Theater

The Performant: The Great Leap Forward

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The Performant: The Great Leap Forward

A year on the city’s wilder side, and looking ahead to more fine times

End-of-the-year roundups are all well and good, allowing us the opportunity to celebrate one last time the innovations of the past. But I’ve always preferred to look ahead into the future, so in that spirit here’s a shortlist of some of my fave Performant coverage from 2011 of ongoing and perennial events that you can still look forward to checking out in 2012—and beyond!


Sea Chantey Sing: The monthly Sea Chantey sing <www.nps.gov/safr/historyculture/chantey-sing.htm> at Hyde Street pier just turned thirty, but it feels utterly timeless, and is guaranteed the most fun you’ll ever have sober on a Saturday night, no contest. The multi-generational turnout always includes salty old pros benignly rubbing elbows with landlubbers who think the Pogues wrote “South Australia,” and just as no-one is turned away for lack of funds (it’s a free event), no-one is turned away from participating, even if “participating” means sitting in gap-mouthed awe of the regulars whose encyclopedic recall of dozens of Chanteys would make Alan Lomax weak at the knees.

Home Theatre Festival: It’s almost embarrassing how I can’t stop gushing about the homegrown phenomenon that is The Home Theatre Festival. Seriously, it’s like I’m a pre-pubescent girl at the Gymkhana, swooning over the stallions. But it’s hard not to be enamored of an event that took a devastatingly simple concept (hey artists, make art at home for fun and profit!) and turned it into a branded, annual festival whose participants span the globe and whose influence just keeps spreading. Don’t think art made at home is “legit”? You’re on the wrong side of history, friend.

Hoodslam: Real-life superhero training or reckless mayhem? This monthly amateur-wrestling tournament, currently located at the Oakland Metro Operahouse, is a rough-and-tumble turf war between spandex-clad Zombies, dubious family dynasties, videogame-inspired villains, mobsters, gimps, dark overlords, and carnivorous werewolves. Further cranking the sensory overload to eleven with acerbic commentators, an aggro-metal house band, fire-eating babes, a seven-foot tall Pink Panther referee, and the uber-suave ring announcer Ike Emilio Burner, whose booming introduction of each match rolls across the room like a tsunami of too cool, Hoodslam taps into an almost primal gladiatorial urge with an unmistakably Oakland swagger.

The Lost Church: Neither lost, nor a church, this hidden temple of tunesmiths and troubadours worships at the altar of Americana with offerings of the dirty blues, Appalachian-style folk, and alt-rock in a retro jewel-box theatre space. And speaking of theatre, they do that too on an occasional basis, and an evening at The Lost Church might turn out to be a combination of all of the above—an intriguing alchemy.

American Tripps: Spreading the gospel of Berlin-style Ping-pong since August 2011, American Tripps has attracted a cult following of sporty young things in sweatbands who gather every couple of weeks around a single ping-pong table for a rousing evening of rundlauf. Another deceptively simple concept just waiting for someone to come forward and run with it (in this instance, Allan Hough of Mission Mission) American Tripps is a perfect balance between being challenging enough to attract good players and easy enough to keep the uncoordinated masses in the game, whether it’s the first round, or the thirtieth.

Give The Performant a reason to Twit. Follow @enkohl for of-the-minute updates from the underground.

Rep Clock

Andrew Lam
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Documentary Holy Rollers: The True Story of Card Counting Christians plays Fri/30-Sat/31 at the Roxie.

Schedules are for Wed/28-Tues/3 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features are marked with a •. All times p.m. unless otherwise specified.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $7.50-10. •On the Town (Donen and Kelly, 1949), Wed, 1, 5, 9:05, and Singin’ in the Rain (Kelly and Donen, 1952), Wed. 2:55, 7. •The Umbrellas of Cherbourg (Demy, 1964), Thurs, 3:25, 7, and A Woman Is a Woman (Godard, 1961), Thurs, 5:10, 8:45. West Side Story (Robbins and Wise, 1961), Fri, 7; Sat-Mon, 2 (also Sun, 7). Presented “sing-along” style.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.75-10.25. The Gold Rush (Chaplin, 1925), Wed-Thurs, call for times. Restored 35mm print. My Reincarnation (Fox, 2011), Wed-Thurs, call for times. “Short Films from the 2011 Sundance Film Festival,” Dec 30-Jan 5, call for times.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. Theater closed through Jan 11.

PARAMOUNT 2025 Broadway, Oakl; 1-800-745-3000, www.ticketmaster.com. $5. The Wizard of Oz (Fleming, 1939), Fri, 8. Costumes paying homage to the film encouraged (suggestion: flying monkey!)

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $6.50-10. My Reincarnation (Fox, 2011), Wed-Thurs, 7, 8:45. Holy Rollers: The True Story of Card Counting Christians (Storkel, 2011), Fri-Sat, 7, 9 (also Sat, 3, 5). Silent Souls (Fedorchenko, 2010), Sun-Mon, 7, 8:30 (also Sun, 3:15, 5). 4th and Goal (Gilden Seavey, 2011), Tues, 7, 9.

SFFS | NEW PEOPLE CINEMA 1746 Post, SF; www.sffs.org. $10-11. Bill Cunningham New York (Press, 2011), Sun, 4:30, 8:30; Mon, 2:30, 6:30. Buck (Meehl, 2011), Sun, 2:30, 6:30; Mon, 4:30, 8:30. Paul Goodman Changed My Life (Lee, 2011), Jan 3-5, 2:30, 4:30, 6:30, 8:30. Silent Souls (Fedorchenko, 2010), Wed-Mon, 3, 5, 7, 9 (no 9pm show on Sat/31).

Stage Listings

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

THEATER

ONGOING

Absolutely San Francisco Alcove Theater, 414 Mason, Ste 502, SF; (415) 992-8168, www.thealcovetheater.com. $32-50. Thurs/29, 8pm. Not Quite Opera Productions presents Anne Nygren Doherty’s musical about San Francisco, with five characters all portrayed by Mary Gibboney.

*On the Air Pier 29 on the Embarcadero (at Battery), SF; (415) 438-2668, love.zinzanni.org. $117 and up (includes dinner). Wed/28-Fri/30, 6:15pm (also Wed/28, 11:30am); Sat/31, 8:30pm. Teatro ZinZanni’s final production at its longtime nest on Pier 29 is a nostalgia-infused banquet of bits structured around an old-time radio variety show, featuring headliners Geoff Hoyle (Geezer) and blues singer Duffy Bishop. If you haven’t seen juggling on the radio, for instance, it’s pretty awesome, especially with a performer like Bernard Hazens, whose footing atop a precarious tower of tubes and cubes is already cringingly extraordinary. But all the performers are dependably first-rate, including Andrea Conway’s comic chandelier lunacy, aerialist and enchanting space alien Elena Gatilova’s gorgeous “circeaux” act, graceful hand-balancer Christopher Phi, class-act tapper Wayne Doba, and radio MC Mat Plendl’s raucously tweeny hula-hooping. Add some sultry blues numbers by raunchy belter Bishop, Hoyle’s masterful characterizations (including some wonderful shtick-within-a-shtick as one-liner maestro “Red Bottoms”), a few classic commercials, and a healthy dose of audience participation and you start to feel nicely satiated and ready for a good cigar. Smoothly helmed by ZinZanni creative director Norm Langill, On the Air signals off-the-air for the popular dinner circus — until it can secure a new patch of local real estate for its antique spiegeltent — so tune in while you may. (Avila)

*Period of Adjustment SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter, SF; (415) 677-9596, www.sfplayhouse.org. $20-50. Tues-Thurs, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 9pm (also Sat, 3pm). Through Jan 14. A nervous young man with an unaccountable tremor, George Haverstick (a compellingly manic Patrick Alparone) has waited until his honeymoon to finally call on his old Korean War buddy, Ralph (a stout but tender Johnny Moreno) — only to drop his new bride, Isabel (the terrifically quick and sympathetic MacKenzie Meehan), at the doorstep and hurry away. As it happens, Ralph’s wife of five years, Dorothea (an appealing Maggie Mason), has just quit him and taken their young son with her, turning the family Christmas tree and its uncollected gifts into a forlorn monument to a broken home — which, incidentally, has a tremor of its own, having been built atop a vast cavern. Tennessee Williams calls his 1960 play “a serious comedy,” which is about right, since although things end on a warm and cozy note, the painful crises of two couples and the lost natures of two veterans — buried alive in two suburbs each called “High Point” — are the stuff of real distress. SF Playhouse artistic director Bill English gets moving but clear-eyed, unsentimental performances from his strong cast — bolstered by Jean Forsman and Joe Madero as Dorothea’s parents—whose principals do measured justice to the complex sexual and psychological tensions woven throughout. If not one of Williams’s great plays, this is an engaging and surprisingly memorable one just the same, with the playwright’s distinctive blend of the metaphorical and concrete. As a rare snowfall blankets this Memphis Christmas Eve, 1958, something dark and brooding lingers in the storybook cheer. (Avila)

Xanadu New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; (415) 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm (no show Sun/1). Through Jan 15. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs the retro roller-skating musical.

BAY AREA

*God’s Plot Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; (510) 841-6500, www.shotgunplayers.org. $18-27. Wed-Thurs, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through Jan 15. Playwright-director Mark Jackson excavates a bit of deep history for Occupy USA, an episode in the annals of colonial American theater and jurisprudence that played, and plays, like a rehearsal for a revolution — this time with music. Capping Shotgun Players’ 20th anniversary season of new work, God’s Plot comically animates and literally underscores (through song, and irresistible banjo and bass accompaniment courtesy of Josh Pollock and Travis Kindred) the story surrounding “Ye Bare and Ye Cubb,” a play performed in 1665 Virginia but now lost. The legal battle that engulfed this satire of the English crown and its economic and political domination of the colonies was an early instance of the close but little acknowledged relationship between art and politics in proto-American society, with much too of religious conflict in the mix (personified here by a powerfully smoldering John Mercer as closet-Quaker Edward Martin). The playwright, a brash self-inventor named William Darby (a sure, charismatic Carl Holvick-Thomas), colludes with a disgruntled merchant (Anthony Nemirovsky) and a former indentured servant climbing the social ladder as a new tenant hand (Will Hand). Darby, meanwhile, is secretly wooing — and even more, being wooed by — Tryal Pore (an ebullient, magnetic Juliana Lustenader), a young woman even braver and more outspoken than he. As an expression of her novel and unbridled spirit, Tryal alone breaks into song to express her feelings or observations. Her temperament is meanwhile a source of worry to her father (a comically deft Kevin Clarke) and mother (Fontana Butterfield), but also attracts an unwitting suitor (a compellingly serious Joe Salazar). The play’s overarching narrative of nationalist ferment, which reaches an overtly stirring pitch, thus comes mirrored by the tension in two dramatic triangles whose common point is the precocious, golden-throated Tryal Pore. More of the private drama might have served the overall balance of the play, but a good part of the achievement of director Jackson and his generally muscular cast is making a complex play of enduring ideas and conflicts look so effortless and fun. (Avila)

The Secret Garden TheatreWorks at Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield, Palo Alto; (650) 463-1960, www.theatreworks.org. $19-72. Wed/28, 7:30pm; Thurs/29-Fri/30, 8pm (also Fri/30, 2pm); Sat/31, 2pm. TheatreWorks performs the Tony Award-winning musical adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s novel.

*The Wild Bride Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-73. Tues, Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Thurs/29 and Sat, 2pm); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Jan 8 and 15, 2pm; Jan 22, show at 2pm only). Extended through Jan 22. In the first act of Kneehigh Theatre’s The Wild Bride, the destinies of an innocent girl (Audrey Brisson), her moonshine-making father (Stuart Goodwin), and a predatory devil in a cheap suit (Stuart McLoughlin) become inextricably entwined by an ill-fated bargain. Steeped in European fairytale logic and American folk and blues music, Bride is inventively staged at the base of a giant tree, combining mime, puppetry, dance, live music, Cirque du Soleil-style vocals, acrobatics, and taut verse into a swooping, expressionistic fable. Accidentally promised to the devil by her doting but drink-dulled dad, “The Girl” suffers first the creepy indignity of being perved on by her preternatural suitor, and secondly the horror of having her hands chopped off by her own father, actions which drive her to flee into the woods, morphing into a character known only as “The Wild” (played by Patrycja Kujawska). After a stint as an unlikely, Edward Scissorhands-esque queen, The Wild too is driven from comfort and morphs a second time into a third character “The Woman” (Éva Magyar), an experience-toughened mother bear who kicks the devil’s ass (literally), and triumphs over adversity, without even uttering a single word. At turns dark, dexterous, fanciful, and fatal, Bride rises above the usual holiday fare with a timeless enchantment. (Gluckstern)

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh Berkeley, TheaterStage, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Wed/28-Sat/31, 11am. Louis “The Amazing Bubble Man” Pearl returns with this kid-friendly, bubble-tastic comedy.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

“BATS Improv New Year’s Eve Special Performance” Bayfront Theater, Fort Mason Center, Marina at Laguna, SF; (415) 474-6776, www.improv.org. Sat, 8pm. $30-40. The landmark improv company performs to ring in the new year, with a dance party to follow.

“Club Chuckles” Hemlock Tavern, 1131 Polk, SF; (415) 923-0925. Thurs, 7:30 and 9:30pm. $15. Comedy with Tig Notaro, Sean Keane, and Groomed for Success.

“Cut the Crap! With Semi-Motivational Guru, Clam Lynch” Dark Room, 2263 Mission, SF; www.darkroomsf.com. Jan 6 and Jan 13, 8pm. $15. Get motivated with self-help-guru-satirizing comedian Clam Lynch.

“Dream Queens Revue: It’s Almost New Year’s Show” Aunt Charlie’s Lounge, 133 Turk, SF; www.auntcharlieslounge.com. Wed, 9:30pm. Free. Drag with Colette Ashton, Ruby Slippers, Sophilya Leggz, and more.

“Forking II: A Merry FORKING Christmas” StageWerx, 446 Valencia, SF; www.pianofight.com.Wed/28-Fri/30, 8pm. $25-35. Well holy forking shit, it’s been three years already since Daniel Heath’s A Merry Forking Christmas debuted at PianoFight’s old Off-Market Theater digs, and in that time a few new faces have been added to the cast, and a few loose ends tied up in a bow, rendering the overall package a ho-ho-holiday treat worth indulging in. Hate the holidays? Not nearly as much as Goth girl morgue assistant Charlotte (Leah Shesky); her buddy Monique (Emma Shelton), a frustrated culinary genius selling pot cookies to stressed-out shoppers; Adam (Jed Goldstein), a disaffected Jew hired on as a Mall Santa from a temp agency; or Charles (Alex Boyd), an effete metrosexual dangerously enervated by his fiancée’s perfectionist vigor (Nicole Hammersla). Hilariously guided by Ray Hobbs and Gabrielle Patacsil, who play a variety of bit roles (Headbanger vs. Bible Banger, embattled parents fighting over the last coveted “Meat Panda,” feral children), the audience periodically gets to vote over the next permutation of plot, the “forks” alluded to in the title. According to artistic director Rob Ready (also featured in the cast as “Old Ben”), there are 362,880 possible combinations, and yes, the actors have memorized them all. Question is, will you? (Gluckstern)

“The Last Butch Standing” Victoria Theatre, 2961 16th St, SF; www.therhino.org. Sat, 7 and 9pm. $30-35. Singer and comedian Lea DeLaria performs her solo satire.

“Laughter Against the Machine: Guerrilla Stand-Up Comedy Fourth Annual New Year’s Eve” Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason, Sixth Flr, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Thurs-Sat, 7pm (also Fri/30, 9:30pm; Sat/31, 10pm). $20-25. W. Kamau Bell, Nato Green, and Janine Brito perform their trademark brand of socially-conscious comedy.

“Magic and More New Year’s Eve with Frisco Fred” Actors Theatre of San Francisco, 855 Bush, SF; www.actorstheatresf.org. Sat, 7:30pm. $40. Family-friendly variety show starring comedian and circus performer Frisco Fred.

