Stage Archives — Page 9 of 135 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

Missing Indie Mart

Michael Redmond

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May 20, 2014

THE WEEKNIGHTER Weekends are for amateurs. Weeknights are for pros. That’s why each week Broke-Ass Stuart (www.brokeassstuart.com) will be exploring a different San Francisco bar, bringing you stories about the places and people who make San Francisco one of the most phenomenal cities in the world. Who wants a drink?

I’ve fallen in love many times at Thee Parkside. Okay, that’s a gross exaggeration. I’ve fallen into moderate, short-term infatuation many times at Thee Parkside.

For years it was home to Indie Mart, the DIY, rock-n-roll, block party Kelly Malone and Co. used to throw. Scores of local artist and designers would set up booths along Wisconsin Street, selling all the strange and beautiful things they created, while grimy-looking bands played ear-splitting music inside.

The parade of manic pixie dream girls was unnerving. They had no real place in society and only belonged as unblemished ideals in my mind. Some would float into town for the weekend and set up shop, only to disappear as soon as Indie Mart shut down. Others would flit from booth to booth, trying on each other’s wares and complimenting each other’s outfits. All of them pretty much sold the exact same shit, not that it mattered to me, they were all so lovely to look at and really only brought things to sell to each other anyway.

Thee Parkside is way more than just for day-long block parties full of whimsically dressed Amelies though. It’s a semi-legendary dive bar famed for it’s out-of-the-way location and its kick-ass live shows. Any night of the week you can see a variety of punk, metal, or country bands playing their hearts out on that tiny stage in that perfectly dingy barroom.

It’s also known for an awesome kitchen that manages to turn well-executed dishes like bahn mi and Cuban sandwiches into perfect bar food. If you haven’t been before, the Original Famous Twang Sundays are a great introduction to Thee Parkside life. Where else in The City can you hear country and bluegrass at an all-ages venue with a back patio for free? I think that’s what Sundays were invented for.

Despite these great things that happen at Thee Parkside, it’s still all those Indie Mart afternoons that most poignantly stick out in my mind. Maybe that’s just because, for many San Francisco’s doers and makers, Indie Mart was a place where we found a community of like-minded bad-asses. Dozens of people who were tinkering with wonderful things all throughout the Bay Area suddenly had a place to coalesce, sharing and selling what they made.

Sculptors, screen printers, and jewelry designers, set up shop next to each other while vintage clothes were hawked down the way and carpenters displayed their crafts. People who may never have encountered each other otherwise, were now meeting and forging relationships that would lead to marriages, babies, collaborations, and successful businesses. A diaspora of creative people now had a base and a community and a way to show the world what they were up to. It was honestly and truly, with all earnestness, magical. And Thee Parkside allowed that to happen.

Like all great scenes, Indie Mart came and left just like a goddamn fireball. One day it jumped from being a small thing in Kelly Malone’s backyard to a block party at Thee Parkside. It burned hot and heavy for a few years, and then suddenly it was done. But what it left in its wake was a slew of creators who now had the confidence and contacts to make a business out of what was previously just a hobby. And of course Thee Parkside is still around too.

Every time I pass by, I think, maybe I should get some people together and throw one more big block party for old times sake. And then I say nah, and stop in for a Cuban sandwich and a cheap drink instead.

Stuart Schuffman aka Broke-Ass Stuart, is a travel writer, poet, and TV host. You can find his online shenanigans at www.brokeassstuart.com

Renting isn’t sharing

Michael Redmond

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May 20, 2014

71

steve@sfbg.com

Last week’s two-day Share conference in San Francisco came at an auspicious moment for companies that define themselves as part of the new “sharing economy,” which ranges from peer-to-peer services and products brokered online to various cooperative ventures designed to minimize resource consumption.

Most of these growing companies are part of San Francisco’s technology industry, using web-based interfaces to conduct their economic transactions. And some have been making local enemies and headlines recently by disrupting key aspects of urban life, from Airbnb impacting the housing and hotel markets to Lyft and Uber upending the taxi industry.

In fact, the biggest battle brewing at City Hall these days is over widely watched legislation by Board of Supervisors President David Chiu to regulate and legalize the short-term rentals facilitated by Airbnb and similar companies. And state agencies based in San Francisco are now working on regulations that would affect Lyft and its ilk.

So we decided to listen in as disciples of the sharing economy talked among themselves about the challenges and opportunities facing what they call the “new economy,” one that is at an important crossroads that will determine whether the interests of communities or capital guide its evolution.

CHIU DECLARES WAR

When Chiu took the stage at the Share conference, he was joining a sharing economy community that, he said he would probably be a part of today if he hadn’t gone into public service, citing his own experience with tech startups before running for supervisor.

“I believe we are becoming the capital of the sharing economy,” Chiu said, citing examples of San Francisco’s “ethos of sharing” that include the Summer of Love, Burning Man, and the fact that “we are a community that wants to foster trust among strangers to build what I think is one of the most amazing cities in the entire world. But we’re also a city that is expensive. The rent is too damn high.”

Chiu spoke proudly of San Francisco’s environmentalism and his own legislative contributions to that legacy. And he said “we are a city of innovation,” lauding the technology industry. “We understand that keeping up with the Joneses may not be the way to go,” he said. “In fact, sharing with the Joneses, I think, is the better path.”

In Chiu’s formulation, the sharing economy is the synthesis of all of these values and goals. By using computers and smartphones to facilitate the sharing of goods and services, we use less stuff and consume fewer resources, in the process opening up economic opportunities for more people.

He sounded like the most enthusiastic of sharing economy true believers, but with a couple of caveats, acknowledging how those “pesky taxes” on most of these economic transactions go unpaid, and how Airbnb and similar companies have removed apartments from the housing market for local residents.

“Shareable housing has both helped and exacerbated our housing crisis,” Chiu said, describing how he spent more than a year working on legislation that would regulate and legalize short-term housing rentals in San Francisco, where they are now considered illegal “hotel conversions” (see “Into thin air,” 8/6/13, and dozens of other Guardian stories and blog posts on the issue).

Chiu’s legislation would require Airbnb hosts to register with the city, rent out only their primary residence, and occupy that space for at least 275 days per year (which Chiu has said limits Airbnb hosts to just 90 rental nights per year, although critics dispute that interpretation).

“I thought this was a reasonable solution, but two weeks later there was a major press conference attacking it,” Chiu told Share attendees, referring to the coalition of landlord, neighborhood, labor, and affordable housing groups that have come out against the legislation, calling it a blanket rezoning of residential property around the city, pledging an initiative campaign challenging it.

“In part, this is politics. I’m in the midst of a race for the state Assembly this year, my opponent has supporters who have been protesting the Twitter headquarters, throwing rocks at Google commuter shuttles, vomiting on Yahoo buses, referring to tech workers as not real San Franciscans,” Chiu said.

Then Chiu ramped up his rhetoric, equating progressive concerns about the tax breaks and special treatment that Chiu, Mayor Ed Lee, and others have extended to tech companies in San Francisco with a war on the sharing economy and the forced deportation of its workers.

“They are calling for war on you, even though they don’t realize that what you are doing is helping to make sure we’re addressing our income inequality, we’re empowering everyday people by building community and using technology,” Chiu said. “All of you need to get involved in the political debate. You’re busy trying to change the world, but status quo interests are actively trying to ship you to Menlo Park, Oakland, and San Jose.”

In the end, Chiu did urge those starting up companies to “think early about how your paradigm meshes with existing laws and regulations,” but that tepid call for civic responsibility and good corporate citizenship did little to dull his feeding of techie exceptionalism, fearmongering, or appeals to vaguely libertarian values.

AIRBNB’S BOOSTERS

The pep rally atmosphere of the session got pumped up even more by Airbnb’s Douglas Atkin and venture capitalist Ron Conway, both of whom had nothing but glowing praise for the burgeoning industry and its customers, offering none of the caveats put forth by Chiu or the speaker who followed him, White House staffer Greg Nelson, who talked about the challenging access, equity, and regulatory issues facing the industry.

“We at Airbnb and PEERS think the sharing economy is a jolly good thing,” Atkin said in a charming British accent, presenting the sharing economy as an unstoppable and uniformly positive force that is replacing “the old economy, the last economy.”

As an advertising executive in that old economy, “I was the devil,” Atkin said. Now playing the role of savior, he spoke with an evangelical flair as he flashed Airbnb slides and videos, telling the crowd “there’s been a decentralization of wealth, control, and power” because “you can’t do this new economy without creating community.”

It was easy to forget that Atkin represents a company that Wall Street analysts have valued at $10 billion, despite having a business model that is illegal in many cities, causing some hosts to be evicted and others to evict their tenants, while the company and its investors move quickly to cash out with an initial public stock offering.

Among those who would profit handsomely from that IPO is Conway, a billionaire who already got far richer late last year from being “an early investor in Twitter,” as he described himself to the crowd after being introduced as someone who “has really led the way of connecting the tech industry to the public sector.”

Indeed, Conway spoke proudly of funding the politicians who pushed the package of tax breaks for Twitter and other technology companies that followed it into the mid-Market area, most notably Mayor Ed Lee, the biggest beneficiary of Conway’s largesse among San Francisco politicians.

Conway speaks the language of the technology sector that he’s been sponsoring with angel investments since the early days of the last technology boom, making seemingly common sense appeals that hide his conservative ideology, just as he switched his political party registration from Republican to decline-to-state when he became active in San Francisco politics (see “The Plutocrat,” 11/27/12).

But for the careful listener familiar with San Francisco political history, there were some intriguing revelations in his address that were probably lost on the average techie in attendance that morning.

For example, Conway talked about his role following up his advocacy for the Twitter tax break with behind-the-scenes work helping to craft the business tax reform measure in 2012 — which the Controller’s Office analysis found just happened to give the technology companies that Conway was invested in a substantial tax cut.

“Now all the companies enjoy this,” Conway said in reference to Twitter’s tax break, “because Prop. B was passed a year and half ago.”

He also then admitted that Airbnb owes its phenomenal growth to the widespread economic desperation triggered by the financial collapse of 2008 and an economic recovery that still hasn’t reached the average citizen struggling to cover their housing costs.

“Airbnb, for example, would not be here today if there wasn’t an economic crisis and a recession in 2008 in New York, where people had to decide to rent out a room in their house or I get foreclosed on my mortgage. It was that basic. Airbnb wouldn’t be here today if people all over New York didn’t save their mortgages and start using this product. And then by word of mouth it spread around the world because it is so convenient and so practical,” Conway said.

Conway is conservative on financial issues, but more moderate on social issues, and he talked about his advocacy work on gun control and immigration reform. Yet even on those issues, where it is almost exclusively Republicans who are blocking the changes Conway says he wants, he turns the gridlock into an anti-government argument.

“We need term limits in Congress,” the former Republican said, citing a standard conservative trope that got a big applause from the Share conference crowd.

Finally, he elevated the current struggles in San Francisco over the sharing economy into key battles that will shape the future of the new economy.

“This [Airbnb] legislation that David Chiu has proposed, which in the next few months will go to the Board of Supervisors is crucial legislation the whole country will watch,” Conway said, calling for everyone in the crowd to get involved and lobby their supervisors. “David Chiu needs help. This would not pass if it went to a vote today, it wouldn’t come close to passing. So we have to change this. We want to do on the local level what we have to do on the national level: Organize and conquer!”

ACCESS AND EQUITY

After Conway came an intriguing panel discussion about equity and environmental issues with Nikki Silvestri of Green for All, Vien Truong with the Greenlining Institute, and Adam Werbach, the former Sierra Club executive director who started the stuff-sharing company Yertle.

It was moderated by GreenBiz.com editor Joel Makower, who cited information from the previous day’s sessions about how it’s mostly middle class white people who use the sharing economy. “The reality is it’s not that inclusive,” he said, and all his guests agreed and talked about the need to broaden its benefits.

“How do you marry the economy with people?” Truong said as she discussed that challenge. And it’s an urgent need, as Werbach said while answering a question about how the sharing economy could help bring about a new kind of environmentalism aimed at producing and consuming less stuff.

“What’s wrong with the old environmentalism is we’re not achieving our mission. Climate change is what’s wrong with the old environmentalism,” he said.

Werbach cited the goal of replacing about a quarter of the things we now buy with shared goods, even though Amazon and other companies have made it easier than ever to have new products shipped around the world: “It is cheaper, faster, and easier to get something new than to get something used from right next door.”

But Silvestri said the limited participation in the sharing economy makes it difficult to see it as the solution yet, calling for the sharing economy to address access and equity issues, something that marginalized groups would respond to if it was based on true values of sharing.

“Coming from my own background, African Americans had to share because white people wasn’t giving us nothing,” she said. By that same measure, she also said that low-income people feel wary of being taken advantage of by sharing companies and customers: “When you’re in survival mode, you’re wary of people taking from you.”

That’s one reason why Silvestri said that black communities are slower to adopt sharing with strangers, whether it be their homes or cars, something that could be overcome with more personalized outreach: “If I look you in the eye, you might not come take my shit.”

She said that for all the talk at the conference about “community,” the community of strangers that makes up the sharing economy isn’t a true community, something that needs to change to realize the lofty goals that many espouse.

“The sharing economy is new enough that if we figure out this problem early then all of us can actually participate,” Silvestri said.

Werbach agreed, saying the sharing economy has great potential, but only if it makes the right moves now. “This is the beginning of a movement, but the people aren’t here yet,” he said. “We’re at the very beginning of this story.”

He defines the struggle of the moment as one between human and economic values, hoping the sharing economy’s customers will determine its values: “There is an interesting wild west movement now. We need people to do the recruiting so Wall Street doesn’t do the recruiting.”

STRAIGHT TALK

The closing plenary session at Share illustrated the divergent attitudes and goals that mark the sharing economy, in which some members feel a collective responsibility to meet important societal goals, while others seem more interested in just making money and mouthing the rhetoric of sharing.

New York University economics professor Arun Sandararajan, who runs the Collaborative Economy Project that studies and promotes the sharing economy, said it has the potential to develop in ways that will either exacerbate or reduce the income inequality that has become such a growing public policy concern.

Sandararajan expressed hopes that the sharing economy could increase the economic growth rate and lower the wealth gap by broadening access to capital and opportunities for entrepreneurship. But he also argued that the sharing economy has the potential to change the terms of the debate by giving more people access to goods and services than their incomes might otherwise allow.

“We have to go beyond measuring inequality in terms of income and wealth,” he said, offering a conception likely to appeal to the wealthy, but probably not those struggling to get by, even if they were able to get more hand-me-downs through Yerdle or odd jobs through TaskRabbit.

Others on the panel illustrated the dichotomy between do-gooders and profit-seekers more clearly, showing how broadly those in the sharing economy are trying to define it these days.

Jose Quinonez runs the nonprofit Mission Asset Fund, a nonprofit on Valencia Street that assists with peer-to-peer microlending, an amazing program that seemed to have little in common with the investor-backed companies that dominated the agenda. “I didn’t know I was part of the sharing economy until today,” he told the crowd.

In an earlier session, Quinonez called out the self-congratulatory tone by some boosters. “As we talk about the word inclusive it’s very easy to forget the people not invited to the party…We have to make sure we’re not making an exclusive sharing economy.”

Next came Denise Cheng, an academic who has been studying the sharing economy for the MIT Center for Civic Media, and she had perhaps the most poignant and insightful answer to the question the conference posed about what will best catalyze the sharing economy.

“Straight talk will catalyze the sharing economy,” Cheng said.

She discussed how the broad label of the sharing economy gets claimed by everyone from small idealists who truly want to promote the idea of sharing to self-interested corporations who use the label for political cover and really mean “renting.”

“When we say sharing economy, we actually mean a lot of things,” she said. “Companies that adopt the sharing economy label are not necessarily adopting the values of the sharing economy.”

Compounding that deception is the fact that companies like Lyft, Uber, and Airbnb are profiting from business models that are often illegal on the local level, but doing little to help drivers or hosts who get in trouble with local authorities: “When someone has to answer on the local level, it’s the providers who are on the front line.”

There was a very different tone and message that came from the subsequent guests to join the panel, who shamelessly promoted their companies and didn’t seem to take heed of Cheng’s call for straight talk.

“Sharing cars is how we can catalyze the sharing economy,” Jessica Scorpio, wearing a T-shirt of the car-sharing company she helped found, Getaround. She called car-sharing “a gateway drug to the sharing economy,” noting that car-sharing customers often go on to use other sharing economy products and services.

“Sharing cars is transforming the fundamentals of our transportation system,” Scorpio said, claiming that each shared car takes up to 32 cars off the road, a figure that doesn’t square with the body of peer-reviewed research on the subject, which places the actual number at nine to 13 cars.

Hyperbole and exaggeration are common among the biggest boosters of sharing economy companies, as are the sins of omission and misdirection — all of which are perhaps what prompted Chang’s “straight talk” prescription.

Sunil Paul, co-founder and CEO of the ridesharing company Sidecar, gave a long and detailed presentation on the supposedly ambiguous definition of “commercial transactions,” calling for what he called a “safe harbor” for sharing activities, without once mentioning the word that he was actually talking about and dancing around: taxes.

“There are certain activities that should be beyond the commercial reach of government,” Paul said, describing his clients who drive customers around the city like taxi drivers less than full time. “We need a safe harbor for sharing that protects these activities from being considered commercial.”

Paul said that Sidecar and other sharing economy companies have “blurred the line between what is personal and what is commercial,” comparing the activities his company facilitates to carpooling and arguing that people should be able to cover the annual cost of driving, say around $10,000, without it being considered a commercial activity (i.e. a taxable transaction).

“As long as you don’t make a profit from it, it’s not a commercial transaction,” Paul said, redefining the very concept of commercial.

And remember, this is a company that is already having a profound impact on the regulated taxi industry — of which Sandararajan said, “I think the taxi service as we know it will largely cease to exist in a few years” — just as other sharing economy companies steal market share from other industries, as Airbnb is doing to the hotel industry, also while avoiding taxes on those transactions.

FROM TALK TO ACTION

“One of the things we like to do in the sharing economy is talk about the sharing economy — a lot!” Jesse Biroscak, an Airbnb host and founder of BayShare, said during a session at Share entitled “Shareable Cities: From Concept to Action.”

It was the first thing I heard upon arriving at the conference, but I already knew it was true after covering this movement over the last couple years, a point that was emphasized strongly by the excited evangelism that I heard again and again over the next 24 hours.

But for all the talk that those in the so-called sharing economy do about the sharing economy, there is often a deliberate vagueness to it that tries to mask its many contradictions and paradoxes.

Its biggest proponents are anxious to go big — defined by a strange mix of idealism (for environmentalism, libertarianism, economic and social equity, and an odd and often contradictory assortment of other goals) and the desire to cash in on the new gold rush — before the opportunities slip away (thanks to competitors, government regulators, or an economic downturn).

“I’m tired of talking about it, I want to do things,” said Biroscak, a regular Airbnb host from San Francisco, without ever really defining the things he wants to do.

BayShare also seems to have a vagueness of purpose, defining itself on its slick website as “an organization whose mission is to make the Bay Area the best place on the planet for sharing. As this movement grows, BayShare will explore how city stakeholders and the sharing community can work together to help the Sharing Economy flourish in the Bay Area to benefit the city, businesses, and communities. The organization looks to be a resource for the Mayor’s Working Group on the Sharing Economy.”

But that working group, which Mayor Ed Lee announced when Treasurer Jose Cisneros was holding hearings two years ago to determine whether Airbnb and other companies should pay the city’s transient occupancy tax, never actually convened. It was simply a stall tactic that evaporated after Cisneros ruled that the tax was indeed owed.

Still, BayShare lists many of the biggest sharing economy companies among its “members,” including Airbnb, RelayRides, Lyft, Yerdle, Vayable, City Car Share, Suppershare, and Get My Boat. Biroscak described the advocacy work that he and BayShare do, work that he urged all of the attendees to get involved with, so that public agencies understand and support this growing economic sector.

“This is called lobbying, and that’s okay. Lobbying is not a dirty word,” Biroscak told the crowd.

Lobbying may not be a dirty word, but it is a regulated activity in San Francisco and other cities, and neither Biroscak nor BayShare are registered lobbyists with the San Francisco Ethics Commission, which they should be if they are indeed lobbying.

Biroscak even boasted of a partnership with the San Francisco Department of Emergency Management that BayShare secured last year on behalf of its member companies to provide their services to local residents in the event of an emergency.

“The sharing economy was born here, and partnering with BayShare, we are committed to ensuring that San Francisco supports this emerging sector’s success and nurturing even greater civic involvement,” Mayor Ed Lee said last June in a press release announcing the partnership, while Chiu said, “I’m confident that BayShare will improve the communication between this emerging sector and local government as ‘collaborative consumption’ evolves and grows in San Francisco.”

But when we reached Biroscak by phone, he said that BayShare doesn’t really have any agreements with the city, and that it doesn’t actually represent its “member” companies or get any money from them. And he said BayShare “definitely does not consider itself a lobbying organization,” instead defining it more vaguely as “a convener and facilitator.”

But as a self-styled spokesperson for the movement — “I try to speak for the San Francisco sharing economy as an industry,” he said at the conference — Biroscak issued a call to action to a crowd that mostly seemed to be puttering on their electronic devices and only half paying attention: “We need to stand up for what we want, but we want to do it in a coordinated way.”

Joe Fitzgerald Rodriguez contributed to this report.

Neighborhood papers tell the story of SF

Michael Redmond

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May 20, 2014

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Neighborhood papers tell the story of SF

By Jessica Lipsky

news@sfbg.com

Before many San Francisco residents traded their newspaper subscriptions for Internet media, a dozen monthly papers covered the beat of the city’s distinct neighborhoods. Nine of these papers, whose heyday came with radical changes in the ’70s and ’80s, are being digitally archived by local historical organization Found SF.

“The papers all have their own personalities,” said Found SF organizer LisaRuth Elliott. “You get a sense of even how those change over time too, whether it’s a hard hitting article or it’s talking about the evolution of how the street businesses changed in Noe Valley. Archiving these papers opens up the gates for all the stuff we don’t know, and that you want to find out about, in San Francisco.”

Over the course of six months, Found SF volunteers will archive two decades’ worth of content from papers published throughout the city — the Noe Valley Voice, Tenderloin Times, Visitation Valley Grapevine, Richmond ReView, Potrero View, the New Fillmore, El Tecolote, North Mission News, and the Glen Park Perspective — in partnership with the Internet Archive and San Francisco Public Library. Since beginning the project in January, Found SF has scanned over 200 issues and tagged each with searchable keywords.

BILINGUAL VOICES

While several of the papers have come and gone, the publication that inspired the project is still going strong. Born from 1968 riots at San Francisco State for relevant ethnic education, the Mission’s El Tecolote was founded in 1970 as a bilingual paper dedicated to social activism. The paper made great inroads in the mid-’70s fighting for equitable health services, such as a bilingual emergency phone system, while covering Latino arts and civil wars in Nicaragua and El Salvador.

“We started El Tecolote to fill the gap of the mainstream media, which wasn’t covering this neighborhood with any real consistency; if it did it was often times negative news,” founder Juan Gonzales said. “The mission was to really be a voice for the neighborhood and hopefully move the spirit of organizing ahead to make some social change.”

In addition to taking a hard line on local politics and immigrant issues, the archives document the evolution of San Francisco from various perspectives. Residents of lower-income neighborhoods were displaced, and many districts leveled, during urban renewal projects in the 1950s and 1960s, while a 1973-75 recession caused further damages. The resulting plight set the stage for journalism driven by demand for hyper-local coverage of LGBT and feminist rights, gentrification, and third-world issues.

“In the mid-’70s there was consciousness around neighborhoods as social centers and places where community organizing was happening,” Elliott said. “People are facing eviction, they’re protesting, there are these vigils happening, and people talking about gaining rights for long-term things. We’re still working with the legacy of some of the housing decisions [San Francisco] made around that time due to the activism,” she added, citing the Tenderloin Times’ advocacy for SROs in the face of hotel development west of Union Square.

RESILIENCE IN HARD TIMES

The New Fillmore — established in 1986 as the city became inflicted with crack and AIDS epidemics, just as Reaganism swept in — was at the heart of socioeconomic changes that transformed parts of San Francisco from what felt like a blue-collar town to an increasingly white-collar city. Approximately 30 blocks in the Fillmore and Western Addition were leveled and left vacant until the ’80s, and the monthly paper played an important role in chronicling the return of businesses to the once thriving neighborhood.

“We ended up with the worst of both worlds in the Fillmore,” said Thomas Reynolds, who took over publishing the New Fillmore in 2006. Redevelopment efforts initially provoked no organized public protest, he said, but later “generated a lot of activism. The New Fillmore managed to capture a lot of the change that was coming to the neighborhood, and a lot of the flavor and history of the neighborhood that was being lost.” The paper encouraged civic engagement through a regular architecture column that featured local homes and helped owners register their historic buildings.

Several papers served neighborhoods with large refugee and immigrant populations, many of whom didn’t speak or read English. The Tenderloin Times promoted social services and encouraged activism through coverage of Southeast Asian and local politics, while publishing simultaneously in English, Lao, Cambodian, and Vietnamese over its two-decade run. Others chronicled changes in demographics, including an influx of Chinese residents into Visitation Valley and a population shift in the Mission from predominately Chicano to more Central Americans.

The Noe Valley Voice also took an international turn when escaped Irish prisoner Liam Carl toured the U.S. to expose harsh conditions in British jails. Carl entered the country illegally and was housed in a Noe Valley home in the fall of 1980, telling the Voice, “If [prisoners] thought that perhaps there was a chance that they could be heard through less drastic measures … and maybe bring about some change without so many people having to die, perhaps I can save lives.”

While the newspapers often differed in their coverage, each featured complementary stories chronicling the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake. Common features included how to check for damage, profiles on restaurants that fed the neighborhood or, as one Noe Valley Voice headline described the experience of meeting neighbors during a power outage: “We Could See the Stars.” Ahead of the 25th anniversary in October, Found SF has examples of quake coverage online.

“It makes me think that the city is comprised of all these little villages and it’s a little hard to say San Francisco has one direction, one value system,” Elliott said. “The papers show the wide variety of people who live in the city … but it’s all very much at a very personal level. They know each other. They’re telling stories about each other.”

For more information on the neighborhood newspaper archiving project, or to volunteer, visit foundsf.org.

Guardian Intelligence: May 21 – 27, 2014

Michael Redmond

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May 20, 2014

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P>Because nothing screams “invest in healthcare” like an aging Sammy Hagar: The former Van Halen rocker teamed up with Metallica’s James Hetfield, Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong, Train’s Pat Monahan, Nancy Wilson of Heart, and other rock ‘n roll veterans for a special one-time acoustic show at The Fillmore May 15, benefiting the Pediatric Cancer program at UCSF Benioff Children’s Hospital — what organizers were calling the first annual “Acoustic-4-A-Cure” show. That’s a lot of oversized egos for one stage, but hey, we can’t knock rockin’ for a good cause.

HAIL THE TRAIL

Celebrate the 25th anniversary of the San Francisco Bay Trail — still a work in progress, with 60 percent of the “ring around the Bay” having been completed — Sat/24, at a re-dedication of the Rosie the Riveter World War II National Historic Park visitor center in Richmond. The center houses exhibits dedicated to civilian efforts on the home front during World War II, embodied by the iconic female factory worker. The festive ceremony will be a vintage-themed affair, complete with WWII-era big band jazz, swing dancing, and a costume contest. And in a nod to our current century, the event will also unveil the first Bay Trail smartphone app. Let the summer hiking season begin! www.baytrail.org

PROP. 13 PRESSURE

Public policy group Evolve California sent out a survey to California candidates for public office, and discovered that a full 80 percent support reforming Prop. 13. The nearly four-decades-old law bases property taxes on purchase price, not current market value, and is often blamed for lost revenues that could go toward, say, rescuing California’s public education system from the dregs. The vast majority of hopefuls running for federal, state, and local office said they’d support reassessing commercial properties at market value, as long as small businesses, homeowners, and renters remain protected.

