northern California Pirate Festival

Never underestimate the amount of people willing to drop serious time and dime on dressing up in period costumes. You’ve seen the Renaissance fairs and the Dickens Christmas Fair – now it’s time to peep the pirates. Two very full days of pirate entertainers and replica boats (not to mention squadrons of pirate clothing vendor booths) await you if you be brave enough to cross the seas to Vallejo. 

Bring: Your 826 Valencia designer spyglass, for scurvy-watching of course. 

Sat/18-Sun/19 10 a.m.-6 p.m., free

Vallejo Waterfront

Mare Island Way (near the ferry terminal), Vallejo

www.norcalpiratefestival.com

 

Picklewater Free Circus Festival

As we mentioned in last year’s profile of our favorite free circus troupe, Circus Bella, nothing quite highlights the magic (and eccentricity) of this city quite like catching a high-flying aerial act smack dab in the heart of downtown. Picklewater is taking over Union Square for the third year in a row this weekend, and we suggest you head down — if only to catch the amazed gaze of the throngs of tourists that’ll be on hand to remind you that yes, your city is freakin’ amazing. 

Bring: Your medical marijuana card, and attending accoutrements. 

Sun/19 2-4 p.m., free

Union Square

Post and Powell, SF

www.jewelssf.org

 

Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings at the Stern Grove Festival

The 74th season of this green glade’s free concert series kicks off with a killer show from the queen of throwback soul. 

Bring: The Stern Grove scene struts more with its picnic spread than by any accessory or fly outfit. A retro basket (check Goodwill, people are always ditching picnic baskets) will be a useful score, and in terms of snack to make (they must be homemade!), peep our favorite new vegan cooking blog, The Vegan Stoner. It’s perfect, even if you had to self-medicate your hangover before you started prepping for the journey out to the Sunset.  

Feat. Ben L’Oncle Soul

Sun/19 2 p.m., free

Stern Grove

19th Ave. and Sloat, SF

www.sterngrove.org

 

Mission Street mural unveiling

But why spend all your time at the big events? Artist Aaron Lawrence is holding an al fresco event of his own – pulling the dropcloth off the work he and muralist Rocky Villanueva did on a new apartment building on Mission. He’s making a party of it, so get there early if you want to get down on the free burritos provided. 

Bring: Tapatio, tall can Tecate. Bring two cans, share them. 

Sun/19 2-5:30 p.m., free

Mission between 18th and 19th St., SF

Facebook: Sunday Mural Reveal Party

 

1...606162...128Page 61 of 128

48hills.org is the official publication of the non-profit San Francisco Progressive Media Center.
Contact us: info@48hills.org