“Not Your Normal New Year’s Eve” Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness, SF; www.nynnye.com. Sat, 8pm. $25-59. Cutting-edge comedy with Brent Weinbach, Jill Bourque, Kevin Camia, and more, plus live music and a balloon drop.

“Picklewater Clown Cabaret presents a Prescott Circus Fundraiser” StageWerx, 446 Valencia, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Mon, 7 and 9pm. $15. Clowns helping clowns!

“Qcomedy Showcase” Martuni’s, 4 Valencia, SF; www.qcomedy.com. Mon, 8pm. $5-15. With comedians Justin Lucas, Simone Campbell, Jennifer Dronsky, and guest host Pippi Lovestocking.

“A San Francisco New Year’s Comedy Show” Actors Theatre of San Francisco, 855 Bush, SF; www.actorstheatresf.org. Sat, 10pm, $40. With headliner Will Franken.

“Santaland Diaries” Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.combinedartform.com. Wed/28-Fri/30, 8pm. $20-50. Combined Artform presents David Sedaris’ holiday comedy.

“Yes Sweet Can” Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St, SF; (415) 225-7281, www.sweetcanproductions.com. Wed/28-Thurs/29, 2:30 and 4:30pm; Fri/30, 4 and 8pm; Sat/31-Sun/1, 2pm. $15-60. Sweet Can Productions presents an hourlong extravaganza of circus arts for the holidays.

Film Listings

Andrew Lam
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Film listings are edited by Cheryl Eddy. Reviewers are Kimberly Chun, Max Goldberg, Dennis Harvey, Lynn Rapoport, and Matt Sussman. For rep house showtimes, see Rep Clock. For complete film listings, see www.sfbg.com. Due to the Christmas holiday, theater information was incomplete at presstime.

OPENING

Holy Rollers: The True Story of Card Counting Christians For a time, one of the most successful card-counting outfits in America was “the Churchteam,” a group of 20-somethings who mapped out a businesslike way of relieving casinos of millions of dollars. Two managers trained a pack of players, who would then travel to Las Vegas and other places, armed with stacks of bills (contributed by investors) and the cojones to cheat until they were “backed off” from the blackjack table. (As 2009’s The Hangover, excerpted here, points out, counting cards isn’t illegal — it’s merely “frowned upon.”) Neat story, but the real hook here is that the Churchteam was comprised almost entirely of practicing Christians; their shared faith insured that nobody would steal from the team’s profits. (Of course, when the team starts losing, and theft is suspected, all eyes fasten upon the single non-Christian in the pack.) The fast-paced Holy Rollers tends toward the highly enjoyable, but the Churchteam members are so self-satisfied that they prove difficult to root for at times. Holy smugness, bro! (1:35) Roxie. (Eddy)

*Pariah A teenage girl stands stock-still in a dark nightclub, gazing with desire and fear at the half-naked female dancers on the stage. Later, riding home on the bus, she slowly removes the layers of butch that held her together in the club, stripping down to some version of the person her parents need to see when she walks in the door. Nearly wordlessly, the opening scenes of Dee Rees’s Pariah poignantly depict the embattled internal life of Alike (Adepero Oduye), a 17-year-old African American girl living in Brooklyn with her family and struggling both to be seen as she is and to determine what that might look like. The battles are being waged externally, too, between Alike’s adoring father (Charles Parnell), living in willful ignorance, and angry, rigid mother (Kim Wayans), desperately enforcing a feminine dress code and steering Alike away from openly butch friend Laura (Pernell Walker). Rees’ script beautifully conveys a household of landmines and chasms, which widen as husband and wife and daughter struggle and fail to communicate, asking the wrong questions, fearfully skirting the truth about Alike’s sexuality and her parents’ crumbling marriage. And the world outside proves full of romantic pitfalls and the tensions of longtime friendship and peer pressure. The poems in which the talented Alike takes solace and makes her way toward a more truthful existence are beautiful, but at a certain point the lyricism overtakes the film, forcing an ending that is tidy but less than satisfying. (1:26) Embarcadero. (Rapoport)

Paul Goodman Changed My Life Social theorist, poet, novelist, essayist, co-founder of Gestalt therapy, anarchist, activist, pacifist, intellectual provocateur, queer-identified bisexual, husband, father, radical nerd — these are just some of the many hats Goodman wore during his fairly brief tenure as one of the most influential American thinkers of the mid-20th century. His 1960 non-fiction tome Growing Up Absurd explained an emerging generation’s disenchantment with the “establishment” society it would soon rebel against, making him an unlikely, tweedy, middle-aged spokesman for the rising youth movement. (Though before his 1972 death at age 60, he would grow disillusioned with that movement.) A fascinating mind, a sometimes impossible personality, he’s fallen somewhat into neglect as recent decades have favored conformism over the humanist re-making of society he advocated, and which for a while there actually seemed possible. Thus it’s as good a moment as any for Jonathan Lee’s documentary, which mixes biographical overview and appreciation of the subject’s disparate work and ideas with extant footage of him speaking and interviews with surviving friends, family, and colleagues. Maybe “mixes” is a less apt term than “scrambles” — faced with an admittedly bewildering pile of information (and contradiction), Lee fails to find any viable organizing principle. Always interesting, this scattershot documentary nonetheless never quite finds a secure foothold on its sprawling, slippery subject. Still, as introduction or just nostalgic flashback to Goodman’s legacy, it’s worth a look. (1:29) SFFS New People Cinema. (Harvey)

ONGOING

*The Adventures of Tintin Producer Peter Jackson and director Steven Spielberg join forces to adapt the work of Belgian comic creator Hergé, using performance-capture 3D animation (and featuring that new technology’s most prominent performer, Andy Serkis, in a key role). Hergé wrote over 20 volumes following the globe-trotting exploits of intrepid young reporter Tintin (Jamie Bell) and his canine companion, Snowy; The Adventures of Tintin draws from a trio of books dating from the early 1940s, tweaking the tales a bit but retaining the series’ ebullient energy and sharp humor. After he impulsively buys a model ship, Tintin is sucked into a mystery involving a long-lost pirate treasure sought by the sinister Sakharine (Daniel Craig) and, eventually, newfound Tintin ally Captain Haddock (Serkis). Fan favorites Thompson and Thomson (Simon Pegg and Nick Frost — frequent compadre Edgar Wright co-wrote the script) and a certain “Milanese Nightingale” make appearances in a story that careens between exotic locales and high-seas battles, and is packed with epic chase scenes that would leave Indiana Jones breathless. And in case you were worried, Tintin boasts the least creepy, least “uncanny valley” performance-capture animation I’ve seen to date. (1:47) (Eddy)

Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chip-wrecked (1:27)

*The Artist (1:40)

Being Elmo: A Puppeteer’s Journey (1:25)

A Dangerous Method (1:39)

The Darkest Hour (1:29)

*The Descendants (1:55)

*Drive (1:40)

The Flowers of War (2:21)

*The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo The meeting of Stieg Larsson’s first “Millennium” book and David Fincher promised fireworks, as he’s a director who can be equally vivid and exacting with just the elements key to the series: procedural detail, obsession, violence, tweaked genre conventions, mind games, haunted protagonists, and expansive story arcs. But perhaps because this possible franchise launch had to be rushed into production to ride the Larsson wave, what should have been a terrific matchup turns out to be just a good one — superior in some stylistic departments (notably Trent Reznor and Atticus Ross’ pulsing score), but overall neither an improvement nor a disappointment in comparison to the uninspired but effective 2009 Swedish film version. Daniel Craig plays Mikael Blomkvist, the muckraking Stockholm journalist whose public disgrace after a failed expose of a suspect corporate tycoon makes him the perfect candidate for an unexpected assignment: staying sequestered in the wealthy, warring Vanger clan’s island home to secretly investigate a teenage girl’s disappearance and presumed murder 40 years ago. His testy helpmate is the singular Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara), antisocial hacker, researcher, and ex-mental patient par excellence. Nearly three hours long, the compressed, slightly altered (get over it) storyline nonetheless feels rushed at times; Fincher manages the rare feat of making mostly internet research exciting in filmic terms, yet oddly the book’s more shocking episodes of sex and/or mayhem don’t have the memorable impact one might expect from him. The leads are fine, as is the big support cast of recognizable faces (Christopher Plummer, Stellan Skarsgård, Robin Wright, etc.) But the knockout suspense, atmosphere, and urgency one hoped for isn’t present in this intelligent, not entirely satisfying treatment. On the other hand, maybe those who’ve already read the books and seen the prior films have already had so much exposure to this material that a revelatory experience is no longer possible. (2:38) (Harvey)

Le Havre (1:43)

Hugo (2:07)

I Melt With You (1:47)

J. Edgar (2:17)

*Melancholia (2:15)

Midnight in Paris (1:34)

Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol No world landmark (the Kremlin, the Burj Khalifia) is too iconic and/or freaking tall for uber-adrenalized Impossible Missions Force agent Ethan Hunt (Tom Cruise) and his team (Jeremy Renner, Paula Patton, Simon “Comic Relief” Pegg) to infiltrate, climb, assume false identities in, use as a home base for unleashing futuristic spy technology that seems almost plausible (with the help of lots of iPads), race a BMW through, etc. One kind of gets the sense that Cruise and company sat down with a piece of paper and were like, “What stunts haven’t we done before, and how many of them can I do with my shirt off?” Celebrated animation director Brad Bird (2004’s The Incredibles) is right at home with Ghost Protocol as his first live-action effort — the film’s plot (set in the present day, it involves a positively vintage blend of Russians and nukes) and even its unmemorable villain take a back seat to Cruise’s secret-agent shenanigans, most of which take the form of a crazy plan that must be altered at the last minute, resulting in an even crazier plan, which must be implemented despite the sudden appearance of yet another ludicrously daunting obstacle, like, say, a howling sandstorm. For maximum big dumb fun, make sure you catch the IMAX version. A warning, though: any time the movie screeches to a halt to explore emotions or attempt characterization … zzz. (2:13) (Eddy)

The Muppets (1:38)

*My Reincarnation (1:22) Roxie, Smith Rafael.

My Week With Marilyn (1:36)

New Year’s Eve (1:58)

*Shame (1:39)

Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows Maybe Guy Ritchie should’ve quit while he was ahead. Thanks to strong performances from Robert Downey Jr. and Jude Law, the British director’s first Holmes flick proved surprisingly fun. Two years later, it’s clear that Ritchie’s well of creatitivity has run dry. Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows is cliched and overlong, burying a few good ideas under an avalanche of tired action movie stalwarts gone steampunk. To be fair, the set design and art direction are still sumptuous, creating a hyperbolic, detailed vision of Victorian Europe. New cast additions Jared Harris (as Moriarty, maliciously polite) and Stephen Fry (as Mycroft, eccentric and nude) do well with limited material. Noomi Rapace, playing a helpful gypsy, is superfluous. Downey Jr. and Law are still game for some amusing PG-13 homoeroticism, but it’s the former’s disinterested performance that ensures the movie’s downfall. Forced to make do without witty quips or interesting deductions, the Holmes of A Game of Shadows is part bruiser, part buffoon. The game’s a flop, Watson. (2:09) (Ben Richardson)

*Silent Souls Director Aleksei Fedorchenko and scenarist Denis Osokin’s enigmatic feature follows two men on a modern road trip that might well be deep into the bottomless past of Russia’s diverse religious rituals, mysticisms, and folklore. Coworkers travel cross-country to perform complicated Meryan ethnic rites for one protagonist’s late, beloved younger wife. This involves the transport of two birds, some surprisingly graphic personal reminiscences, an oceanfront funeral pyre, and other incidents whose full import the filmmakers are happy to leave somewhat cryptic. Gently comic, lyrical, at times borderline surreal, Souls belies a short running time of just an hour and a quarter — for all its intangibles, by the end this beguiling journey feels too substantial to have possibly taken so little of our time. (1:15) Roxie, SFFS New People Cinema. (Harvey)

The Sitter (1:21)

The Skin I Live In (1:57)

*Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2:07)

*Tomboy (1:22) (Rapoport)

Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn — Part One

*War Horse If the idea of watching heroic horses getting slaughtered amid the brutal trench warfare of World War I fills your heart with disgust, then you might want to applaud Steven Spielberg and his relatively sensitive touch with that material in the heartrending War Horse. The PG-13 rating also gives you some idea that the director will be hewing to the movie’s origins as a children’s book. Spielberg paints this tale about loss of innocence, be it in the fields of the farm or the battle, in broad strokes, but here, you might feel a bit less manipulated by his prowess as a crowd-pleasing storyteller, less conscious about the legacy he draws on, and more immersed in a story that stays as close as it can to its animal protagonist’s point of view, short of pulling a Mr. Ed. War Horse opens with Joey’s birth and follows him as he’s sold to a struggling English farm run by traumatized war veteran Ted (Peter Mullan), his spunky wife Rose (Emily Watson), and his animal-loving son Albert (Jeremy Irvine). Circumstance — and an unyielding landlord (David Thewlis) — sends Joey off to the so-called Great War, first into the care of an honorable captain (Tom Hiddleston), later a French girl (Celine Buckens), and worst, into the arms of the German enemy, where he toils as a disposable beast of burden charged with hauling the literal machines of war uphill. Spielberg shields viewers both young and old from the more explicit horrors, though gracefully imparts war’s terrors, sending fresh chills through a viewer when, for instance, a child riding a horse disappears over a ridge and fails to return. No one’s immune from tears, and you have to wonder how much healing is actually possible at War Horse‘s conclusion, despite its stylized, symbolism-laden beauty. Nonetheless cinephiles will glean a certain pleasure from images that clearly nod to the blood-red skies of Gone With the Wind (1939), the ominous deep focus of Orson Wells, and the too-bright Technicolor clarity-slash-artifice of National Velvet (1944). (2:26) (Chun)

We Bought A Zoo “If you could choose between animals or humans or animals, which would you choose?” is a standard question among passionate critter lovers, and Cameron Crowe and company go out of their way to outline which side of the divide they stand on. The result won’t please animal-centric fans of, say, Rise of the Planet of the Apes. Reporter Benjamin Mee (Matt Damon) has just lost his beloved wife and is so overwhelmed by all the solo dad time he’s had with his two cute kids, Dylan (Colin Ford) and Rosie (Maggie Elizabeth Jones), that he’s ready to do something rash. Despite the advice of his brother (Thomas Haden Church), he quits his newspaper job and throws his lot in with the ultimate child’s amusement: he buys a ramshackle zoo in the boonies and tries his darnedest to fix it. Coming with the property is the fetching if brusque zookeeper Kelly (Scarlett Johansson, slightly bushier of eyebrow — read: homelier — than usual) and a mixed bag of kooky workers (including Elle Fanning and Crowe fave Patrick Fugit). The challenge for Ben is to get the zoo up to speed, with zero previous experience and limited lucre. Unfortunately Crowe takes the human vs. animal choice to heart and errs on the side of the humanoids: there’s way too few animals here and far too little about the zoo itself. Much like an overbearing zookeeper, the filmmaker protects us from this semi-tame kingdom, when really a viewer wants to know is, when are we going to get more stories about the animals? Can we have a real tour of the grounds? Even the comic efforts of Haden Church and J.B. Smoove as Ben’s realtor aren’t enough to whisk away one’s impatience (or the unsettling feeling that Ben’s affinity for a elderly ailing tiger will end with an SF Zoo-style arm removal) with all these damn people standing between us and the creatures, like a crowd of gawkers hogging the view of the lions. (2:03) (Chun)

*Young Adult (1:34)

On the Cheap Listings

Andrew Lam
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Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

WEDNESDAY 28

Glen Canyon habitat restoration Elk and Chenery Sts., SF. www.sfrecpark.org. 9 a.m.-noon, free. Glen Canyon Park has been to quite a few things over the years, from Alfred Nobel’s Giant Powder Factory to today’s multitudinous flora and fauna. Volunteers work tirelessly towards the urban oasis’s restoration and maintenance.