GUTS OF THE CITY

A daylong conference Sat/31 will expose curious participants to some of the lesser-known aspects of city life: The design and planning of public transit, water systems, wireless networks, and other kinds of urban infrastructure. MacroCity, to be held at the Brava Theater on 24th Street in the Mission, will feature talks on everything from San Francisco’s modern military ruins, to the city’s transportation history, to water systems feeding San Francisco. Visit themacrocity.com for more.

BISON: “YAWN”

One Bay to Breakers participant apparently heard the call of the wild, as the poncho-clad man was caught on video jumping into the Golden Gate Park bison paddock. Two officers arrested him in short order, and the SFPD Richmond station tweeted afterwards, “The bison seemed unimpressed.”

PORN DISCRIMINATION

San Francisco based porn star Eden Alexander was rushed to an emergency room after a near-fatal reaction to a common prescription drug. But when she tried using crowd-funding site Giveforward to cover the cost of her treatment, she was told by its payment operators, WePay, that her fundraiser would be cancelled because its terms state “you will not accept payments … in connection with pornographic items.” Alexander only sought funding for her medical costs.

MISSION: RUMBA

Dust off your feather headdress — it’s time yet again for Carnaval (Fri/23-Sun/25) when Harrison between 16th and 24th streets becomes one giant celebration of the music, dance, food, and art of Latin America. This year’s theme is “La Rumba de la Copa Mundial,” or a Celebration of the World Cup, which starts June 12 in Brazil. Sure, there’ll be plenty of drunken revelry, but this is also a great showcase of the deep-rooted Latino arts scene that’s holding on here, determinedly, even as the Mission changes: Look for the Arte Expo, featuring works from the Mexican Museum, Mission Cultural Center, Galleria de la Raza, Accion Latina, BRAVA, and Precita Eyes. The parade’s on Sun/25; see www.carnavalsanfrancisco.org to plan your route.

WANGIN’ IT

Insanely talented Chinese pianist Yuja Wang drops in on our SF Symphony once a year to tickle the ivories and steal a few hearts. Seriously: Her annual appearance here has become an event as eagerly anticipated as the return of the swallows to Capistrano or a sweet, light beating at the Folsom Street Fair. This time around (Thu/22-Sun/25, www.sfsymphony.org) she’ll be taking on Prokofiev’s magical, romping Piano Concerto No. 1 and Litolff’s whirling scherzo from Concerto Symphonique — a double treat for music lovers.

MEAT US SOON

We had doubts about 4505 Meats moving into the old Brother-in-Law BBQ #2 space on Divisadero — that hood moved upscale long ago, but a fancy BBQ in that particular space had the potential to be more sacrilegious than celebratory. Well, at least one local outlet is smitten: SFist has been drooling over 4505’s $18 “Big Mac” — “two beef patties lovingly caressing a block of fried macaroni and cheese” — and “famed bacon-studded hot dogs wrapped in macaroni and cheese and then deep fried.” We’ll let you know how all that goes down, once we can afford it!

An evening with Herbie Hancock and Nancy Pelosi at the SFJAZZ Gala

Steven T. Jones

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May 20, 2014

2

By Micah Dubreuil

If you were driving down Fell street last Friday, you might have come upon an unexpected detour. This would have been the block cordoned off for the first annual SFJAZZ Gala in their new facilities at 201 Franklin St. The building opened in January 2013, and in addition to featuring near-perfect acoustics in the main auditorium — arguably the best on the West Coast for jazz — it provides a sophisticated space for a social and fundraising event such as this one.

The Gala was officially honoring pianist and composer Herbie Hancock, and featured performances by Hancock himself in addition to the SFJAZZ Collective, Booker T., Charles Bradley and his Extraordinaires, Terrance Brewer, the SFJAZZ High School All-Stars, and a number of special guests. Standout performances were delivered by Avishai Cohen and Warren Wolf of the SFJAZZ Collective, in particular. And then of course there was Charles Bradley, whose emotional commitment is so thorough that he seems always to be on the verge of tears. Seeing Hammond Organ master Booker T. in a room as small as the Joe Henderson Lab was also a rare and unique experience.

Charles Bradley. All photos by Scott Chernis, courtesy of SFJAZZ.

The High School All-Stars played exceptionally well, highlighted by an inspired arrangement of Hancock’s “Eye of the Hurricane.” It must have been no simple feat for the teenagers (particularly the pianists) to perform mere feet from the legendary Hancock, but they acquitted themselves with distinction. It’d be easy to take the profoundly high level of youth musical achievement in the Bay Area for granted, if not for events like these reminding us that, you know, actual programs drive these accomplishments — programs like the SFJAZZ ensemble, the Berkeley High jazz program, the California Jazz Conservatory (formerly known as the Jazz School) and a number of others — and those programs take passion, effort, and funding. All told, their sweeping institutional support of this music is a remarkable achievement in its own right.

The SFJAZZ High School All Stars, with Paula West

Presenting the SFJAZZ Lifetime Achievement award to Hancock was saxophonist and composer Wayne Shorter, who was himself honored in 2008. After receiving the award, Hancock performed a solo interpretation of Shorter’s classic “Footprints,” which was followed by a SFJAZZ arrangement of the same tune. If I had one criticism, the night’s overall programming was extremely safe, featuring nearly all well-traveled (but beautiful) standards by Hancock (and one by Shorter), including Maiden Voyage, Watermelon Man, and Actual Proof. The only deep cut, as it were, was “And What If I Don’t” from Hancock’s 1963 release, My Point of View, performed by the SFJAZZ Collective. However, the programming reflected the nature of the event: A fundraiser aimed at gaining financial support from perhaps a broader audience than merely hardcore jazz fans — though, to be sure, plenty of those were also in attendance.

When the tally was in, SFJAZZ raised over $1.4 million for its educational and artistic programs, which is roughly in line with previous fundraisers. The event reflected this level of ambition, with a red carpet entrance and deliciously decadent food from local and national culinary artisans: Oysters from Tomales Bay, bacon-wrapped mochi, heirloom tomatoes topped with white chocolate. The statuesque models flanking the front doors with platters of champagne might have been a bit much, but otherwise the event was classy and dignified, with a crowd (which included House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi) dressed to impress; the invitation has read “black tie optional.” Master of ceremonies Robert Townsend, who directed Eddie Murphy’s stand-up film Raw (among other achievements) was jocular, jovial, and energetic. Even his (undeniably offensive) parody of sign-language interpreters received hearty laughter from the mostly-full auditorium.

booker
Booker T. Jones

Watching Shorter and Hancock sit by the side of the stage, it was hard not to reflect on their 50-year history of close collaboration and friendship. Jazz is obviously a major cultural institution, now propelled by organizations such as SFJAZZ, but for decades it was driven primarily by the passion and fearlessness of musicians like Hancock and Shorter. Their personal achievements are nothing short of colossal, and jazz itself would not be what it is today without them. In his acceptance speech, though, Hancock intoned that the jazz spirit “was all about we,” not the individual. He complimented hishosts for continuing those values: “SFJAZZ is all about sharing.” Here’s hoping the coming years keep allowing them to do just that.

Thick as blood: Sibling duo Broods are the next kiwis on the rise

Steven T. Jones

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May 15, 2014

1

Thick as blood: Sibling duo Broods are the next kiwis on the rise

“Kiwis tend to hold back and be too humble. They don’t want to be over-confident, but I think people are starting to realize that a little bit of confidence can go quite well,” says Caleb Nott, the elder brother of the sibling sensation from New Zealand known as Broods. He sits comfortably next to his sister, Georgia, in the back of The Independent, several hours before their show.

The brother-sister electro-pop duo didn’t get that confidence until the release of their first single, “Bridges,” on SoundCloud, created waves on the world wide interwebs last October. “Bridges” became a hit in the blogosphere and in this hemisphere alike, earning over 200,000 streams in a week.

“It all happened at once,” says 19-year-old Georgia. The singer has an innocent face, giving her the appearance of a much younger teenager. “We went from nobody really knowing us to people on the other side of the world wanting to meet us.”

Later that night, the band starts the night off with “Never Gonna Change,” a deep-synth track with correspondingly morose lyrics. “You’re pushing down on my shoulders, and emptying my lungs,” sings Georgia, lyrics reminiscent of a certain internationally-acclaimed Kiwi. Georgia moves slowly around the stage while Caleb creates layered synths and hypnotic beats. The two remain relatively reserved both on stage and in private. Georgia’s voice is sweet and breathy to the likes of Imogen Heap and Romy Madley Croft of The XX. Caleb brings more energy during the upbeat tracks, bouncing up and down behind his keyboard while Georgia skips around stage in a printed corset crop top and white billowy shorts.

Georgia, a self-proclaimed depressing music lover (“I love sad songs,”) falls deeply into “Taking You There,” a personal favorite and one of the strongest songs from the self-titled EP. Caleb gently strums an acoustic guitar and offers deep vocals to accompany his sisters’ silvery, dream-like hums. The audience moves to the soft beat and sings along. Most of the audience knows the words to every song on Broods’ EP, which the siblings admit to still be adjusting to.

“Seeing people wearing our T-shirts in the crowd,” says Caleb before the show. “That’s so weird and crazy, you’ve got my face on your T-shirt.”

Since October, Broods — the name obviously referring to the band members’ blood relation but also the melancholic nature of their songs — has played two US tours, spent a brief stint touring with Haim, and is scheduled as the opening act for Ellie Goulding’s Australia/New Zealand tour this summer.

“Over the last couple of years, people have started to look over to Auckland and to New Zealand as a whole for new music.” Caleb explains. From LadyHawke, to The Naked and Famous, Lorde and now Broods, the New Zealand music scene is a treasure trove of indie talent. Caleb says the music scene remains relatively tight-knit where everyone supports each other in their own music genre but doesn’t reach out beyond, reminiscent to a private high-school. “It’s pretty cliquey, because it’s very small.”

“This one’s for Lorde,” says Georgia in between songs. She dives into the gentle lullaby “Sleep Baby Sleep.” The mesmerizing beat and soft vocals is characteristic of Lorde’s debut album.

The band is clearly following in her footsteps, from the grassroots release of the Broods EP, to the dark coming-of-age tones, to the producer who discovered them. Joel Little found Caleb and Georgia while a judge for a music competition in 2011 but the band wasn’t formed until early 2013 in Auckland. After producing Lorde’s Grammy Award-winning debut album, Joel Little began work on “Bridges.”

Broods closes the show with its first single, “Bridges,” a moody track about broken relationships. Georgia starts out with muted piano chords and an ethereal voice that builds into Caleb’s rich synth soundscape. Georgia’s voice is exceptionally developed for her age. She plays a soft version of a song from their upcoming album. She’s most comfortable behind the piano, her instrument of choice. “And I’m trying hard to make you love me, but I don’t wanna try too hard,” she sings moodily about falling in love with the perfect man.

Broods has played in San Francisco twice now but has yet to play a show in New Zealand. The siblings will head home next week to work on their debut album with Joel Little. Then, they will play their first proper show in their hometown of Nelson with their 17-year-old sister, who is set to open with her folk band. Clearly, talent runs in the family.

Photos: Oakland fast food workers join strike with #FastFoodGlobal movement

Erica Hanna

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May 15, 2014

9

Photos: Oakland fast food workers join strike with #FastFoodGlobal movement

Last year, Bay Area fast food workers marched for higher wages. Today hundreds marched against Oakland restaurants serving Whoppers and Big Macs again, but now they’ve super-sized their movement.

Today [Thurs/15], fast food workers worldwide rose up for fair wages and the right to unionize. The protest spanned 150 US cities, as well as 33 countries across the world. Twitter flooded with photos of protesters in Argentina, France, Morocco, and Japan.

And protesting fast food workers in the Bay Area increased in number thanks to new workers joining the movement in Pleasanton, Livermore, and Oakland, workers told us.

The Oakland march picketed a McDonald’s on East 12th Street, and a Burger King at on 13th and Broadway, among other locations.

Last year, KFC worker Jose Martinez helped organize the Oakland march. Since then, he said, his bosses have shown little inclination to help workers.

“Nothing has changed,” Martinez said. “I’ve been working there four years, and I haven’t had a raise — $8.25 is nothing, I can’t live on that.”

Martinez is a student, seemingly fitting in the conservative national narrative of workers who don’t deserve to earn more. But Martinez says the pay is not enough to pay for basic needs while he attends school.

And many workers we talked to before today’s strike also support their families.

“I haven’t had a raise in three years,” a McDonald’s worker who identified herself as Markeisha told us just after she went out on strike from an Oakland McDonald’s in December. Markeisha said she has two children and she is their sole provider.

Another common misconception is that workers are merely fighting for higher wages. Although raises are among their needs, fast food workers also contend they are a vulnerable workforce. Wage theft, low salaries, slashed hours, and punitive measures for speaking out are among the grievances fast food workers allege against their bosses at chains including McDonald’s, Burger King, and Taco Bell.

“One thing we found when talking to fast food workers was wage theft issues were high,” Service Employees International Union Local 1021 Political Director Chris Daly told the Guardian. “When you’re making $8-11 an hour, a couple shifts can be the difference between paying the rent or not.”

Workers we talked to at the last strike alleged their jobs at McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken paid so low they had to also enroll in CalFresh (food stamps) to afford food. That sort of government subsidy for big business puts a strain on the taxpayer, former Labor Secretary and current UC Berkeley professor Robert Reich noted on his blog.

McDonald’s alleged last year’s actions were strikes-in-name-only. “To right-size the headlines, however, the events taking place are not strikes. Outside groups are traveling to McDonald’s and other outlets to stage rallies,” McDonald’s wrote in a press statement.

Counter to the corporate narrative, the Bay Guardian witnessed multiple Oakland McDonald’s workers joining picket lines (captured on video).

But it seems McDonald’s is worried about how the protests will affect its bottom line. As first reported by Salon, McDonald’s public SEC filings report the company list protests and strikes in its “Risk Factors and Cautionary Statement Regarding Forward-Looking Statements.”

“The impact of campaigns by labor organizations and activists,” is one forward looking risk to the company’s future earnings, McDonald’s wrote in their filing, “including through the use of social media and other mobile communications and applications, to promote adverse perceptions of the quick-service category of the IEO segment or our brand, management, suppliers or franchisees.”

Below are images from #FastFoodGlobal strikes and protests in Oakland and around the world.

Lots of moms and kids among the protesters at #Oakland McDonalds #FastFoodGlobal pic.twitter.com/hXTykUQcPx

— Julia Wong (@juliacarriew) May 15, 2014

Bet you were wondering “What about Nepal?” KATMANDU #FastFoodGlobal pic.twitter.com/ywPlS8Xyhf

— Low Pay Is Not OK (@LowPayIsNotOK) May 15, 2014

Massive @FastFoodForward march of striking workers in NYC #FastFoodGlobal pic.twitter.com/AwVSTb4Sxo #solidarity #fightfor15 @nermeendn @ROC_NY

— Jonathan Leavitt (@JCL_VT) May 15, 2014

Now: Argentina is bringing the clown down! #FastFoodGlobal #RonaldMcDonald pic.twitter.com/LXfQIiDpap

— Low Pay Is Not OK (@LowPayIsNotOK) May 15, 2014

NU-HRCT general secretary speaks in support of Swiss fast food workers. #FastFoodGlobal #fightfor15 pic.twitter.com/qwbbwKLuq7

— NU-HRCT (@NUHRCT) May 15, 2014

Live: In Casablanca, Morocco @McDonalds can’t hide. Give workers a raise! pic.twitter.com/yWD6Ar71q3

— Low Pay Is Not OK (@LowPayIsNotOK) May 15, 2014

solidarity with fast food workers in the world #France #starbucks #Paris Montparnasse #fastfoodglobal @IUFglobal pic.twitter.com/uC0zFMFcJm

— CFDT HTR Services (@cfdt_htr) May 15, 2014

こちらもブラジル。　RT @JoeSimoes2: #FastFoodGlobal #lowpayisnotok curitiba Brasil pic.twitter.com/LfHNd3XIrH

— yamada shingo (@syashingo) May 15, 2014

#fastfoodglobal # hungryforjustice #fastfoodrights McDonald’s belfast city centre pic.twitter.com/tztwlJrP33

— Laura Graham (@Laura_Graham8) May 15, 2014

“#Glasgow #Scotland #fastfoodglobal @McDonalds-Pay living wage+respect workers’ rights pic.twitter.com/9LgIBZYdQy” @FastfoodRights @labornick

— Julie Sherry (@Juliebsherry) May 15, 2014

The view from McDonalds. Dublin supports #Fastfoodglobal #fightfor15 #union pic.twitter.com/ps07n1vuCI

— Ian McArdle (@IanMcArdle1) May 15, 2014

Pakistani workers in action! Global #solidarity #FastFoodGlobal pic.twitter.com/maHtvrfSgh

— IUF (@IUFglobal) May 15, 2014

#India #FastFoodGlobal pic.twitter.com/pBV3MbdbPC

— artika ashdhir (@cribbing_tree) May 15, 2014

Not lovin’ it: Fast food workers in Tokyo protest to demand higher wages http://t.co/rEwiwH11YU pic.twitter.com/YnVkEkAb1V

— RT (@RT_com) May 15, 2014

Fast food workers strike in the Bay Area and worldwide

Erica Hanna

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May 15, 2014

0

Bay Area fast food workers who walked out and picketed their stores last year are set for a repeat performance in their battle against the house that Big Mac built, timed to debut right as the Guardian hits the streets. And this strike is also set to expand.

On May 15, fast food workers worldwide plan to rise up in protest of unfair labor practices and punitive actions by their bosses. Fast food workers in the Bay Area will be joining the strike. Labor sources tell us their numbers may double thanks to new workers joining the movement in Pleasanton, Livermore, and Oakland.

The new Oakland march is twofold: One will picket a McDonald’s on East 12th Street, and another a McDonald’s on 14th and Jackson.

“I haven’t had a raise in three years,” a McDonald’s worker who identified herself as Markeisha told us just after she went out on strike from an Oakland McDonald’s in December. And contrary to the common narrative of fast food workers being independent teenagers, Markeisha said she has two children, and she is their sole provider.

Another common misconception is that workers are merely fighting for higher wages. Although raises are among their needs, fast food workers also contend they are a vulnerable workforce. Wage theft, low salaries, slashed hours, and punitive measures for speaking out are among the grievances fast food workers allege against their bosses at chains including McDonalds, Burger King, and Taco Bell.

“One thing we found when talking to fast food workers was wage theft issues were high,” Service Employees International Union Local 1021 Political Director Chris Daly told the Guardian. “When you’re making $8-11 an hour, a couple shifts can be the difference between paying the rent or not.”

Workers we talked to at the last strike alleged their jobs at McDonald’s and Kentucky Fried Chicken paid so low they had to also enroll in CalFresh (food stamps) to afford food. That sort of government subsidy for big business puts a strain on the taxpayer, former Labor Secretary and current UC Berkeley professor Robert Reich noted on his blog.

McDonalds alleges last year’s actions were strikes-in-name-only. “To right-size the headlines, however, the events taking place are not strikes. Outside groups are traveling to McDonald’s and other outlets to stage rallies,” McDonald’s wrote in a press statement.

Counter to the corporate narrative, the Bay Guardian witnessed multiple Oakland McDonalds workers joining picket lines (captured on video: “Oakland joins 100 cities in national strike,” Dec. 5,www.sfbg.com).

The next Fast Food Strike will have a world focus. Earlier this month, Salon.com reported the strike will reach cities including Karachi, Casablanca, London, Bangkok, Buenos Aires, Geneva and San Salvador.

“The fast food organizing across the country speaks to how this issue is capturing not just the public imagination,” Daly told us, “but speaking to low-wage workers realities to struggling simply to live.”

Bimbo’s 365 club

Steven T. Jones

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May 13, 2014

0

When Agostino “Bimbo” Giuntoli first arrived in San Francisco from Italy in 1922, the 19-year-old found work as a janitor and then as a cook at the swanky Palace Hotel. He likely didn’t think that, within 10 years, he’d be running one of the hottest Prohibition-era speakeasies in the city — where well-heeled guests came to drink, gamble, and watch a young Rita Hayworth dance in the chorus line. Even tougher to believe, most likely, would be the fact that his club is still in business, and run by his family, nearly 85 years later.

Bimbo’s 365, named for its owner (whose nickname was born of a boss not knowing how to pronounce Italian) and its original address on Market Street, is one of a dwindling number of family-owned businesses in San Francisco — and at a time when other historic venues like Café du Nord are shuttering or getting a yuppified overhaul, Bimbo’s seems (knock on wood) to be going strong.

“We work really hard, and we’re very fortunate to be where we are,” says Michael Cerchiai, who reopened the club as a live venue in 1988 after nearly two decades of it being available only as a rental for private parties. Soon after, Bimbo’s served as a hub for the burgeoning swing revival of the ’90s and the growing acid jazz scene. Erykah Badu played there on her first national tour, as did Fiona Apple; the last time George Clinton and the P-Funk All-Stars came through, Stevie Wonder showed up unannounced and sang too.

“We’re a tight-knit Italian family, so it’s a lot of tough love. We get things off our chest, and I think sometimes you can’t do that when it’s not a family-run business,” says Cerchiai, who recalls going to shows with his siblings when they were small children — back when the club was black-tie only. “We had a Felix [tuxedo rental] down the street, so we’d get dressed up and check out the show, and that was a way to see our grandfather and our dad.”

Michael’s brother Gino, and their father, Graziano Cerchiai (Mr. Bimbo’s 83-year-old son-in-law), are three of the seven staff members running the present-day Bimbo’s — whose stage has most recently seen Nicki Bluhm and the Gramblers, Flaming Lips, and the White Stripes, among others.

Says Cerchiai, “Having grown up here, loving music, it’s just gratifying to see people coming out, enjoying a show, and having a good time.”

1025 Columbus Ave, SF

(415) 474-0365

bimbos365club.com

Gimme 5: Must-see shows this week

Steven T. Jones

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May 13, 2014

0

Is it hot in here, or is it just — sorry, no, that’s all of San Francisco, doing that delightfully freakish 85-degree Actual Summer thing while the East Coast is still clawing its frost-bitten way out of the 60s.

In addition to skipping work to drink margaritas on patios and texting your Boston-based friends pictures of your feet on the beach just to be a dick, there are quite a few rad, summery shows going on this week — so make some new cut-offs, fill up your water bottle, and go get sweaty with some strangers. Try not to get into any fights in elevators. And enjoy it while it lasts! By June we’ll all be wearing hoodies again.

THU/15

Cool Ghouls

SF’s own Cool Ghouls make some of the most unpretentiously happy, jangly, beach-brat garage pop you’ve ever heard; they’ve been on many a “why-aren’t-they-bigger-yet” list for a while now. Last year’s self-titled debut was a pretty perfect drive-down-the-coast soundtrack, and the dudes say their second full-length is in the works — chances are there’ll be some new stuff to hear at this Chapel show, which is the first of a few local dates this summer before they head down to Monterey in August to support Beck, The National, Best Coast, et. al. at the First City Festival on August 23. — Emma Silvers
With Mr. Elevator & the Brain Hotel and Mane
8pm, $12
The Chapel
777 Valencia, SF
www.thechapelsf.com

Anti-Nowhere League and T.S.O.L.

British hardcore punk stalwarts the Anti-Nowhere League have made a name for themselves over the past three decades with an unabashedly aggressive and in-your-face approach, as evidenced by their signature songs “I Hate People” and the profanity-laced “So What” — the latter was even notoriously covered by Metallica. In a perfect pairing, Southern California punk icons T.S.O.L (True Sounds of Liberty), who became infamous for the police riots that would break out at their shows, and the tune “Code Blue,” an ode to the joys of necrophilia, join the bill for what promises to be one hell of show. — Sean McCourt
With The Riverboat Gamblers and Dime Runner
9pm, $18-$20
DNA Lounge
375 11th St, SF
(415) 626-1409
www.dnalounge.com

FRI/16

Zion I

Last time Zion I was at the Independent was for a guest appearance during the venue’s 10th anniversary celebration, but this time, the stage will be all theirs. Baba Zumbi and AmpLive of Zion I have been making music together for over 15 years. AmpLive brings the electronic dance beats that vacillate between reggae and drum ’n’ bass, while Zumbi carries the vocals with socially conscious lyrics. Originally formed in Atlanta, the Berkeley-based duo creates a sound that’s difficult to define — neither West Coast hip-hop, nor East Coast rap, the band’s musical influences remains deeply engrained in songs that deliver messages of unity and hope. — Laura B. Childs
9pm, $25
The Independent
628 Divisadero, SF
(415) 771-1421
www.theindependentsf.com

SAT/17

A Minor Forest

One of the best-loved melodic math-rock bands of the ’90s, San Francisco’s A Minor Forest probably made lots of fans pee their pants last year when they announced their reunion. Then came the re-issue of two iconic albums, Flemish Altruism and Inindependence, for Record Store Day. And then, just for good measure, a national tour. They’ll be coming home this week, and a hometown show to close out a tour is always a fun one — they’ll be tired, sure, but they’ll be happy to see us. Bonus: You can go give Andee, the drummer and co-owner of Aquarius Records, an in-person review of the show at his Valencia Street record store. Maybe just give him a day or two to catch up on work. — Emma Silvers
With Phil Manley’s Life Coach, Golden Void
8pm, $15
The Chapel
777 Valencia, SF
www.thechapelsf.com

SUN/18

Iggy Azalea

First things first, she’s the realest. The Australian beauty and hip-hop performer, Iggy Azalea, has been making waves in this hemisphere since her Clueless-inspired music video for her hit single “Fancy.” With sassy raps and catchy hooks about the glam life, Azalea’s sound is reminiscent of the “it” girls of the early 2000s. Think Gwen Stefani’s vocals and Lil’ Kim’s beats, but this former model adds personal flair with her zero-fucks-given charisma and unabashed obsession with America. She’s opened for household names such as Beyoncé and Rita Ora, but since the release of her debut album, The New Classic, Azalea is on the prowl with her Monster Energy Outbreak Tour. — Childs
8pm, $35
The Fillmore
1805 Geary, SF
(415) 346-6000
www.thefillmore.com

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_v-eyAUPS6g

Burning mouse

Michael Redmond

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May 13, 2014

0

arts@sfbg.com

THEATER Mike Daisey is a talker. He can talk about a lot of things. Hell, he can talk for 24 hours straight (and did in All the Hours in the Day at Portland’s TBA Festival in 2011). This gift of gab has brought him acclaim as an artist in the theater, where he’s known as an eminent monologist of the desk-bound Spalding Gray school. In one case, it’s even brought him public scandal, to wit, NPR’s 2012 call-out regarding fabricated bits in The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs — an experience Daisey says has made him not only “wiser” but “a better storyteller.”

But Daisey doesn’t tell stories for the sake of talking alone. He chases after questions that intrigue him, and these, more than his comically barbed but affable stage persona, make his stories worth listening to. Occupying a fertile middle ground between high concept and low humor, his self-referential yarns confront issues he sees as central to how we live and — in a related, no less passionate way — to how the theater lives and dies in American culture. He directly essayed this latter theme in his 2008 show, How Theater Failed America, but it remains a lively concern, as he suggests below.

His latest, American Utopias, makes its Bay Area debut at Yerba Buena Center for the Arts this weekend. Following the format he has been honing since the late 1990s, Daisey uses a few notes written on loose sheets of paper to re-create afresh each night a set of three intertwining stories about Disney World, Burning Man, and Occupy Wall Street, following all three down their respective rabbit holes to glean what, individually and cumulatively, they might teach us about ourselves.

SF Bay Guardian You grew up in a really remote corner of the country. When you consider what brought you to where you’re at now, how much of that do you attribute to this background?

Mike Daisey I grew up in a place called Fort Kent, Maine, which is on the Canadian border. It’s actually the end of US Route 1, which begins in Key West. To me, psychically, it always feels like this must be the most remote place possible because every piece of mythology about roads is that sort of Tolkien idea, “The road goes ever on!” Whereas I was like, “No, it doesn’t actually. It ends. Right here. This must be the furthest place from everything.” It’s a very interesting area, the St. John Valley, around the St. John River. The people are predominately French Canadian. It’s a very different place from what I’ve come to recognize as the rest of America.