Chanukah Night 8: Jeremiah Lockwood concert The Tivka Store, 3191 Mission, SF. www.idelsohnsociety.com. 7 p.m., free with RSVP (see website). The Idelsohn Society, dedicated to the preservation and dissemination of classic Jewish music, hosts a psych rock folk jam by Jeremiah Lockwood, Luther Dickinson (The Black Crowes, North Mississippi Allstars), and Ethan Miller (Comets on Fire, Howlin Rain).

THURSDAY 29

Kwanzaa celebration Bayview Hunters Point YMCA, 1601 Lane, SF. www.sfpl.org. 3-6 p.m., free. Ujima, the third day of Kwanzaa, honors communal work and responsibility; fittingly, the SFPL and YMCA team up to put on a veritable blow-out of a holiday. The celebration is part of a seven-night series celebrating the guiding principles of Kwanzaa.

FRIDAY 30

I Like Ludwig concert Herbst Theater, 401 Van Ness, SF. www.sfchamberorchestra.org. 8 p.m., free with RSVP online or to (415) 692-5258. Nothing like some Beethoven to violently, excitably ring in the New Year. L.V.B.’s Second Symphony and Violin Concerto get the royal treatment by soloist Robin Sharp.

SATURDAY 31

Last Vampire Tour California and Taylor Streets, SF. www.vampiretoursf.com. 8 p.m., $20. Vampiress Mina Harker has been alive for 100 years and leading Gothic tours of Nob Hill for 10. Tonight marks her last gory and guided gallivant.

All Day Punk Rock New Year’s Eli’s Mile High Club, 3629 Martin Luther King Jr. Blvd., Oakl. www.elismilehigh.com, 2 p.m. – 12:30 a.m., $10. Considering we’re about to embark upon another year full of economic gloom and doom, the band names from Eli’s lineup aren’t too uplifting. But at least they’re angry. World of Shit, Short Changed, Society Dog, and others perform in deliciously spirited form all day and all night.

1984 New Year’s Eve Mighty, 119 Utah, SF. www.mighty119.com. 9 p.m.-2 a.m., free. Light on the Orwellian totalitarianism and heavy on ceaselessly pumping ’80s music, Mighty throws a period-themed New Year’s Eve soiree complete with champagne toast.

New Year’s fireworks show Pier 14, Embarcadero, SF. 12 a.m., free. The damp, strength-sapping chill of midnight on the Embarcadero is still worth the 15 minutes of promised pyrotechnic glory. Ring in the New Year with thousands of San Franciscans huddled together under the sky.

SUNDAY 1

Opulent Temple New Year’s Day party Mission Rock, 817 Terry Francois, SF. www.missionrockcafe.com. 6 a.m.-4:20 p.m., $5 with RSVP. Dedicated to maintaining their sacred space in Black Rock City for top-notch electronic music, OT holds an all-day fundraiser commemorating its 10th year of existence. Music, food, bathrooms, and familiar faces grace Mission Rock.

Crazy, sexy (?), movies

Andrew Lam
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Crazy, sexy (?), movies

arts@sfbg.com

YEAR IN FILM We ask depressingly little of our romantic comedies, particularly considering that they’re meant, one guesses, to cheer us up. While genres like the action thriller and the disaster film engage in an arms race of catastrophe that, while riddled with clichés, requires some amount of ingenuity to orchestrate, when it comes to the rom-com, the studios display fierce loyalty to a formula of marquee names, charming emotional baggage, foolish misunderstandings, and final-boarding-call epiphanies.

You could say that our relationship with the genre is going nowhere, like the one the perky, anal-retentive heroine is perpetually on the brink of settling for with some handsome, amiable cardboard cutout, too afraid to take a chance on surly, diamond-in-the-rough Mr. Right. You could say that watching these films is an empty transaction, like those the gleaming-toothed protagonist enters into with a parade of leggy, blank-faced bar pickups before recognizing eureka!-style that the best friend who tolerates his slutty superficiality is clearly a soul mate.

We don’t quite buy it, any of it, but back and back and back we go — if often lining up in numbers sustaining the briefest of theater runs, or going no further than the Netflix queue. Which perhaps explains, though just barely, how we (by which, of course, I mean I) happened to be in the theater this year for Just Go with It, staring wearily screenward at the companionable but chemistry-free pairing of Adam Sandler and Jennifer Aniston; for the tortured, slightly icky mismatch of Natalie Portman and Ashton Kutcher in No Strings Attached; and even for New Year’s Eve, wherein an ungodly hodgepodge of Hollywood brands are desperately flung at the screen in the hopes that something will stick.

Generally compiled from interchangeable parts, the romantic comedy has been manufactured so many times that the players seem exhausted by the effort to find a fresh configuration, something unattempted and captivating. The ghosts of long-ago lighthearted pictures from the golden era of madcap romance, like It Happened One Night (1934) and The Philadelphia Story (1940), hang over the proceedings, sparking wistful visions of some magical cinematic equation that, when X is solved, will result in old-fashioned sensations like a warmed heart and toasty goodwill toward the lip-locked pair over whom the credits are rolling.

On the flip side, suffering near-continuous abuse at the hands of the studios leaves a person highly susceptible to trace amounts of handcraft and invention. Perhaps only in this spirit could I embrace Friends with Benefits, which brashly arms its hero and heroine (Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis) to take potshots at the formula while largely hewing to it. Still, as the two swear on an iPhone Bible app to uphold a vow of friendship previous to taking all their clothes off, and as they skate along on the fine, funny writing and frank talk and roll around in bed, it does seem like something better than usual has been accomplished.

Better by far is Crazy, Stupid, Love., which makes the case that a carefully woven ensemble piece need not jerk you from subplot to subplot, seeking famous-people sightings like an L.A. tourist with a star map. Steve Carell and Julianne Moore’s marriage in quiet paralysis is jarred by infidelity, triggering a badly needed upheaval and bringing one unhappy man (Carell) into the bracing orbit of another (Ryan Gosling). The creepy third-generation subplot involving a kid and his babysitter is hard to forgive, but Gosling and love interest Emma Stone, plus an intelligent script, gamely play with the conventions of the heartless womanizer and the girl who’s too much in her head.

And lastly, Bridesmaids, starring and cowritten by Kristen Wiig, arguably sidesteps both the formula and the genre itself, shifting the focus from “boy meets girl” to “woman’s life spirals wildly downward as she attempts to be happy about her best friend’s engagement.” It’s the kind of funny that makes you sink into your seat in horrified anticipation — and the kind of romance where you find yourself rooting for the inevitable rather than just resigned to it.

On nostalgia

Andrew Lam
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On nostalgia

arts@sfbg.com

YEAR IN FILM I haven’t laughed so hard or so deeply in a movie theater as I did watching The Muppets after a languorous Thanksgiving dinner. Perhaps it was as much due to the tryptophan, sugar, and booze coursing through my system as to the welcomely familiar zaniness transpiring onscreen, but more and more my chuckling was subtended by the throaty chokes that presage a good, deep cry. And when I caught the pointedly placed photo of Jim Henson in the background of an interior shot, it finally hit me: that warm lump in my chest was nostalgia.

For a movie as universally praised as The Muppets has been (and let it be said, its 97 percent approval rating on Rotten Tomatoes is totally deserved), most of the nitpicking I’ve noticed has centered around whether the film pours on the sentiment too thickly, spoiling the fun with too much maudlin self-awareness about the Muppets’ past. “Nostalgia and reverence are anti-Muppet,” wrote one reviewer. But I don’t know if Jason Segal — who, aside from co-writing and starring in the film, was also the project’s greatest proselytizer — could have made The Muppets any other way.

For starters, the Muppets, for all their “let’s put on a show” tenacity and plain old absurdity, are like many professional entertainers, a vulnerable bunch. Think of Gonzo or Fozzie’s frequent moments of self-doubt, or Kermit’s periodic disillusionment with his role as ringmaster. The crestfallen wistfulness he displays at the start of The Muppets isn’t too far removed from the mid-career crisis he underwent in The Muppets Take Manhattan (1984). After all, it’s not easy being green.

The Muppets is also startlingly self-reflexive about the disjuncture between the Muppets’ status as Disney-owned intellectual property (acquired from Henson’s family in 2004) and their legacy as beloved cultural icons. The movie’s climax dramatizes this situation, effectively condensing the entire operation of emotional rescue that the film is premised on: having failed to raise enough money through their spirited telethon to buy back the rights to their name, Kermit and company nevertheless exit the old Muppet theater to an adoring public who, like much of the audience watching the film, never forgot them in the first place.

The drama at heart of the Muppets, what gives their wacky antics such emotional heft, and what necessarily makes The Muppets a reconnaissance mission and not just another franchise reboot, is this: becoming aware of one’s vulnerability is a huge and unavoidable part of growing up. Life can’t always be fun or fair. Eventually, we put away our stuffed animals and frayed blankets and take bigger risks, only to return to those objects as adults when we want to retreat from putting ourselves on the line again and again. But we can’t go back; not really. We can only move forward. The show must go on.

Reel, reel good

Andrew Lam
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Reel, reel good

DENNIS HARVEY’S FAVORITE DOCUMENTARIES OF 2011:

American Teacher (Vanessa Roth and Brian McGinn, U.S.)

The Arbor (Clio Barnard, U.K.)

Buck (Cindy Meehl, U.S.)

The Last Lions (Dereck Joubert, U.S./Botswana)

My Perestroika (Robin Hessman, U.S./U.K./Russia)

Nostalgia for the Light (Patricio Guzmán, France/Germany/Chile)

Pianomania (Robert Cibis and Lilian Franck, Austria/Germany)

Pina (Wim Wenders, Germany/France/U.K.)

Shut Up Little Man! An Audio Misadventure (Matthew Bate, Australia)

Vigilante Vigilante: The Battle for Expression (Max Good, U.S.)

We Were Here (David Weissman and Bill Weber, U.S.)

 

DENNIS HARVEY’S FAVORITE NARRATIVE FEATURES OF 2011:

The Artist (Michel Hazanavicius, France/Belgium)

Ceremony (Max Winkler, U.S.)

Certified Copy (Abbas Kiarostami, France/Italy/Belgium)

The Descendants (Alexander Payne, U.S.)

Drive (Nicolas Winding Refn, U.S.)

Happy, Happy (Anne Sewitsky, Norway)

Hugo (Martin Scorsese, U.S.)

I’m Glad My Mother Is Alive (Claude Miller and Nathan Miller, France)

Incendies (Denis Villeneuve, Canada/France)

Machotaildrop (Corey Adams and Alex Craig, U.S./Canada)

The Mill and the Cross (Lech Majewski, Sweden/Poland)

The Names of Love (Michel Leclerc, France)

Oka! (Lavinia Currier, U.S.)

Rango (Gore Verbinski, U.S.)

A Separation (Asghar Farhadi, Iran)

The Strange Case of Angelica (Manoel de Oliveira, Portugal/Spain/France/Brazil)

Tucker and Dale vs. Evil (Eli Craig, U.S./Canada)

Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thailand/U.K./France/Germany/Spain/Netherlands)

Weekend (Andrew Haigh, U.K.)

Young Adult (Jason Reitman, U.S.)

 

CHERYL EDDY’S TOP 11 OF 2011

1. The Artist (Michel Hazanavicius, France/Belgium)

2. Young Adult (Jason Reitman, U.S.)

3. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (Tomas Alfredson, France/U.K./Germany)

4. Drive (Nicolas Winding Refn, U.S.)

5. Melancholia (Lars von Trier, Denmark/Sweden/France/Germany)

6. The Descendants (Alexander Payne, U.S.)

7. Shame (Steve McQueen, U.K.)

8. The Trip (Michael Winterbottom, U.K.)

9. Cave of Forgotten Dreams (Werner Herzog, Canada/U.S./France/Germany/U.K.)

10. TrollHunter (André Øvredal, Norway)

11. The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick, U.S.)

 

KIMBERLY CHUN’S TOP 10 FILM “LIKES” OF 2011

(ALPHABETICAL)

Please don’t speak: The Artist (Michel Hazanavicius, France/Belgium)

Scrappy apocalypse: Attack the Block (Joe Cornish, U.K./France)

Scraps of footage refashioned: The Black Power Mixtape 1967-1975 (Goran Olsson, Sweden)

Best long-form music video: Drive (Nicolas Winding Refn, U.S.)

Personal apocalypse: The Future (Miranda July, Germany/U.S.)

The lives of others: Margin Call (J.C. Chandor, U.S.)

Feel-good apocalypse: Melancholia (Lars von Trier,

Denmark/Sweden/France/Germany)

Body Con: Shame (Steve McQueen, U.K.)

Body Con 2: The Skin I Live In (Pedro Almodóvar, Spain)

Two-state evolution: The Time That Remains (Elia Suleiman, U.K./Italy/Belgium/France)

 

RYAN LATTANZIO’S TOP 11 OF 2011

1. Melancholia (Lars von Trier, Denmark/Sweden/France/Germany)

2. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thailand/U.K./France/Germany/Spain/Netherlands)

3. We Need to Talk About Kevin (Lynne Ramsay, U.K./U.S.)

4. Drive (Nicolas Winding Refn, U.S.)

5. Certified Copy (Abbas Kiarostami, France/Italy/Belgium)

6. A Separation (Asghar Farhadi, Iran)

7. Into the Abyss: A Tale of Death, a Tale of Life (Werner Herzog, Germany/Canada)

8. Weekend (Andrew Haigh, U.K.)

9. Shame (Steve McQueen, U.K.)

10. Meek’s Cutoff (Kelly Reichardt, U.S.)

11. The Future (Miranda July, Germany/U.S.)

 

 

JESSE HAWTHORNE FICKS’ PICKS FOR 2011

(FOLLOWED BY THE AMOUNT OF TIMES HE’S SEEN EACH FILM, IF MORE THAN ONCE)

(Updated from the print version)

1. (tie) Meek’s Cutoff (Kelly Reichardt, U.S.)

Even though this was on my list last year, it was released officially this year. Minimalist, transcendental, and more dramatic than any other action film this year. (4)

1. (tie) Attack the Block (Joe Cornish, U.K./France)

Subversive, prophetic, and totally addictive! This is one best films of the decade! Believe, bruv! (6)

2. Midnight in Paris (Woody Allen, Spain/U.S.)

Just because this is a crowd pleaser should not detract from Allen’s complicated script, shining as bright as ever. Re-watch and be stunned that the ending is much more profound than you may have first noticed. (7)

3. Season two of Louie (FX Network)

Louis C.K. transcended his own brilliant comedy and created 13 genuine existential classics.

4. The Trip (Michael Winterbottom, U.K.)

Steve Coogan finally achieved his art house goal with this pitch-perfect exploration of a man and his own worst enemy. Winterbottom’s six-part mini-series for British television was great, but the edited-down feature film is downright life affirming. (5)

5. We Need to Talk About Kevin (Lynne Ramsay, U.K./U.S.)

Director Ramsay (our modern-day Orson Welles, anyone?) and editor Joe Bini have created an hypnotic ride of poetic cinema. Do we really have to wait 10 more years before her Ramsay’s next show stopper, like we did after 2002’s Morvern Callar?

6. (tie) Hanna (Joe Wright, U.S./U.K./Germany)

A flawless reworking of La Femme Nikita (1991) with crisp dialogue that was light years ahead of anything else this year.

6. (tie) The Woman (Lucky McKee, U.S.)

Audiences were running for the doors at Sundance. This high-concept allegory is one of the most disturbing explorations of misogyny ever put on film. (3)

6. (tie) Sucker Punch (Zack Snyder, U.S./Canada)

This fast and furious pseudo-“feminist” flick seemed to be unfairly treated and totally misunderstood by audiences and critics alike. Get the 127-minute director’s cut on Blu-ray, stop letting fanboy nonsense bully you, and revel in Emily Browning’s tour de force performance. (2)

7. Young Adult (Jason Reitman, U.S.)

Diablo Cody’s script is near-perfect in this look at a 37-year-old who has to reassess where her “determination” has led her. (2)

8. Beginners (Mike Mills, U.S.)

Who wants their heart broken? A man confronts the death of his father and realizes his romantic choices might be leading him to no man’s land. Gulp. (3)

9. Heartbeats (Xavier Dolan, Canada)

This 22-year-old writer-director-star’s mash-up of My Own Private Idaho (1991) and In the Mood for Love (1999) captures our era’s hipster insecurities so flawlessly that it’ll take a decade for people to recognize how important this film actually is. (3)

10. The Artist (Michel Hazanavicius, France/Belgium)
This accessible masterpiece proves silent movies are futuristic! Perfect for the whole family and part of the second Golden Age for cinema from the 1920s.

11. The Beaver (Jodie Foster, U.S./United Arab Emirates)
I don’t care what he does offscreen, Mel Gibson is a damn fine actor! And Jodie Foster’s dark and deeply personal directing deserves the mensch of the year award!

12. (tie) Take Shelter (Jeff Nichols, U.S.)

Michael Shannon’s performance (as a father who will stop at nothing to “protect” his family) is creepy. Nichols’ ending is even creepier.

12. (tie) Melancholia (Lars von Trier, Denmark/Sweden/France/Germany)

Von Trier’s “nicest” film is genuine therapy for a neurotic soul.

13. One Day (Lone Scherfig, U.S./U.K.)

Stop telling me the book was so much better! With a Same Time, Next Year (1978) structure, this film’s deep emotions (courtesy of Anne Hathaway) shook me to the core.

14. Certified Copy (Abbas Kiarostami, France/Italy/Belgium)

This unofficial remake of Roberto Rossellini’s Journey to Italy (1954) still kept me guessing; it also features another jaw-dropping performance by Juliette Binoche.

15. The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick, U.S.)

This audacious exploration of a 1950s family is absolutely universal and profound. (2)

16. Tyrannosaur (Paddy Considine, U.K.)

Who wants their stomach punched, ripped open, torn out, and then presented to you? Then check out this love story.

17. (tie) Hugo (Martin Scorsese, U.S.)

Who says 3D isn’t art? Did studios really allow Scorsese to show multiple Georges Méliès’ films in 3D? Plus, Sacha Baron Cohen gives a truly Oscar-worthy supporting performance.

17. (tie) Drive Angry (Patrick Lussier, U.S.)

Lussier, director of 2009’s absolutely brilliant My Bloody Valentine remake, facilitated a priceless Nicolas Cage performance — he drinks from a freakin’ human skull, in 3D — but keeps things so frenetic, I had to sit in the theater for a second viewing as soon as it was over! (2)

17. (tie) Final Destination 5 (Steven Quale, U.S.)

In which the entire franchise of entitled 20-somethings dying gruesome deaths comes full circle by concluding with every single grisly death from all five films in glorious 3D.

18. The Mill and the Cross (Lech Majewski, Sweden/Poland)

Rutger Hauer + 143 Digital layers = monumental experimental art for the ages!

19. Rakhta Charitra and Rakhta Charitra 2 (Ram Gopal Varma, India)

Ram Gopal Varma’s films should compete at Cannes. (2)

20. Bill Cunningham New York (Richard Press, U.S./France)

This doc’s inspiring message: do what you love every day of your life, and don’t ever slow down.

 

Actor of the Year: Andy Serkis (Rise of the Planet of the Apes, The Adventures of Tintin)

Actress of the Year: Melissa McCarthy (Bridesmaids)

Best Future Midnite Movie: The Catechism Cataclysm (Todd Rohal, U.S.)

Shot in less than a week, this abstract, train of thought buddy road trip has the immediacy of sheer brilliance!

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks teaches film history at the Academy of Art University and curates and hosts Midnites for Maniacs, a film series emphasizing dismissed, underrated, and overlooked films.

 

LYNN RAPOPORT’S TOP 8 FILMS OF 2011

1. The Artist (Michel Hazanavicius, France/Belgium)

2. Beginners (Mike Mills, U.S.)

3. Tomboy (Céline Sciamma, France)

4. Dirty Girl (Abe Sylvia, U.S.)

5. Bridesmaids (Paul Feig, U.S.)

6. Pariah (Dee Rees, U.S.)

7. Young Adult (Jason Reitman, U.S.)

8. Crazy, Stupid, Love. (Glenn Ficarra and John Requa, U.S.)

 

SAM STANDER’S TOP 10 FILMS OF 2011

1. Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives (Apichatpong Weerasethakul, Thailand/U.K./France/Germany/Spain/Netherlands)

2. Meek’s Cutoff (Kelly Reichardt, U.S.)

3. Drive (Nicolas Winding Refn, U.S.)

4. Midnight in Paris (Woody Allen, Spain/U.S.)

5. Certified Copy (Abbas Kiarostami, France/Italy/Belgium)

6. The Tree of Life (Terrence Malick, U.S.)

7. Essential Killing (Jerzy Skolimowski, Poland/Norway/Iceland/Hungary)

8. The Future (Miranda July, U.S.)

9. Bridesmaids (Paul Feig, U.S.)

10. Captain America: The First Avenger (Joe Johnston, U.S.)

 

MAX GOLDBERG’S TOP 10 FILMS OF 2011 (SAN FRANCISCO OPENINGS)

The Arbor (Clio Barnard, U.K.)

Attenberg (Athina Rachel Tsangari, Greece)

Get Out of the Car (Thom Andersen, U.S.)

The Kid with a Bike (Jean-Pierre Dardenne and Luc Dardenne, Belgium/France/Italy)

Mysteries of Lisbon (Raúl Ruiz, Portugal)

Of Gods and Men (Xavier Beauvois, France)

Oki’s Movie (Hong Sang-soo, South Korea)

Road to Nowhere (Monte Hellman, U.S.)

Terri (Azazel Jacobs, U.S.)

Señora con Flores/ Woman with Flowers (Chick Strand, U.S./Mexico)

 

Top flight

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Top flight

arts@sfbg.com

YEAR IN DANCE If you are a trend spotter, you will have noticed two changes within the local dance ecology that probably will influence how we see dance in the foreseeable future.

First, not only have dancers been foregoing the proscenium theater — after all, there aren’t that many around here — but they’ve also been sidestepping theaters altogether. They find spaces in museums, bars, parks, and streets, even former newspaper offices. Or they perform in studios which become informal community gatherings where audiences, in addition to seeing work, get a sense of participating in something being created. Dancers’ Group and CounterPULSE’s “2nd Sundays,” the RAWDance’s “CONCEPT Series,” and Kunst-Stoff Arts are among the most prominent examples of this.

The second change relates to funding. No need to spell out how dire the financial picture has become for big organizations that have infrastructures to support. But for the small and medium-sized companies, it’s been just about catastrophic. So how to get the cash to put on a show or take advantage of a touring opportunity? In the commercial world it’s called “direct marketing.” Dancers are nothing if not entrepreneurial. They are taking to the internet, asking for small donations and keeping people informed about the progress of the “campaign.”

Trying to rethink the past 12 months of dance viewing is mind-boggling; coming up with a “best-of list” is no less so. Take the following ten as one observer’s bouquet to all the dancers who have enriched our lives in 2011. They are listed chronologically by the date of when they were seen.

In its third program (Feb. 24, War Memorial Opera House), San Francisco Ballet showcased the classical language as infinitely pliable and capable of contemporary expressiveness. Yet Yuri Possokhov and William Forsythe could not have done it more differently. Possokhov’s 2010 small-scaled Classical Symphony — three couples and a corps of eight — seduced with its speed, wit, and exuberance. Forsythe’s 1984 tour de force Artifact Suite challenged a huge ensemble with gale-force attacks, imploding unisons, and ever-changing designs. In this context even Helgi Tomasson’s 1993 Nanna’s Lied looked decent.

Spanning 55 years of work, the Merce Cunningham Company (Feb. 3, Cal Performances/Zellerbach Hall) bid its farewell with three pieces that beautifully showcased the late choreographer’s extraordinary range. Antic Meet (1958) showed him young and clever; in the lyrical Pond Way (1998) we saw Cunningham’s affinity for the natural world, and in Sounddance (1975) the backdrop swallowed his dancers one by one. It was a good-bye from artist who had the guts to pull the curtain on himself.

Zaccho Dance Theatre‘s The Monkey and the Devil (April 17, Novellus Theater) didn’t pull any punches about the persistence of racism. A tough show to watch, it was low on “entertainment” values but chock-full of convincingly painful confrontations in which two couples, one white, one black, mirrored each others’ anguish and anger.

In 1979, audiences were taken aback by Lucinda Childs‘ Dance (April 28, San Francisco Performances/Novellus Theater) which incorporated a film by Sol LeWitt and a score by Philip Glass. Its rigor, aesthetic purity, and pedestrian vocabulary alienated many. Yet Dance is a gorgeous piece of choreographic architecture. How fun it was to watch, in 2011, dancers doing the exact same steps so differently as those caught on the film more than 30 years ago.

The Polish Teatr Zar‘s stunningly original and impeccably realized The Gospels of Childhood Triptych, (May 25, St. Gregory’s Episcopal Church and Potrero Hill Neighborhood House) is one of the reasons that the San Francisco International Arts Festival has to exist. With its ritualistic pacing and its fusion of music, movement, and language (“Zar” means “funeral song”), Gospels attempted to suggest something approaching the divine and the restrictions of the self.

Pooling resources is today’s mantra. But few go to the depth of intellectual and emotional sharing that Janice Garrett and Charles Moulton do. They co-choreographed the exhilarating The Experience of Flight in Dreams (June 9, ODC Theater) and came up with a soloists-ensemble format rarely seen in modern dance. To have such a unified and well-realized perspective from such different artists was thrilling.

Science, or writers such Maxine Hong Kingston or Gary Snyder, often inspire Kathryn Roszak‘s work. The reprise of the fine Pensive Spring (Sept. 25, Hertz Hall, UC Berkeley), based on the works by Emily Dickinson, proved to be a thoroughly intelligent and finely crafted dance theater piece that illuminated a great creative mind through music, dance, and language.

AXIS Dance Company (Oct. 7, Malonga Casquelourd Theater) commissioned the Australian choreographer Marc Brew to give the company its first story-ballet. Taking a bow to dance history and soap operas, Brew’s slyly voyeuristic Full of Words moved through knotted entanglements with insight, humor, and compassion. It was a fine vehicle for the company and should be around for a long time.

José Limón is a giant of early modern dance, yet few practitioners have ever seen his work live. So for tiny San Jose’s sjDANCEco (Oct. 15, California Theatre, San Jose) to attempt Missa Brevis, a major Limon choreography, just about amounted to hubris. But former Limón dancer and sjDANCEco’s artistic director, Gary Masters, scoured the community and trained the dancers — some of them college and high school students — in the requisite combination of strength and restraint. The performance of this jewel of modernism became a minor miracle.

Finally, Deborah Slater and Julie Hébert‘s Night Falls (Oct. 21, ODC Theater) looked at the process of aging from a “three ages of man” perspective, except that this was a woman’s life crisis. Most intriguing was the way language and dance — much of it gestural — bounced off each other, creating the vibrant environment in which the performers could fully extend themselves.

Curtain calls

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Curtain calls

arts@sfbg.com

YEAR IN THEATER With a grateful nod to former colleague Brad Rosenstein, we re-inaugurate a system of accolades and nah-ccolades celebrating some memorable highs and lows of the rapidly closing year in theater and performance.

 

Most Memorable Food Fight

A Three Little Dumplings Adventure

Within seconds of the appearance of the three titular protagonists of Megan Cohen’s A Three Little Dumplings Adventure — a hot pink and powder blue hurricane wreaking havoc on the subdued prison of a suburban living room — it was impossible not to get sucked into their chaotic orbit. Alternating between being patently obnoxious, emotionally unanchored, and frankly homicidal, the “three little dumplings” played by Sarah Moser, Molly Holcomb, and Megan Trout teased, baited, jabbed, and wrestled each other across the stage, culminating in Moser pinning Trout to the floor threatening to eat her (“dumpling” being no tidy euphemism here, but a physiological condition). Presented at the Bay One Acts Festival, it was definitely the year’s best meta-cannibalistic food frenzy, and it whetted our appetite for more. (Nicole Gluckstern)

 

Best Drug Story

Greg Proops at “Previously Secret Information”

Admittedly the best highs are often hard to remember. Kudos to the seemingly rock-hard memory of otherwise mellow-ab’d comedian Greg Proops, who recalled prodigious intake and takeout as a Chicken Delite delivery boy in 1970s San Carlos for an edition of Joe Klocek’s storytelling series, “Previously Secret Information.” (Robert Avila)

 

Best Political-Historical Thesis Disguised as a Wildly Funny and Louche “Songplay”

Beardo

Their own prior hit, 2008’s Beowulf: A Thousand Years of Baggage, was going to be a hard act to follow. But Banana Bag & Bodice and producers Shotgun Players made playwright Jason Craig and composer Dave Malloy’s take on Rasputin look like child’s play — very precocious child’s play — where performances, music, costumes, mise-en-scène, themes, and dialogue all contributed to another hirsute masterpiece. (Avila)

 

Most Inscrutable Triumvirate

Mimu Tsujimura, Lily Tung Crystal, and Katie Chan in Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven

Speaking of frankly homicidal, the otherwise nameless characters “Korean 1, 2, and 3” in the joint Crowded Fire/Asian American Theater Company production of Young Jean Lee’s Songs of the Dragons Flying to Heaven were as outrageously bloodthirsty a collection of countertypical characters as ever graced the Thick House stage. By turns violent, ecstatic, girlish, and demented, the eclectic trio played by Mimu Tsujimura, Lily Tung Crystal, and Katie Chan skewered every tradition-bound Asian stereotype in the book. Clad in the dazzle camouflage of their flowing silk dresses, rendering their monologues in their respective “mother” tongues, not spoken by this or many other audience members, the fiercely energetic characters expertly revealed themselves by not revealing a thing. (Gluckstern)

 

Best Lighting Design

Allen Willner for inkBoat’s The Line Between

Willner’s worked wonders before, not least with longtime collaborators inkBoat (Heaven’s Radio), but he outdoes himself in this wild and excellent production, making the lighting design a full member of the ensemble with a world of shifting moods and ideas. (Avila)

 

Best Tentative Revival of a Theatrical Artform

Puppetry

Where have all the puppets gone? It seemed like for a few years there they all went into hiding, perhaps barricading themselves in little puppet bunkers, awaiting the end times. But a modest slew of puppet-driven performances resurfaced over the course of 2011, reigniting our hopes for a full-blown revival in the future. A shortlist of memorable puppets encountered this year include Lone Wolf Tribe’s dark circus of clowns and war veterans in Hobo Grunt Cycle; a beleaguered Orson Welles puppet manipulated by Nathanial Justiniano’s sociopathic Naked Empire Bouffon Company alter ego Cousin Cruelty; Thomas John’s “hard-boiled” egg puppets who populated his Humpty Dumpty noir thriller The Lady on the Wall; the over-the-top awesomeness of a trio of Audrey Jrs. in Boxcar Theatre’s Little Shop of Horrors, and the silently suffering soldier of Aurora Theatre’s A Soldier’s Tale. Here’s hoping this miscellany foreshadows the triumphal return of the missing puppets, to as opposed to their last hurrah. (Gluckstern)

 

Nicest timing

The Agony and the Ecstasy of Steve Jobs

Just before public figures across the spectrum wailed their approval of a fallen business idol, Seattle-based monologist Mike Daisey, at Berkeley Rep, not-so-quietly reminded people of what a corporation is. Then Occupy Wall Street happened. (Avila)

 