I do think that there’s a storytelling tradition that grows up in Maine, that exists there, that informs the work I do now. I think partly it’s informed by years of speech and debate at a very tender age. I think it’s informed by a couple of years of playing Dungeons & Dragons at a formative time. And, layered on top of all of that, was a very earnest desire to discover a form that would allow me to create theatrical experiences that were new in the moment that they were spoken. I was really dedicated to that proposition, that there could be a form of theater that lives in the moment that it’s spoken, both for the performer and the audience. I was looking for a form that would allow both there to be rigor and precision in the structure, but at the same time allow true spontaneity, and allow discoveries to happen in the moment that could not be anticipated.

That’s what I love about the monologues, about all storytelling. I often think of jazz when I’m trying to explain it to people. In the Western tradition, it is hard for people to understand how it is that something is composed without being written. We’ve all become so mired in the tyranny of the written word that we actually come to believe that the act of writing is the act of thinking. The spoken work is actually closer to the thought; it’s a more primal form than the form that writing takes. We forget that. So it’s hard to explain to people sometimes how something [spontaneous] can have form and precision and texture and depth. People often want to know, “How long did you work on this monologue?” And there really is no right answer to give, except the one that the jazz legends often give, which is to say, my whole life.

SFBG Do you think that that fascination with the research and work that goes into a piece is part of the way art gets commercialized, packaged as discrete products?

MD Yeah, I think that’s true. You know, I just went to Cuba. I was in Havana for about two weeks. I’m working on what’s going to be a separate piece, from the show that I’m bringing to Yerba Buena, about the commodification of art. When art transforms into a good. As soon as it does, as soon as it enters that market place, we really want to know its provenance; we want to know that this piece was not just tossed off by the artist. We want to know that the artist was thinking about something, or dreaming about something. We want to know that the piece we’re holding is a piece of the artist’s greatness and is an important piece at that. A lot of what it’s about is really acquisitive in nature.

That’s one of the reasons my going to Cuba was so fascinating. Being in a culture where a ballet dancer is paid the same amount that a surgeon is paid is really fascinating for what it does to cultural priorities. I’m not even saying that we all should pay surgeons the same amount as ballet dancers. But coming from my own culture, which I think is anti-art — I think it’s heavily tilted against art because of a real grain of Puritanism that runs through the center of the American character — it’s really fascinating to think about different ways that lives could be lived. Watch me: I’m slowly dovetailing! That connects to American Utopias in a really direct way. A lot of that monologue is about the effort to imagine a different way of life.

SFBG Where does theater figure in that imagining?

MD Theater really needs to make more radical shifts if it wants to take back some ground in the cultural conversation. Not necessarily in a traditional way, opening large movies that everyone’s talking about, but in a quieter way. I feel like theater sometimes suffers from being neither fish nor fowl. I’m often struck by the difference between a play [that’s considered a success] with 400, 500 performances. But those numbers don’t compare to millions of page views on YouTube.

At the same time, there’s another unique number, which is one, like when I create a show that’s for one night only and only happens once. There’s uniqueness to that, which the American theater also has a hard time [working] with because the form involves playwrights and rehearsals — we have a hard time doing the unique event. So instead we have this weird compromise, where we create this unique event but we then do this unique event 23 times. There’s this very odd middle ground. I often feel a correspondence between those numbers: like a run of 23 or 31 performances and page views of seldom-visited pages on the Internet. It’s really hard to thrive when you’re not doing something that’s singular each time and, at the same time, you’re not doing something that’s digital and ubiquitous and anyone can watch anywhere.

I just wish theater would grapple with one world or the other. I feel sometimes like the theater is a little bit its own version of The Glass Menagerie. It’s ignoring the war, everything that’s going on outside, like Tom talks about in his opening monologue of that beautiful play. But then the whole play is in this apartment, in this world where everyone’s dreams become sort of curdled and small. I sometimes feel like we really need to break out of the apartment. We all need to be like Tom and we need to hit the road.

SFBG Given it has three very different strands to it, what is American Utopias ultimately about?

MD American Utopias is about how we create spaces. But not just in the traditional architectural terms, but how we create them socially. So it’s an examination of three very different types of spaces. In each case, the members of the community that have made that space think of it as a kind of utopia. They see it as a reflection of a more perfect world. In many cases they wish they could live there more of the time but they know it’s not possible. I have preferences among the three to some extent but, on the other hand, none of the three are really my utopia. As a consequence, my role, I feel, is to talk about the connections between them. What really interests me are the anthropological systems, how humans organize themselves and how we share dreams. That interests me a lot. *

AMERICAN UTOPIAS

Fri/16-Sat/17, 7:30pm, $30-$35

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater

700 Howard, SF

www.ybca.org

Rep Clock: May 14 – 20, 2014

Michael Redmond

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May 13, 2014

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Schedules are for Wed/14-Tue/20 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features marked with a •. All times pm unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $6-10. Films by SF State University’s experimental documentary class, Thu, 7:30. “Other Cinema,” contemporary sound and video art works by Derek G, Tommy Becker, and others, Sat, 8:30.

BALBOA THEATRE 3630 Balboa, SF; cinemasf.com/balboa. $7.50-10. “Popcorn Palace:” Wallace and Gromit: The Curse of the Were-Rabbit (Box and Park, 2005), Sat, 10am. Matinee for kids.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $8.50-11. “KQED presents: An Evening with Ken Burns:” The Roosevelts: An Intimate History (Burns, 2014), Wed, 7:30. Sneak preview of new miniseries to air in September on PBS; this event, $20-25 at www.cityboxoffice.com. •Drugstore Cowboy (Van Sant, 1989), Thu, 7, and Trainspotting (Boyle, 1996), Thu, 8:55. “Epidemic Film Festival,” works by Academy of Art University students, with a speech by cinematographer Rodrigo Prieto, Fri, 4-8. •Raiders of the Lost Ark (Spielberg, 1981), Sat, 2:30, 7, and Romancing the Stone (Zemeckis, 1984), Sat, 4:45, 9:15. •A Streetcar Named Desire (Kazan, 1951), Sun, 2:15, 7, and Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Nichols, 1966), Sun, 4:35, 9:15.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.50-$10.75. Palo Alto (Coppola, 2013), May 16-22, call for times. “Mark Cantor Presents Jazz at the Movies,” Sun, 6. This event, $15-25.

CITY COLLEGE OF SAN FRANCISCO Diego Rivera Theatre, 50 Phelan, SF; www.ccsf.edu. Free. “CCSF City Shorts Student Film Festival,” Thu, 7.

CLAY 2261 Fillmore, SF; www.landmarktheatres.com. $10. “Midnight Movies:” Dirty Harry (Siegel, 1971), Sat, midnight.

“HIMALAYAN FILM FESTIVAL” Ninth Street Independent Film Center, 145 Ninth St, Suite 250, SF; and Himalayan Fair Grounds, Live Oak Theater, 1301 Shattuck, Berk; www.himalayanfilmfest.com. $10-20 (festival pass, $40). Documentary and narrative films from Nepal, Bhutan, and Tibet. Fri-Sat.

MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; milibrary.org/events. $10. “CinemaLit Film Series: Comedy Tonight:” Stir Crazy (Poitier, 1980), Fri, 6.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $6.50-11. Documented: A Film By An Undocumented American (Vargas, 2013), May 15-21, 7, 9. Director Jose Vargas in person at Thu-Fri shows. NOW: In the Wings on the World Stage (Whelehan, 2014), Wed-Thu, 7, 9. “I Wake Up Dreaming 2014: Dark Treasures from the Warner Archive:” •Stranger on the Third Floor (Ingster, 1940), Fri, 6:30, 9:30, and The Unsuspected (Curtiz, 1947), Fri, 8; •Love is a Racket (Wellman, 1932), Sat, 2, and Ladies They Talk About (Bretherton and Keighley, 1933), Sat, 3:30; •Nora Prentiss (Sherman, 1947), Sat, 7:30, and The Unfaithful (Sherman, 1947), Sat, 5:15, 9:45; •Angels in Disguise (Yarbrough, 1948), Sun, 2, and Fall Guy (Le Borg, 1947), Sun, 3:15, and When Strangers Marry (Castle, 1944), Sun, 4:30; •The Window (Tetzlaff, 1949), Sun, 6:30, 9:45, and The Locket (Brahm, 1946), Sun, 8; •Two Seconds (Le Roy, 1932), Mon, 6:30, 9:40, and 20,000 Years in Sing Sing (Curtiz, 1932), Mon, 8; •A Woman’s Secret (Ray, 1949), Tue, 6:15, 9:45, and Tomorrow is Another Day (Feist, 1951), Tue, 8.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. $8-10. “Astonishing Animation: The Films of Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli:” Pom Poko (Takahata, 1994), Thu, 7:30 and Sat, 5; Castle in the Sky (Miyazaki, 1986), Sat, 7:30 and Sun, 3; My Neighbor Totoro (Miyazaki, 1988), Sun, 1. *

Theater Listings: May 14 – 20, 2014

Michael Redmond

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May 13, 2014

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

THEATER

OPENING

The Homosexuals New Conservatory Theatre Center, Decker Theatre, 25 Van Ness, SF; www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Previews Fri/16-Sat/17 and May 21 and 23, 8pm; Sun/18, 2pm. Opens May 24, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through June 28. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs Philip Dawkins’ play about a young man struggling with his identity amid a new group of friends.

BAY AREA

The Crazed Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant, Berk; www.centralworks.org. $15-28. Previews Thu/15-Fri/16, 8pm. Opens Sat/17, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through June 23. Central Works performs Sally Dawidoff’s play, based on Ha Jin’s novel about coming of age in Communist China.

The Intelligent Homosexual’s Guide to Capitalism and Socialism with a Key to the Scriptures Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-89. Previews Fri/16-Sat/17 and Tue/20, 7:30pm; Sun/18, 7pm. Opens May 21, 7:30pm. Runs Tue, Thu-Sat, 7:30pm (also May 29, June 26, and all Saturdays in June, 2pm); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm). Through June 29. Berkeley Rep performs the West Coast premiere of Tony Kushner’s latest play.

The 25th Annual Putnam County Spelling Bee Lesher Center for the Arts, 1601 Civic, Walnut Creek; www.centerrep.org. $37-65. Previews Fri/16-Sat/17, 8pm; Sun/18, 2:30pm. Opens Tue/20, 7:30pm. Runs Wed, 7:30pm; Thu-Sat, 8pm (also June 7, 14, 21, 2:30pm); Sun, 2:30pm. Through June 21. Center REP performs the Tony-winning musical by William Finn and Rachel Sheinkin.

ONGOING

“Best of PlayGround 18” Thick House, 1695 18th St, SF; www.playground-sf.org. $22-55 (all-fest pass, $60-75). Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through May 25. Short plays and musicals by Bay Area writers.

Chasing Mehserle Intersection for the Arts, 925 Mission, SF; chasingmehserle.brownpapertickets.com. $25. Thu-Sun, 8pm. Through May 24. Also May 29-31, 8pm, $15-25, Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.zspace.org. Intersection for the Arts, Campo Santo, and the Living Word Project present Chinaka Hodge’s performance piece about Oakland in the aftermath of the Oscar Grant killing.

Communiqué N°10 Exit on Taylor, 277 Taylor, SF; www.cuttingball.com. $10-50. Thu, 7:30; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 5pm. Through May 25. Amid a fractious band of young rebels from the urban underclass and ongoing rioting in the streets, a young immigrant named Hassan (Damien Seperi) searches for the man who killed his 16-year-old brother. French playwright Samuel Gallet’s Communiqué N°10 draws immediate inspiration from the Paris riots of 2005, but the tinder box of extreme inequality and anti-immigrant policies are hardly a French monopoly (indeed, the standoff last year between immigrant rights demonstrators and French police following the deportation of a Roma student, snatched off a school bus in front of her classmates, sounds all too familiar to Americans living through Obama’s unprecedented wave of deportations and incarcerations of undocumented people and the popular protest rising against it). Cutting Ball Theater’s US premiere of Gallet’s play, however, strains after its subject, timely though it is. Presented in association with Golden Thread Productions as part of the second biennial Des Voix&ldots; festival of new French plays and cinema, director and translator Rob Melrose’s production sets the action on a spare set (designed by Michael Locher) ringed by a two-tier framework of metal piping, about which some of the seven-member cast climb and roost. But the sparse setting is in fact overwhelmed with altogether too much stage business, including Emma Jaster’s somewhat labored choreography and Cliff Caruthers’ often distracting soundscape, which only detracts from the already difficult-to-follow plot points and further undermines an ensemble that never really coheres. Add to this contrived dialogue such as Hassan’s retort to having his picture snapped by love-interest Marlene (Maura Halloran) — “Images. We never know what purposes they serve in the end” — and what should be a tense and dynamic drama instead becomes a dreary, vaguely didactic ball of confusion. (Avila)

“DIVAfest” Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; www.divafest.info. Prices and showtimes vary. Through May 24. This 13th annual festival celebrates the work of women artists, with performances including the premiere of Rat Girl (adapted from the memoir by rocker Kristin Hersh), Margery Fairchild’s ballet comedy The Pas De Quatre, a reading by acclaimed poet Diane di Prima, and more.

Dracula Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; sfdracula.blogspot.com. $35. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through May 31. Kellerson Productions presents a new adaptation of the Bram Stoker classic.

Du Barry Was a Lady Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.42ndstmoon.org. $25-75. Wed/14-Thu/15, 7pm; Fri/16, 8pm; Sat/17, 6pm (also Sat/17, 1pm); Sun/18, 3pm. 42nd Street Moon presents Cole Porter’s saucy musical comedy, with comedian and writer Bruce Vilanch starring.

Feisty Old Jew Marsh San Francisco Main Stage, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $25-100. New performance schedule: Sat-Sun, 5pm. Extended through July 13. Charlie Varon performs his latest solo show, a fictional comedy about “a 20th century man living in a 21st century city.”

Foodies! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.foodiesthemusical.com. $32-34. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. AWAT Productions presents Morris Bobrow’s musical comedy revue all about food.

Lovebirds Marsh San Francisco Studio, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $20-100. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Through May 31. Award-winning solo theater artist Marga Gomez brings her hit comedy back for a limited run before taking it to New York in June.

Pearls Over Shanghai Hypnodrome Theatre, 575 10th St, SF; www.thrillpeddlers.com. $30-35. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through May 31. Five years ago, Thrillpeddlers breathed new life into a glitter-dusted piece of Sixties flotsam, beautifully reimagining the Cockettes’ raunchy mock-operetta Pearls Over Shanghai (in collaboration with several surviving members of San Francisco’s storied acid-drag troupe) and running it for a whopping 22 months. Written by Cockette Link Martin as a carefree interpretation of a 1926 Broadway play, the baldly stereotyped Shanghai Gesture, it was the perfectly lurid vehicle for irreverence in all directions. It’s back in this revival, once again helmed by artistic director Russell Blackwood with musical direction by Cockette and local favorite Scrumbly Koldewyn. But despite the frisson of featuring some original-original cast members — including “Sweet Pam” Tent (who with Koldewyn also contributes some new dialogue) and Rumi Missabu (regally reprising the role of Madam Gin Sling) — there’s less fire the second time around as the production straddles the line between carefully slick and appropriately sloppy. Nevertheless, there are some fine musical numbers and moments throughout. Among these, Zelda Koznofsky, Birdie-Bob Watt, and Jesse Cortez consistently hit high notes as the singing Andrews Sisters-like trio of Americans thrown into white slavery; Bonni Suval’s Lottie Wu is a fierce vixen; and Noah Haydon (as the sultry Petrushka) is a class act. Koldewyn’s musical direction and piano accompaniment, meanwhile, provide strong and sure momentum as well as exquisite atmosphere. (Avila)

Romeo and Juliet Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason, Ste 601, SF; www.eventbrite.com. $20. Thu-Sat, 8pm (also May 24, 3pm). Through May 24. Ninjaz of Drama perform Shakespeare’s tragic romance.

Seminar San Francisco Playhouse, 450 Post, Second Flr, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. $20-100. Tue-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm); Sun/18, June 1, and 8, 2pm. Through June 14. San Francisco Playhouse performs Theresa Rebeck’s biting comedy.

Shit & Champagne Rebel, 1772 Market, SF; shitandchampagne.eventbrite.com. $25. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. D’Arcy Drollinger is Champagne White, bodacious blond innocent with a wicked left hook in this cross-dressing ’70s-style white-sploitation flick, played out live on Rebel’s intimate but action-packed barroom stage. Written by Drollinger and co-directed with Laurie Bushman (with high-flying choreography by John Paolillo, Drollinger, and Matthew Martin), this high-octane camp send-up of a favored formula comes dependably stocked with stock characters and delightfully protracted by a convoluted plot (involving, among other things, a certain street drug that’s triggered an epidemic of poopy pants) — all of it played to the hilt by an excellent cast that includes Martin as Dixie Stampede, an evil corporate dominatrix at the head of some sinister front for world domination called Mal*Wart; Alex Brown as Detective Jack Hammer, rough-hewn cop on the case and ambivalent love interest; Rotimi Agbabiaka as Sergio, gay Puerto Rican impresario and confidante; Steven Lemay as Brandy, high-end calf model and Champagne’s (much) beloved roommate; and Nancy French as Rod, Champagne’s doomed fiancé. Sprawling often literally across two buxom acts, the show maintains admirable consistency: The energy never flags and the brow stays decidedly low. (Avila)

Sleeping Cutie: A Fractured Fairy Tale Musical Thick House, 1695 18th St, SF; sleepingcutiemusical.tix.com. $30-40. Extended run: Sat/10, May 12-14 and 19-21, 8pm; Sun/11, 2pm. Off a Cliff Productions and PlayGround present Diane Sampson and Doug Katsaros’ world-premiere musical.

The Speakeasy Undisclosed location (ticket buyers receive a text with directions), SF; www.thespeakeasysf.com. $70 (gambling chips, $5-10 extra; after-hours admission, $10). Thu-Sat, 7:40, 7:50, and 8pm admittance times. Extended through May 24. Boxcar Theater’s most ambitious project to date is also one of the more involved and impressively orchestrated theatrical experiences on any Bay Area stage just now. An immersive time-tripping environmental work, The Speakeasy takes place in an “undisclosed location” (in fact, a wonderfully redesigned version of the company’s Hyde Street theater complex) amid a period-specific cocktail lounge, cabaret, and gambling den inhabited by dozens of Prohibition-era characters and scenarios that unfold around an audience ultimately invited to wander around at will. At one level, this is an invitation to pure dress-up social entertainment. But there are artistic aims here too. Intentionally designed (by co-director and creator Nick A. Olivero with co-director Peter Ruocco) as a fractured super-narrative — in which audiences perceive snatches of overheard stories rather than complete arcs, and can follow those of their own choosing — there’s a way the piece becomes specifically and ever more subtly about time itself. This is most pointedly demonstrated in the opening vignettes in the cocktail lounge, where even the ticking of Joe’s Clock Shop (the “cover” storefront for the illicit 1920s den inside) can be heard underscoring conversations (deeply ironic in historical hindsight) about war, loss, and regained hope for the future. For a San Francisco currently gripped by a kind of historical double-recurrence of the roaring Twenties and dire Thirties at once, The Speakeasy is not a bad place to sit and ponder the simulacra of our elusive moment. (Avila)

The Suit ACT’s Geary Theater, 415 Geary, SF; www.act-sf.org. $20-120. Wed/14-Sat/17, 8pm (also Wed/14 and Sat/17, 2pm); Sun/18, 1pm. ACT performs Peter Brook, Marie Hélène Estienne, and Franck Krawcyzk’s music-infused drama about betrayal and resentment adapted from the short story by South African author Can Themba.

Tipped & Tipsy Marsh Studio Theater, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat/17, 5pm. Last fall’s San Francisco Fringe Festival began on a high note with Jill Vice’s witty and deft solo, Tipped & Tipsy, and the Best of Fringe winner is now enjoying another round at solo theater outpost the Marsh. Without set or costume changes, Vice (who developed the piece with Dave Dennison and David Ford) brings the querulous regulars of a skid-row bar to life both vividly and with real quasi-Depression-Era charm. She’s a protean physical performer, seamlessly inhabiting the series of oddball outcasts lined up each day at Happy’s before bartender Candy — two names as loaded as the clientele. After some hilarious expert summarizing of the dos and don’ts of bar culture, a story unfolds around a battered former boxer and his avuncular relationship with Candy, who tries to cut him off in light of his clearly deteriorating health. Her stance causes much consternation, and even fear, in his barfly associates, while provoking a dangerous showdown with the bar’s self-aggrandizing sleazeball owner, Rico. With a love of the underdog and strong writing and acting at its core, Tipsy breezes by, leaving a superlative buzz. (Avila)

“Des Voix: Found in Translation Biennial 2014” Various venues, SF; www.desvoixfestival.com. Prices vary. Through May 25. In addition to Communiqué N°10 (listed above), this festival of contemporary French playwrights and cinema includes four new play translations, a “New Play Nightclub,” film screenings, and more. Presented by Playwrights Foundation, Tides Theatre, Cutting Ball Theater, French International School, and the French Consulate of San Francisco.

Waxing West Brava Theater Center, 2781 24th St, SF; www.brava.org. $20. Thu/15-Sat/17, 8pm; Sun/18, 3pm. Romanian-born American playwright Saviana Stanescu’s 2007 comedy channels real-world angst and dislocation in its sly story of an independent-minded Romanian woman who, after arriving in New York as a mail-order bride, becomes a wax-wielding beautician and pastime kleptomaniac, haunted in her sleep by the vampire spirits of Nicolae and Elena Ceaucescu. In a deal brokered by her mother (Catz Forsman in old-world head scarf), 32-year-old Daniela (a serenely offbeat Beatrice Basso) leaves her family home in Bucharest, and an uncertain future in Romania, for a boyish Manhattan computer programmer named Charlie (a sympathetic, physically comical Jon Deline of local clown troupe Pi). Charlie is kind but noncommittal, having had no say in the arrangement initiated by his late interfering mother. Indeed, Charlie’s lesbian sister (Molly Shaiken) is far more interested in bedding Daniela, and courts her amid wine and waxings. Daniela’s only real friend ends up being a homeless and sickly ex-Yugoslav philosopher named Uros (Sam Coughlin, who doubles as Daniela’s brother Elvis), obsessed with pursuing the origins of the ancient Mesopotamian epic of Gilgamesh. Banking East and West throughout — in discretely titled scenes that hop between Bucharest and New York City over a 17-month period from 2000 to 2001 — Daniela’s every step comes dogged by a sarcastic pair of commentators, namely Romania’s former dictators, Nicolae Ceaucescu (a comically wimpish Forsman) and wife Elena (a pants-wearing Shaiken, in a heavily accented jewel of a performance), here reduced (elevated?) to blood-sucking zombies by Daniela’s fevered imagination. The current lurching production from Brava! For Women in the Arts and RasaNova Theater benefits from a quirky energy throughout, although director Vidhu Singh’s respectable cast had not fully cohered as of opening night, and there are plenty of rough patches. The stage is not always well lit and the action comes erratically blocked, for instance — although one wacky burst of physicality is also a highlight, as mismatched couple Daniela and Charlie engage in some idiosyncratic foreplay known as “the turkey game.” And if the production wanders in search of a clear course, that’s at least not entirely out of place with the play’s restless but good-humored emphasis on everyone’s search for an anchor in the 21st-century West. (Avila)

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $8-11. Sun, 11am. Extended through May 25. The popular, kid-friendly show by Louis Pearl (aka “The Amazing Bubble Man”) returns to the Marsh.

BAY AREA

The Color Purple Hillbarn Theatre, 1285 East Hillsdale, Foster City; www.hillbarntheatre.org. $23-38. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through June 1. Hillbarn Theatre closes its 73rd season with the musical adaptation of Alice Walker’s classic novel.

Geezer Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $25-50. New show schedule: Wed, 8pm; Sat, 3pm. Extended through May 24. Geoff Hoyle moves his hit comedy about aging to the East Bay.

The Letters Harry’s UpStage, Aurora Theatre Company, 2081 Addison, Berk; www.auroratheatre.org. $28-32. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through June 1. American playwright John W. Lowell’s The Letters harkens back to Stalinist days and some unspecified ministry, where a dutiful staff goes about censoring the personal and openly homoerotic correspondence of an iconic Russian composer (Tchaikovsky). Directed by Mark Jackson for Aurora Theater’s new upstairs black box, the two-hander unfolds in the small but tidy and dignified office belonging to the ministry’s director (an imposing Michael Ray Wisely). He has summoned one of his employees, a widow named Anna (a taut Beth Wilmurt), for reasons not immediately clear to her or us. A careful dance around a minefield of protocol, sexual innuendo, and hidden agendas ensues, as a dangerous and deadly scandal surrounding the aforementioned letters makes itself felt. Given the Ukraine crisis, the ramping up of Cold War II, and Russia’s increasing authoritarianism — including its new law against homosexual “propagandizing” in the cultural realm, and a Ministry of Culture vowing to withhold funding from art lacking in “spiritual or moral content” — it’s all a remarkably timely little time warp. And Lowell’s story is cleverly crafted for the most part. Unfortunately, the production’s two capable actors have a hard time conveying a lifelike (if however strained) relationship or the perspiration-inducing tension the drama purports to carry. At the same time, the drama’s dialogue, at least as played here, can stretch the bounds of verisimilitude by veering from flinty, cagey ducks and jabs to outright insubordination, sarcasm, and ineffectual blustering — the latter outbursts seeming to leave the pressure pot of the Great Terror far behind. It’s still a long way from Tom and Jerry, but as a cat and mouse game the stakes, and the arc of the story, feel more fantastical then pressingly contemporary. (Avila)

Mutt: Let’s All Talk About Race La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; www.impacttheatre.com. $10-20. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through June 8. Impact Theatre and Ferocious Lotus Theatre Company present the world premiere of Christopher Chen’s political satire.

Nantucket Marsh Berkeley MainStage, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $25-100 (all tickets include a picnic dinner). Thu and Sat, 7pm. Through June 14. Acclaimed solo performer Mark Kenward presents his “haunting yet hilarious” autobiographical show about growing up on Nantucket.

Not a Genuine Black Man Osher Studio, 2055 Center, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $30-45. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through May 31. Brian Copeland brings his acclaimed, long-running solo show to Berkeley Rep for a 10th anniversary limited run.

“Pear Slices” Pear Avenue Theatre, 1220 Pear, Mtn View; www.thepear.org. $10-35. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through May 25. Original short plays from the Pear Playwrights Guild.

Tribes Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-99. Wed/14 and Sun/18, 7pm; Thu/15-Sat/17, 8pm (also Sat/17, 2pm). Berkeley Rep performs Nina Raine’s family drama about a young deaf man who comes of age.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

ABADA Capoeira ABADA Capoeira, 3221 22nd St, SF; www.abada.org. Sun/18, 1-3pm. Free. Demo featuring both professionals and Bay Area kids learning the Afro-Brazilian dance-martial art hybrid.

“American Utopias” Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater, 700 Howard, SF; www.ybca.org. Fri/16-Sat/17, 7:30pm. $30-35. Monologist Mike Daisey performs his latest work.

BATS Improv Bayfront Theater, B350 Fort Mason Center, SF; www.improv.org. “Director’s Cut,” Fri, 8pm, $20. Through May 23. “The Good, The Bad, and the Improvised,” Sat, 8pm, $20. Through May 24.

BrickaBrack Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St, SF; www.dancemission.com. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through May 25. $25-45. The dance-theater company performs never fall so heavily again.

Caroline Lugo and Carolé Acuña’s Ballet Flamenco Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; www.carolinalugo.com. Sat/17, May 25, June 17, 22, and 29, 6:15pm. $15-19. Flamenco performance by the mother-daughter dance company, featuring live musicians.

“The Colossal Show: Bad Asians” Dark Room, 2263 Mission, SF; www.thecolossalshow.com. Fri/16, 10pm. $10-15. Stand-up comedy presented as part of the 2014 United States of Asian America Festival.

“Comedy Returns to El Rio” El Rio, 3158 Mission, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Thu/15, 8pm. $7-20. With Karen Ripley, Dhaya Lakshminarayanan, Eloisa Bravo, Julia Jackson, and Lisa Geduldig.