Most Polarizing Descent Into the Reptilian Complex

Chekhov Lizardbrain

Whether you loved it or loathed it, Pig Iron’s touring production of Chekhov Lizardbrain was certainly one of the year’s most striking. Performing as part of foolsFURY’s Fury Factory, the Philadelphia-based Pig Iron spearheaded an expedition into the inner workings of one man’s brain beset by shifting vagaries of memory and truth. Combining a series of pompously-referenced “rules” of drama, stock Chekhovian alter-egos, and the dual personalities — internal and external — of an undersocialized protagonist (James Sugg) struggling to shape his memories into a recognizable narrative, Chekhov Lizardbrain elicited the most polarized reaction from its sold-out houses I saw all year. From a standing ovation to a fair number of disgruntled walk-outs, this dark-edged exploration inspired a panorama of strong responses in its audience, a solid sign of success in my book. (Gluckstern)

 

Best Labor of Love

The Companion Piece

Inspired by a concept by Beth Wilmurt, who was inspired by a book about the biological roots of human emotions (A General Theory of Love), Mark Jackson directed Wilmurt and fellow “vaudevillians” Christopher Kuckenbaker and Jake Rodriguez at Z Space in one of the most inspired pieces of devised theater all year (with a close second going to Jackson’s own SF State production of the blissful Wallflower). (Avila)

 

Best Conversation Starter

The closure of a “remixed” Little Shop of Horrors

Another polarizing moment in Bay Area theater occurred this summer when Boxcar Theatre’s ambitious remix of the cultish Alan Menken and Howard Ashman musical Little Shop of Horrors was shut down by Music Theatre International due to admitted violations of its licensing agreement. The debate inspired by both the violations and the show’s subsequent closure was as passionate and considered as the production that inspired it, from both perspectives of the situation. Without taking sides, I found the conversation about artistic freedom vs. artists’ rights to their own works to be as stimulating and thought-provoking as any night in the theater could strive to be. It seems unlikely that Boxcar Theatre knowingly set out to become the vanguard for open-source theater-making, but here’s hoping it’s a banner they are willing to carry a little longer. (Gluckstern)

 

Best Part of Getting Old

Geezer at the Marsh

I’m glad I lived long enough to see Geoff Hoyle live long enough to produce this solo piece extraordinaire. (Avila)

 

Best Couch-Surfing Opportunity

“Home Theater Festival”

Sometimes it’s hard to leave the comfort of one’s home to gamble on the capricious vicissitudes of a theater outing. Gambling in the comfort of someone else’s home was, on the other hand, really easy. (Avila)

 

Best Ostentatious Design Overload

The Lily’s Revenge

Watching the four-and-a-half-hour epic performance mash-up that was Taylor Mac’s The Lily’s Revenge at the Magic Theatre was in parts harrowing, exhausting, and transcendentally fabulous, but what stuck with me long after the vague twists of plot and character had mostly faded from my memory were indelible images of the seriously overwhelming design. From dazzling, sequined flower costumes by Lindsay W. Davis, to four complete sets built to accommodate five acts designed by Andrew Boyce, to the extravagant lighting by Sarah Sidman, The Lily’s Revenge could have been subtitled The Tech Crew’s Revenge, which would have been a fitting description of the glorious fantasia created by the uniformly top-notch production team. (Gluckstern)

 

Best Jump on George Clooney

Farragut North

North is better known to multiplex crowds as The Ides of March. But Bay Area theatergoers were first to get a former Howard Dean speechwriter’s fictionalized story of real-deal electoral politics in a so called democracy — and in a nimble low-budge production from OpenTab Productions at Noh Space that made it all the sweeter for not being Hollywooden. (Avila)

 

Best Planned Revitalization of a Theater District Linchpin

PianoFight at Original Joe’s

When the venerable, family-run Original Joe’s at 144 Taylor burned down in 2007 it was a catastrophic blow to the neighborhood — especially to all the theaters in the area who had adopted it over the years as a go-to post-show hang-out. It even served as a San Francisco Fringe Festival off-site venue for several years, hosting the likes of RIPE Theatre and Dan Carbone. So it was wonderful news on many levels when the turbo-charged PianoFight theater company signed a ten-year lease with the Duggan family to turn the old Original Joe’s into the new home of PianoFight. In addition to rebuilding the restaurant and bar, PianoFight plans to house two theaters, offices, and rehearsal spaces under the same roof — a huge boost to the neighborhood and greater theatrical community both. (Gluckstern)

 

Worst-Attended Theatrical Gem

Hobo Grunt Cycle at the Exit Theater

I’m not sure why there were so few people in the audience for this stunning cri de coeur against warfare by Kevin Augustine’s rightly acclaimed New York–based puppet theater ensemble, Lone Wolf Tribe. As hard as it can be to look at the real face of war, this piece brilliantly insisted on the need to do just that: manipulated with consummate grace by one or more black-clad puppeteers, Augustine’s life-sized puppets remained strikingly sentient, heartbreakingly damaged beings you absolutely could not take your eyes off. (Avila)

 

Classiest Beginning to a Final Bow

In the Maze of Our Own Lives

Playwright-director Corey Fischer’s sleekly staged, prescient take on the radically influential Group Theatre ensemble of the thoroughly agitated 1930s, In the Maze of Our Own Lives, which lead off the Jewish Theatre’s 34th and last season. (Avila)

Best Reason to Cross the Bridge: SQUART at Headlands Center for the Arts This 24-hour, all-stops-pulled-out version of choreographer Laura Arrington’s shrewd experimental series in collaborative performance-making capped a residency at the Headlands with a well-attended set of four sneaky, astonishing pieces by a multi-talented ensemble of harried sleep-deprived creator-conspirators. Why isn’t art always made this way? (Avila)

Worst Gas-to-Show Ratio Lolita Roadtrip at San Jose Stage A surprisingly unmoving outing from otherwise quick playwright Trevor Allen, who indeed quickly bounced back with a remounting of his popular solo, Working for the Mouse. (Avila)  

Strangest Encounter Between “Performer” and “Audience” Robert Steijn Steijn questioned everything, including what the hell he was doing onstage in front of the people assembled to see the famed Dutch performer at Joe Goode’s new annex in the Mission. They were all good questions, and the micro-choreography of physical and psychic states to which they pointed charged the room with a delicate intensity that encouraged many thoughtful beers afterward. (Avila)

Short takes: Biggest Dick: Kevin Spacey as Richard III. With balls and chops to match.  

Best Beefcake Ham and Cheese on Wry for under $100: Hugh Jackman at the Curran.

Best use of salvia: Philip Huang at “Too Much!”  

Best medicine for complacency: Cancer Cells, selections from late works and words by Harold Pinter by Performers Under Stress.  

Biggest site-specific punch (with gloves on or off): Peter Griggs’ one-man show, Killer Queen: The Story of Paco the Pink Pounder, at Michael the Boxer Gym and Barbershop.

Most intellectually stimulating drag lecture: David Greenspan reading Gertrude Stein’s Plays at the Contemporary Jewish Museum. (Avila)

Rep Clock

Andrew Lam
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Schedules are for Wed/21-Tues/27 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features are marked with a •. All times p.m. unless otherwise specified.

BALBOA 3630 Balboa, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $17.50-20. “Opera and Ballet at the Balboa Theatre:” The Nutcracker, performed by the Royal Ballet and the orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Wed, 7:30.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $7.50-10. •Drive (Winding Refn, 2011), Wed, 3, 7, and The American (Corbijn, 2010), Wed, 4:50, 8:50. The Tree of Life (Malick, 2011), Thurs, 2, 5, 8. “Joyous, Jolly, Jingles: San Francisco Gay Men’s Chorus 22nd Annual Home for the Holidays,” Sat, 5, 7, 9. •Meet Me in St. Louis (Minnelli, 1944), Mon, 2:30, 7, and The Band Wagon (Minnelli, 1953), Mon, 4:40, 9:10. •Bye Bye Birdie (Sidney, 1963), Tues, 2:40, 7, and Pal Joey (Sidney, 1957), Tues, 4:45, 9:05.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.75-10.25. The Gold Rush (Chaplin, 1925), Dec 23-29, call for times. Restored 35mm print. My Reincarnation (Fox, 2011), Dec 23-29, call for times.

EXPLORATORIUM McBean Theater, 3601 Lyon, SF; www.exploratorium.edu. Free with admission ($10-15). “Holiday Animation Film Festiva,” Mon-Fri, noon, 2, 4.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. Theater closed through Jan 11.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $6.50-10. Footprints (Peros, 2011), Wed-Thurs, 7, 8:45. Paul McCartney: The Love We Make (Maysles and Kaplan, 2011), Wed-Thurs, 7, 9. My Reincarnation (Fox, 2011), Dec 23-29, 7, 8:45 (also Sat/24-Sun/25, 3:15, 5).

SFFS | NEW PEOPLE CINEMA 1746 Post, SF; www.sffs.org. $10-11. Rare Exports: A Christmas Tale (Helander, 2010), Fri, 10:30. Silent Souls (Fedorchenko, 2010), Dec 23-31, 3, 5, 7, 9 (Sat/24, 2 and 4 only; no shows Sun/25).

Stage Listings

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

THEATER

ONGOING

Absolutely San Francisco Alcove Theater, 414 Mason, Ste 502, SF; (415) 992-8168, www.thealcovetheater.com. $32-50. Thurs, 8pm. Through Dec 29. Not Quite Opera Productions presents Anne Nygren Doherty’s musical about San Francisco, with five characters all portrayed by Mary Gibboney.

The Golden Girls: The Christmas Episodes Victoria Theatre 2961 16th St, SF; www.trannyshack.com. $30. Thurs/22-Fri/23, 8pm. Despite the unseasonably warm weather, it was beginning to feel a lot like Christmas, circa 1987, thanks to the return of four luminous drag queens and a little TV-to-stage holiday special that, after six years, can safely be called a San Francisco tradition. Heklina (Dorothy), Pollo Del Mar (Rose), Matthew Martin (Blanche), and Cookie Dough (Sophia) are the older ladies of Miami, delivering verbatim two episodes of the famed sitcom, each with a special gay yuletide theme — fleshed out by special guests Laurie Bushman (as Blanche’s gay kid brother Clayton) and Manuel Caneri (as thinly disguised lesbian Jean). (Opening night also saw special appearances by morning-radio personalities and emcees Fernando Ventura and Greg Sherrell.) Of course, a Word for Word production this isn’t. Knowing drag mischief and unflappable performances allow a certain welcome latitude in attitude, not to mention costuming, which is wonderful in that Pasadena estate sale way: a veritable bazaar of ’80s bizarre. (Avila)

*On the Air Pier 29 on the Embarcadero (at Battery), SF; (415) 438-2668, love.zinzanni.org. $117 and up (includes dinner). Wed/21, Fri/23, Tues/27, Dec 28-30, 6:15pm (also Dec 28, 11:30am); Sat/24, 11:30am; Dec 31, 8:30pm. Teatro ZinZanni’s final production at its longtime nest on Pier 29 is a nostalgia-infused banquet of bits structured around an old-time radio variety show, featuring headliners Geoff Hoyle (Geezer) and blues singer Duffy Bishop. If you haven’t seen juggling on the radio, for instance, it’s pretty awesome, especially with a performer like Bernard Hazens, whose footing atop a precarious tower of tubes and cubes is already cringingly extraordinary. But all the performers are dependably first-rate, including Andrea Conway’s comic chandelier lunacy, aerialist and enchanting space alien Elena Gatilova’s gorgeous “circeaux” act, graceful hand-balancer Christopher Phi, class-act tapper Wayne Doba, and radio MC Mat Plendl’s raucously tweeny hula-hooping. Add some sultry blues numbers by raunchy belter Bishop, Hoyle’s masterful characterizations (including some wonderful shtick-within-a-shtick as one-liner maestro “Red Bottoms”), a few classic commercials, and a healthy dose of audience participation and you start to feel nicely satiated and ready for a good cigar. Smoothly helmed by ZinZanni creative director Norm Langill, On the Air signals off-the-air for the popular dinner circus — until it can secure a new patch of local real estate for its antique spiegeltent — so tune in while you may. (Avila)

*Period of Adjustment SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter, SF; (415) 677-9596, www.sfplayhouse.org. $20-50. Tues-Thurs, 7pm (also Wed/21-Thurs/22, 2pm); Fri-Sat, 9pm (also Sat, 3pm; no show Sat/24). Through Jan 14. A nervous young man with an unaccountable tremor, George Haverstick (a compellingly manic Patrick Alparone) has waited until his honeymoon to finally call on his old Korean War buddy, Ralph (a stout but tender Johnny Moreno) — only to drop his new bride, Isabel (the terrifically quick and sympathetic MacKenzie Meehan), at the doorstep and hurry away. As it happens, Ralph’s wife of five years, Dorothea (an appealing Maggie Mason), has just quit him and taken their young son with her, turning the family Christmas tree and its uncollected gifts into a forlorn monument to a broken home — which, incidentally, has a tremor of its own, having been built atop a vast cavern. Tennessee Williams calls his 1960 play “a serious comedy,” which is about right, since although things end on a warm and cozy note, the painful crises of two couples and the lost natures of two veterans — buried alive in two suburbs each called “High Point” — are the stuff of real distress. SF Playhouse artistic director Bill English gets moving but clear-eyed, unsentimental performances from his strong cast — bolstered by Jean Forsman and Joe Madero as Dorothea’s parents—whose principals do measured justice to the complex sexual and psychological tensions woven throughout. If not one of Williams’s great plays, this is an engaging and surprisingly memorable one just the same, with the playwright’s distinctive blend of the metaphorical and concrete. As a rare snowfall blankets this Memphis Christmas Eve, 1958, something dark and brooding lingers in the storybook cheer. (Avila)

A Tale of Two Genres SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter, SF; (415) 869-5384, www.un-scripted.com. $10-20. Wed/21, 8pm. Un-Scripted Theater Company presents an improvised musical inspired by Charles Dickens.

Xanadu New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; (415) 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Wed-Sat, 8pm (no show Sat/24); Sun, 2pm (no show Sun/25 or Jan 1). Through Jan 15. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs the retro roller-skating musical.

BAY AREA

*God’s Plot Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; (510) 841-6500, www.shotgunplayers.org. $18-27. Wed-Thurs, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm (no shows Wed/21-Sun/25). Through Jan 15. Playwright-director Mark Jackson excavates a bit of deep history for Occupy USA, an episode in the annals of colonial American theater and jurisprudence that played, and plays, like a rehearsal for a revolution — this time with music. Capping Shotgun Players’ 20th anniversary season of new work, God’s Plot comically animates and literally underscores (through song, and irresistible banjo and bass accompaniment courtesy of Josh Pollock and Travis Kindred) the story surrounding “Ye Bare and Ye Cubb,” a play performed in 1665 Virginia but now lost. The legal battle that engulfed this satire of the English crown and its economic and political domination of the colonies was an early instance of the close but little acknowledged relationship between art and politics in proto-American society, with much too of religious conflict in the mix (personified here by a powerfully smoldering John Mercer as closet-Quaker Edward Martin). The playwright, a brash self-inventor named William Darby (a sure, charismatic Carl Holvick-Thomas), colludes with a disgruntled merchant (Anthony Nemirovsky) and a former indentured servant climbing the social ladder as a new tenant hand (Will Hand). Darby, meanwhile, is secretly wooing — and even more, being wooed by — Tryal Pore (an ebullient, magnetic Juliana Lustenader), a young woman even braver and more outspoken than he. As an expression of her novel and unbridled spirit, Tryal alone breaks into song to express her feelings or observations. Her temperament is meanwhile a source of worry to her father (a comically deft Kevin Clarke) and mother (Fontana Butterfield), but also attracts an unwitting suitor (a compellingly serious Joe Salazar). The play’s overarching narrative of nationalist ferment, which reaches an overtly stirring pitch, thus comes mirrored by the tension in two dramatic triangles whose common point is the precocious, golden-throated Tryal Pore. More of the private drama might have served the overall balance of the play, but a good part of the achievement of director Jackson and his generally muscular cast is making a complex play of enduring ideas and conflicts look so effortless and fun. (Avila)

The Secret Garden TheatreWorks at Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield, Palo Alto; (650) 463-1960, www.theatreworks.org. $19-72. Wed/21, 2 and 7:30pm; Thurs/22-Fri/23, 8pm; Sat/24, 1 and 6pm; Dec 27-28, 7:30pm; Dec 29-30, 8pm (also Dec 30, 2pm); Dec 31, 2pm. TheatreWorks performs the Tony Award-winning musical adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s novel.

*The Wild Bride Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-73. Tues, Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Thurs and Sat, 2pm); Wed and Sun, 7pm (no show Sun/25). Through Jan 1. In the first act of Kneehigh Theatre’s The Wild Bride, the destinies of an innocent girl (Audrey Brisson), her moonshine-making father (Stuart Goodwin), and a predatory devil in a cheap suit (Stuart McLoughlin) become inextricably entwined by an ill-fated bargain. Steeped in European fairytale logic and American folk and blues music, Bride is inventively staged at the base of a giant tree, combining mime, puppetry, dance, live music, Cirque du Soleil-style vocals, acrobatics, and taut verse into a swooping, expressionistic fable. Accidentally promised to the devil by her doting but drink-dulled dad, “The Girl” suffers first the creepy indignity of being perved on by her preternatural suitor, and secondly the horror of having her hands chopped off by her own father, actions which drive her to flee into the woods, morphing into a character known only as “The Wild” (played by Patrycja Kujawska). After a stint as an unlikely, Edward Scissorhands-esque queen, The Wild too is driven from comfort and morphs a second time into a third character “The Woman” (Éva Magyar), an experience-toughened mother bear who kicks the devil’s ass (literally), and triumphs over adversity, without even uttering a single word. At turns dark, dexterous, fanciful, and fatal, Bride rises above the usual holiday fare with a timeless enchantment. (Gluckstern)

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh Berkeley, TheaterStage, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Sun and Dec 26-30, 11am (no show Sun/25). Through Dec 31. Louis “The Amazing Bubble Man” Pearl returns with this kid-friendly, bubble-tastic comedy.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

“Cut the Crap! With Semi-Motivational Guru, Clam Lynch” Dark Room, 2263 Mission, SF; www.darkroomsf.com. Jan 6 and Jan 13, 8pm. $15. Get motivated with self-help-guru-satirizing comedian Clam Lynch.

“Dieter und Shiela at the San Francisco International Youth Hostel” Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.combinedartform.com. Wed-Fri, 9:30pm, $20. Will Franken presents his latest solo, multi-character comedy.

“Forking II: A Merry FORKING Christmas” StageWerx, 446 Valencia, SF; www.pianofight.com.Wed/21-Fri/23 and Dec 25-30, 8pm. $25-35. Well holy forking shit, it’s been three years already since Daniel Heath’s A Merry Forking Christmas debuted at PianoFight’s old Off-Market Theater digs, and in that time a few new faces have been added to the cast, and a few loose ends tied up in a bow, rendering the overall package a ho-ho-holiday treat worth indulging in. Hate the holidays? Not nearly as much as Goth girl morgue assistant Charlotte (Leah Shesky); her buddy Monique (Emma Shelton), a frustrated culinary genius selling pot cookies to stressed-out shoppers; Adam (Jed Goldstein), a disaffected Jew hired on as a Mall Santa from a temp agency; or Charles (Alex Boyd), an effete metrosexual dangerously enervated by his fiancée’s perfectionist vigor (Nicole Hammersla). Hilariously guided by Ray Hobbs and Gabrielle Patacsil, who play a variety of bit roles (Headbanger vs. Bible Banger, embattled parents fighting over the last coveted “Meat Panda,” feral children), the audience periodically gets to vote over the next permutation of plot, the “forks” alluded to in the title. According to artistic director Rob Ready (also featured in the cast as “Old Ben”), there are 362,880 possible combinations, and yes, the actors have memorized them all. Question is, will you? (Gluckstern)

“Kung Pao Kosher Comedy” New Asia Restaurant, 772 Pacific, SF; (415) 522-3737, www.koshercomedy.com. Fri-Sat, 6 and 9:30pm; Sun, 5 and 8:30pm. $42-62. Now in its 19th year, this night of “Jewish comedy on Christmas in a Chinese restaurant (where else?)” features headliners Elaine Boosler, Avi Liberman, Jeff Applebaum, and Lisa Geduldig.

Mark Foehringer Dance Project | SF Children’s Creativity Museum, 221 Fourth St, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Wed-Fri, 11am and 2pm. $20-35. The contemporary ballet company performs Mark Foehringer’s Nutcracker Sweets.

“Santaland Diaries” Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.combinedartform.com. Thurs/22-Sat/24 and Dec 26-30, 8pm (also Fri/23-Sat/24, 3pm). $20-50. Combined Artform presents David Sedaris’ holiday comedy.

Smuin Ballet Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.smuinballet.org. Wed-Fri, 8pm (also Wed, 2pm); Sat, 2pm. $65. The company performs its acclaimed tribute to the holidays, The Christmas Ballet.

“Tenderloin Christmas Hustler: Occupy the ‘Loin!” Phoenix Theater, 414 Mason, Sixth Flr, SF; www.tenderloinxmashustler.com. Wed-Fri, 8pm. $20-25. Mash-up Christmas parody, complete with sock puppet Jesus at intermission.

“Welcome to Boswick’s House” SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter, SF; www.boswick.net. Thurs-Fri and Mon-Tues, 11am. $19. Boswick the Clown performs a goofy holiday show aimed at kids ages 4-8 years old.

“Yes Sweet Can” Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St, SF; (415) 225-7281, www.sweetcanproductions.com. Dec 27-29, 2:30 and 4:30pm; Dec 30, 4 and 8pm; Dec 31-Jan 1, 2pm. $15-60. Sweet Can Productions presents an hourlong extravaganza of circus arts for the holidays.

On the Cheap Listings

Andrew Lam
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Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

WEDNESDAY 21

Cartoonist-palooza gift sale and concert Mercury Café, 201 Octavia, SF. www.stevelafler.net. 6-9 p.m., free. Lloyd Dangle, a longtime deft lampooner of the one percent in his Troubletown comic strip, headlines a night of comic-oriented holiday offerings and live music. Mats!?, Jeff Roysdon, Steve Lafler, and the Dick Nixon Experience (responsible for the one-and-only “Oaxacabilly” sound) join.

Winter Solstice celebration Muir Woods Visitor Center, 1 Muir Woods Rd., Mill Valley. www.parksconservancy.org. 3-8 p.m., free. You can spend the longest night of the year spent underneath the longest trees around. Solstice crown-making, musical performances, and luminaria-guided jaunts along Muir Woods trails light up the night.

THURSDAY 22

Objectified screening Phyllis Wattis Theater, SFMOMA, 151 Third St., SF. www.sfmoma.org. 7 p.m., $5. From the very same folks who examined glyphs and serifs in the film Helvetica comes a film on the design of some of our most mundane objects. Potato peelers and toothbrushes will both be under discussion.

Animation Workshop Rock Paper Scissors Collective, 2278 Telegraph, Oakl. www.rpscollective.org. 6-8 p.m., sliding scale. Before gifs, there was the even simpler stuff: cut-out and stop-motion animation. Rock Paper Scissors holds monthly workshops on such styles of yore. Eager would-be animators are invited to come and create their own short films.

FRIDAY 23

Berlin-Style Ping-Pong Project One, 251 Rhode Island, SF. 9 p.m., $5. With two whole reasons to celebrate (the first being that it’s Friday, the second that it’s Christmas Eve-Eve), there’s absolutely no excuse to pass up the latest match of “Berlin-style” ping-pong, the paddled craze sweeping the city. Join the frantic runners-round-the-table.

SATURDAY 24

Mittens and Mistletoe Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St., SF. www.dancemission.org. Also Sun/25. 2 p.m. and 4 p.m., $7.50 on www.brownpapertickets.com. Directed by two bonafide clowns, Coventry and Kaluza, the winter-themed variety show re-imagines trashcans, brooms, and similarly ordinary objects with the help of slack lines, acrobatics, and the usual circus magic.

SUNDAY 25

Free admission day Contemporary Jewish Museum, 736 Mission, SF. www.thecjm.org. 11 a.m.-4 p.m., free. Sure, there’s Chinese food and the Cineplex. But for those Christmas Day wanderers looking for cultural enlightenment, the CJM opens its doors for a day of spinning top-making and guided tours (including one of that sweet Houdini exhibit).

“It’s a Jewish Christmas” Make-Out Room, 3225 22nd St., SF. www.makeoutroom.com. 5-11 p.m., $10. Strip dreidel, a real-deal Chanukah bush, alternating works of neurotic brilliance by Woody Allen and Larry David, and a lavish spread of chow mein make this the best un-Christmas ever.

Schlitz and free country music Bender’s, 806 South Van Ness, SF. www.bendersbar.com. 9 p.m., free. Two dollars for the beer that made Milwaukee famous is great enough, but add the twanging grooves of local group the Dead Westerns and you may never make it out of Bender’s.

MONDAY 26

Kwanzaa in San Francisco Through Jan. 1. Various times and places, SF. www.kwanzaasanfrancisco.com. Celebrate the African holiday of faith, self-determination, unity, and other universally clutch principles with these seven days of free events. Highlights: the Mon/26 keynote speech by City College trustee Dr. Brenda Wade, Dec. 28’s one-woman play on the life of Harriet Tubman, and feasts every night of the festivities.

Holiday Animation Film Festival McBean Theater, Exploratorium, 3601 Lyon, SF. www.exploratorium.edu. Noon, 2, and 4 p.m., free with museum admission. Even if you start watching a holiday-themed short screened as part of the holiday animation festival and it doesn’t tickle your fancy, chances are you’ve only got about a minute or two left to go before it’s over, Scrooge. Hand-painted paper scraps, stop-motion animation, and stuffed animals headline the show.

The Performant: Tradition! Tradition!

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Golden Girls, Kung Pao Kosher, Merry Forking Christmas … the holidays are coming whether you like it or not.

Love ‘em or hate ‘em, the holidays just keep on coming around. And unless you plan on hibernating the entire month of December away, sooner or later someone is going to force you into an ugly sweater and drag you to some seasonal entertainment designed to fill you with goodwill towards all humankind — or some such optimistic twaddle. Even so, there’s certainly no reason you have to subject yourself to endless renditions of Tchaikovsky’s famous suite or stale Bing Crosby carols in order to fulfill your holiday spirit quota. Alternatives abound here in Babylon-by-the-Bay, and you’re sure to stumble across a few that speak to your own imitable tastes.


Call it nostalgia, or call it an abiding love for the dubious fashions of the late 80’s, but whatever the attraction, this year’s edition of Trannyshack’s “The Golden Girls Christmas Episodes,” (through Dec. 23) has been packing the house at the Victoria Theatre with its irreverent rendition of the iconic television show. The four Tranny Grannies — Heklina, Cookie Dough, Pollo del Mar, and Matthew Martin — embody their characters with real affection, as their enthusiastic audiences sing along to the retro jingles of old Dr. Pepper commercials while cat-calling each spectacular costume change.

Another tradition-in-the-making, Pianofight’s third annual production of “A Merry Forking Christmas,” (through Dec. 30) is also packing the house with a good mix of PianoFight first-timers and old “Forking” initiates who are easily identified by their crumpled brown paper BYOB bags. The concept of “Forking” is both deceptively simple and yet infinitely clever — a choose-your-own-adventure story which “forks” off in several, audience-mandated directions, mostly determined by chaotic bursts of applause. Set in that oppressive microcosm otherwise known as “The Mall,” the play follows a handful of characters battling the stress and hopelessness of Christmas Eve either engaged in last minute selling, buying, security guarding, or Santa Claus-ing as the “true meaning” of the holiday in question eludes each.

Since nothing can make one feel more self-consciously Jewish than a month full of Christmas cheer, it’s good to know that Lisa Geduldig’s Kung Pao Kosher Comedy event (Dec. 23-25) has been stuffing holiday orphans of all faiths full of potstickers and potshots for nineteen years. This year’s headliner is Elayne Boosler, and if you go for the dinner show your ticket includes a seven-course feast, which sounds like my kind of Christmas. Or it would if it didn’t compete with the First Satanic Church’s annual Black X Mass (Sun/25) at the Elbo Room. Basically an excuse to throw a high-voltage rock show on the quietest night of the year, Black X Mass consistently boasts some of the most eclectic line-ups imaginable, combining costumed concept bands with “abstract metal” ensembles, mean-tempered go-go devils, various permutations of Mongoloid and Graves Bros. Deluxe, and a black-clad specialist in a rarified musical field — “Theremin Wizard Barney.” It’s a season’s greeting more reminiscent of “The Shining” than “It’s a Wonderful Life” but let’s face it, sometimes that’s exactly the kind of tradition we like best.

Live Shots: ‘Yes Sweet Can’ at Dance Mission Theater

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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Sweet Can Productions puts on a gonzo circus show, but with a focus on quotidien, real-world concerns. For its upcoming “Yes Sweet Can” show, running for over two weeks at Dance Mission Theater, the performance is inspired by everyday chores — and actually makes them seem like fun.

Cleaning can be a blast, apparently, and making a cup of hot chocolate — while balancing a pot of hot milk on your head, of course — can also be rather exciting. The performers’ talents as acrobats are obvious, their flexibility undeniable. Whenever I see them do those super-exaggerated back bends, I always think “Man, that must feel sooo good!”

The storyline at moments can seem a little vague, but that didn’t really seem to matter since the show is always moving forward (sometimes actually flying forward) with aerial feats, high up in the rafters of the theater.

“Yes Sweet Can” by Sweet Can Productions
Dance Mission Theater
3316 24th Street
Thru Jan 1, check website for times and prices
www.sweetcanproductions.com

A really dumb article about bookstores

Zelda Bronstein
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35
A really dumb article about bookstores

You never know what you’re going to get on Slate, which tends toward the neo-liberal and sometimes libertarian, but I just read a particularly awful piece by technology writer Farhad Manjoo, who thinks that local bookstores are economically inefficient and should just go away:

Compared with online retailers, bookstores present a frustrating consumer experience. A physical store—whether it’s your favorite indie or the humongous Barnes & Noble at the mall—offers a relatively paltry selection, no customer reviews, no reliable way to find what you’re looking for, and a dubious recommendations engine.

For a tech writer, Manjoo has a remarkably shoddy understanding of economics:

After all, if you’re spending extra on books at your local indie, you’ve got less money to spend on everything else—including on authentically local cultural experiences. With the money you saved by buying books at Amazon, you could have gone to see a few productions at your local theater company, visited your city’s museum, purchased some locally crafted furniture, or spent more money at your farmers’ market. Each of these is a cultural experience that’s created in your community. Buying Steve Jobs at a store down the street isn’t.

He conveniently ignores that fact that money spent a locally owned, independent business stays in the community — and thus creates more local economic activity and more jobs (not to mention tax revenue for local government). Money spent at Amazon goes to an out-of-town operation that doesn’t even pay state sales tax. You want to read about the well-documehted economic value of shopping at a local story, you can find plenty here and here and here.

And let’s talk about the One Percent — would you rather that your money helps the owner of a small local store buy food for his or her kids, or see the money go to one of the richest people in the world?

But there’s another point here. Like local coffee shops, local bookstores are places where people gather and have actual human interactions. I see my neigbors there; we talk about what we’re reading. When I’m done with books, I can sell them back — and someone else can buy them, used, and I can use the money to buy another new book. Which is a pretty efficient economic system.

And there are things you can’t put a price on: At Red Hill Books, the allegedly inefficent, overpriced local bookstore in Bernal Heights, the employees know me and my kids — and when my daughter, who is a voracious reader, finishes one series of books, they know what to recommend next.

That’s not a “recommendations engine” — that’s a live person.

If Farhad Manjoo wants to live in robo-world where a machine tells you what to eat, drink and read, fine — but I still think human beings, inefficient as we are, do a better job at selling books.

 

The Shining Holiday Spectacular

Maria Poblet
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The Shining Holiday Spectacular

HEEEEEEEEEERE’S CHRISTMAS!

The Shining Holiday Spectacular is an insane Christmas extravaganza full of holiday madness and mayhem hosted by Peaches Christ and stars the fabulous Midnight Mass Players.
 