“Dash: Improv in a Flash” Un-Scripted Theater Compan, 533 Sutter, Second Flr, SF; www.un-scripted.com. Sat, 10pm. $15. Ongoing through Aug 30. A late-night, free-form improv show with Un-Scripted Theater Company.

“Dream Queens Revue” Aunt Charlie’s Lounge, 133 Turk, SF; www.dreamqueensrevue.com. Wed/14, 9:30pm. Free. Drag with Collette LeGrande, Ruby Slippers, Sophilya Leggz, Bobby Ashton, and more.

Feinstein’s at the Nikko 222 Mason, SF; www.feinsteinssf.com. This week: Spencer Day, Thu/15-Fri/16, 8pm; Sat/17, 7pm, $40-55; “Lee à la V: A Peggy Lee Songbook” with Veronica Klaus, Sun/18, 7pm, $30-45.

“The Fifth String: Ziryab’s Passage to Cordoba” Brava Theatre Center, 2781 24th St, SF; www.goldenthread.org. Thu/15-Sat/17, 8pm; Sun/18, 3pm. $15-22. Golden Thread continues its “Islam 101” performance series with this family-friendly play with live music.

Flamenco del Oro Emerald Tablet, 80 Fresno, SF; www.emtab.org. Fri/16, 8pm. $15. Flamenco music and dance.

“Half-Breed” Stage Werx, 446 Valencia, SF; www.apiculturalcenter.org. Thu/15, 8pm. $10. Acclaimed musician-poet PC Muñoz presents his latest multidisciplinary piece as part of the 2014 United States of Asian America Festival.

“Hand to Mouth Comedy” Lost Weekend Video, 1034 Valencia, SF; www.handtomouthcomedy.com. Fri/16, 8:30pm. $10. Trevor Hill presents this monthly show with Derek Sheen, Chris Locke, Kate Willett, and other comedians holding forth on the same topic: embarrassment.

“In Living Colors” Inner Mission, 2050 Bryant, SF; www.foufouha.net. Fri/16-Sat/17, 8pm. $25. Fou Fou Ha! performs an evening-length comedy, dance, and theater show. Saturday’s show includes an afterparty with dancing and additional performances.

“Laughter is Medicine” Puerto Alegre #2, 2950 25th St, SF; podercomedy.brownpapertickets.com. Sat/17, 8pm. $15. Help raise money for PODERsf.org by checking out comedians Juan Medina, Tony Sparks, and others.

“Literary Sriracha: Spicy Mix of Poetry, Prose, and Flash Fiction” SOMArts, 934 Brannan, SF; www.aawaa.net. Sat/17, 2-4pm. Free. Literary artists discuss the visual art of current food-themed exhibit “Eating Cultures.” Part of the 2014 United States of Asian America Festival

“Magic at the Rex” Hotel Rex, 562 Sutter, SF; www.magicattherex.com. Sat, 8pm. Ongoing. $25. Magic and mystery with Adam Sachs and mentalist Sebastian Boswell III.

“Out of Line Improv” Stage Werx, 446 Valencia, SF; outoflineimprov.brownpapertickets.com. Sat, 10:30pm. $12. Ongoing. A new, completely improvised show every week.

“Outrageous Adult Sing-Along Show 2014” Martuni’s, 4 Valencia, SF; (415) 241-0205. Sat/17, 7pm; Sun/18, 4pm. $20. Entertainer Matt Yee performs.

“Patti Issues” Rebel, 1760 Market, SF; www.eventbrite.com. Wed/14, 7 and 9pm. $25. Ben Rimalower performs his critically-acclaimed solo play — inspired in part by his childhood love of Patti LuPone.

“Porch Light: Kitchen Confidential” Verdi Club, 2424 Mariposa, SF; www.eventbrite.com. Mon/19, 8pm. $20. Storytelling with food bigwigs Joey Altman, David Lynch, Michael Mindel, Chalres Phan, and Nina Tamburello.

“San Francisco Comedy College” Purple Onion at Kells, 530 Jackson, SF; www.purpleonionatkells.com. $5-10. “New Talent Show,” Wed-Thu, 7. Ongoing. “The Cellar Dwellers,” stand-up comedy, Wed-Thu, 8:15pm and Fri-Sat, 7:30pm. Ongoing.

“Secrets of the Ancient Divas” Venetian Room, Fairmont San Francisco, 950 Mason, SF; www.bayareacabaret.org. Sun/18, 5pm. $48. Broadway star Karen Mason performs iconic tunes by Judy Garland, Barbra Streisand, and others.

“Shotz: Who Owns San Francisco?” Tides Theatre, 533 Sutter, SF; www.tidestheatre.org. Tue/20, 8pm. $10. Six plays, each five minutes long, zeroing in on the theme of “Who owns San Francisco?” (and each must include the line “Mine, mine, mine, me, me, mine!”)

viv dance ensemble Kunst-Stoff Arts, One Grove, SF; www.ftloose.org. Fri/16-Sat/17, 8pm. $15-25. the company performs Ouroboros, choreographed by Kathleen Hermesdorf, with special guests Ashley Trottier and Elizabeth Chitty.

“YBCA Converge” Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. Thu/15, 4-8pm. Free. 0th and Infrasound perform at this event investigating sound’s relationship to the body. Presented in conjunction with the exhibition Jacqueline Kiyomi Gordon: It Only Happens Once.

“Yerba Buena Gardens Festival” Yerba Buena Gardens, 760 Howard, SF; www.ybgfestival.org. Free. Through Oct 26. This week: Pacific Mambo Orchestra, Thu/15, 6-7:30pm.

BAY AREA

“Aeolian Day: Music Made by the Wind” Middle Harbor Shoreline Park, 2777 Middle Harbor, Oakl; www.thingamajigs.org. Fri/17, noon-3pm. Free. Thingamajigs presents this event, in which local artists and Oakland elementary school students create and display instruments that are played by the wind.

“Amnesia” La Peña Cultural Center, 3150 Shattuck, Berk; www.lapena.org. Thu/15-Sat/17, 8pm; Sun/18, 7pm. $18-25. Ariel Luckey performs a world-premiere work about race and immigration.

“The Bad Aunties” 142 Throckmorton Theatre, 142 Throckmorton, Mill Valley; www.throckmortontheatre.org. Fri/16, 8pm. $25-35. Improv comedy with Debi Durst, Diane Amos, and Judi Nihei, plus special guests.

“An Evening with Paula Poundstone” Osher Marin JCC, 200 N. San Pedro, San Rafael; www.marinjcc.org. Sat/17, 8pm. $34-64. The comedian performs.

“FESTAC African Diaspora Dance Festival” Laney College, Odell Johnson Theater, 900 Fallon, Oakl; facebook.com/festacculture. Fri/16, 8pm; Sat/17, 2pm. $10-15. Dance from Cuba, Haiti, and America performed by the Laney College Dance Department.

“The Iron Heel” Hillside Community Church, 1422 Navellier, El Cerrito; www.teamrichmond.net. Sun/18, 7pm. $10-20. This production, based on the Jack London novel and featuring London’s great-granddaughter, is a benefit for Richmond Progressive Alliance candidates in November’s election.

“MarshJam Improv Comedy Show” Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. Fri, 8pm. Ongoing. $10. Improv comedy with local legends and drop-in guests.

Oakland Ballet Malonga Casquelourd Center for the Arts, 1428 Alice, Oakl; www.oaklandballet.org. Fri/16-Sat/17, 8pm (also Sat/17, 2pm). $20-35. The company performs its spring season program, Oakland-esque.

Suzanne Westenhoefer First Church Berkeley, 2345 Channing, Berk; www.brownpapertickets.com. Sat/17, 8pm. $20-50. The comedian performs, with guest Jennie McNulty, at this benefit for the United Church of Christ’s Coalition for LGBT Concerns. *

Film Listings: May 14 – 20, 2014

Michael Redmond

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May 13, 2014

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

OPENING

Chef Not to take anything away from the superhero crew, but Chef feels like the closest thing to a labor of love from writer, director, and star Jon Favreau in many a day. As a director, he may have been making doughnuts — fun-filled and teeming with CGI eye candy, but doughnuts nevertheless — when it came to effects-driven blockbusters like 2008’s Iron Man, but this well-meaning play for the heart, by way of the stomach, shows you where Favreau’s head is really at. Chef revolves around Carl Casper (Favreau), a onetime food star, now reduced to serving up predictable crowd-pleasers at the behest of his restaurant’s overbearing owner (Dustin Huffman). It takes the barbs of an influential critic (Oliver Platt) — and an ensuing Twitter war — to set Carl off and send him away on his own, at the coaxing of his glam ex Inez (Sofia Vergara). Hooked up with a dilapidated food truck and former kitchen staffer Martin (John Leguizamo), and aided by ably Tweeting son Percy (Emjay Anthony), Carl ties his dreams — and lost passion — to the classic Cuban sandwich. The ensuing road trip from Miami to LA, and Carl’s journey toward self and a renewed relationship with his son, is a fun (if, in the end, a bit too speedily sketched) vault through the joys of eating your way through America’s new culinary heartland. Amid the volley of sign-of-the-times social-media swinging and cameos by the uncostumed Robert Downey Jr., Scarlett Johansson, and the like, Favreau’s main dish is that a family that eats, cooks, and runs a business together, stays together — child labor laws or no. (1:55) (Chun)

Documented See “Home Brew.” (1:29) Roxie.

The Double Simon (Jesse Eisenberg) is a lowly clerk who gets nothing but indifference and scorn both at work and in his pitiful private life. Things slip even more insidiously beyond his control with the arrival of James (Eisenberg again), his exact doppelgänger — though no one else seems to notice that — and a climber as ruthlessly efficient as Simon is hapless. Not only does he steal his look-alike’s ideas in a rapid rise to the top, he seems to take great pleasure in kicking Simon further downward. Applying a Kafkaesque gloss to Dostoyevsky’s novella, with stylistic hat-tips to the Coens and Terry Gilliam, Richard Ayoade’s second feature is very different from his prior Submarine (2010) in all ways but one: It, too, is both overwhelmed and rendered fascinating by an excess of high directorial “style” whose self-consciousness infuses every frame and puts quote marks around every emotion. As a result, The Double is a striking objet d’art you’ll either love or hate — or enjoy aesthetically while being annoyed by its sacrifice of depth for a showoff surface. (1:33) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Harvey)

God’s Pocket The dreary directorial debut of Mad Men star (and occasional episode director) John Slattery begins with a funeral, and it’s not long before we realize the deceased, Leon (Caleb Landry Jones), will be grieved only by his mother (Christina Hendricks). Most of this bleak tale takes place in flashback — racist, jacked-up Leon’s workplace accident (actually a well-deserved blow to the head, wielded by a fellow laborer he’d been threatening) occurs while his boozy-schlub stepfather Mickey (Philip Seymour Hoffman, in one of his final roles) is boosting a refrigerated truck for use in his meat business. When his wife demands an investigation into Leon’s death, Mickey dutifully, if reluctantly, asks some of his ne’er-do-well associates to poke around; one thing leads to another, more blood is shed, and the stolen truck is repurposed for toting around a certain albatross of a human corpse. Set in 1978 and named for the fictional working-class Philly neighborhood that provides its backdrop, God’s Pocket (based on the novel by Pete Dexter, whose other adapted works include The Paperboy and Paris Trout) falls quite short of delivering narrative satisfaction; even its stellar cast (which also includes John Turturro, Eddie Marsan, and Richard Jenkins — the latter as a washed-up journalist who improbably seduces Hendricks’ character) can’t elevate characters that are thinly drawn and murkily motivated. (1:28) Embarcadero, Shattuck. (Eddy)

Godzilla He’s baaaaack. (2:03) Four Star, Marina.

Million Dollar Arm Jon Hamm has it bad — that dark-around-the-edges Mad Men afterglow can’t help but follow him everywhere, even into the arms of Disney in this solid Cinderella-story baseball tale (possibly the best headlining gig he’s had outside SCDP). Hamm’s J.B. Bernstein would certainly have something to hash over with Don Draper: both are down-on-their-luck charmers with the cracks in their facades clearly showing, yet nonetheless intent on doing it their way. J.B. is striking out when it comes to recruiting talent for his new, rapidly sinking sports agency, when he comes up with a genius idea while he and fellow agent Aash (Aasif Mandvi) are watching random sports at the latter’s home: Why not tap into one of the world’s greatest unexploited baseball markets by staging a talent search for an Indian cricket player with Major League pitching potential? Canvassing the country with the help of sleepy scout Ray (Alan Arkin) and baseball-enthusiast translator Amit (Pitobash), J.B. finds his arms ultimately attached to village truck driver Dinesh (Madhur Mittal) and contorting track-and-field thrower Rinku (Suraj Sharma of 2012’s Life of Pi). But how to turn raw talent into professional careers in just months? And moreover, how can the would-be golden boys overcome cultural barriers that a fly ball couldn’t surmount? It’s a tryout for all concerned — including an MLB that’s still striving to expand its reach in Asia, and Hamm, who can be so good as Draper that he’s in increasing danger of being typecast. In the Disney mold, at least, his character achieves fairly happy results. (2:00) Presidio, Shattuck, Vogue. (Chun)

Palo Alto Adapted from the 2010 short story collection by James Franco, first-time director Gia Coppola’s depressive, aimless tale of disaffected youth tracks the ennuis and misadventures of a handful of Palo Alto teenagers: shy, inexperienced April (Emma Roberts), teetering on the edge of an affair with her soccer coach (Franco); naively promiscuous Emily (Zoe Levin); budding head case Fred (Nat Wolff); and his friend Teddy (Jack Kilmer, son of Val, who plays April’s out-to-lunch stepfather), who ambivalently participates in Fred’s mayhem while pining after April. Adult supervision is nearly Peanuts-level sparse — in other Peninsula households, helicopter parents may be fine-tuning the lives of their children down to the last extracurricular; here, the stoned, distracted elders who occasionally wander in front of the camera are more like flaky, absentee roommates. Meanwhile, their young charges fill the empty hours with copious amounts of alcohol consumption, random property destruction, and a round or two of social crucifixion. The protagonists and their cohorts form a fairly distasteful tableau of privileged, floundering adolescence, eliciting an emotional response in which uneasy concern occasionally overcomes bemused disgust. But the individual stories are virtually weightless, and the characters’ lack of investment in anything, even their own problems, makes it difficult to care too much about their fates. (1:38) California, Embarcadero, Smith Rafael. (Rapoport)

Tasting Menu No restaurant was more lauded in its lifespan than Ferran Adrià’s legendary El Bulli, which closed in 2011. Naturally, someone made a documentary about the joint — which was located on Spain’s Costa Brava — and now there’s Tasting Menu, an ensemble Euro-comedy that takes place at “Chakula,” a 30-seat restaurant on Spain’s Costa Brava. Why is the apparently successful Chakula closing? Gorgeous chef Mar (Vicenta N’Dongo) isn’t saying, nor is she revealing the final menu — and neither is director and co-writer Roger Gual (2002’s Smoking Room). We catch glimpses of artfully plated dishes as they’re assembled in the kitchen and whisked around the seaside dining room (and get one descriptor: “Snail caviar”), but this ain’t Like Water for Chocolate-level cooking porn. Gual is mostly concerned with the diners themselves, all of whom are rich, well-connected, or lucky enough to have scored the most exclusive reservation on the planet. Alas, there’s not a truly compelling personality among them, though a salty widow (Fionnula Flanagan) who dines with an urn containing her husband’s ashes, and a mysteriously morose man (Stephen Rea) who may or may not be a food critic, come the closest. Elsewhere, there’s estranged couple Rachel and Marc (Claudia Bassols and Jan Cornet); a nervous maître d’ (Andrew Tarbet) charged with overseeing the top-secret surprise dessert; a pair of grouchy Japanese businessmen who are competing to take over the restaurant after Mar steps aside; and assorted other stereotypes and rivals tossed in to bring tension to what’s essentially a pleasant-yet-woefully-unexciting dinner party. (1:25) Opera Plaza. (Eddy)

ONGOING

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 The best thing about The Amazing Spider-Man 2 — the sequel to the 2012 reboot that nobody really wanted in the first place — is the achingly cute chemistry between real-life couple Andrew Garfield (Peter Parker/Spider-Man) and Emma Stone (Gwen Stacy, whose fate is no spoiler to anyone who is familiar with the Spider-Man canon). Can’t deny it; those two are adorbs. But since Spider-Man is supposed to be an action movie, not a romantic comedy, it spends most of its time setting up foes for the webslinger (Jamie Foxx as a nerd zapped into the power-mad Electro; Dane DeHaan as bratty rich kid Harry Osborn), as well as rehashing the mysterious deaths of Peter’s parents, and underlining for approximately the zillionth time the disconnect between the media’s perception of Spider-Man (he’s a menace! He interferes with police work!) and the ecstatic love the people of New York have for the guy — understandable, since he’s in the business of saving their butts on a regular basis. This isn’t a crappy movie by any means; it’s entertaining enough, and the 3D swooping-between-skyscrapers FX have gotten quite dazzling. But there’s still a heavy air of “This again?” that hangs over the whole thing. Doesn’t Marvel have enough dough from the Avengers movies to let Spidey take an extended vacation? (2:20) Balboa, Marina (showing the original version and a version with Chinese subtitles), Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Belle The child of a British naval officer and a Caribbean slave, Belle (Gugu Mbatha-Raw) is deposited on the doorstep — well, the estate grounds — of her father’s relatives in 1769 England after her mother dies. Soon she’s entirely orphaned, which makes her a wealthy heiress and aristocratic title holder at the same time that she is something less than human in the eyes of her adopted society. For Belle is black (or more properly, mixed-race), and thus a useless curiosity at best as a well-bred noblewoman of the “wrong” racial makeup. Based on a murky actual historical chapter, Amma Asante’s film is that rare sumptuous costume drama which actually has something on its mind beyond romance and royalty. Not least among its pleasures are a fine supporting cast including Tom Wilkinson, Miranda Richardson, Penelope Wilton, and Emily Watson. (1:45) Albany, Embarcadero, Piedmont, Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

Brick Mansions (1:30) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier Marvel’s most wholesome hero returns in this latest film in the Avengers series, and while it doesn’t deviate from the expected formula (it’s not a spoiler to say that yes, the world is saved yet again), it manages to incorporate a surprisingly timely plot about the dangers of government surveillance. Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), hunkiest 95-year-old ever, is still figuring out his place in the 21st century after his post-World War II deep freeze. Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) has him running random rescue missions with the help of Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), but SHIELD is working on a top-secret project that will allow it to predict crimes before they occur. It isn’t long before Cap’s distrust of the weapon — he may be old-fashioned, but he ain’t stupid — uncovers a sinister plot led by a familiar enemy, with Steve’s former BFF Bucky doing its bidding as the science-experiment-turned-assassin Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan). Anthony Mackie, Robert Redford, and series regular Cobie Smulders are fine in supporting roles, and Johansson finally gets more to do than punch and pose, but the likable Evans ably carries the movie — he may not have the charisma of Robert Downey Jr., but he brings wit and depth to a role that would otherwise be defined mainly by biceps and CG-heavy fights. Oh, and you know the drill by now: superfans will want to stick around for two additional scenes tucked into the end credits. (2:16) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Divergent Based on the blockbuster dystopian-future YA novel by Veronica Roth (the first in a trilogy), Divergent is set in a future city-state version of Chicago in which society is divided into five character-based, color-coded factions: Erudite, Amity, Candor, Abnegation, and Dauntless. Like her peers, Beatrice Prior (Shailene Woodley), the film’s Abnegation-born teenage heroine, must choose a permanent faction — with the help of a standardized aptitude test that forgoes penciling in bubbles in favor of virtual reality psychic manipulation. When the test fails to triangulate her sole innate personality trait, she learns that she belongs to a secret, endangered sixth category: Divergent, an astonishing set of people who are not only capable of, say, acts of selflessness but can also produce intelligent thought, or manifest bravery in the face of danger. Forced to hide her aberrant nature in a society whose leaders (Kate Winslet) are prone to statements like “The future belongs to those who know where they belong,” and seemingly bored among Abnegation’s hive of gray cardigan-wearing worker bees, Beatrice chooses Dauntless, a dashing gang of black-clad, alterna-rock music video extras who jump on and off moving trains and live in a warehouse-chic compound whose dining hall recalls the patio at Zeitgeist. Fittingly, a surly, tattooed young man named Four (Theo James) leads Beatrice, now Tris, and her fellow initiates through a harsh proving regimen that, if they fail, will cast them into an impoverished underclass. Director Neil Burger (2006’s The Illusionist, 2011’s Limitless) and the behemoth marketing force behind Divergent are clearly hoping to stir up the kind of madness stoked by the Twilight and Hunger Games series, but while there are bones a-plenty to pick with those franchises, Divergent may have them beat for pure daffiness of premise and diameter of plot holes — and that’s after screenwriters Evan Daugherty and Vanessa Taylor’s major suturing of the source material’s lacunae. The daffiness doesn’t translate into imaginative world-building, and while a couple of scenes convey the visceral thrills of life in Dauntless, the tension between Tris and Four is awkwardly ratcheted up, and the film’s shift into a mode of crisis is equally jolting without generating much heat. (2:20) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Rapoport)

Draft Day (2:00) SF Center.

Fading Gigolo Ah, the charm of a well-aged, seasoned perv &ldots; nope, we don’t dare touch the Woody Allen/Dylan Farrow abuse allegations — though those recent headlines flit around the edges of this generally benevolent, almost strangely innocuous charmer, written by and directed John Turturro, who also stars as the curiously blank-faced tabula rasa of a title character. The delights of Mrs. Robinsons have been rhapsodized on film, through the lens of worshipful younger men — less so, their male counterparts, as viewed by other hetero men. The danger of bromance surging into the homoerotic is likely too dire for most, yet somehow bookstore boss Murray (Allen) sees the mysterious, submerged sex appeal in his loyal employee Fioravante (Turturro) and taps him to get involved in a ménage à trois with a society dermatologist (Sharon Stone). The soft-spoken Fioravante turns out to be a smash in the sack with the doc, transforming the opportunistic Murray into a wildly successful pimp as his employee takes on the audacious Selima (Sofia Vergara) and the prim Jewish Orthodox widow Avigal (Vanessa Paradis). The latter character seems to have come straight from another place and time — much like this film, which turns Brooklyn into a something resembling a leaf-strewn European village and recalls odes to revolutionary sexuality in the ’60s. The movie’s lightly absurd comedy is embedded in the fact that Turturro writes himself into the role of the seducer, the pleaser, while wrapped in the skin of pleasant if everyday-looking Joe, although Paradis, a revelation as a deeply repressed devout mother slowly awakening to her body, points to more serious pleasures, lingering below the surface of all of us. (1:30) Albany, Embarcadero, 1000 Van Ness, Piedmont, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Finding Vivian Maier Much like In the Realms of the Unreal, the 2004 doc about Henry Darger, Finding Vivian Maier explores the lonely life of a gifted artist whose talents were discovered posthumously. In this case, however, the filmmaker — John Maloof, who co-directs with Charlie Siskel — is responsible for Maier’s rise to fame. A practiced flea-market hunter, he picked up a carton of negatives at a 2007 auction; they turned out to be striking examples of early street photography. He was so taken with the work (snapped by a woman so obscure she was un-Google-able) that he began posting images online. Unexpectedly, they became a viral sensation, and Maloof became determined to learn more about the camerawoman. Turns out Vivian Maier was a career nanny in the Chicago area, with plenty of former employers to share their memories. She was an intensely private person who some remembered as delightfully adventurous and others remembered as eccentric, mentally unstable, or even cruel; she was a hoarder who was distrustful of men, and she spoke with a maybe-fake French accent. And she was obsessed with taking photographs that she never showed to anyone; the hundreds of thousands now in Maloof’s collection (along with 8mm and 16mm films) offer the only insight into her creative mind. “She had a great eye, a sense of humor, and a sense of tragedy,” remarks acclaimed photographer Mary Ellen Mark. “But there’s a piece of the puzzle missing.” The film’s central question — why was Maier so secretive about her hobby? — may never be answered. But as the film also suggests, that mystery adds another layer of fascination to her keenly observed photos. (1:23) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Eddy)

The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden Extensive archival footage and home movies (plus one short, narrative film) enhance this absorbing doc from San Francisco-based Dayna Goldfine and Dan Geller (2005’s Ballets Russes). It tells the tale of a double murder that occurred in the early 1930s on Floreana — the most remote of the already scarcely-populated Galapagos Islands. A top-notch cast (Cate Blanchett, Diane Kruger, Connie Nielsen, Josh Radnour) gives voice to the letters and diary entries of the players in this stranger-than-fiction story, which involved an array of Europeans who’d moved away from civilization in search of utopian simplicity — most intriguingly, a maybe-fake Baroness and her two young lovers — and realized too late that paradise isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Goldfine and Geller add further detail to the historic drama by visiting the present-day Galapagos, speaking with residents about the lingering mystery and offering a glimpse of what life on the isolated islands is like today. (2:00) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Eddy)

The German Doctor Argentine writer-director Lucía Puenzo (2007’s XXY) adapts her novel Wakolda for this drama imagining a post-World War II chapter in the life of Nazi doctor Josef Mengele. It’s 1960, and there’s a new doctor residing in Bariloche, Argentina — a stunningly picturesque town in the Andean foothills that seems to harbor an awful lot of Germans. Polite, well-dressed “Helmut” (Alex Brendemühl) befriends innkeepers Eva (Natalia Oreiro) and Enzo (Diego Peretti), taking a special interest in their 12-year-old daughter Lilith (Florencia Bado), whose petite frame (cruel classmates call her “dwarf”) awakens his let’s-experiment impulses. He gets even more attached when he finds out a pregnant Eva is carrying twins. Meanwhile, Israeli agents are moving in, having just snagged Mengele’s fellow war criminal Eichmann in Buenos Aires, and Lilith’s family soon catches on to their new friend’s true identity. Measured, multi-lingual performances — Brendemühl is both suave and menacing as the “Angel of Death,” forever penciling in his grotesque medical sketchbook — and the contrast between The German Doctor‘s dark themes and the Patagonian beauty of its setting bring haunting nuance to Puenzo’s twisted-history tale. (1:33) Embarcadero, Shattuck. (Eddy)

The Grand Budapest Hotel Is this the first Wes Anderson movie to feature a shootout? It’s definitely the first Anderson flick to include a severed head. That’s not to say The Grand Budapest Hotel, “inspired by” the works of Austrian novelist Stefan Zweig, represents too much of a shift for the director — his intricate approach to art direction is still very much in place, as are the deadpan line deliveries and a cast stuffed with Anderson regulars. But there’s a slightly more serious vibe here, a welcome change from 2012’s tooth-achingly twee Moonrise Kingdom. Thank Ralph Fiennes’ performance as liberally perfumed concierge extraordinaire M. Gustave, which mixes a shot of melancholy into the whimsy, and newcomer Tony Revolori as Zero, his loyal lobby boy, who provides gravitas despite only being a teenager. (Being played by F. Murray Abraham as an older adult probably helps in that department.) Hotel‘s early 20th century Europe setting proves an ideal canvas for Anderson’s love of detail — the titular creation rivals Stanley Kubrick’s rendering of the Overlook Hotel — and his supporting cast, as always, looks to be enjoying the hell out of being a part of Anderson’s universe, with Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, and Adrien Brody having particularly oversized fun. Is this the best Wes Anderson movie since 2001’s The Royal Tenenbaums? Yes. (1:40) California, Presidio, SF Center, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Heaven is for Real (1:40) Metreon.