The historic Castro Theatre is proud to host Peaches’ screening of The Shining – especially the Torrance Family Christmas Review hosted by Jack, Wendy, and Danny Torrance, starring Peaches Christ and the Midnight Mass Players with special performances by The Twins, Lady in a Bathtub, and more!
 
Watch as the Castro Theatre is transformed into the Overlook Hotel and visit the Haunted Ballroom Bar in the mezzanine or order cocktails from a dead man. Dress up for the Crazy Christmas Costume Contest where your mentally ill wardrobe can win big prizes….and be ready to barely make it out alive.

For more information and to purchase tickets, fooooollow this link!

Saturday, December 17at 8pm @ Castro Theater, 429 Castro, SF

Rep Clock

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

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $6. “Other Cinema:” “New Experimental Works,” Sat, 8:30.

BALBOA 3630 Balboa, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $17.50-20. “Opera and Ballet at the Balboa Theatre:” Tosca, performed by the Royal Opera House, Wed, 7:30; The Nutcracker, performed by the Royal Ballet and the orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Sat-Sun, 10am.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $7.50-10. “Noir City Xmas:” Lady on a Train (David, 1945), Wed, 7:30; Christmas Holiday (Siodmak, 1944), Wed, 9:20. •The Soft Skin (Truffaut, 1964), Thurs, 2, 7, and Shoot the Piano Player (Truffaut, 1960), Thurs, 5:15, 9:15. The Birds (Hitchcock, 1963), Fri, 2, 4:30, 7, 9:30. “Heeeere’s Christmas!”: The Shining (Kubrick, 1980), presented as part of “The Torrance Family Christmas Revue,” hosted by Peaches Christ, Sat, 8. This event, $25-45; more info at www.peacheschrist.com. “Santa’s Cool Holiday Film Festival:” Santa Claus Conquers the Martians (Webster, 1964), plus vintage Christmas cartoons, and more, Sun, 1:30.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.75-10.25. The Artist (Hazanavicius, 2011), Wed-Thurs, call for times. Golf in the Kingdom (Streitfeld, 2010), Wed-Thurs, call for times. The Nutcracker, performed by the Royal Ballet and the orchestra of the Royal Opera House, Sun, 1:30; Tues, 7.

ELECTRIC WORKS 230 Eighth St, SF; www.sfelectricoworks.com. “Imagine That,” animation screening curated by Sarah Klein for kids and adults, Sat, 6.

EXPLORATORIUM McBean Theater, 3601 Lyon, SF; www.exploratorium.edu. Free with admission ($10-15). A Child’s Christmas in Wales (Lightner, 1963), Sat, 2.

HOUSE OF AIR 926 Mason, SF; www.houseofair.com. $8. One for the Road, Fri, 8.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. Theater closed through Jan 11.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $6.50-10. “Southern (Dis)Comfort: The American South in Cinema:” Wild River (Kazan, 1960), Wed, 6:15; Spring Night, Summer Night (Anderson, 1968), Wed, 8:30; The Beguiled (Siegel, 1971), Fri, 7; Shy People (Konchalovsky, 1987), Fri, 9:15. Golf in the Kingdom (Streitfeld, 2011), Wed-Thurs, call for times. Footprints (Peros, 2011), Dec 16-22, 7, 8:45 (also Sat/17-Sun/18, 3, 4:45). Paul McCartney: The Love We Make (Maysles and Kaplan, 2011), Dec 16-22, 7, 9 (also Sat/17-Sun/18, 3:15, 5).

SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC LIBRARY Koret Auditorium, 100 Larkin, SF; www.sfpl.org. Free. “Bay Area Community Cinema Series:” Taking Root: The Vision of Wangari Maathai (Merton and Dater), Wed, 5:45.

SFFS | NEW PEOPLE CINEMA 1746 Post, SF; www.sffs.org. $10-11. The Bride Wore Black (Truffaut, 1968), Fri and Dec 18-22, 2, 4:30, 7, 9:30.

VORTEX ROOM 1082 Howard, SF; www.myspace.com/thevortexroom. “Left Out of Radical Light: (A So-Called/Supposed Survey of) Alternative Film and Video in the San Francisco Bay Area, 1945-2000,” Fri, 8.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-10. “From Muppets to Metal: Music Movies:” Emmet Otter’s Jug-Band Christmas (Henson, 1977), Thurs, 7:30; Sun, 2; John Zorn: A Film in 15 Scenes (Klahr, Gobolux, Hills, and Izzo, 2011), Sat, 7:30.

Stage Listings

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

THEATER

ONGOING

Absolutely San Francisco Alcove Theater, 414 Mason, Ste 502, SF; (415) 992-8168, www.thealcovetheater.com. $32-50. Thurs/15, Sat/15, Dec 22, and 29, 8pm; Sun/11, Sun/18, 4pm. Not Quite Opera Productions presents Anne Nygren Doherty’s musical about San Francisco, with five characters all portrayed by Mary Gibboney.

Cinderella Buriel Clay Theater, African American Art and Culture Complex, 762 Fulton, SF; 1-800-838-3006, www.african-americanshakes.org. $10-35. Fri/16-Sat/17, 8pm; Sun/18, 3pm. African-American Shakespeare Company opens its season with a re-telling of the fairy tale set in the bayous of Louisiana.

Dr. Strangelove: LIVE Dark Room, 2263 Mission, SF; www.darkroomsf.com. $20. Thurs/15-Sat/17, 8pm. Stage adaptation of Stanley Kubrick’s classic cold war comedy.

The Golden Girls: The Christmas Episodes Victoria Theatre 2961 16th St, SF; www.trannyshack.com. $30. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Dec 23. Despite the unseasonably warm weather last week, it was beginning to feel a lot like Christmas, circa 1987, thanks to the return of four luminous drag queens and a little TV-to-stage holiday special that, after six years, can safely be called a San Francisco tradition. Heklina (Dorothy), Pollo Del Mar (Rose), Matthew Martin (Blanche), and Cookie Dough (Sophia) are the older ladies of Miami, delivering verbatim two episodes of the famed sitcom, each with a special gay yuletide theme — fleshed out by special guests Laurie Bushman (as Blanche’s gay kid brother Clayton) and Manuel Caneri (as thinly disguised lesbian Jean). (Opening night also saw special appearances by morning-radio personalities and emcees Fernando Ventura and Greg Sherrell.) Of course, a Word for Word production this isn’t. Knowing drag mischief and unflappable performances allow a certain welcome latitude in attitude, not to mention costuming, which is wonderful in that Pasadena estate sale way: a veritable bazaar of ’80s bizarre. (Avila)

*The Kipling Hotel: True Misadventures of the Electric Pink ’80s Marsh San Francisco, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Sat/17, 8:30pm; Sun/18, 7pm. This new autobiographical solo show by Don Reed, writer-performer of the fine and long-running East 14th, is another slice of the artist’s journey from 1970s Oakland ghetto to comedy-circuit respectability — here via a partial debate-scholarship to UCLA. The titular Los Angeles residency hotel was where Reed lived and worked for a time in the 1980s while attending university. It’s also a rich mine of memory and material for this physically protean and charismatic comic actor, who sails through two acts of often hilarious, sometimes touching vignettes loosely structured around his time on the hotel’s young wait staff, which catered to the needs of elderly patrons who might need conversation as much as breakfast. On opening night, the episodic narrative seemed to pass through several endings before settling on one whose tidy moral was delivered with too heavy a hand, but if the piece runs a little long, it’s only the last 20 minutes that noticeably meanders. And even with some awkward bumps along the way, it’s never a dull thing watching Reed work. (Avila)

Ladies in Waiting Exit Stage Left, 156 Eddy, SF; www.horrorunspeakable.com. $20. Thurs/15-Sat/17, 8pm. No Nude Men Productions presents three one-acts by Alison Luterman, Claire Rice, and Hilde Susan Jaegtnes.

The Last Five Years Boxcar Playhouse, 505 Natoma, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $20-35. Thurs/15-Sat/17, 8pm; Sun/18, 2pm. Poor Man’s Players performs Jason Robert Brown’s relationship drama as its inaugural production.

Mommy Queerest Bindlestiff Studio, 185 Sixth St, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $15-25. Thurs/15-Sat/17, 8pm. Kat Evasco performs her autobiographical show about being the lesbian daughter of a lesbian mother.

Not Getting Any Younger Marsh San Francisco, Studio Theater, 1062 Valencia, SF; (415) 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $15-50. Thurs/15-Fri/16, 8pm; Sat/17, 8:30pm. Marga Gomez is back at the Marsh, a couple of too-brief decades after inaugurating the theater’s new stage with her first solo show — an apt setting, in other words, for the writer-performer’s latest monologue, a reflection on the inevitable process of aging for a Latina lesbian comedian and artist who still hangs at Starbucks and can’t be trusted with the details of her own Wikipedia entry. If the thought of someone as perennially irreverent, insouciant, and appealingly immature as Gomez makes you depressed, the show is, strangely enough, the best antidote. (Avila)

*On the Air Pier 29 on the Embarcadero (at Battery), SF; (415) 438-2668, love.zinzanni.org. $117 and up (includes dinner). Showtimes vary, through Dec 31. Teatro ZinZanni’s final production at its longtime nest on Pier 29 is a nostalgia-infused banquet of bits structured around an old-time radio variety show, featuring headliners Geoff Hoyle (Geezer) and blues singer Duffy Bishop. If you haven’t seen juggling on the radio, for instance, it’s pretty awesome, especially with a performer like Bernard Hazens, whose footing atop a precarious tower of tubes and cubes is already cringingly extraordinary. But all the performers are dependably first-rate, including Andrea Conway’s comic chandelier lunacy, aerialist and enchanting space alien Elena Gatilova’s gorgeous “circeaux” act, graceful hand-balancer Christopher Phi, class-act tapper Wayne Doba, and radio MC Mat Plendl’s raucously tweeny hula-hooping. Add some sultry blues numbers by raunchy belter Bishop, Hoyle’s masterful characterizations (including some wonderful shtick-within-a-shtick as one-liner maestro “Red Bottoms”), a few classic commercials, and a healthy dose of audience participation and you start to feel nicely satiated and ready for a good cigar. Smoothly helmed by ZinZanni creative director Norm Langill, On the Air signals off-the-air for the popular dinner circus — until it can secure a new patch of local real estate for its antique spiegeltent — so tune in while you may. (Avila)

*Period of Adjustment SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter, SF; (415) 677-9596, www.sfplayhouse.org. $20-50. Tues-Thurs, 7pm (also Dec 21-22, 2pm); Fri-Sat, 9pm (also Sat, 3pm; no show Dec 24). Through Jan 14. A nervous young man with an unaccountable tremor, George Haverstick (a compellingly manic Patrick Alparone) has waited until his honeymoon to finally call on his old Korean War buddy, Ralph (a stout but tender Johnny Moreno) — only to drop his new bride, Isabel (the terrifically quick and sympathetic MacKenzie Meehan), at the doorstep and hurry away. As it happens, Ralph’s wife of five years, Dorothea (an appealing Maggie Mason), has just quit him and taken their young son with her, turning the family Christmas tree and its uncollected gifts into a forlorn monument to a broken home — which, incidentally, has a tremor of its own, having been built atop a vast cavern. Tennessee Williams calls his 1960 play “a serious comedy,” which is about right, since although things end on a warm and cozy note, the painful crises of two couples and the lost natures of two veterans — buried alive in two suburbs each called “High Point” — are the stuff of real distress. SF Playhouse artistic director Bill English gets moving but clear-eyed, unsentimental performances from his strong cast — bolstered by Jean Forsman and Joe Madero as Dorothea’s parents—whose principals do measured justice to the complex sexual and psychological tensions woven throughout. If not one of Williams’s great plays, this is an engaging and surprisingly memorable one just the same, with the playwright’s distinctive blend of the metaphorical and concrete. As a rare snowfall blankets this Memphis Christmas Eve, 1958, something dark and brooding lingers in the storybook cheer. (Avila)

A Tale of Two Genres SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter, SF; (415) 869-5384, www.un-scripted.com. $10-20. Thurs-Sat and Dec 20-21, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm). Through Dec 21. Un-Scripted Theater Company presents an improvised musical inspired by Charles Dickens.

The Temperamentals New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; (415) 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Wed/14-Sat/17, 8pm; Sun/18, 2pm. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs Jon Marans’ drama about gay rights during the McCarthy era.

Three Sisters Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; (415) 255-8207, www.42ndstmoon.org. $20-50. Wed/14, 7pm; Thurs/15-Fri/16, 8pm; Sat/17, 6pm; Sun/18, 3pm. 42nd Street Moon performs Jerome Kern and Oscar Hammerstein II’s World War I-set musical.

Totem Grand Chapiteau, AT&T Park, Parking Lot A, 74 Mission Rock, SF; cirquedusoleil.com/totem. $58-248.50. Wed/14-Sat/17, 8pm (also Thurs/15-Sat/17, 4pm); Sun/18, 1 and 5pm. Cirque Du Soleil returns with its latest big-top production.

The Treasure of the Himawari Shrine: Another Mr. YooWho Adventure NOHspace, 2840 Mariposa, SF; 1-800-838-3006, www.brownpapertickets.com. $5-18. Fri/16-Sat/17, 7pm; Sun/18, 3pm. Master clown Moshe Cohen’s creation Mr. YooWho returns with a Japan-set adventure.

*Working for the Mouse Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $22. Thurs/15-Sat/17, 8pm. It might not come as a surprise to hear that even “the happiest place on earth” has a dark side, but hearing Trevor Allen describe it during this reprise of 2002’s Working for the Mouse will put a smile on your face as big as Mickey’s. With a burst of youthful energy, Allen bounds onto the tiny stage of Impact Theatre to confess his one-time aspiration to never grow up — a desire which made auditioning for the role of Peter Pan at Disneyland a sensible career move. But in order to break into the big time of “charactering,” one must pay some heavy, plush-covered dues. As Allen creeps up the costumed hierarchy one iconic cartoon figure at a time, he finds himself unwittingly enmeshed in a world full of backroom politics, union-busting, drug addled surfer dudes with peaches-and-cream complexions, sexual tension, showboating, job suspension, Make-A-Wish Foundation heartbreak, hash brownies, rabbit vomit, and accidental decapitation. Smoothly paced and astutely crafted, Mouse will either shatter your blissful ignorance or confirm your worst suspicions about the corporate Disney machine, but either way, it will probably make you treat any “Casual Seasonal Pageant Helpers” you see running around in their sweaty character suits with a whole lot more empathy. (Note: review from the show’s recent run at La Val’s Subterranean in Berkeley.) (Gluckstern)

Xanadu New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; (415) 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $25-45. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through Jan 15. New Conservatory Theatre Center performs the retro roller-skating musical.

BAY AREA

The Chalk Boy La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; www.impacttheatre.com. $12-20. Thurs/15-Sat/17, 8pm. Impact Theatre performs Joshua Conkel’s black comedy.