Ilo Ilo Set in 1997 Singapore at the onset of the country’s recession, Ilo Ilo focuses on one family, who could be any family: father Teck (Chen Tianwen), who’s been let go from his sales position and is working various hourly jobs, hoping his wife doesn’t find out; pregnant Hwee Leng (a dynamic Yeo Yann Yann), a secretary who’s been the “bad cop” in the relationship so long she’s kind of grown into the role; and bratty Jiale (Koh Jia Ler), a 10-year-old terror who disobeys at home and gets into fights at school. Into this swirl of domestic tension comes Teresa (Angeli Bayani), a housekeeper-nanny who’s left her own family behind in the Philippines in search of a better way of life. It’s hell at first — “Auntie Terry” is no Mary Poppins, but she has the patience of a saint, putting up with Jiale’s antics and Hwee Leng’s ice-queen routine. Slowly, however, she builds a rapport with her young charge, but since Ilo Ilo is firmly interested in realism, there’s no quick fix to the problems that lie beneath the family strife, despite the kid’s obsession with lottery numbers. A remarkably assured debut film from 29-year-old director Anthony Chen, Ilo Ilo picked up the Camera D’Or at Cannes, in addition to multiple other fest prizes. The accolades are well-earned — rarely has a film so effectively and subtly captured the day-to-day frustrations of middle-class financial uncertainty. (1:40) Four Star. (Eddy)

Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return (1:28) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio.

Locke This virtual solo show stars Tom Hardy as Ivan Locke, a 40-ish construction manager driving to London on the eve of “the biggest cement pour” ever attempted in Europe. But he’s driving away from that, to the shrill indignation of superiors who expect his reliable on-site supervision, and the increasingly drunken panic of the flunky (voice of Andrew Scott) he’s deputized to take his place. The reason for this unprecedented dereliction of responsibility is that Ivan is committed to another responsibility, to “take care of my fuckup.” As we gradually realize during his 85-minute drive, that means showing up for the premature birth of the baby he’s sired by a fragile, rather hysterical-sounding woman (Olivia Colman) in the brief sole detour from marital infidelity he’s ever taken. Doing so may well end his career, as well as his long-standing marriage to the mother of his sons. But our protagonist is determined at any cost not to become his own late father (with whom he has imaginary conversations), a wastrel who never made good on his obligations to family or anyone else. Shot repeatedly in real time with multiple cameras over 12 nights, then assembled from 16 full-length takes, Steven Knight’s Locke is a striking experiment that never quite escapes an air of theatrical stunt. In retrospect you realize most of its tension derives not from the core emotional crises, but from narrative red herrings — primarily our terror that anyone multitasking this recklessly behind the wheel is an accident waiting to happen. But the chameleonic Hardy, playing a rather square, middle-class, essentially humorless type unlike any he’s done before, makes this effortfully “decent” man so compelling you can’t look away. If there’s anything this actor can’t do, he hasn’t tried it yet. (1:35) California, Clay, Metreon. (Harvey)

The Lunchbox Ila (Nimrat Kaur) is a self-possessed housewife and a great cook, whose husband confuses her for another piece of furniture. She tries to arouse his affections with elaborate lunches she makes and sends through the city’s lunchbox delivery service. Like marriage in India, lunchbox delivery has a failure rate of zero, which is what makes aberrations seem like magical occurrences. So when widow Saajan (Irrfan Khan) receives her adoring food, he humbly receives the magical lunches like a revival of the senses. Once Ila realizes her lunchbox is feeding the wrong man she writes a note and Saajan replies — tersely, like a man who hasn’t held a conversation in a decade — and the impossible circumstances lend their exchanges a romance that challenges her emotional fidelity and his retreat from society. She confides her husband is cheating. He confides his sympathy for men of lower castes. It’s a May/December affair if it’s an affair at all — but the chemistry we expect the actors to have in the same room is what fuels our urge to see it; that’s a rare and haunting dynamic. Newcomer Kaur is perfect as Ila, a beauty unmarked by her rigorous distaff; her soft features and exhausted expression lend a richness to the troubles she can’t share with her similarly stoic mother (Lillete Dubey). Everyone is sacrificing something and poverty seeps into every crack, every life, without exception — their inner lives are their richness. (1:44) Balboa, Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Vizcarrondo)

Neighbors It’s a mystery why Neighbor‘s marketing teams are intent on creating some kind of social media battle between this comedy’s family and frat: The college boys are clearly outclassed when it comes to uninhibited physical comedy daring, thanks to Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne. They play young parents Kelly and Mac, who are still basking in their new craftsman home and settled state, trying to figure out sex in front — or is it behind? — baby, and how to get to the rave before bedtime, when a frat, led by oft-shirtless hottie Teddy (Zac Efron) and pal Pete (Dave Franco), moves into the house next door. How do you ask them to “keep it down” yet still be cool? The pretzels Mac and Kelly wrap themselves into, in order to still hang with the kids, are about as hilarious as the inevitable battles that break out over the hearts and minds of college administrators (Lisa Kudrow), pals (the hilarious Ike Barinholtz), and wannabe brothers like the loyal Assjuice (Craig Roberts). Still, despite some memorable gags, Neighbors feels like a bit of a squandered opportunity as one fidgets through many of the frat house scenes. Part of the problem is, why would Kelly, Mac, or anyone want to be in good with such an uninteresting group of Greeks? (1:37) Four Star, Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Noah Darren Aronofsky’s Biblical epic begins with a brief recap of prior Genesis events — creation is detailed a bit more in clever fashion later on — leading up to mankind’s messing up such that God wants to wipe the slate clean and start over. That means getting Noah (Russell Crowe), wife Naameh (Jennifer Connelly), and their three sons and one adopted daughter (Emma Watson) to build an ark that can save them and two of every animal species from the imminent slate-wiping Great Flood. (The rest of humanity, having sinned too much, can just feed the fishes.) They get some help from fallen angels turned into Ray Harryhausen-type giant rock creatures voiced by Nick Nolte and others. There’s an admirable brute force and some startling imagery to this uneven, somber, Iceland-shot tale “inspired” by the Good Book (which, needless to say, has endured more than its share of revisions over the centuries). Purists may quibble over some choices, including the device of turning minor Biblical figure Tubal-Cain (Ray Winstone) into a royal-stowaway villain, and political conservatives have already squawked a bit over Aronofsky’s not-so-subtle message of eco-consciousness, with Noah being bade to “replenish the Earth” that man has hitherto rendered barren. But for the most part this is a respectable, forceful interpretation that should stir useful discussion amongst believers and non believers alike. Its biggest problem is that after the impressively harrowing flood itself, we’re trapped on the ark dealing with the lesser crises of a pregnancy, a discontented middle son (Logan Lerman), and that stowaway’s plotting — ponderous intrigues that might have been leavened if the director had allowed us to hang out with the animals a little, rather than sedating the whole menagerie for the entire voyage. (2:07) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Harvey)

Now: In the Wings on a World Stage In 2011, a production of Richard III starring Kevin Spacey played SF’s Curran Theatre; it was but one stop on a dreamy world tour (London, Istanbul, Beijing, Sydney, Doha, Brooklyn, and Epidaurus, Greece) for an American and British company and crew directed by Brit Sam Mendes, who guided Spacey to an Oscar (and earned one himself) for 1999’s American Beauty. This backstage doc — fully endorsed by Spacey and co., so don’t expect any juicy spats or diva routines — follows this rambling troupe around the world as they work through one of Shakespeare’s most iconic history plays. Initially, some of the younger actors feel intimidated (and some of the Americans feel nervous about interpreting the Bard alongside Brits, despite the fact that superstar Spacey is spearheading the whole thing), but gradually the group becomes close-knit. Pretty scenery aside, most of the travel stuff is featherweight (“The culture [in Istanbul] is just crazy!” is one typically shallow insight), but watching the show from the inside out offers an intriguing look at the dramatic process. Still, as Mendes and others point out, “the thrill of theater is the fact that it’s live” and “ephemeral” — qualities not captured by this rather conventional doc. If you’re an aspiring actor, however, Now is probably essential viewing nonetheless. (1:33) Roxie. (Eddy)

Only Lovers Left Alive Jim Jarmusch has subverted genre films before — you don’t have to dig deep to find fierce defenders of 1995 Western Dead Man — but his latest, Only Lovers Left Alive, is poised to be his biggest commercial hit to date. That’s not merely because it’s a vampire film, though this concession to trendiness will certainly work in its favor, as will the casting of high-profile Avengers (2012) star Tom Hiddleston. But this is still a Jarmusch vampire movie, and though it may be more accessible than some of the director’s more existential entries, it’s still wonderfully weird, witty, and — natch — drenched in cool. The opening credits deploy a gothic, blood red font across a night sky — a winking nod to the aesthetics of Hammer classics like Horror of Dracula (1958). Then, the camera begins to rotate, filming a record as it plays, and symbolizing the eternal life of the two figures who’ve entered the frame: gloomy Adam (Hiddleston, rocking a bedhead version of Loki’s dark ‘do), who lurks in a crumbling Detroit mansion, and exuberant Eve (Tilda Swinton, so pale she seems to glow), who dwells amid piles of books in Tangier. These two live apart, partially due to the hassle of traveling when one can’t be in the sun (red-eye flights are a must). Yet they remain entangled in spirit, a phenomenon referenced amid much talk of what Einstein called “spooky action at a distance,” and when at last they reunite, it’s glorious. Unlike those old Hammer films, there’s no stake-wielding Van Helsing type pursuing these creatures of the night; if there’s a villain, it’s actual and emotional vampire Ava (Mia Wasikowska), Eve’s bad-penny sibling, who swoops in for a most unwelcome visit. But Only Lovers Left Alive‘s biggest antagonist is simply the outside world, with its epidemics of dull minds and blood-borne diseases. The delight Jarmusch takes in tweaking the vampire mythos is just as enjoyable as his interest in exploring the agony, ecstasy, and uneventful lulls of immortality. (2:03) Embarcadero, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

The Other Woman Cameron Diaz gets top billing — and the title role — in The Other Woman, but Leslie Mann is the real stealth weapon here: the other comedian who bravely dares to go into unseemly crazy-bitch, scatological-Bridesmaids territory, with shrill histrionics, whining, and shrieks hitting registers that threaten to make most men’s heads explode. Coming on like Lucille Ball on crystal, Mann teeters out in the limb in kitten heels — and your enjoyment of The Other Woman depends on whether you love that balancing act or loathe it. Diaz and Mann’s reluctant-then-mutual girl crush is at the heart of this proudly chick flick directed by Nick Cassavetes, who tends to beat his own indie path apart from his involvement in one of the biggest lady draws of all time, The Notebook (2004). The chick magnet and cause for so much chaos is Mark (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), a sketchy entrepreneur who skims wife Kate’s (Mann) business ideas and toys with power-bitch lawyer Carly (Diaz), as well as his other other woman, perfect-10 Amber (Kate Upton). Coster-Waldau throws himself into the hysteria, as if it were the sole lifeline out of dour King’s Landing, but this is the Mann and Diaz Show, with a smarter-than-average screenplay by Melissa Stack and revenge served up like a self-righteous side dish at a Real Housewives buffet line. And just to show you how far we haven’t come, like those benighted housewives, those assembled aren’t so feminist that they won’t stoop to deliver a bitchy joke at the expense of Upton’s character. (1:49) 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center. (Chun)

The Quiet Ones (1:38) Metreon.

The Railway Man The lackluster title — OK, it’s better than that of director Jonathan Teplitzky’s last movie, 2011’s Burning Man, which confused sad Burners everywhere — masks a sensitive and artful adaptation of Eric Lomax’s book, based on a true story, about an English survivor of WWII atrocities. As Railway Man unfolds, we find Eric (Colin Firth), a stammering, attractive eccentric, oddly obsessed with railway schedules, as he meets his sweet soul mate Patti (Nicole Kidman) in vaguely mid-century England. Their romance, however, takes a steep, downward spiral when Patti discovers her new husband’s quirks overlay a deeply damaged spirit, one with scars that never really healed. As Eric grows more isolated, his best friend Finlay (Stellan Skarsgard) reveals some of their experiences as POWs forced to toil on the seemingly impossible-to-build Thai-Burma Railway by Japanese forces. The brutality of the situation comes home when the young Eric (played by Jeremy Irvine of 2011’s War Horse) takes the rap for building a radio and undergoes a period of torture. The horror seems rectifiable when Finlay discovers that the most memorable torturer Nagase (played at various ages by Tanroh Ishida and Hiroyuki Sanada) is still alive and, outrageously, leading tours of the area. Revenge is sweet, as so many other movies looking at this era have told us, but Railway Man strives for a deeper, more difficult message while telling its story with the care and attention to detail that points away from the weedy jungle of a traumatic past — and toward some kind of true north where reconciliation lies. (1:53) Embarcadero. (Chun)

Rio 2 (1:41) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

Transcendence Darn those high-tech romantics, hiding out and planning global takeover in their shadowy Berkeley Craftsmen and hippie-dippie leafy grottos. That’s one not-so-great notion emanating from this timely thriller, helmed by a first-time director (and veteran cinematographer) Wally Pfister and writer Jack Paglen. In line with the dreamy, brainy idealism of its protagonists — and the fully loaded promises of artificial intelligence — Transcendence starts with a grand idea teeming with torn-from-the-tech-headlines relevancy, only to spiral off course, seemingly far out of the control of its makers. Ray Kurzweil-like scientist Will Caster (Johnny Depp) is in the midst of refining his work on artificial intelligence when Luddite terrorists shoot him, using a bullet coated with radioactive material, after a lecture on the UC Berkeley campus. That tragedy allows Will and devoted wife Evelyn (Rebecca Hall) a chance to put his ideas into action and to attempt to preserve that beautiful mind, with the help of friend and kindred researcher Max (Paul Bettany). Yet once his intelligence gets online, out to a Burning Man-like tabula rasa desert, and in the cloud, quite literally, there apparently are no limits in sight. Transcendence‘s stoppers, however, are all too human, including technical flubs that betray its newbie filmmaker’s limitations; script slip-ups that, for instance, highlight a rather dated fear of “Y2K”; and a narrative that ends up reading a bit too much like a technophobic Invasion of the Body Snatchers. (1:59) Metreon. (Chun)

Under the Skin At the moment, Scarlett Johansson is playing a superhero in the world’s top blockbuster. Her concurrent role in Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin — the tale of an alien who comes to earth to capture men, but goes rogue once her curiosity about the human world gets the better of her — could not be more different in story or scope. Her character’s camouflage (dark wig, thickly-applied lipstick) was carefully calibrated to make her unrecognizable, since Glazer (2000’s Sexy Beast) filmed the alien’s “pick-up” scenes — in which Johansson’s unnamed character cruises around Glasgow in a nondescript van, prowling for prey — using hidden cameras and real people who had no idea they were interacting with a movie star. The film takes liberties with its source material (Michel Farber’s novel), with “feeding” scenes that are far more abstract than as written in the book, allowing for one of the film’s most striking visual motifs. After the alien seduces a victim, he’s lured into what looks like a run-down house. The setting changes into a dark room that seems to represent an otherworldly void, with composer Mica Levi’s spine-tingling score exponentially enhancing the dread. What happens next? It’s never fully explained, but it doesn’t need to be. When the alien begins to mistakenly believe that her fleshy, temporary form is her own, she abandons her predatory quest — but her ill-advised exploration of humanity leads her into another dark place. A chilling, visceral climax caps one of the most innovative sci-fi movies in recent memory. (1:47) California, SF Center. (Eddy)

Walking with the Enemy Movie history abounds with dramas about the obvious dangers and complicated delights of passing during World War II — Agnieszka Holland’s Europa Europa (1990) and Paul Verhoeven’s Black Book (2006) come immediately to mind. But despite the inherent interest in this story (based on a real person, Pinchas Tibor Rosenbaum), Walking with the Enemy doesn’t hold its own next to those efforts. Elek (Jonas Armstrong), the handsome, intrepid son of a rabbi, is working in Budapest doing what any red-blooded young man of any era might, joking with his boss and flirting with the adorable Hannah (Hannah Tointon). When Hungary’s relations with the Nazis sour, the country’s Jewish citizens are gradually packed off and subjected to deadly crackdowns instigated by Adolf Eichmann, and Hungary’s Regent Horthy (Ben Kingsley) seems powerless to do very much, apart from allowing the neutral Swiss consulate to issue a stream of documents claiming the city’s Jewish denizens as its own. When two SS officers come calling in the Jewish quarter, attack Hannah, and are ultimately killed, fluent German speaker Elek and his friends snatch at the desperate measure of donning their uniforms to spy on their oppressors and save as many Jews as they can. What may have made for a fascinating tale, however, is reduced to broad strokes, awkward choices like onscreen IDs, and comically simplistic characterization, making Walking feel more like a TV movie or an educational film than anything with real power. (2:08) SF Center. (Chun)

Young and Beautiful The titular attributes may be obvious surface ones, but they’re pretty much all we can take for granted in the character of Isabelle (Marine Vacth), a 17-year-old Parisian first met on a summer beach vacation with her family. With younger brother Victor (Fantin Ravat) as confidante, she methodically if haltingly sets out to shed her virginity, choosing as the lucky deflowerer a nice, very handsome German tourist (Lucas Prisor). The experience seems to leave her ambivalent, however, and a certain cool psychological opacity lingers after the clan goes home, and Isabelle returns to school while commencing a secret life so outré and baffling we would dearly love to understand her motivations. (Suffice it to say that the obvious reasons, love and/or need of money and/or sex, do not appear applicable in her case.) Is she rebelling? If so, against what? Probably not her easygoing mother and stepfather, played by Geraldine Pailhas and Frederic Pierrot. Reminiscent of Belle de Jour (1967) not just in premise but in dispassionate treatment of it, François Ozon’s latest sports his usual crisp directorial authority and eye for telling detail. But it’s built around a cipher, requiring an 11th-hour appearance by his past muse Charlotte Rampling in order to suddenly snap into focus — even as Isabelle remains something of a blur. (1:35) Opera Plaza. (Harvey) *

Sisterhood of rhythm

Leo Herrera

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May 13, 2014

0

arts@sfbg.com

DANCE The Mother’s Day weekend premiere of Sarah Bush Dance Project’s reconceived 2011 Rocked by Women was a tenderly raucous, often humorous celebration of an overly sentimentalized holiday. Bush looks at the education of a “girlchild” in the “not-so-promised land” by paying tribute to the mothers who raised us physically. But it was pioneer “mothers” — the feminists of the 1970s, the lesbian activists of many decades, artists and entrepreneurs like Olivia Records and Club Q — who made us the women we have become. Their legacy, Bush realized, was in danger of being forgotten by the current generation of women for whom the battles had been fought. Molded into a convincing piece of dance theater, Rocked by Women is a joyous and self-effacing acknowledgement of prices paid and gains won.

Just as music energized the civil rights movement of the 1960s, feminism in its earlier and later stages drew inspiration from talented musicians who started the women’s music movement. Bush drew on that rich heritage and shaped Rocked‘s three parts around contributions from two generations of songwriters such as Holly Near, Cris Williams, and k.d. lang, as well as Janet Jackson, Tracy Chapman, Missy Elliott, and Bikini Kill. Julie Wolf also contributed music arrangements and wrote original songs.

Rocked derives its impressive energy as much from music as from dance. Yet Natalie Aceves, Krystal Bates, Joanna Gartner, Bianca Mendoza, Juliann Witt, and Bush performed with an intuitive grace, passion, and an almost delirious delight at the choreography’s lush physicality. Much like works by Dance Brigade (Bush’s home company), Rocked contains personal material that also feels universal, speaking to those who don’t fit into given norms, and who have had to struggle to become who they are meant to be. Using contact improv, disco, jazz, and hip-hop in an almost narrative way, the individual dances comment on the songs but do so from a distance. At its best, Rocked became a weighty yet explosive expression of the power of an indomitable spirit and embracing courage.

The show opened and closed with Near’s iconic “Mountain Song.” At first, a trio of kicking “babies” are cuddled by their mothers. It ends with the dancers facing the audience in a sing-along about the unstoppability of women who refuse to have “their dreams taken away.”

Each of the work’s movements explored a different aspect of growing up. In “Her Childhood,” the dancers engaged in circle games and playfully sculpted a mountain from their bodies. One of them triumphantly climbed it. They also donned masks cut from fashion magazines and tugged and pushed their bodies in an attempt to reshape them. Here, ballet’s preoccupation with perfection came in for a kick or two. The choreography had a sense of humor but you couldn’t miss the underlying pain and rage.

The emergence of a young girl’s sexual identity permeated the whole piece and resulted in a number of awkwardly tender duets. In one, the group’s smallest dancers, Mendoza and Bates, discover each other’s differences: Mendoza is Latina, Bates African American. Second movement “Her Adolescence” brings group pressures and rejections, driving and exploring of sexual identity; the choreography veered between plaintive and painfully funny. With Jackson’s “Control” providing the beat, the ensemble performed impressive unison hip-hop that opened into individually athletic feats. It was followed by a dancing-with-“boys” number as an awkward, one-sided groping session. In “Gossip,” teens entangled themselves in yards and yards of telephone lines. For Chapman’s “Fast Car,” they built themselves into a monster automobile that, predictably, crashed, leaving Mendoza stunned and bereft. In an achingly lovely courting duet, Mendoza gently reaches towards Aceves who keeps turning away.

The third movement — “Herself” — opened with a video of the Michigan Womyn’s Music Festival and rather unfocused dancing on stage. The pace picked up with mock taiko drumming to recorded drum. Another playfully confrontational scene involved a boom box, one set of headphones, and Mendoza and Aceves’ different musical tastes. They come to a meeting of minds and take it from there.

The tribute to Club Q, as both a sanctuary for lesbians and a place for fierce dancing, is wonderfully evoked by Bush’s own fierce dancers. It ends in dreamy slow dancing duet for Witt and Bates. Choreographing anger is not easy. When Bush interrupted the lovers, her danced fury felt like an arrow shooting straight at them.

While Rocked‘s documentary clips are convincingly integrated into the stage action, earlier uses of video — shadowy images, dancers sitting as if in lecture by Judy Grahn, crawling from beneath the screen — are not telling enough. That needs rethinking. But Rocked is a warm, skillfully created, and generous show that just might become a Mother’s Day tradition. * sarahbushdance.com/rocked-by-women

Getting the Kink out

Michael Redmond

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May 13, 2014

2

joe@sfbg.com

The spotlights shone down, the athletes tussled, and the crowd screamed.

The toned and tattooed female wrestler tackled the topless, tanned, blond wrestler from behind, pulling her down like a tumbling tower. The mat thumped. Cheers erupted. In a sudden reversal, the tanned wrestler gained leverage with her right arm and slammed the tattooed fighter’s shoulders onto the mat, giving the blond the win.

What happened next was definitely not standard wrestling fare.

The tanned wrestler, triumphant, digitally penetrated the tattooed fighter. Her moans silenced the crowd, who listened, rapt. The fight wasn’t sport, but porn, America’s real favorite pasttime. Ultimate Surrender is just one of San Francisco-based studio Kink.com’s 30 or so paid subscription porn websites, including Fucking Machines, Everything Butt, and Hogtied.

But a new series of proposed state laws threatens the state’s porn industry, and the freakiest city on the West Coast may soon say goodbye to its highest profile porn purveyor, Kink.com, which for years has operated out of the historic Armory building on 14th and Mission streets.

The situation raises a question: Is Kink.com breaking up with San Francisco? If legislation requiring condoms on-set in porn and stricter state safety requirements become law, Kink.com CEO Peter Acworth tells the Guardian he has no choice but to leave California entirely.

“We can’t do business under those circumstances,” Acworth told us. “We can’t make a product that can compete.”

The tussle between pornographers, porn actors, and state lawmakers is a crucible where worker safety — and the right to choose how that safety is implemented — may soon be decided. Caught in the crossfire, freaky and sex-positive San Francisco stands to get a whole lot less kinky.

ECHOES OF LOS ANGELES

California Assembly Bill 1576 would legally require condom use while shooting porn, mandatory STD testing, and pornographic studios required to hold health records of their talent. The bill cleared the Assembly’s Committee on Labor and Employment just last month, the first step on a short road to gaining the governor’s signature.

Assemblymember Isadore Hall (D-Los Angeles), sponsored the bill, and the day it cleared committee he was triumphant.

“For too long, the adult film industry has thrived on a business model that exploits its workers and puts profit over workplace safety,” Hall said in a press statement. “The fact is, adult film actors are employees, like any other employee for any other business in the state. A minimum level of safety in the workplace should not have to be negotiated.”

The concern is largely over HIV infection on the sets of porn studios, and two parallel statewide efforts are working towards safety on porn sets. The state bill is the first, and the second is the renewed vigor in enforcing longstanding California Division of Occupational Safety and Health regulations.

In the early 1990’s, the federal Occupational Safety and Health Administration adopted a bloodborne pathogens regulation, and DOSH adopted a similar regulation soon after. DOSH’s standard requires employers to take measures to prevent employees’ eyes, skin, and mucous membranes from coming in contact with blood and “other potentially infectious materials,” including semen and vaginal secretions.

To some industries, the standard mandates rubber gloves and goggles. For the porn industry, the DOSH regulations are a moratorium on porn stars ejaculating on each others’ faces, deeming facials a workplace hazard. That standard porn finale can have life-changing ramifications.

“In 2004, there was a big (HIV) outbreak in the industry,” Eugene Murphy, senior safety engineer at DOSH, told the Guardian. “It was demonstrated HIV was clearly contracted on set.”

These infections mostly occurred in Los Angeles, once the center of the porn universe until Measure B arguably changed that. Los Angeles voters mandated porn studio condom use in 2012, and two years later, LA newspapers reported many pornographers have relocated to Las Vegas to escape the regulatory requirements.

The statewide pushback on porn is largely driven by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, whose President Michael Weinstein has smiled for the cameras alongside Hall and other lawmakers every step of the way.

DOSH began its part in the porn crackdown in Los Angeles, but Murphy was charged with looking into San Francisco’s Kink.com, where Acworth is chafing against the idea of mandatory condoms.

RUBBERS REBUFFED

Acworth said he used to believe condoms should be mandatory for performers. After the porn set HIV infections in 2004, Kink.com buckled down.

“I attempted to run the business as condom mandatory for about a year,” Acworth told us. He even pronounced their necessity in an interview on CNN. But there were complications.

“There was pressure from the models themselves because of the chaffing issues,” he said. Porn performers have echoed those sentiments as well.

In an interview with entertainment site Nerve, popular porn star James Deen (see “Dick and smile,” 7/31/12) said he had no problem with personal condom use, but women he’s worked with often complained of chafing.

“I was talking to a girl about it and she was like, ‘Dude, I’m in pain everyday and constantly swollen,'” he told Nerve. “Condoms are intended to be used on an average-sized penis for average sex, and we have entertainment sex, for anywhere from 20 minutes to four hours.”

The condom effort tanked at Kink. Acworth said he withdrew the policy after listening to his performers’ wishes. The studio does adhere to 14-day HIV tests, and condoms are available in a “double-blind” agreement, by which actors can purportedly safely ask for condoms and not fear retaliation.

Despite those efforts, Kink was later awash in condom controversy. Earlier this year, DOSH fined Kink $78,000 in violations connected with the alleged on-stage HIV infections of two actors in 2013, one of whom alleged that a shoot continued despite one actor having a bleeding cut on his penis.

Acworth adamantly asserts the HIV transmission happened in these actors’ personal lives, and says the issue is used as a wedge by the AIDS Healthcare Foundation to push a political agenda. The Guardian attempted to contact the foundation but did not hear back by press time.

Regardless, Murphy said, DOSH is pursuing regulatory requirements around bloodborne pathogens at Kink, and the enforcement of those regulations is not tied to the whether the initial HIV infection case was verified or not.

“My concern,” Murphy said, “is whether there is a healthy and safe workplace.”

COMMUNITY TIES

Acworth came to San Francisco for the reasons many do: he wanted a place to be weird, or in his case, kinky.

He wanted a new home from which to shoot his leather porn site, Hogtied.com. New York City was big, but at the time (the ’90s), he felt San Francisco had a more established leather scene in the Folsom Street Fair and leather shops like Mr. S.

“San Francisco,” Acworth said, sitting across from us in a leather bondage chair, “appeared to be more geared up.”

Although not universally loved within the BDSM community, the studio is popular in San Francisco. Part of the credit may go to Kink’s recent revitalization of one of the largest spaces in its 200,000-square-foot historic brick fortress: the Drill Court.

The vast, arch-roofed space was outfitted with modern sound proofing for the benefits of performers and neighbors, but its life as a performance space is not new. In the 1920s, boxers traded blows under its lights, and history may repeat itself, Armor Community Center Sales Manager Quincy Krashna told us.

He’s in talks with Golden Boy Promotions (boxer Oscar De La Hoya’s company) to bring prize fighting back to this historic space. In recent months, the Drill Court played host to a massive New Year’s Eve party, a Game of Thrones-themed dance night and cancer fundraiser, and even an evangelical medical conference, where missionaries offered free dental and doctor checkups to the public.

“The Holy Spirit was truly present at this event,” a doctor from the program, Building Bridges, wrote on the program’s website.

Even bigger changes could be in store. Last month, Acworth filed an application with the city to convert most of the historic Armory into office space, what he called a “last ditch” plan in case the state condom ban passes and Kink decamps for Nevada.

“This move represents an insurance policy,” he told us.

In a public May 11 letter to Weinstein of the AIDS Healthcare Foundation, Acworth asked the foundation for a truce: “I am reaching out to you and AHF, in the hopes of a day where we may sit across the table from one another and agree on common goals and strategy on protecting performers as opposed to continuing this battle.”

As he notes in his letter, if pornographers lose this battle, the companies may relocate. If Acworth finds himself uncomfortably bound and gagged by new regulations, his safe word may be: Nevada.

‘Neighbors,’ ‘Belle,’ and more new movies!

Sue Vaughan

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May 8, 2014

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Not to detract from the drawing power of Seth Rogen’s comic chops (or Zac Efron’s abs, pecs, etc.) in this week’s Neighbors, but it seems Hollywood is taking a little blockbuster breather between last week’s Spider-Man cash grab and next week’s Godzilla onslaught. So now’s a great time to catch up on some smaller films that might’ve otherwise escaped your radar, including brains-and-beauty costume drama Belle, opening theatrically after its recent bow at the San Francisco International Film Festival. Reviews, trailers, and links below!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9Qx90wdRD2I

Belle See “Skin Deep.” (1:45)

Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return Computer-animated musical which does not look to resemble 1985’s spooky-great Return to Oz. Case in point: Dorothy is voiced by Glee‘s Lea Michele. (1:28)

Neighbors Seth Rogen and Zac Efron star in this comedy about a family with a newborn forced to live next door to a frat house. (1:37)

Now: In the Wings on a World Stage In 2011, a production of Richard III starring Kevin Spacey played SF’s Curran Theatre; it was but one stop on a dreamy world tour (London, Istanbul, Beijing, Sydney, Doha, Brooklyn, and Epidaurus, Greece) for an American and British company and crew directed by Brit Sam Mendes, who guided Spacey to an Oscar (and earned one himself) for 1999’s American Beauty. This backstage doc — fully endorsed by Spacey and co., so don’t expect any juicy spats or diva routines — follows this rambling troupe around the world as they work through one of Shakespeare’s most iconic history plays. Initially, some of the younger actors feel intimidated (and some of the Americans feel nervous about interpreting the Bard alongside Brits, despite the fact that superstar Spacey is spearheading the whole thing), but gradually the group becomes close-knit. Pretty scenery aside, most of the travel stuff is featherweight (“The culture [in Istanbul] is just crazy!” is one typically shallow insight), but watching the show from the inside out offers an intriguing look at the dramatic process. Still, as Mendes and others point out, “the thrill of theater is the fact that it’s live” and “ephemeral” — qualities not captured by this rather conventional doc. If you’re an aspiring actor, however, Now is probably essential viewing nonetheless. (1:33) Roxie. (Cheryl Eddy)

Young and Beautiful The titular attributes may be obvious surface ones, but they’re pretty much all we can take for granted in the character of Isabelle (Marine Vacth), a 17-year-old Parisian first met on a summer beach vacation with her family. With younger brother Victor (Fantin Ravat) as confidante, she methodically if haltingly sets out to shed her virginity, choosing as the lucky deflowerer a nice, very handsome German tourist (Lucas Prisor). The experience seems to leave her ambivalent, however, and a certain cool psychological opacity lingers after the clan goes home, and Isabelle returns to school while commencing a secret life so outré and baffling we would dearly love to understand her motivations. (Suffice it to say that the obvious reasons, love and/or need of money and/or sex, do not appear applicable in her case.) Is she rebelling? If so, against what? Probably not her easygoing mother and stepfather, played by Geraldine Pailhas and Frederic Pierrot. Reminiscent of Belle de Jour (1967) not just in premise but in dispassionate treatment of it, François Ozon’s latest sports his usual crisp directorial authority and eye for telling detail. But it’s built around a cipher, requiring an 11th-hour appearance by his past muse Charlotte Rampling in order to suddenly snap into focus — even as Isabelle remains something of a blur. (1:35) (Dennis Harvey)

Dress with less

Michael Redmond

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May 6, 2014

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arts@sfbg.com

THEATER In the 1940s and ’50s, Sophiatown was a poor and rough but exceptionally vibrant black suburb of Johannesburg. Its destruction under apartheid, which entailed the forced removal of residents in 1955, remains a painful emblem of South Africa’s racist system. It also forms the suggestive backdrop to a small domestic tale of infidelity in Théâtre des Bouffes du Nord’s touring production of The Suit — directed and co-adapted from the famous Can Themba short story by legendary maestro Peter Brook, and now making its Bay Area debut at American Conservatory Theater — which turns the personal lives of its protagonists into an existential rumination and a subtle but resonant political allegory.

But in Brook’s hands — and those of his principal collaborators, translator and co-adaptor Marie-Hélène Estienne and composer Franck Krawczyk, working with the stage adaptation by Mothobi Mutloatse and Barney Simon — the story and its themes are inseparable from a pure theatrical experience. With a few choice properties, a fine trio of actors, a smattering of evocative songs, and three protean musicians (who add a rich soundscape to the proceedings as well as good-naturedly people scenes when necessary), The Suit unfolds as a deceptively simple, wistful, and whimsical communion with its audience, a shared space for dreaming the world as it really is and as it might be.

To this end, the stage comes dressed with little more than a handful of brightly colored wooden chairs and a couple of empty rolling coat racks, the latter serving variously as closet, wall, entry way, or bus shelter. Each of the three actors helps to narrate the story, which centers on Philomen (played by the impressive Ugandan-born London-based actor Ivanno Jeremiah) and his beautiful young wife, Matilda (radiant South African actor and singer Nonhlanhla Kheswa).

The third actor (charismatic New York actor Jordan Barbour) acts as principal narrator, describing early 1950s Sophiatown as the setting for the story, while also winningly playing Philomen’s best friend and other incidental parts. The three musicians (guitarist Arthur Astier, pianist Mark Christine, and trumpet player Mark Kavuma) meanwhile engage with the action in various ways, as accompanists, as fellow players, and silent witnesses.

Philomen, deeply in love with Matilda, is devastated when, en route to work one day, he learns from his friend that she may be having an affair. He heads home instead and discovers her in bed with a young man who promptly runs out of the house, leaving behind his suit. He decides the suit will be the basis of Matilda’s punishment. She will have to care for it as an honored guest in their house, to the point of feeding it meals and taking it along for the couple’s strolls around the neighborhood. This humiliation takes a heavy toll on Matilda, but she is powerless to change Philomen’s mind on the matter. For his part, he acknowledges that he has lost his former self, that some “mechanism” that was his life has broken down and now functions perversely. It is finally his best friend who, in a quietly poignant moment of contact, convinces him to forgive and forget, but by then it is too late.

The domestic world and its promise of bliss are thus distorted and starved, and come to resemble instead something more like a cage, while mirroring a larger system of oppression outside — especially as news comes of the forced relocation of Sophiatown’s residents and the resistance movement it sparks.

But in its deft, joyful staging and gorgeous musicality, the production never lets go of the sense of what is being denied, namely a profound harmony and a depth of feeling, making their loss in the story all the more affecting. Moreover, the music itself (mingling traditional African songs with one by Nina Simone, as well as a raw and stirring rendition of Abel Meeropol’s “Strange Fruit”) reveals a consonance with histories, legacies, and unsung stories much closer to home. *

THE SUIT

Through May 18, $20-$120

ACT’s Geary Theater

415 Geary, SF

www.act-sf.org

Rep Clock: May 7 – 13, 2014

Michael Redmond

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May 6, 2014

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Schedules are for Wed/7-Tue/13 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features marked with a •. All times pm unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $6-10. “Other Cinema:” The Uprising (Snowdon, 2013), Sat, 8:30.

BALBOA THEATRE 3630 Balboa, SF; cinemasf.com/balboa. $7.50-10. “Popcorn Palace:” Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure (Burton, 1985), Sat, 10am. Matinee for kids.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $8.50-11. Frozen (Buck and Lee, 2013), Sun, 1. Presented sing-along style; advance tickets ($10-16) at www.ticketweb.com.

CENTER SF 548 Fillmore, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $10-15. Radical Faerie Film Festival, short films “that embody radical queer sensibilities,” Sat, 7:30.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.50-$10.75. times. Super Duper Alice Cooper (Dunn, Harkema, and McFadyen, 2014), Thu, 7. For No Good Reason (Paul, 2013), call for dates and times. Locke (Knight, 2014), call for dates and times. Private Lives (Kent), Sun, 1 and May 15, 7. Theatrical performance filmed live in London’s West End. Love and Demons (Allen, 2014), Sun, 7. With director JP Allen and cast members in person.

CLAY 2261 Fillmore, SF; www.landmarktheatres.com. $10. “Midnight Movies:” The Room (Wiseau, 2003), Sat, midnight.

GREAT WALL OF OAKLAND West Grand between Telegraph and Broadway, Oakl; www.oaklandcatvidfest.com. $5-10. “OakCatVidFest,” cat-themed performances, bands, and more, plus kitty adoption opportunities and a film festival, Sat, 3-10.

MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; milibrary.org/events. $10. “CinemaLit Film Series: Comedy Tonight:” Road to Morocco (Butler, 1942), Fri, 6.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Film 50: History of Cinema:” The Five Obstructions (Von Trier and Leth, 2003), Wed, 3:10. San Francisco International Film Festival, Wed-Thu. See complete schedule and ticket info at festival.sffs.org. “Film and Video Makers at Cal: Works from the Eisner Prize Competition,” Fri, 7.

PARAMOUNT THEATRE 2025 Broadway, Oakl; www.ticketmaster.com. $5. Saturday Night Fever (Badham, 1977), Fri, 8.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $6.50-11. Quake (Malley, 2014), plus other dance films, Wed, 7, 9. The M Word (Jaglom, 2013), Wed-Thu, 6:45, 9:15. Under the Skin (Glazer, 2014), Thu, 9:15. “Bay Area Docs:” Impossible Light (Ambers, 2014), Thu, 7. With director Jeremy Ambers in person. NOW: In the Wings on the World Stage (Whelehan, 2014), May 9-16, check website for times. First Annual San Francisco Intergalactic Feline Film and Video Festival for Humans, celebrating “the cinematic feline in all forms,” Sat, noon, 4, 8. Beyond Right and Wrong: Stories of Justice and Forgiveness (Singh, 2012), Mon, 7. Breeders: A Subclass of Women? (Lahl and Eppinette, 2014), Tue, 7.

SUNDANCE KABUKI 1881 Post, SF; www.sundancecinemas.com. $8.75-14. Godzilla (Honda, 1954), May 9-15. New restoration of Japanese original.

UNITY IN MARIN 600 Palm, Novato; www.unityinmarin.org. $10. Waste Land (Walker, Harley, and Jardim, 2010), Fri, 7.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. $8-10. “Astonishing Animation: The Films of Hayao Miyazaki and Studio Ghibli:” Princess Mononoke (Miyazaki, 1997), Thu, 7:30 and Sat, 4:30; The Cat Returns (Morita, 2002), Sat, 7:30 and Sun, 3:30; Ponyo (Miyazaki, 2008), Sun, 1. *

Theater Listings: May 7 – 13, 2014

Michael Redmond

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May 6, 2014

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

THEATER

OPENING

Chasing Mehserle Intersection for the Arts, 925 Mission, SF; chasingmehserle.brownpapertickets.com. $25. Opens Thu/8, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sun and Mon/12, 8pm. Through May 24. Also May 29-31, 8pm, $15-25, Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.zspace.org. Intersection for the Arts, Campo Santo, and the Living Word Project present Chinaka Hodge’s performance piece about Oakland in the aftermath of the Oscar Grant killing.

Lovebirds Marsh San Francisco Studio, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $20-100. Opens Sat/10, 8:30pm. Runs Fri, 8pm; Sat, 8:30pm. Through May 31. Award-winning solo theater artist Marga Gomez brings her hit comedy back for a limited run before taking it to New York in June.

BAY AREA

The Color Purple Hillbarn Theatre, 1285 East Hillsdale, Foster City; www.hillbarntheatre.org. $23-38. Previews Thu/8, 8pm. Opens Fri/9, 8pm. Runs Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through June 1. Hillbarn Theatre closes its 73rd season with the musical adaptation of Alice Walker’s classic novel.

ONGOING

Communiqué N°10 Exit on Taylor, 277 Taylor, SF; www.cuttingball.com. $10-50. Thu, 7:30; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 5pm. Through May 25. Amid a fractious band of young rebels from the urban underclass and ongoing rioting in the streets, a young immigrant named Hassan (Damien Seperi) searches for the man who killed his 16-year-old brother. French playwright Samuel Gallet’s Communiqué N°10 draws immediate inspiration from the Paris riots of 2005, but the tinder box of extreme inequality and anti-immigrant policies are hardly a French monopoly (indeed, the stand-off last year between immigrant rights demonstrators and French police following the deportation of a Roma student, snatched off a school bus in front of her classmates, sounds all too familiar to Americans living through Obama’s unprecedented wave of deportations and incarcerations of undocumented people and the popular protest rising against it). Cutting Ball Theater’s US premiere of Gallet’s play, however, strains after its subject, timely though it is. Presented in association with Golden Thread Productions as part of the second biennial Des Voix&ldots; festival of new French plays and cinema, director and translator Rob Melrose’s production sets the action on a spare set (designed by Michael Locher) ringed by a two-tier framework of metal piping, about which some of the seven-member cast climb and roost. But the sparse setting is in fact overwhelmed with altogether too much stage business, including Emma Jaster’s somewhat labored choreography and Cliff Caruthers’ often distracting soundscape, which only detracts from the already difficult-to-follow plot points and further undermines an ensemble that never really coheres. Add to this contrived dialogue such as Hassan’s retort to having his picture snapped by love-interest Marlene (Maura Halloran) — “Images. We never know what purposes they serve in the end” — and what should be a tense and dynamic drama instead becomes a dreary, vaguely didactic ball of confusion. (Avila)

“DIVAfest” Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; www.divafest.info. Prices and showtimes vary. Through May 24. This 13th annual festival celebrates the work of women artists, with performances including the premiere of Rat Girl (adapted from the memoir by rocker Kristin Hersh), Margery Fairchild’s ballet comedy The Pas De Quatre, a reading by acclaimed poet Diane di Prima, and more.

Dracula Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; sfdracula.blogspot.com. $35. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through May 31. Kellerson Productions presents a new adaptation of the Bram Stoker classic.

Du Barry Was a Lady Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.42ndstmoon.org. $25-75. Wed-Thu, 7pm; Fri, 8pm; Sat, 6pm (also Sat/10 and May 17, 1pm); Sun, 3pm. Through May 18. 42nd Street Moon presents Cole Porter’s saucy musical comedy, with comedian and writer Bruce Vilanch starring.

E-i-E-i-OY! In Bed with the Farmer’s Daughter NOHSpace, 2840 Mariposa, SF; www.vivienstraus.com. $20. Fri/9-Sat/10, 8pm. Vivien Straus performs her autobiographical solo show.

Feisty Old Jew Marsh San Francisco Main Stage, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $25-100. Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Starting May 17, performance schedule changes to Sat-Sun, 5pm. Extended through July 13. Charlie Varon performs his latest solo show, a fictional comedy about “a 20th century man living in a 21st century city.”

Foodies! The Musical Shelton Theater, 533 Sutter, SF; www.foodiesthemusical.com. $32-34. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. AWAT Productions presents Morris Bobrow’s musical comedy revue all about food.

Pearls Over Shanghai Hypnodrome Theatre, 575 10th St, SF; www.thrillpeddlers.com. $30-35. Thu-Sat, 8pm. Through May 31. Five years ago, Thrillpeddlers breathed new life into a glitter-dusted piece of Sixties flotsam, beautifully reimagining the Cockettes’ raunchy mock-operetta Pearls Over Shanghai (in collaboration with several surviving members of San Francisco’s storied acid-drag troupe) and running it for a whopping 22 months. Written by Cockette Link Martin as a carefree interpretation of a 1926 Broadway play, the baldly stereotyped Shanghai Gesture, it was the perfectly lurid vehicle for irreverence in all directions. It’s back in this revival, once again helmed by artistic director Russell Blackwood with musical direction by Cockette and local favorite Scrumbly Koldewyn. But despite the frisson of featuring some original-original cast members — including “Sweet Pam” Tent (who with Koldewyn also contributes some new dialogue) and Rumi Missabu (regally reprising the role of Madam Gin Sling) — there’s less fire the second time around as the production straddles the line between carefully slick and appropriately sloppy. Nevertheless, there are some fine musical numbers and moments throughout. Among these, Zelda Koznofsky, Birdie-Bob Watt, and Jesse Cortez consistently hit high notes as the singing Andrews Sisters-like trio of Americans thrown into white slavery; Bonni Suval’s Lottie Wu is a fierce vixen; and Noah Haydon (as the sultry Petrushka) is a class act. Koldewyn’s musical direction and piano accompaniment, meanwhile, provide strong and sure momentum as well as exquisite atmosphere. (Avila)

Romeo and Juliet Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason, Ste 601, SF; www.eventbrite.com. $20. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun/11 and May 24, 3pm. Through May 24. Ninjaz of Drama performs Shakespeare’s tragic romance.

Seminar San Francisco Playhouse, 450 Post, Second Flr, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. $20-100. Tue-Thu, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm); May 18 and June 1 and 8, 2pm. Through June 14. San Francisco Playhouse performs Theresa Rebeck’s biting comedy.

Shit & Champagne Rebel, 1772 Market, SF; shitandchampagne.eventbrite.com. $25. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Open-ended. D’Arcy Drollinger is Champagne White, bodacious blond innocent with a wicked left hook in this cross-dressing ’70s-style white-sploitation flick, played out live on Rebel’s intimate but action-packed barroom stage. Written by Drollinger and co-directed with Laurie Bushman (with high-flying choreography by John Paolillo, Drollinger, and Matthew Martin), this high-octane camp send-up of a favored formula comes dependably stocked with stock characters and delightfully protracted by a convoluted plot (involving, among other things, a certain street drug that’s triggered an epidemic of poopy pants) — all of it played to the hilt by an excellent cast that includes Martin as Dixie Stampede, an evil corporate dominatrix at the head of some sinister front for world domination called Mal*Wart; Alex Brown as Detective Jack Hammer, rough-hewn cop on the case and ambivalent love interest; Rotimi Agbabiaka as Sergio, gay Puerto Rican impresario and confidante; Steven Lemay as Brandy, high-end calf model and Champagne’s (much) beloved roommate; and Nancy French as Rod, Champagne’s doomed fiancé. Sprawling often literally across two buxom acts, the show maintains admirable consistency: The energy never flags and the brow stays decidedly low. (Avila)

Sleeping Cutie: A Fractured Fairy Tale Musical Thick House, 1695 18th St, SF; sleepingcutiemusical.tix.com. $30-40. Thu/8-Sat/10, 8pm; Sun/11, 2pm. Off a Cliff Productions and PlayGround present Diane Sampson and Doug Katsaros’ world-premiere musical.

The Speakeasy Undisclosed location (ticket buyers receive a text with directions), SF; www.thespeakeasysf.com. $70 (gambling chips, $5-10 extra; after-hours admission, $10). Thu-Sat, 7:40, 7:50, and 8pm admittance times. Extended through May 24. Boxcar Theater’s most ambitious project to date is also one of the more involved and impressively orchestrated theatrical experiences on any Bay Area stage just now. An immersive time-tripping environmental work, The Speakeasy takes place in an “undisclosed location” (in fact, a wonderfully redesigned version of the company’s Hyde Street theater complex) amid a period-specific cocktail lounge, cabaret, and gambling den inhabited by dozens of Prohibition-era characters and scenarios that unfold around an audience ultimately invited to wander around at will. At one level, this is an invitation to pure dress-up social entertainment. But there are artistic aims here too. Intentionally designed (by co-director and creator Nick A. Olivero with co-director Peter Ruocco) as a fractured super-narrative — in which audiences perceive snatches of overheard stories rather than complete arcs, and can follow those of their own choosing — there’s a way the piece becomes specifically and ever more subtly about time itself. This is most pointedly demonstrated in the opening vignettes in the cocktail lounge, where even the ticking of Joe’s Clock Shop (the “cover” storefront for the illicit 1920s den inside) can be heard underscoring conversations (deeply ironic in historical hindsight) about war, loss, and regained hope for the future. For a San Francisco currently gripped by a kind of historical double-recurrence of the roaring Twenties and dire Thirties at once, The Speakeasy is not a bad place to sit and ponder the simulacra of our elusive moment. (Avila)

The Suit ACT’s Geary Theater, 415 Geary, SF; www.act-sf.org. $20-120. Wed-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, Wed/7, and May 14, 2pm); Sun, 2pm (May 18, show at 1pm); Tue, 7pm (Tue/13, show at 8pm). Through May 18. ACT performs Peter Brook, Marie Hélène Estienne, and Franck Krawcyzk’s music-infused drama about betrayal and resentment adapted from the short story by South African author Can Themba.

Tipped & Tipsy Marsh Studio Theater, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat, 5pm; Sun, 7pm. Extended through May 17. Last fall’s San Francisco Fringe Festival began on a high note with Jill Vice’s witty and deft solo, Tipped & Tipsy, and the Best of Fringe winner is now enjoying another round at solo theater outpost the Marsh. Without set or costume changes, Vice (who developed the piece with Dave Dennison and David Ford) brings the querulous regulars of a skid-row bar to life both vividly and with real quasi-Depression-Era charm. She’s a protean physical performer, seamlessly inhabiting the series of oddball outcasts lined up each day at Happy’s before bartender Candy — two names as loaded as the clientele. After some hilarious expert summarizing of the dos and don’ts of bar culture, a story unfolds around a battered former boxer and his avuncular relationship with Candy, who tries to cut him off in light of his clearly deteriorating health. Her stance causes much consternation, and even fear, in his barfly associates, while provoking a dangerous showdown with the bar’s self-aggrandizing sleazeball owner, Rico. With a love of the underdog and strong writing and acting at its core, Tipsy breezes by, leaving a superlative buzz. (Avila)

“Des Voix: Found in Translation Biennial 2014” Various venues, SF; www.desvoixfestival.com. Prices vary. Through May 25. In addition to Communiqué N°10 (listed above), this festival of contemporary French playwrights and cinema includes four new play translations, a “New Play Nightclub,” film screenings, and more. Presented by Playwrights Foundation, Tides Theatre, Cutting Ball Theater, French International School, and the French Consulate of San Francisco.

Waxing West Brava Theater Center, 2781 24th St, SF; www.brava.org. $20. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. Through May 18. Brava! For Women in the Arts and RasaNova Theater present the West Coast premiere of Saviana Stanescu’s tale of a Romanian mail-order bride haunted by her country’s past.

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; www.themarsh.org. $8-11. Sun, 11am. Extended through May 25. The popular, kid-friendly show by Louis Pearl (aka “The Amazing Bubble Man”) returns to the Marsh.

BAY AREA

Fences Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller, Mill Valley; www.marintheatre.org. $37-58. Wed/7, 7:30pm; Thu/8-Sat/10, 8pm (also Sat/10, 2pm); Sun/11, 2 and 7pm. Marin Theatre Company performs August Wilson’s Pulitzer- and Tony-winning drama, with an all-star cast of Bay Area talent: Carl Lumbly, Steven Anthony Jones, and Margo Hall.

Geezer Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $25-50. New show schedule: Wed, 8pm; Sat, 3pm. Extended through May 24. Geoff Hoyle moves his hit comedy about aging to the East Bay.

The Letters Harry’s UpStage, Aurora Theatre Company, 2081 Addison, Berk; www.auroratheatre.org. $28-32. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through June 1. American playwright John W. Lowell’s The Letters harkens back to Stalinist days and some unspecified ministry, where a dutiful staff goes about censoring the personal and openly homoerotic correspondence of an iconic Russian composer (Tchaikovsky). Directed by Mark Jackson for Aurora Theater’s new upstairs black box, the two-hander unfolds in the small but tidy and dignified office belonging to the ministry’s director (an imposing Michael Ray Wisely). He has summoned one of his employees, a widow named Anna (a taut Beth Wilmurt), for reasons not immediately clear to her or us. A careful dance around a minefield of protocol, sexual innuendo, and hidden agendas ensues, as a dangerous and deadly scandal surrounding the aforementioned letters makes itself felt. Given the Ukraine crisis, the ramping up of Cold War II, and Russia’s increasing authoritarianism — including its new law against homosexual “propagandizing” in the cultural realm, and a Ministry of Culture vowing to withhold funding from art lacking in “spiritual or moral content” — it’s all a remarkably timely little time warp. And Lowell’s story is cleverly crafted for the most part. Unfortunately, the production’s two capable actors have a hard time conveying a lifelike (if however strained) relationship or the perspiration-inducing tension the drama purports to carry. At the same time, the drama’s dialogue, at least as played here, can stretch the bounds of verisimilitude by veering from flinty, cagey ducks and jabs to outright insubordination, sarcasm, and ineffectual blustering — the latter outbursts seeming to leave the pressure pot of the Great Terror far behind. It’s still a long way from Tom and Jerry, but as a cat and mouse game the stakes, and the arc of the story, feel more fantastical then pressingly contemporary. (Avila)

Mutt: Let’s All Talk About Race La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; www.impacttheatre.com. $10-20. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through June 8. Impact Theatre and Ferocious Lotus Theatre Company present the world premiere of Christopher Chen’s political satire.

Nantucket Marsh Berkeley MainStage, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $25-100 (all tickets include a picnic dinner). Thu and Sat, 7pm. Through June 14. Acclaimed solo performer Mark Kenward presents his “haunting yet hilarious” autobiographical show about growing up on Nantucket.

Not a Genuine Black Man Osher Studio, 2055 Center, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $30-45. Wed, 7pm (no shows May 14, 21, or 28); Thu-Sat, 8pm (no shows Fri/9-Sat/10). Through May 31. Brian Copeland brings his acclaimed, long-running solo show to Berkeley Rep for a 10th anniversary limited run.

“Pear Slices” Pear Avenue Theatre, 1220 Pear, Mtn View; www.thepear.org. $10-35. Thu-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through May 25. Original short plays from the Pear Playwrights Guild.

Tribes Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; www.berkeleyrep.org. $29-99. Tue and Thu-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm; no 2pm show May 18). Through May 18. Berkeley Rep performs Nina Raine’s family drama about a young deaf man who comes of age.

Wittenberg Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; www.auroratheatre.org. $32-60. Wed/7-Sat/10, 8pm; Sun/11, 2 and 7pm. Aurora Theatre Company performs David Davalos’ comedy about reason versus faith.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

“Alien Citizen: An Earth Odyssey” Mission Cultural Center, 2868 Mission, SF; cargocollective.com/aliencitizen. Sat/10, 8pm. $12. Elizabeth Lang performs her solo show about her mixed heritage. Part of the United States of Asian America Festival 2014.

“Asian American StoryFest” Mission Cultural Center, 2868 Mission, SF; ww.ethnohtec.org. Fri/9, 8pm. Also Sat/10, 1:30pm, 3:30pm, 7pm (panel), 8pm, $10-20, Oakland Asian Cultural Center, 388 Ninth St, Oakl. Seven nationally-recognized storytellers take the stage to perform Asian folk tales, myths, and contemporary stories. Part of the United States of Asian America Festival 2014.

Caroline Lugo and Carolé Acuña’s Ballet Flamenco Peña Pachamama, 1630 Powell, SF; www.carolinalugo.com. Sat/10, May 17, 25, June 17, 22, and 29, 6:15pm; Sun/11, 1pm. $15-19 (Sun/11, call for price). Flamenco performance by the mother-daughter dance company, featuring live musicians.