*The Glass Menagerie Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller, Mill Valley; www.marintheatre.org. $34-55. Wed/14, 7:30pm; Thurs/15-Sat/17, 8pm (also Sat/17, 2pm); Sun/18, 2 and 7pm. Marin Theatre Company marks the Tennessee Williams centennial year with a worthy production of the play that first made him a success on Broadway in 1945. Its pronounced modernism, poetic spirit, and latent sexual content contribute to a sense that it was ahead of its time, despite the embrace of contemporary audiences, and it still roils with the yearning and anguish of boxed-in lives — as well as the echo of another Depression’s larger discontents. MTC artistic director Jasson Minadakis places his sure cast on an appropriately abstract set, evoking the labyrinth of a poor St. Louis apartment building and enlivened by a living portrait of the long-gone, footloose family patriarch (soulful trumpeter Andrew Wilke, who underscores each shade of the play’s complex moods). As son and narrator Tom, immersed in wistful memories, actor Nicholas Pelczar is a wholly sympathetic pressure cooker of competing desires, frustrated potential, and precocious compassion — heated by the generous flames of an indomitable and domineering Southern mother (a terrific Sherman Fracher) and his damaged sister, Laura (a quietly intelligent and tremulous Anna Bullard). The action culminates with the arrival of the “gentleman caller” for Laura, the unwitting Jim O’Connor (a pitch-perfect Craig Marker), a workmate of Tom’s now somewhat deflated from former high school glory but a firm believer in Dale Carnegie-style self-improvement. This well-meaning all-American ass gives Laura what amounts to a single fleeting brush with happiness — a brush that coincides with his jostling of her titular table of fragile figurines and the neutering of her precious unicorn. It’s a tribute to the enduring power of the playwright — and a capable, engrossing production — that the overt metaphor is no impediment here, but an integral piece of a solid drama that reflects its poetic nature back like an achingly delicate, coruscating piece of glass. (Avila)

*God’s Plot Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; (510) 841-6500, www.shotgunplayers.org. $18-27. Thurs, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm (starting Dec 21, also runs Wed, 7pm). Through Jan 15. Playwright-director Mark Jackson excavates a bit of deep history for Occupy USA, an episode in the annals of colonial American theater and jurisprudence that played, and plays, like a rehearsal for a revolution — this time with music. Capping Shotgun Players’ 20th anniversary season of new work, God’s Plot comically animates and literally underscores (through song, and irresistible banjo and bass accompaniment courtesy of Josh Pollock and Travis Kindred) the story surrounding “Ye Bare and Ye Cubb,” a play performed in 1665 Virginia but now lost. The legal battle that engulfed this satire of the English crown and its economic and political domination of the colonies was an early instance of the close but little acknowledged relationship between art and politics in proto-American society, with much too of religious conflict in the mix (personified here by a powerfully smoldering John Mercer as closet-Quaker Edward Martin). The playwright, a brash self-inventor named William Darby (a sure, charismatic Carl Holvick-Thomas), colludes with a disgruntled merchant (Anthony Nemirovsky) and a former indentured servant climbing the social ladder as a new tenant hand (Will Hand). Darby, meanwhile, is secretly wooing — and even more, being wooed by — Tryal Pore (an ebullient, magnetic Juliana Lustenader), a young woman even braver and more outspoken than he. As an expression of her novel and unbridled spirit, Tryal alone breaks into song to express her feelings or observations. Her temperament is meanwhile a source of worry to her father (a comically deft Kevin Clarke) and mother (Fontana Butterfield), but also attracts an unwitting suitor (a compellingly serious Joe Salazar). The play’s overarching narrative of nationalist ferment, which reaches an overtly stirring pitch, thus comes mirrored by the tension in two dramatic triangles whose common point is the precocious, golden-throated Tryal Pore. More of the private drama might have served the overall balance of the play, but a good part of the achievement of director Jackson and his generally muscular cast is making a complex play of enduring ideas and conflicts look so effortless and fun. (Avila)

The Secret Garden TheatreWorks at Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield, Palo Alto; (650) 463-1960, www.theatreworks.org. $19-72. Tues-Wed, 7:30pm; Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm; Dec 24, shows at 1 and 6pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Dec 31. TheatreWorks performs the Tony Award-winning musical adaptation of Frances Hodgson Burnett’s novel.

The Soldier’s Tale Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; (510) 843-4822, www.auroratheatre.org. $10-55. Wed/14-Sat/17, 8pm; Sun/18, 2 and 7pm. It has all the hallmarks of greatness: puppetry, finely-honed chamber music, a noteworthy composer, a fresh translation, a prima ballerina, a note-worthy cast and crew, and an enviable collaboration with one of the consistently pitch-perfect directors in the Bay Area. Even so “The Soldier’s Tale,” at the Aurora Theatre, doesn’t quite feel like a fully-realized theatrical production, but rather an highly-ambitious workshop. The relatively straightforward storyline, narrated by L. Peter Callender—a soldier strikes an ill-fated Faustian bargain with the smooth-talking Devil, a gleefully wicked Joan Mankin—becomes bogged down in its staging, principally between the soldier, a four-foot tall puppet, and his mostly-puppeteer Muriel Maffre, a six-foot tall dancer. Not only does it become quickly apparent that Maffre’s puppeting skills, while earnest, don’t impart the vital spark of life into her shuffling charge, but she then abandons him to the stage crew halfway through the show in order to portray the ailing daughter of the king. Her short but sweet, balletic interpretation of the role is definitely the evening’s highlight, and while it is commendable for her to also choose to serve in the role of puppeteer, it doesn’t quite transport the imagination. However, the Stravinsky score, inventively performed by a quartet of Earplay ensemble players, directed by Mary Chun, does. (Gluckstern) *The Wild Bride Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $14.50-73. Tues, Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Thurs and Sat, 2pm; no matinee Thurs/15); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm; no matinee Jan 1). Through Jan 1. In the first act of Kneehigh Theatre’s The Wild Bride, the destinies of an innocent girl (Audrey Brisson), her moonshine-making father (Stuart Goodwin), and a predatory devil in a cheap suit (Stuart McLoughlin) become inextricably entwined by an ill-fated bargain. Steeped in European fairytale logic and American folk and blues music, Bride is inventively staged at the base of a giant tree, combining mime, puppetry, dance, live music, Cirque du Soleil-style vocals, acrobatics, and taut verse into a swooping, expressionistic fable. Accidentally promised to the devil by her doting but drink-dulled dad, “The Girl” suffers first the creepy indignity of being perved on by her preternatural suitor, and secondly the horror of having her hands chopped off by her own father, actions which drive her to flee into the woods, morphing into a character known only as “The Wild” (played by Patrycja Kujawska). After a stint as an unlikely, Edward Scissorhands-esque queen, The Wild too is driven from comfort and morphs a second time into a third character “The Woman” (Éva Magyar), an experience-toughened mother bear who kicks the devil’s ass (literally), and triumphs over adversity, without even uttering a single word. At turns dark, dexterous, fanciful, and fatal, Bride rises above the usual holiday fare with a timeless enchantment. (Gluckstern)

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh Berkeley, TheaterStage, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $8-50. Sun and Dec 26-30, 11am (no show Dec 25). Through Dec 31. Louis “The Amazing Bubble Man” Pearl returns with this kid-friendly, bubble-tastic comedy.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

“Cut the Crap! With Semi-Motivational Guru, Clam Lynch” Dark Room, 2263 Mission, SF; www.darkroomsf.com. Dec 16, 10:30pm; Jan 6, Jan 13, 8pm. $15. Get motivated with self-help-guru-satirizing comedian Clam Lynch.

“Ha Ha Ho Ho Holiday Show” Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, 3301 Lyon, SF; www.ticketmaster.com. Sat, 8pm. $40. Comedian Paula Poundstone performs.

“The Jewish Nutcracker, A Maccabee Celebration” ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; www.odcdance.org. Thurs-Sat, 2 and 6pm; Sun, 2pm. $15-25. World Dance Fusion presents its second annual production of the classic ballet, re-imagined with a Hanukkah twist.

“KMLZ Holidaze” Z Space, 450 Florida, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Sat, 7 and 10pm. $15-25. Sketch comedy troupe Killing My Lobster takes on the season.

Mark Foehringer Dance Project | SF Children’s Creativity Museum, 221 Fourth St, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Sat-Sun, 11am, 2pm, 4pm; Dec 20-23, 11am and 2pm. Through Dec 23. $20-35. The contemporary ballet company performs Mark Foehringer’s Nutcracker Sweets.

“Oy Vey in a Manger” Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness, SF; (415) 392-4400, www.cityboxoffice.com. Sat, 8pm. $28-39. “America’s Favorite Dragapella Beautyshop Quartet,” the Kinsey Sicks, perform a holiday musical.

“San Francisco One-Minute Play Festival” Thick House Theater, 1695 18th St, SF; www.playwrightsfoundation.org. Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. $20. Playwrights Foundation hosts this second annual fest of very, very short plays by 32 Bay Area authors.

Smuin Ballet Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.smuinballet.org. Wed/14-Sat/17 and Dec 20-23, 8pm (also Sat/17 and Dec 21, 2pm); Sun/18, 2 and 7pm; Dec 24, 2pm. $65. The company performs its acclaimed tribute to the holidays, The Christmas Ballet.

“Yes Sweet Can” Dance Mission Theater, 3316 24th St, SF; (415) 225-7281, www.sweetcanproductions.com. Fri/16-Sat/17 and Dec 30, 8pm (also Dec 30, 4pm); Sun/18, 6pm; Dec 27-29, 2:30 and 4:30pm; Dec 31-Jan 1, 2pm. $15-60. Sweet Can Productions presents an hourlong extravaganza of circus arts for the holidays.

The Balboa is here to stay — fundraiser tonight!

Sue Vaughan
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The Balboa is here to stay — fundraiser tonight!

With all the bad news in the world, the recent announcement that the Richmond District’s historic Balboa Theatre would be keeping its doors open — thanks to a partnership between the non-profit San Francisco Neighborhood Theater Foundation and the theater’s veteran operator, Gary Meyer — is cause for cinematic celebration. (Full release here.)

Under president Alfonso Felder, the SFNTF (which also owns the Vogue on Sacramento Street and oversees the “Film Night in the Park” series) will lease the Balboa through 2024 — taking the built-in-1926 landmark nearly to its 100th birthday. A fundraiser tonight offers the public a chance to step up and show support for this new partnership and help raise some dough for Balboa repairs and upgrades.

The event features a “Then and Now Presentation of San Francisco Theatres” (presumably, focusing more on the pre-multiplex days), plus an Oscar season preview (get a head start on your office pool!), and live and silent auctions, with items contributed by such local luminaries as the Film Noir Foundation‘s Eddie Muller. Some ticket levels include chances to “name” one of the brand-new seats in the auditorium and copies of Jack Tillmany’s Theatres of San Francisco, filled with historic photos of venues — some gone long ago, others shuttered only recently (remember the Coronet? Sigh). Fortunately, the Balboa looks set to thrive for years to come.

“Celebrating the Balboa Theatre: SFNTF Fundraiser”

Tues/13, 7-9 p.m., $35-$1000

Balboa Theatre

3630 Balboa, SF

www.sfntf.org

www.balboamovies.com

 

All will be revealed!

Sue Vaughan
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The art of storytelling took a hit the day Johannes Gutenberg began fucking around with moveable type (on or around Tuesday, 1450), but stoking a good story by firelight or halogen lamp hangs on as a cultural desideratum in places like Ireland or San Francisco. Arline Klatte and Beth Lisick figured that out a long time ago, of course, with their Porchlight series (nine years running and going strong). But “Previously Secret Information” has lately proved there is plenty more storytelling worth accommodating in this chatty town.
 
Produced by stalwart stand-up comic Joe Klocek and impresarios Bruce Pachtman and Ty Mckenzie, “PSI” slants toward the comic and happens on the odd Sunday at Stage Werx Theatre — including this Sun/11, oddly enough. The new installment features well-known pop music critic Joel Selvin, with consummate insider dish about Bill Graham back in the day; the Dursts (political satirist Will and partner in comedy Debi), recounting an understandably bizarre White House wedding they attended (I’m guessing probably not in the Bush years); and Sammy Obeid, a former UC Berkeley honor roll student turned stand-up comic (it must have been one of those funny majors), relating the story of how a teetotaler gets a DUI.

It’s already an impressive bill. But there’s more: Klocek joins the lineup with his own account of how “Barney the Dinosaur Got My Butt Kicked.” I don’t know if this tail tale can match Klocek’s last “PSI” offering — a near-death experience that changed the course of his life that was at times predictably hilarious, at times surprisingly moving, and always genuine — but I’d be keen to find out.
 
“Previously Secret Information (PSI)”
Sun/11, 7 p.m., $15
Stage Werx Theatre
446 Valencia, SF
www.stagewerx.org

Rep Clock

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

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $7. “Other Cinema:” Live A/V program with Michael Gendreau and Lisa Seitz and others, Sat, 8:30.

BALBOA 3630 Balboa, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $17.50-20. “Opera and Ballet at the Balboa Theatre:” Sleeping Beauty, performed by the Bolshoi Ballet, Wed, 7:30. Tosca, performed by the Royal Opera House, Sat-Sun, 10am.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $7.50-10. The Wayshower (John-Roger and Garcia, 2012), Wed, 7:30. Free preview with director and cast in person; for entry, email thewayshowermovie@gmail.com with full name and number of tickets requested. “Long Now Foundation: Seminars About Long-Term Thinking: “Rick Prelinger presents Lost Landscapes of San Francisco 6,” Thurs, 7:30. This event, $10; advance tickets at lostlandscapes.eventbrite.com. “Midnites for Maniacs: Home for the Holidays:” •Home Alone (Columbus, 1990), Fri, 7:30; Weird Science (Hughes, 1985), Fri, 9:45; Career Opportunities (Gordon, 1991), Fri, 11:45. •Saturday Night Fever (Badham, 1977), Sat, 2:20, 7, and Logan’s Run (Anderson, 1976), Sat, 4:35, 9:15. •Throne of Blood (Kurosawa, 1957), Sun, 1:30, 6:15, and Macbeth (Polanski, 1971), Sun, 3:35, 8:20.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.75-10.25. Eames: The Architect and the Painter (Cohn and Jersey, 2011), call for dates and times. The Artist (Hazanavicius, 2011), Dec 9-15, call for times. Golf in the Kingdom (Streitfeld, 2010), Dec 9-15, call for times. Sutro’s: The Palace at Land’s End (Wyrsch, 2011), Sun, 4:15. Filmmaker Tom Wyrsch in person.

JEWISH COMMUNITY CENTER OF THE EAST BAY 1414 Walnut, Berk; (510) 848-0237, www.brownpapertickets.com. $6-8. San Francisco Jewish Film Festival presents: The Matchmaker (Nesher, 2010), Thurs, 7:30.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Jeanne Moreau: Enduring Allure:” The Trial (Welles, 1962), Wed, 7; The Fire Within (Malle, 1964), Thurs, 7; Mademoiselle (Richardson, 1966), Sat, 6:30; The Bride Wore Black (Truffaut, 1968), Sat, 8:35; Chimes at Midnight (Welles, 1966), Sun, 3. “Southern (Dis)comfort: The American South in Cinema:” God’s Little Acre (Mann, 1958), Fri, 7; The Intruder (Corman, 1962), Fri, 9:10; Wise Blood (Huston, 1979), Sun, 5:15. Theater closed Dec 12-Jan 11.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $6.50-10. House of Boys (Schlim, 2010), Wed-Thurs, 7, 9:15. “Holidays with the Human Centipede!”: The Human Centipede (First Sequence) (Six, 2009), Fri, 7:30; The Human Centipede 2 (Six, 2011), Fri, 9:20. “2 Drunk 2 Die Hard:” Die Hard (McTiernan, 1988), Thurs, 7:30. “Southern (Dis)Comfort: The American South in Cinema:” Reflections in a Golden Eye (Huston, 1967), Sat, 2:45, 7; The Strange One (Garfein, 1957), Sat, 5, 9:15; Two Thousand Maniacs! (Lewis, 1964), Sun, 5:15, 9:15; God’s Little Acre (Mann, 1958), Sun, 2:45, 7; Moonrise (Borzage, 1948), Mon, 6:45; Swamp Water (Renoir, 1941), Mon, 8:30; Poor White Trash (Daniels, 1957), Tues, 6:15; Hurry Sundown (Preminger, 1967), Tues, 8.

SFFS | NEW PEOPLE CINEMA 1746 Post, SF; www.sffs.org. $12-15. “An Evening with Don Hertzfeldt,” Thurs, 7, 9:15. “The Dardy Family Home Movies By Stephen Sondheim By Erin Markey,” Fri-Sat, 8; Sun, 6.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-10. Louder Than a Bomb (Jacobs and Siskel, 2010), Thurs and Sat, 7:30; Sun, 2. “From Muppets to Metal: Music Movies:” Saxon: Heavy Metal Thunder — The Movie (Coolhead Productions, 2010), Fri, 7, 9:30.

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