Company C Contemporary Ballet Lesher Center for the Arts, 1601 Civic, Walnut Creek; www.lesherartscenter.org. Thu/8-Sat/10, 8pm; Sun/11, 2pm. $25-48. With two world premieres by Maurice Causey and Charles Moulton.

“The Escapement” Joe Goode Annex, 401 Alabama, SF; theescapement.eventbrite.com. Fri/9-Sat10, 8pm. $15-25. Emerging choreographer Katharine Hawthone presents a new, evening-length work.

Feinstein’s at the Nikko 222 Mason, SF; www.feinsteinssf.com. This week: Wesla Whitfield, Thu/8-Fri/9, 8pm, $30-45; Kim Nalley, Sat/10-Sun/11, 7pm, $30-45.

“The Fifth String: Ziryab’s Passage to Cordoba” Brava Theatre Center, 2781 24th St, SF; www.goldenthread.org. May 15-17, 8pm; May 18, 3pm. $15-22. Golden Thread continues its “Islam 101” performance series with this family-friendly play with live music.

“Golden Gate Dreams and Evil Schemes: Short Plays by Short People” Brava Theater, 2781 24th St, SF; www.brava.org. Thu/8, 6:30pm; Fri/9, 7pm. $10-25. Professional actors and musicians perform six short plays written by fifth graders at Starr King Elementary School.

“Indulge” ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; www.odctheater.org. Tue/13, 8-10pm. $50-150. This ODC Theater benefit features dinner with artists and choreographers, pop-up performances, and more.

“Jackie Beat: If You See Something, Say Something” Rebel, 1760 Market, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Sat/10, 7 and 10pm. $25-30. Drag superstar Jackie Beat performs “hilarious new material and a sprinkling of tacky classics.”

“Let’s Get Nautical: A Mother’s Day Yacht Rock Extravaganza” Supperclub, 657 Harrison, SF; (415) 637-3386. Sun/11, 7-11pm. $10. Nautical-themed burlesque and disco-funk jams.

“Magic at the Rex” Hotel Rex, 562 Sutter, SF; www.magicattherex.com. Sat, 8pm. Ongoing. $25. Magic and mystery with Adam Sachs and mentalist Sebastian Boswell III.

“Mortified” DNA Lounge, 375 11th St, SF; www.getmortified.com. Fri/9, 7:30pm. $21. Also Sat/10, 7:30pm, $20, Uptown, 1928 Telegraph, Oakl. Fearless storytellers share their most adorably embarrassing childhood writings.

“Out of Line Improv” Stage Werx, 446 Valencia, SF; outoflineimprov.brownpapertickets.com. Sat, 10:30pm. $12. Ongoing. A new, completely improvised show every week.

“San Francisco Comedy College” Purple Onion at Kells, 530 Jackson, SF; www.purpleonionatkells.com. $5-10. “New Talent Show,” Wed-Thu, 7. Ongoing. “The Cellar Dwellers,” stand-up comedy, Wed-Thu, 8:15pm and Fri-Sat, 7:30pm. Ongoing.

Sara Bush Dance Project Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St, SF; www.dancemission.com. Fri/9-Sat/10, 8pm; Sun/11, 4 and 7pm. $23-50. The company performs Rocked By Women, an homage to the feminist movement.

Summation Dance and The Thick Rich Ones Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.zspace.org. Fri/9-Sat/10, 8pm. $15-25. The two companies — from New York, all-female troupe Summation Dance, and from Oakland, performance collective the Thick Rich Ones — join forces to present “Three.”

“They Call Me Q” Stage Werx, 446 Valencia, SF; www.theycallmeq.com. Thu/8, 8pm; Sat/10, 2pm. $20-25. Qurrat Ann Kadwani performs her solo show, comprised of 13 characters. Part of the United States of Asian America Festival 2014.

“Thou Swell! Thou Witty! The Rodgers and Hart Salon” Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.42ndstmoon.org. Mon/12-Tue/13, 7pm. $45-70. Tony winner Faith Prince stars in 42nd Street Moon’s celebration of the Rodgers and Hart songbook.

“Unbecoming MILF: Confessions of a Bi Butch Breeder” Center for Sex and Culture, 1349 Mission, SF; www.sexandculture.org. Sat/10, 7:30pm. $5-20. Lori Selke debuts her solo show.

“Uncertain Weather” ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; www.odctheater.org. Sat/10-Sun/11, 1 and 4pm. ODC School/Rhythm and Motion Dance program presents this youth performance showcasing a variety of dance styles.

“Yerba Buena Gardens Festival” Yerba Buena Gardens, 760 Howard, SF; www.ybgfestival.org. Sun/10, 1pm. Free. Through Oct 26. This week: San Jose Taiko.

BAY AREA

“Asian Pacific American Comedy” Pacific Pinball Museum, 1510 Webster, Alameda; www.pacificpinball.org. Sat/10, 7:30pm. $15. Stand-up comedy for adults with Josef Anolin, Lilybeth Helson, Justin Lucus, and Molly Sokhom.

Diablo Ballet Shadelands Arts Center Auditorium, 111 N. Wiget Lane, Walnut Creek; www.diabloballet.org. Fri/9-Sat/10, 8pm (also Sat/10, 2pm). $24-39. The company performs works by Val Caniparoli and George Balanchine, among others.

“First Annual Contemporary Performance Diasporas Festival” South Berkeley Community Church, 1802 Fairview, Berk; www.infernotheatre.org. Fri/9-Sat/10, 8pm; Sun/11, 6pm, $10-35 (festival pass, $30-50). Interdisciplinary and multi-cultural live ensemble and solo performances, presented by Inferno Theatre.

“MarshJam Improv Comedy Show” Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. Fri, 8pm. Ongoing. $10. Improv comedy with local legends and drop-in guests.

“3 Still Standing” Throckmorton Theatre, 142 Throckmorton, Mill Valley; www.throckmortontheatre.org. Fri/9, 8pm. $23-35. Stand-up with Will Durst, Larry “Bubbles” Brown, and Johnny Steele.

*

Film Listings: May 7 – 13, 2014

Michael Redmond

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May 6, 2014

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

SF INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL

The 57th San Francisco International Film Festival runs through Thu/8. Screening venues include the Castro Theatre, 429 Castro, SF; New People Cinema, 1746 Post, SF; Pacific Film Archive, 2575 Bancroft, Berk; and Sundance Kabuki Cinemas, 1881 Post, SF. For tickets (most shows $15) and complete schedule, visit festival.sffs.org.

OPENING

Belle See “Skin Deep.” (1:45) Albany, Embarcadero.

Legends of Oz: Dorothy’s Return Computer-animated musical which does not look to resemble 1985’s spooky-great Return to Oz. Case in point: Dorothy is voiced by Glee‘s Lea Michele. (1:28) Presidio.

Neighbors Seth Rogen and Zac Efron star in this comedy about a family with a newborn forced to live next door to a frat house. (1:37) Four Star, Presidio.

Now: In the Wings on a World Stage In 2011, a production of Richard III starring Kevin Spacey played SF’s Curran Theatre; it was but one stop on a dreamy world tour (London, Istanbul, Beijing, Sydney, Doha, Brooklyn, and Epidaurus, Greece) for an American and British company and crew directed by Brit Sam Mendes, who guided Spacey to an Oscar (and earned one himself) for 1999’s American Beauty. This backstage doc — fully endorsed by Spacey and co., so don’t expect any juicy spats or diva routines — follows this rambling troupe around the world as they work through one of Shakespeare’s most iconic history plays. Initially, some of the younger actors feel intimidated (and some of the Americans feel nervous about interpreting the Bard alongside Brits, despite the fact that superstar Spacey is spearheading the whole thing), but gradually the group becomes close-knit. Pretty scenery aside, most of the travel stuff is featherweight (“The culture [in Istanbul] is just crazy!” is one typically shallow insight), but watching the show from the inside out offers an intriguing look at the dramatic process. Still, as Mendes and others point out, “the thrill of theater is the fact that it’s live” and “ephemeral” — qualities not captured by this rather conventional doc. If you’re an aspiring actor, however, Now is probably essential viewing nonetheless. (1:33) Roxie. (Eddy)

Young and Beautiful The titular attributes may be obvious surface ones, but they’re pretty much all we can take for granted in the character of Isabelle (Marine Vacth), a 17-year-old Parisian first met on a summer beach vacation with her family. With younger brother Victor (Fantin Ravat) as confidante, she methodically if haltingly sets out to shed her virginity, choosing as the lucky deflowerer a nice, very handsome German tourist (Lucas Prisor). The experience seems to leave her ambivalent, however, and a certain cool psychological opacity lingers after the clan goes home, and Isabelle returns to school while commencing a secret life so outré and baffling we would dearly love to understand her motivations. (Suffice it to say that the obvious reasons, love and/or need of money and/or sex, do not appear applicable in her case.) Is she rebelling? If so, against what? Probably not her easygoing mother and stepfather, played by Geraldine Pailhas and Frederic Pierrot. Reminiscent of Belle de Jour (1967) not just in premise but in dispassionate treatment of it, François Ozon’s latest sports his usual crisp directorial authority and eye for telling detail. But it’s built around a cipher, requiring an 11th-hour appearance by his past muse Charlotte Rampling in order to suddenly snap into focus — even as Isabelle remains something of a blur. (1:35) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Harvey)

ONGOING

The Amazing Spider-Man 2 The best thing about The Amazing Spider-Man 2 — the sequel to the 2012 reboot that nobody really wanted in the first place — is the achingly cute chemistry between real-life couple Andrew Garfield (Peter Parker/Spider-Man) and Emma Stone (Gwen Stacy, whose fate is no spoiler to anyone who is familiar with the Spider-Man canon). Can’t deny it; those two are adorbs. But since Spider-Man is supposed to be an action movie, not a romantic comedy, it spends most of its time setting up foes for the webslinger (Jamie Foxx as a nerd zapped into the power-mad Electro; Dane DeHaan as bratty rich kid Harry Osborn), as well as rehashing the mysterious deaths of Peter’s parents, and underlining for approximately the zillionth time the disconnect between the media’s perception of Spider-Man (he’s a menace! He interferes with police work!) and the ecstatic love the people of New York have for the guy — understandable, since he’s in the business of saving their butts on a regular basis. This isn’t a crappy movie by any means; it’s entertaining enough, and the 3D swooping-between-skyscrapers FX have gotten quite dazzling. But there’s still a heavy air of “This again?” that hangs over the whole thing. Doesn’t Marvel have enough dough from the Avengers movies to let Spidey take an extended vacation? (2:20) Balboa, Marina (showing the original version and a version with Chinese subtitles), Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Bears (1:26) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

Brick Mansions (1:30) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

Captain America: The Winter Soldier Marvel’s most wholesome hero returns in this latest film in the Avengers series, and while it doesn’t deviate from the expected formula (it’s not a spoiler to say that yes, the world is saved yet again), it manages to incorporate a surprisingly timely plot about the dangers of government surveillance. Steve Rogers (Chris Evans), hunkiest 95-year-old ever, is still figuring out his place in the 21st century after his post-World War II deep freeze. Nick Fury (Samuel L. Jackson) has him running random rescue missions with the help of Black Widow (Scarlett Johansson), but SHIELD is working on a top-secret project that will allow it to predict crimes before they occur. It isn’t long before Cap’s distrust of the weapon — he may be old-fashioned, but he ain’t stupid — uncovers a sinister plot led by a familiar enemy, with Steve’s former BFF Bucky doing its bidding as the science-experiment-turned-assassin Winter Soldier (Sebastian Stan). Anthony Mackie, Robert Redford, and series regular Cobie Smulders are fine in supporting roles, and Johansson finally gets more to do than punch and pose, but the likable Evans ably carries the movie — he may not have the charisma of Robert Downey Jr., but he brings wit and depth to a role that would otherwise be defined mainly by biceps and CG-heavy fights. Oh, and you know the drill by now: superfans will want to stick around for two additional scenes tucked into the end credits. (2:16) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Divergent Based on the blockbuster dystopian-future YA novel by Veronica Roth (the first in a trilogy), Divergent is set in a future city-state version of Chicago in which society is divided into five character-based, color-coded factions: Erudite, Amity, Candor, Abnegation, and Dauntless. Like her peers, Beatrice Prior (Shailene Woodley), the film’s Abnegation-born teenage heroine, must choose a permanent faction — with the help of a standardized aptitude test that forgoes penciling in bubbles in favor of virtual reality psychic manipulation. When the test fails to triangulate her sole innate personality trait, she learns that she belongs to a secret, endangered sixth category: Divergent, an astonishing set of people who are not only capable of, say, acts of selflessness but can also produce intelligent thought, or manifest bravery in the face of danger. Forced to hide her aberrant nature in a society whose leaders (Kate Winslet) are prone to statements like “The future belongs to those who know where they belong,” and seemingly bored among Abnegation’s hive of gray cardigan-wearing worker bees, Beatrice chooses Dauntless, a dashing gang of black-clad, alterna-rock music video extras who jump on and off moving trains and live in a warehouse-chic compound whose dining hall recalls the patio at Zeitgeist. Fittingly, a surly, tattooed young man named Four (Theo James) leads Beatrice, now Tris, and her fellow initiates through a harsh proving regimen that, if they fail, will cast them into an impoverished underclass. Director Neil Burger (2006’s The Illusionist, 2011’s Limitless) and the behemoth marketing force behind Divergent are clearly hoping to stir up the kind of madness stoked by the Twilight and Hunger Games series, but while there are bones a-plenty to pick with those franchises, Divergent may have them beat for pure daffiness of premise and diameter of plot holes — and that’s after screenwriters Evan Daugherty and Vanessa Taylor’s major suturing of the source material’s lacunae. The daffiness doesn’t translate into imaginative world-building, and while a couple of scenes convey the visceral thrills of life in Dauntless, the tension between Tris and Four is awkwardly ratcheted up, and the film’s shift into a mode of crisis is equally jolting without generating much heat. (2:20) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Rapoport)

Draft Day (2:00) SF Center.

Fading Gigolo Ah, the charm of a well-aged, seasoned perv &ldots; nope, we don’t dare touch the Woody Allen/Dylan Farrow abuse allegations — though those recent headlines flit around the edges of this generally benevolent, almost strangely innocuous charmer, written by and directed John Turturro, who also stars as the curiously blank-faced tabula rasa of a title character. The delights of Mrs. Robinsons have been rhapsodized on film, through the lens of worshipful younger men — less so, their male counterparts, as viewed by other hetero men. The danger of bromance surging into the homoerotic is likely too dire for most, yet somehow bookstore boss Murray (Allen) sees the mysterious, submerged sex appeal in his loyal employee Fioravante (Turturro) and taps him to get involved in a ménage à trois with a society dermatologist (Sharon Stone). The soft-spoken Fioravante turns out to be a smash in the sack with the doc, transforming the opportunistic Murray into a wildly successful pimp as his employee takes on the audacious Selima (Sofia Vergara) and the prim Jewish Orthodox widow Avigal (Vanessa Paradis). The latter character seems to have come straight from another place and time — much like this film, which turns Brooklyn into a something resembling a leaf-strewn European village and recalls odes to revolutionary sexuality in the ’60s. The movie’s lightly absurd comedy is embedded in the fact that Turturro writes himself into the role of the seducer, the pleaser, while wrapped in the skin of pleasant if everyday-looking Joe, although Paradis, a revelation as a deeply repressed devout mother slowly awakening to her body, points to more serious pleasures, lingering below the surface of all of us. (1:30) Albany, Embarcadero, 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

Finding Vivian Maier Much like In the Realms of the Unreal, the 2004 doc about Henry Darger, Finding Vivian Maier explores the lonely life of a gifted artist whose talents were discovered posthumously. In this case, however, the filmmaker — John Maloof, who co-directs with Charlie Siskel — is responsible for Maier’s rise to fame. A practiced flea-market hunter, he picked up a carton of negatives at a 2007 auction; they turned out to be striking examples of early street photography. He was so taken with the work (snapped by a woman so obscure she was un-Google-able) that he began posting images online. Unexpectedly, they became a viral sensation, and Maloof became determined to learn more about the camerawoman. Turns out Vivian Maier was a career nanny in the Chicago area, with plenty of former employers to share their memories. She was an intensely private person who some remembered as delightfully adventurous and others remembered as eccentric, mentally unstable, or even cruel; she was a hoarder who was distrustful of men, and she spoke with a maybe-fake French accent. And she was obsessed with taking photographs that she never showed to anyone; the hundreds of thousands now in Maloof’s collection (along with 8mm and 16mm films) offer the only insight into her creative mind. “She had a great eye, a sense of humor, and a sense of tragedy,” remarks acclaimed photographer Mary Ellen Mark. “But there’s a piece of the puzzle missing.” The film’s central question — why was Maier so secretive about her hobby? — may never be answered. But as the film also suggests, that mystery adds another layer of fascination to her keenly observed photos. (1:23) Opera Plaza. (Eddy)

For No Good Reason For No Good Reason is a jungle gym of a movie: loud, active all over, one tumble after another. Made over 15 years with the close collaboration of its subject, the artist Ralph Steadman, the film is obviously a work of love, an ode to this man, and his life’s work. There is archival footage of Steadman and Hunter S. Thompson (each gave the other’s art a relief and elucidation) mixed with Steadman showing Thompson’s unofficial weirdo heir, Johnny Depp, around Steadman’s home and studio, talking and telling stories all the while. There’s constant music, too, from an odd variety of rock ‘n’ roll artists, and the effect is rather exhausting, if slight and genial. For No Good Reason switches between the timelines as egged on by Steadman’s storytelling, and given further life in animating his illustrations. Sometimes the film stops in its “narrative” tracks, as it were, to show Steadman splat out the start of a painting — they all seem to start with ink thrown at a canvas — then spend 10 minutes watching him build the painting, which may be the most fascinating bits captured by director Charlie Paul, who’s otherwise content to toe the hagiography line of one of his artistic heroes. (1:29) Smith Rafael. (Ryland Walker Knight)

Friended to Death Everybody’s got one: that Facebook friend obsessed with turning every single waking moment into social-media fodder. Self-centered parking-enforcement officer Michael (Ryan Hansen of Veronica Mars) updates his status dozens of times a day, not realizing he’s just as obnoxious online as he is in real life. When he’s suddenly fired and his best friend (Zach McGowan) dumps him, Michael enlists dog-obsessed mama’s boy Emile (James Immekus) to help him fake his death, unaware that he’s being stalked by a mysterious woman (co-writer and director Sarah Smick) who is actively plotting his downfall for reasons of her own. Michael’s attention-grabbing scheme goes predictably awry in this sitcom-ish film, which advances the valid theory that spending too much time online will render a person incredibly shallow and narcissistic. The humor is hit-and-miss, though co-writer Ian Michaels, as Michael’s meathead nemesis, has a funny running joke involving his character’s affection for calling people “bro” with a celebrity twist, as in, “Chill out, Broseph Gordon-Levitt!” (1:34) Metreon. (Eddy)

The Galapagos Affair: Satan Came to Eden Extensive archival footage and home movies (plus one short, narrative film) enhance this absorbing doc from San Francisco-based Dayna Goldfine and Dan Geller (2005’s Ballets Russes). It tells the tale of a double murder that occurred in the early 1930s on Floreana — the most remote of the already scarcely-populated Galapagos Islands. A top-notch cast (Cate Blanchett, Diane Kruger, Connie Nielsen, Josh Radnour) gives voice to the letters and diary entries of the players in this stranger-than-fiction story, which involved an array of Europeans who’d moved away from civilization in search of utopian simplicity — most intriguingly, a maybe-fake Baroness and her two young lovers — and realized too late that paradise isn’t all it’s cracked up to be. Goldfine and Geller add further detail to the historic drama by visiting the present-day Galapagos, speaking with residents about the lingering mystery and offering a glimpse of what life on the isolated islands is like today. (2:00) Opera Plaza. (Eddy)

The German Doctor Argentine writer-director Lucía Puenzo (2007’s XXY) adapts her novel Wakolda for this drama imagining a post-World War II chapter in the life of Nazi doctor Josef Mengele. It’s 1960, and there’s a new doctor residing in Bariloche, Argentina — a stunningly picturesque town in the Andean foothills that seems to harbor an awful lot of Germans. Polite, well-dressed “Helmut” (Alex Brendemühl) befriends innkeepers Eva (Natalia Oreiro) and Enzo (Diego Peretti), taking a special interest in their 12-year-old daughter Lilith (Florencia Bado), whose petite frame (cruel classmates call her “dwarf”) awakens his let’s-experiment impulses. He gets even more attached when he finds out a pregnant Eva is carrying twins. Meanwhile, Israeli agents are moving in, having just snagged Mengele’s fellow war criminal Eichmann in Buenos Aires, and Lilith’s family soon catches on to their new friend’s true identity. Measured, multi-lingual performances — Brendemühl is both suave and menacing as the “Angel of Death,” forever penciling in his grotesque medical sketchbook — and the contrast between The German Doctor‘s dark themes and the Patagonian beauty of its setting bring haunting nuance to Puenzo’s twisted-history tale. (1:33) Embarcadero. (Eddy)

The Grand Budapest Hotel Is this the first Wes Anderson movie to feature a shootout? It’s definitely the first Anderson flick to include a severed head. That’s not to say The Grand Budapest Hotel, “inspired by” the works of Austrian novelist Stefan Zweig, represents too much of a shift for the director — his intricate approach to art direction is still very much in place, as are the deadpan line deliveries and a cast stuffed with Anderson regulars. But there’s a slightly more serious vibe here, a welcome change from 2012’s tooth-achingly twee Moonrise Kingdom. Thank Ralph Fiennes’ performance as liberally perfumed concierge extraordinaire M. Gustave, which mixes a shot of melancholy into the whimsy, and newcomer Tony Revolori as Zero, his loyal lobby boy, who provides gravitas despite only being a teenager. (Being played by F. Murray Abraham as an older adult probably helps in that department.) Hotel‘s early 20th century Europe setting proves an ideal canvas for Anderson’s love of detail — the titular creation rivals Stanley Kubrick’s rendering of the Overlook Hotel — and his supporting cast, as always, looks to be enjoying the hell out of being a part of Anderson’s universe, with Willem Dafoe, Jeff Goldblum, and Adrien Brody having particularly oversized fun. Is this the best Wes Anderson movie since 2001’s The Royal Tenenbaums? Yes. (1:40) Balboa, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

A Haunted House 2 (1:26) SF Center.

Heaven is for Real (1:40) Metreon.

Ilo Ilo Set in 1997 Singapore at the onset of the country’s recession, Ilo Ilo focuses on one family, who could be any family: father Teck (Chen Tianwen), who’s been let go from his sales position and is working various hourly jobs, hoping his wife doesn’t find out; pregnant Hwee Leng (a dynamic Yeo Yann Yann), a secretary who’s been the “bad cop” in the relationship so long she’s kind of grown into the role; and bratty Jiale (Koh Jia Ler), a 10-year-old terror who disobeys at home and gets into fights at school. Into this swirl of domestic tension comes Teresa (Angeli Bayani), a housekeeper-nanny who’s left her own family behind in the Philippines in search of a better way of life. It’s hell at first — “Auntie Terry” is no Mary Poppins, but she has the patience of a saint, putting up with Jiale’s antics and Hwee Leng’s ice-queen routine. Slowly, however, she builds a rapport with her young charge, but since Ilo Ilo is firmly interested in realism, there’s no quick fix to the problems that lie beneath the family strife, despite the kid’s obsession with lottery numbers. A remarkably assured debut film from 29-year-old director Anthony Chen, Ilo Ilo picked up the Camera D’Or at Cannes, in addition to multiple other fest prizes. The accolades are well-earned — rarely has a film so effectively and subtly captured the day-to-day frustrations of middle-class financial uncertainty. (1:40) Four Star. (Eddy)

Locke This virtual solo show stars Tom Hardy as Ivan Locke, a 40-ish construction manager driving to London on the eve of “the biggest cement pour” ever attempted in Europe. But he’s driving away from that, to the shrill indignation of superiors who expect his reliable on-site supervision, and the increasingly drunken panic of the flunky (voice of Andrew Scott) he’s deputized to take his place. The reason for this unprecedented dereliction of responsibility is that Ivan is committed to another responsibility, to “take care of my fuckup.” As we gradually realize during his 85-minute drive, that means showing up for the premature birth of the baby he’s sired by a fragile, rather hysterical-sounding woman (Olivia Colman) in the brief sole detour from marital infidelity he’s ever taken. Doing so may well end his career, as well as his long-standing marriage to the mother of his sons. But our protagonist is determined at any cost not to become his own late father (with whom he has imaginary conversations), a wastrel who never made good on his obligations to family or anyone else. Shot repeatedly in real time with multiple cameras over 12 nights, then assembled from 16 full-length takes, Steven Knight’s Locke is a striking experiment that never quite escapes an air of theatrical stunt. In retrospect you realize most of its tension derives not from the core emotional crises, but from narrative red herrings — primarily our terror that anyone multitasking this recklessly behind the wheel is an accident waiting to happen. But the chameleonic Hardy, playing a rather square, middle-class, essentially humorless type unlike any he’s done before, makes this effortfully “decent” man so compelling you can’t look away. If there’s anything this actor can’t do, he hasn’t tried it yet. (1:35) Clay. (Harvey)

The Lunchbox Ila (Nimrat Kaur) is a self-possessed housewife and a great cook, whose husband confuses her for another piece of furniture. She tries to arouse his affections with elaborate lunches she makes and sends through the city’s lunchbox delivery service. Like marriage in India, lunchbox delivery has a failure rate of zero, which is what makes aberrations seem like magical occurrences. So when widow Saajan (Irrfan Khan) receives her adoring food, he humbly receives the magical lunches like a revival of the senses. Once Ila realizes her lunchbox is feeding the wrong man she writes a note and Saajan replies — tersely, like a man who hasn’t held a conversation in a decade — and the impossible circumstances lend their exchanges a romance that challenges her emotional fidelity and his retreat from society. She confides her husband is cheating. He confides his sympathy for men of lower castes. It’s a May/December affair if it’s an affair at all — but the chemistry we expect the actors to have in the same room is what fuels our urge to see it; that’s a rare and haunting dynamic. Newcomer Kaur is perfect as Ila, a beauty unmarked by her rigorous distaff; her soft features and exhausted expression lend a richness to the troubles she can’t share with her similarly stoic mother (Lillete Dubey). Everyone is sacrificing something and poverty seeps into every crack, every life, without exception — their inner lives are their richness. (1:44) Opera Plaza. (Vizcarrondo)

The M Word TV station KZAM bills itself as LA’s “last independent TV station.” So why are two henchmen from “corporate” visiting the station to cut the fat? There are some contradictions in Henry Jaglom’s newest comedy of escalating emotions and descending intelligence, but one thing you can say is he’s still going — Jaglom’s been working in indie film since the ’70s and operates unhindered by age or what The M Word refers to as “bleeding viewership.” His “naturalistic” dialogue is an acquired taste and his characters are the expressive sort who transform conversations into arguments conquerable with screaming. Jaglom’s co-conspirator and real-life partner, Tanna Frederick, stars as Moxie, the actress turned documentarian trying to understand her mother (Frances Fisher) by filming her menopausal tumult. She invites a hottie henchman (Michael Imperioli) to her house to pitch the product of her process: a doc about menopause to blow the doors off the subject and open the station to an untapped niche market. When layoffs begin, Moxie uses her newly inflated activist-ego to rally the employees in a sit-in to save their jobs. This is when you really feel Jaglom’s presence. It’s never clear if he’s celebrating his characters’ successes or laughing that such absurd attempts could gain traction. Why should Moxie’s achievements be predictable on paper and confounding in action? Call it misanthropy, call it distrust — but don’t call it comedy, because funny it ain’t. (2:00) Roxie. (Vizcarrondo)

Noah Darren Aronofsky’s Biblical epic begins with a brief recap of prior Genesis events — creation is detailed a bit more in clever fashion later on — leading up to mankind’s messing up such that God wants to wipe the slate clean and start over. That means getting Noah (Russell Crowe), wife Naameh (Jennifer Connelly), and their three sons and one adopted daughter (Emma Watson) to build an ark that can save them and two of every animal species from the imminent slate-wiping Great Flood. (The rest of humanity, having sinned too much, can just feed the fishes.) They get some help from fallen angels turned into Ray Harryhausen-type giant rock creatures voiced by Nick Nolte and others. There’s an admirable brute force and some startling imagery to this uneven, somber, Iceland-shot tale “inspired” by the Good Book (which, needless to say, has endured more than its share of revisions over the centuries). Purists may quibble over some choices, including the device of turning minor Biblical figure Tubal-Cain (Ray Winstone) into a royal-stowaway villain, and political conservatives have already squawked a bit over Aronofsky’s not-so-subtle message of eco-consciousness, with Noah being bade to “replenish the Earth” that man has hitherto rendered barren. But for the most part this is a respectable, forceful interpretation that should stir useful discussion amongst believers and non believers alike. Its biggest problem is that after the impressively harrowing flood itself, we’re trapped on the ark dealing with the lesser crises of a pregnancy, a discontented middle son (Logan Lerman), and that stowaway’s plotting — ponderous intrigues that might have been leavened if the director had allowed us to hang out with the animals a little, rather than sedating the whole menagerie for the entire voyage. (2:07) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Harvey)

Oculus Tim (Brenton Thwaites) and Kaylie (Karen Gillan) are grown siblings with a horrible shared past: When they were children, their parents (Rory Cochrane, Katee Sankhoff) moved them all into a nice suburban house, decorating it with, among other things, a 300-year-old mirror. But that antique seemed to have an increasingly disturbing effect on dad, then mom too, to ultimately homicidal, offspring-orphaning effect. Over a decade later, Tim is released from a juvenile mental lockup, ready to live a normal life after years of therapy have cleaned him of the supernatural delusions he think landed him there in the first place. Imagine his dismay when Kaylie announces she has spent the meantime researching aforementioned “evil mirror” — which turns out to have had a very gruesome history of mysteriously connected deaths — and painstakingly re-acquiring it. She means to destroy it so it can never wreak havoc, and has set up an elaborate room of camcorders and other equipment in which to “prove” its malevolence first, with Tim her very reluctant helper. Needless to say, this experiment (which he initially goes along with only in order to debunk the whole thing for good) turns out to be a very, very bad idea. The mirror is clever — demonically clever. It can warp time and perspective so our protagonists don’t know whether what they’re experiencing is real or not. Expanding on his 2006 short film (which was made before his excellent, little-seen 2011 horror feature Absentia), Mike Flanagan’s tense, atmospheric movie isn’t quite as scary as you might wish, partly because the villain (the spirit behind the mirror) isn’t particularly well-imagined in generic look or murky motivation. But it is the rare new horror flick that is genuinely intricate and surprising plot-wise — no small thing in the current landscape of endless remakes and rehashes. (1:44) Metreon. (Harvey)

Only Lovers Left Alive Jim Jarmusch has subverted genre films before — you don’t have to dig deep to find fierce defenders of 1995 Western Dead Man — but his latest, Only Lovers Left Alive, is poised to be his biggest commercial hit to date. That’s not merely because it’s a vampire film, though this concession to trendiness will certainly work in its favor, as will the casting of high-profile Avengers (2012) star Tom Hiddleston. But this is still a Jarmusch vampire movie, and though it may be more accessible than some of the director’s more existential entries, it’s still wonderfully weird, witty, and — natch — drenched in cool. The opening credits deploy a gothic, blood red font across a night sky — a winking nod to the aesthetics of Hammer classics like Horror of Dracula (1958). Then, the camera begins to rotate, filming a record as it plays, and symbolizing the eternal life of the two figures who’ve entered the frame: gloomy Adam (Hiddleston, rocking a bedhead version of Loki’s dark ‘do), who lurks in a crumbling Detroit mansion, and exuberant Eve (Tilda Swinton, so pale she seems to glow), who dwells amid piles of books in Tangier. These two live apart, partially due to the hassle of traveling when one can’t be in the sun (red-eye flights are a must). Yet they remain entangled in spirit, a phenomenon referenced amid much talk of what Einstein called “spooky action at a distance,” and when at last they reunite, it’s glorious. Unlike those old Hammer films, there’s no stake-wielding Van Helsing type pursuing these creatures of the night; if there’s a villain, it’s actual and emotional vampire Ava (Mia Wasikowska), Eve’s bad-penny sibling, who swoops in for a most unwelcome visit. But Only Lovers Left Alive‘s biggest antagonist is simply the outside world, with its epidemics of dull minds and blood-borne diseases. The delight Jarmusch takes in tweaking the vampire mythos is just as enjoyable as his interest in exploring the agony, ecstasy, and uneventful lulls of immortality. (2:03) Embarcadero, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

The Other Woman Cameron Diaz gets top billing — and the title role — in The Other Woman, but Leslie Mann is the real stealth weapon here: the other comedian who bravely dares to go into unseemly crazy-bitch, scatological-Bridesmaids territory, with shrill histrionics, whining, and shrieks hitting registers that threaten to make most men’s heads explode. Coming on like Lucille Ball on crystal, Mann teeters out in the limb in kitten heels — and your enjoyment of The Other Woman depends on whether you love that balancing act or loathe it. Diaz and Mann’s reluctant-then-mutual girl crush is at the heart of this proudly chick flick directed by Nick Cassavetes, who tends to beat his own indie path apart from his involvement in one of the biggest lady draws of all time, The Notebook (2004). The chick magnet and cause for so much chaos is Mark (Nikolaj Coster-Waldau), a sketchy entrepreneur who skims wife Kate’s (Mann) business ideas and toys with power-bitch lawyer Carly (Diaz), as well as his other other woman, perfect-10 Amber (Kate Upton). Coster-Waldau throws himself into the hysteria, as if it were the sole lifeline out of dour King’s Landing, but this is the Mann and Diaz Show, with a smarter-than-average screenplay by Melissa Stack and revenge served up like a self-righteous side dish at a Real Housewives buffet line. And just to show you how far we haven’t come, like those benighted housewives, those assembled aren’t so feminist that they won’t stoop to deliver a bitchy joke at the expense of Upton’s character. (1:49) 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center. (Chun)

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

The Raid 2 One need not have seen 2011’s The Raid: Redemption to appreciate this latest collaboration between Welsh director Gareth Evans and Indonesian actor, martial artist, and fight choreographer Iko Uwais — it’s recommended, of course, but the sequel stands alone on its own merits. Overstuffed with gloriously brutal, cleverly choreographed fight scenes, The Raid 2 — sometimes written with the subtitle “Berendal,” which means “thugs” — picks up immediately after the events of the first film. Quick recap of part one: a special-forces team invades an apartment tower controlled by gangsters. Among the cops is idealistic Rama (Uwais). Seemingly bulletproof and fleet of fists and feet, Rama battles his way floor-by-floor, encountering machete-toting heavies and wild-eyed maniacs; he also soon realizes he’s working for a police department that’s as corrupt as the gangster crew. The Raid‘s gritty, unadorned approach resonated with thrillseeking audiences weary of CG overload. A second Raid film was inevitable, especially since Evans — who became interested in Indonesian martial arts, or pencak silat, while working on 2007 doc The Mystic Art of Indonesia — already had its story in mind: Rama goes undercover within a criminal organization, a ploy that necessitates he do a prison stint to gain the trust of a local kingpin. Naturally, not much goes according to plan, and much blood is shed along the way, as multiple power-crazed villains set their sinister plans into motion. With expanded locations and ever-more daring (yet bone-breakingly realistic) fight scenes aplenty — including a brawl inside a moving vehicle, and a muddy, bloody prison-yard riot — The Raid 2 more than delivers. Easily the action film of the year so far, with no contenders likely to topple it in the coming months. (2:19) Metreon. (Eddy)

The Railway Man The lackluster title — OK, it’s better than that of director Jonathan Teplitzky’s last movie, 2011’s Burning Man, which confused sad Burners everywhere — masks a sensitive and artful adaptation of Eric Lomax’s book, based on a true story, about an English survivor of WWII atrocities. As Railway Man unfolds, we find Eric (Colin Firth), a stammering, attractive eccentric, oddly obsessed with railway schedules, as he meets his sweet soul mate Patti (Nicole Kidman) in vaguely mid-century England. Their romance, however, takes a steep, downward spiral when Patti discovers her new husband’s quirks overlay a deeply damaged spirit, one with scars that never really healed. As Eric grows more isolated, his best friend Finlay (Stellan Skarsgard) reveals some of their experiences as POWs forced to toil on the seemingly impossible-to-build Thai-Burma Railway by Japanese forces. The brutality of the situation comes home when the young Eric (played by Jeremy Irvine of 2011’s War Horse) takes the rap for building a radio and undergoes a period of torture. The horror seems rectifiable when Finlay discovers that the most memorable torturer Nagase (played at various ages by Tanroh Ishida and Hiroyuki Sanada) is still alive and, outrageously, leading tours of the area. Revenge is sweet, as so many other movies looking at this era have told us, but Railway Man strives for a deeper, more difficult message while telling its story with the care and attention to detail that points away from the weedy jungle of a traumatic past — and toward some kind of true north where reconciliation lies. (1:53) Embarcadero. (Chun)

Rio 2 (1:41) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness.

Super Duper Alice Cooper Almost 10 years ago, a sprawling music doc entitled Metal: A Headbanger’s Journey kick-started the careers of Canadian filmmakers Sam Dunn and Scot McFadyen. Since 2005, the duo has worked on films about Rush, Iron Maiden, and Motorhead; they’ve also collaborated on a doc about Satan and will soon take on a project about “a very important heavy metal band who shall temporarily remain nameless.” Their current feature adds a third co-director, Reginald Harkema, for the colorful story of Alice Cooper, née Vincent Furnier, who’s as famous for songs like 1972’s “School’s Out” as he is for his horror-meets-vaudeville stage shtick. Though Super Duper Alice Cooper retraces tales that will be familiar to anyone who’s read Cooper’s autobiographies or seen his Behind the Music episode, the directors tried to make the film as visually dynamic as possible, tapping old footage and animation and avoiding any talking heads; they also end the tale with Cooper’s mid-1980s triumph over addiction, thereby avoiding going into his latter-day conservative political beliefs. Still, this is the guy who more or less invented shock rock — any doc about him can’t help but be highly enjoyable, even if it follows a familiar, stage blood-splattered path. (1:38) Smith Rafael. (Eddy)

Transcendence Darn those high-tech romantics, hiding out and planning global takeover in their shadowy Berkeley Craftsmen and hippie-dippie leafy grottos. That’s one not-so-great notion emanating from this timely thriller, helmed by a first-time director (and veteran cinematographer) Wally Pfister and writer Jack Paglen. In line with the dreamy, brainy idealism of its protagonists — and the fully loaded promises of artificial intelligence — Transcendence starts with a grand idea teeming with torn-from-the-tech-headlines relevancy, only to spiral off course, seemingly far out of the control of its makers. Ray Kurzweil-like scientist Will Caster (Johnny Depp) is in the midst of refining his work on artificial intelligence when Luddite terrorists shoot him, using a bullet coated with radioactive material, after a lecture on the UC Berkeley campus. That tragedy allows Will and devoted wife Evelyn (Rebecca Hall) a chance to put his ideas into action and to attempt to preserve that beautiful mind, with the help of friend and kindred researcher Max (Paul Bettany). Yet once his intelligence gets online, out to a Burning Man-like tabula rasa desert, and in the cloud, quite literally, there apparently are no limits in sight. Transcendence‘s stoppers, however, are all too human, including technical flubs that betray its newbie filmmaker’s limitations; script slip-ups that, for instance, highlight a rather dated fear of “Y2K”; and a narrative that ends up reading a bit too much like a technophobic Invasion of the Body Snatchers. (1:59) Metreon, 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

Under the Skin At the moment, Scarlett Johansson is playing a superhero in the world’s top blockbuster. Her concurrent role in Jonathan Glazer’s Under the Skin — the tale of an alien who comes to earth to capture men, but goes rogue once her curiosity about the human world gets the better of her — could not be more different in story or scope. Her character’s camouflage (dark wig, thickly-applied lipstick) was carefully calibrated to make her unrecognizable, since Glazer (2000’s Sexy Beast) filmed the alien’s “pick-up” scenes — in which Johansson’s unnamed character cruises around Glasgow in a nondescript van, prowling for prey — using hidden cameras and real people who had no idea they were interacting with a movie star. The film takes liberties with its source material (Michel Farber’s novel), with “feeding” scenes that are far more abstract than as written in the book, allowing for one of the film’s most striking visual motifs. After the alien seduces a victim, he’s lured into what looks like a run-down house. The setting changes into a dark room that seems to represent an otherworldly void, with composer Mica Levi’s spine-tingling score exponentially enhancing the dread. What happens next? It’s never fully explained, but it doesn’t need to be. When the alien begins to mistakenly believe that her fleshy, temporary form is her own, she abandons her predatory quest — but her ill-advised exploration of humanity leads her into another dark place. A chilling, visceral climax caps one of the most innovative sci-fi movies in recent memory. (1:47) Roxie, SF Center, Vogue. (Eddy)

Walking with the Enemy Movie history abounds with dramas about the obvious dangers and complicated delights of passing during World War II — Agnieszka Holland’s Europa Europa (1990) and Paul Verhoeven’s Black Book (2006) come immediately to mind. But despite the inherent interest in this story (based on a real person, Pinchas Tibor Rosenbaum), Walking with the Enemy doesn’t hold its own next to those efforts. Elek (Jonas Armstrong), the handsome, intrepid son of a rabbi, is working in Budapest doing what any red-blooded young man of any era might, joking with his boss and flirting with the adorable Hannah (Hannah Tointon). When Hungary’s relations with the Nazis sour, the country’s Jewish citizens are gradually packed off and subjected to deadly crackdowns instigated by Adolf Eichmann, and Hungary’s Regent Horthy (Ben Kingsley) seems powerless to do very much, apart from allowing the neutral Swiss consulate to issue a stream of documents claiming the city’s Jewish denizens as its own. When two SS officers come calling in the Jewish quarter, attack Hannah, and are ultimately killed, fluent German speaker Elek and his friends snatch at the desperate measure of donning their uniforms to spy on their oppressors and save as many Jews as they can. What may have made for a fascinating tale, however, is reduced to broad strokes, awkward choices like onscreen IDs, and comically simplistic characterization, making Walking feel more like a TV movie or an educational film than anything with real power. (2:08) SF Center. (Chun) *

The shaman, the oracle, and the engineer

Michael Redmond

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May 6, 2014

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The shaman, the oracle, and the engineer

arts@sfbg.com

MUSIC Two bra-clad figures peek through a shroud of fog onstage that’s every bit as thick as the shrieking white noise at Oakland’s Night Light. The sound is a perfect accompaniment for the sadomasochistic display before the audience. One woman’s lips press against another’s flesh, but if you lower your glance, you’ll notice among the chaos that one is slicing a blade across the other’s stomach like a ritualistic-looking sacrifice. Blood is drawn, even though they seem to be intimately embraced.

This was how Replicant, the live music/performance/visual art series with a penchant for the weird, chose to kick off the new year at their January showcase; Bad News, an industrial duo consisting of Sarah Bernat and Alex Lukas from Los Angeles and San Francisco, respectively, headlined. On this night, they had also invited experimental conspirators Greer McGettrick (formerly of The Mallard) and Shannon Madden (Chasms) to join them during the performance. Madden said just a day before this gig that her relationship with Bernat had ended.

So was this arousal, anguish, or both? The audience, mostly in frozen silence by this point, was left to their own devices and had to interpret the definitive sensory overload for themselves. “We were bouncing a lot of ideas off each other, like ‘What can you do besides karaoke to your own music; make it transformative?'” said Madden, referring to conversations with Bernat, during a recent interview.

Bernat writes lyrics and plays guitar in her band and is usually tethered by her instrument, but she seemed possessed enough to become unleashed during this set. Somehow she maintained a straight-faced gaze throughout the cutting, even if she trembled a bit.

“It was totally emotional. We both knew that the only way to say goodbye was to do it on stage. I think there’s a reason why Chasms and Bad News are connected and I think it has something to do with suffering.”

pMadden said this was her last real interaction with her ex, but the two bands (who are on the same labels) will share a bill May 10 at Thee Parkside when Sleep Genius, the independent record label “born of the San Francisco fog” throws a showcase of its acts: Five mostly-local bands will give their own intimate and brooding examples of how new music is emerging from the underground — and what they’re doing to manifest a new direction.

There was nothing subtle about the bodies on stage that night in Oakland, nor the heavily-processed sound that came with it. Along with her collaborator, Jess Labrador, Chasms has a new LP, Subtle Bodies, due this June. Their live show is taking on a slightly different direction, sounding more blown-out and less concerned with pop-song sensibility time constraints. They’ve upped the ante on noise elements and are beefing up on drone.

“I’m using Alex [Lukas]’s gear. There’s a reason,” Madden said. “Alex is my shaman, oracle, and engineer.” She explained that the pedals she’s been using are not meant for her bass guitar. “It’s the first time Jess has ever kept a live take of mine and not edited it.” Labrador is the songwriter, vocalist, guitarist, and sometime drum programmer in this dark duo. “I could never do any of that without experiencing Alex or Sarah.”

Alongside a DX7ii synthesizer and other assorted gear, we’re huddled — Lukas, Madden, and I — inside his tidy Bayview District trailer. Other like-minded artists reside on the property, but his studio hasn’t been completely set up since he was priced out of his old 18th and Mission space, after his landlord raised the rent by 40 percent.

“The cost of living here is so high. People funnel so much of their money into rent,” he said. Having weathered two tech booms as an artist in the Bay Area — he’s been here since 1998 — Lukas knows what it’s like to sell CDs at Amoeba for “a brick of cheese.”

His dwelling is, nevertheless, a cozy hideaway, well-stocked with cassettes and a pretty chill black cat. We chat about how his ties with Madden run deeper than just his influence over how she plays. For one, they spent much of 2013 together at the helm of The Lab, a long-standing visual and performance art space near 16th & Mission that has seen many incarnations over the years.

“There aren’t a lot of spaces like [The Lab] in San Francisco anymore. When Sarah and then [Shannon] kept it active with shows and performances, it sort of compromised The Lab’s role as a venue for visual art, but made it more important than ever as a performance space,” he said.

Under their collective watch, The Lab hosted a variety of underground or emerging acts, like Wreck & Reference, Some Ember, Austin Cesear, Marshstepper, Disappearing People, and Dorian Wood.

Madden claimed the types of shows she was booking weren’t “artsy enough” for a visual arts space to be left alone by the city’s Entertainment Commission. Finding a platform for these types of acts is, she says, the bigger concern in the current “cultural economy” in San Francisco.

“People work high-paying jobs that require their brain. When they get off work, they wanna get shitfaced and hear Toro Y Moi. They don’t wanna go deep in some experimental avant, industrial shit. They want their brains to be massaged and they want to go to sleep, wake up, do it again and eat some fuckin’ food-truck food.”

She notes Oakland is sustaining as an impressive platform for the underbelly of electronic music. “They have a fortified interest in outsider stuff.” She hopes the culture in San Francisco shifts underground again, but in the meantime is happy to book at more traditional venues including Brick & Mortar, The Night Light and Elbo Room.

“It’s not about the space, even as intimate as it was. I want to give the local bands the best deal that I can and not risk it getting broken up. Lots of rad shit’s going to have to happen in a bar space.”

Sleep Genius Presents: Ringo Deathstarr with Sleep Genius artists Bad News, Chasms, Never Knows, and Cry

May 10, 9pm, $10-12

Thee Parkside

1600 17th St, SF

www.theeparkside.com

A musician grows on Market Street

Steven T. Jones

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May 6, 2014

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esilvers@sfbg.com

If you’ve spent time in downtown San Francisco, chances are you’ve seen him: thin as a rail but dressed to kill, light on his feet in squeaky-clean dress shoes amidst the grey monotone of Market Street, he takes a deep breath in — and when he breathes out, into the mouthpiece of his trumpet, the sound is pure confidence, come to sonic life.

Then he starts tap-dancing while he plays, using the staccato clack of his feet as a rhythm section, swinging his trumpet like a baton every now and then just for show. Depending on the day, he might stop after a few songs and take out a microphone and, armed with the backing tracks of some current Top 40 favorites, belt out a tune or two, all while dancing, grooving, jumping; it’s a rarity to catch him being still. Busy businessmen stop and stare and listen despite themselves. He winks at women and they get the giggles.

Gabriel Angelo is the ultimate entertainer, and he is 14 years old. Known as “the Trumpet Kid,” Angelo, an Oakland native, been playing trumpet and dancing since he was six, at a level that earned him an appearance on the Ellen Degeneres show in 2012, among other publicity, as well as the adoration of one of the toughest audiences in the city: harried FiDi pedestrians.

In honor of our “streets” issue, on a recent Thursday afternoon, I caught up with Angelo when he was playing on the traffic island outside the Ferry Building, serenading appreciative tourists and farmer’s market-goers. His voice has changed. There’s a whiff of cologne about him. Look out, San Francisco, the Trumpet Kid is growin’ up.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C3trqITIf

San Francisco Bay Guardian How did you get your start in music?

Gabriel Angelo My mom sent me to take piano lessons when I was six years old, but when I set foot in the music room, a few feet away from me there was this shiny brass trumpet. And I reached out and grabbed it and it was love at first sight.

Since I was really young, I always wanted to be an entertainer — my family watched a lot of old movies, like with Fred Astaire, and they inspired me a lot. My two older sisters were also very musical — they sang, danced, played the cello, piano, and violin. Our church was very heavy on the arts.

SFBG How often are you out here? Are you in school?

GA I’m out here most Thursdays, Fridays, Saturdays and Sundays, more if my schedule allows it. I try to get at least four hours of practice a day, usually more like six or eight. I’ve been home-schooled my whole life, and I actually already completed high school. Now I’m working on degrees in music and business through a program called CollegePlus.

SFBG What do you think you’ve gained from performing on the street from such a young age opposed to going the academic route with studying music?

GA This is my stage. There are so many people here, and I get to practice my stage and speaking skills, make connections, meet awesome people. I’ve learned a lot by talking to the homeless people in San Francisco, especially — they tell me their stories and experiences and that’s given me a whole new understanding. And I like feeling like I can help people with music. I’ve had people come up to me and say ‘Oh, I just had a person close to me die, and you put a smile on my face.’ With singing, my goal is just to inspire people. And also to make women feel beautiful.

SFBG To make women feel beautiful?

GA Yeah, because a lot of people don’t have fathers to tell them that, parents who make them feel good, and that one little thing affects their whole life. I know I wouldn’t have achieved anything without my mother’s support, without mentors in my life. And life comes from women.

SFBG Amen. Are you tight with other street musicians downtown? Are there turf wars?

GA No, we all have a lot of respect for each other. It’s whoever gets there first. But if someone ever really wanted me to move, that wouldn’t be [a big deal].

SFBG How much do you make on a given day?

GA It really depends. Anywhere from a penny to $100. It’s all going to help fund my career: paying for costumes, music videos, etc.

SFBG Any big projects coming up?

GA Well, I’m excited that I just signed with Journey’s manager. And I’m going to be playing the 2015 Super Bowl halftime show in Arizona. And I met someone who wants to make a movie about me, called “Swaggy.” (I’m Swaggy.) So yeah, it should be a fun year.

Take to the sky

Leo Herrera

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May 6, 2014

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arts@sfbg.com

DANCE With world premieres by Amy Seiwert and Val Caniparoli, and the late Michael Smuin’s affectionate tribute to George Gershwin, Smuin Ballet closed its 20th anniversary season with fine choreography, good music, excellent performances, and, most of all, an intelligent perspective of what ballet in the 21st century has to offer. Today Smuin is a thoroughly contemporary troupe with a promising vision of what it wants to be.

Caniparoli set his full ensemble piece, Tutto Eccetto il Lavandino (everything but the kitchen sink), to a number of Vivaldi scores, including at least one for pipe organ. The work is accurately named. The emotional range slithered between goofy and poignant, refined and raucous. At times, the attempts to be clever and amusing at all costs could have been a little more restrained. But as a whole, the variety of approaches Caniparoli took made for an appealing new work.

Still a character dancer with the San Francisco Ballet despite his 30 years of experience choreographing all over the country, Caniparoli created a lively, unpretentious romp for 16 dancers, balancing smaller, more emotionally-flavored sections with full ensemble numbers. Unlike other contemporary ballet choreographers, who seem to feel that the toe shoe is hopelessly passé, Caniparoli put his women on point. They were completely at ease engaging in his more complex approach to working feet.

Some of the gestural language — stepping through a ring created by arms, crawling between legs, covering ears, torso shakes, flailing arms — looked like movie silliness, but mostly still charmed because everything grew so clearly out of the music.

Caniparoli has a nuanced touch with duets and trios. He also takes full advantage of today’s athletically trained dancers; the women are lifted, slid, and turned over and upside down in every way. The ever-shifting relationship between Terez Dean, Aidan DeYoung, and Weston Krukow felt congenial. More romantic was the duet for the long-limbed and beautifully matched Jane Rehm and Joshua Reynolds. Another, for Ben Needham-Wood and Christian Squires, initially seemed contentious, but ended by looking toward a possibly common future.

Seiwert’s But Now I Must Rest is an exquisite and embracing tribute to the late Cape Verde singer Cesária Évora. It is a work in which Seiwert takes a more theatrical dramatic approach to dance making than usual. But Now is a beautifully realized piece of choreography, performed by dancers in tune with Seiwert’s vision. It showcases the very fine Susan Roemer, one of Smuin’s longtime dancers, in the role of the “barefoot diva” who, by choosing to perform without shoes, paid tribute to the millions of women who cannot afford them. The solicitous Reynolds partnered her sometimes lovingly, sometimes just by holding her up. He seemed a friend, a lover, a guide.

Using as raw material gestures and movements from Évora’s performances — researched with the help of dancer Katherine Wells — Seiwert created wave after wave of lush and sensuous dancing that flooded the stage. Sometimes it enveloped Roemer and Reynolds; sometimes it served as a foil, much the way backup musicians might function; and sometimes the dancers embraced each other as a community. And everything was performed to those lilting beats and rocking rhythms.

A lightly skipping trio (Dean, Jonathan Dummar and Krukow) streaking across the stage suggested happier times, but Christian Squires’ ashen solo dragged him down with grief. It was a risk to actually have him weep, but he brought it off.

The production values were excellent. Sandra Woodall’s earth-toned costumes, with bustiers for the women and, for everyone, floor-length skirts with slits to the hip, allowed for freedom of movement and highlighted working legs. Brian Jones’ azure lighting suggested a view one might glimpse, gazing out from an island.

The excerpts from Smuin’s full-evening Dancin’ with Gershwin threw a spotlight on a man of the theater, at home in ballet but also in love with Broadway. When he created the work in 2001, Smuin commissioned the still impressive costumes from the excellent Willa Kim; lighting from Sara Linnie Slocum; and serviceable sets by Rick Goodwin. Dancin’ opened with video posters from the shows by the redoubtable Gershwins; they elicited both sighs and cheers from the audience.

It’s a rare company that offers its performers opportunities in ballroom, ballet, tap, jazz, modern, and show dancing. Smuin’s troupe took to the challenge with obvious glee. Erin Yarbrough swooned and triumphed with Krukow. Supported by guys with strippers’ fans, Erica Felsch relished being the vamp, though she was no competition to Marilyn Monroe. A poignant Rehm’s pained but resilient “Summertime,” as sung by Peter Gabriel, recalled the whole of the composer’s glorious Porgy and Bess. With Shannon Hurlbut, still a respectable tapper, at the helm, the dancers click-clacked through the final “Shall We Dance.” If that was a question, the answer was a resounding “Yes!” *

XXCENTRICS SPRING DANCE SERIES

Wed/7-Sat/10, 8pm (also Sat/10, 2pm); Sun/11, 2pm, $24-$64

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

700 Howard, SF

smuinballet.org/xxcentric

Performances continue through June 7 at various Northern California venues.