Vortex Room

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

OPENING

*Buried Spanish director Rodrigo Cortés’ first English-language feature has one of the most deeply unsettling openings in recent memory: a pitch-black screen gradually soundtracked by the waking, disorientation, and frantic scratching made by Paul Conroy (Ryan Reynolds) as he realizes he’s been buried alive. A U.S. civilian contractor (the good, reconstructionist kind, not the gun-crazy, mercenary "security" type) in Iraq, he struggles to calm down as he uses a pocket lighter to view the coffin he’s trapped in. Finding a flashlight and cell phone, he soon receives a call from his kidnappers informing he has just 90 minutes of oxygen (and probably less time on the phone’s running-down battery) to raise a considerable ransom. Chris Sparling’s clever screenplay and Cortés’ surprisingly cinematic treatment (given the single location’s extreme claustrophobia) keep this potentially one-note real-world horror movie nail-bitingly tense throughout, while Reynolds runs a grueling emotive gamut with aplomb. (1:34) (Harvey)

*The Desert of Forbidden Art Uzbekistan probably hasn’t been at the top of your vacation wish list, but it might be after seeing this documentary by Tchavdar Georgiev and Amanda Pope — at least if you’re a modern art lover. It centers on the Nukus Museum, an extraordinary institution founded by the late Igor Savitsky, a frustrated painter who came here first from Moscow as an archaeologist, then became fascinated with the remote region’s ethnic folk artifacts. By 1966 official policy had turned from wiping out regional traditions and identities to embracing them, so he was given public funds to showcase his collection here. But unbeknownst to the bureaucrats back home (until it was too late), he’d already found a new passion, and was busy funneling his budget toward it: Finding and archiving a wealth of virtually unknown Soviet modern art that had been created without notice (often in hiding) since Stalin’s cultural watchdogs condemned the once-favored avant-garde movement of the 1920s in favor of sentimental, propagandic "Soviet realism." This stuff is the bomb — almost literally, since workaholic Savitsky finally died in 1984 of excess exposure to toxic restoration chemicals. There are poignant and colorful human stories here, but The Desert of Forbidden Art‘s exhilarating primary appeal lies in the fact that it features probably more eye-poppingly great visual art that you’ve never seen or known about before than quite possibly any documentary before it. You may well walk out with a question: so, are there cheap flights to Uzbekistan? (1:20) Four Star. (Harvey)

*Howl See "O Victory Forget Your Underwear" and "Franco’s Reign." (1:30) Elmwood, Smith Rafael.

Jack Goes Boating Not all miserable people are interesting — sometimes they’re just miserable and dull. Case in point: all of the characters in Jack Goes Boating, adapted by Robert Glaudini from his play. The titular Jack (Philip Seymour Hoffman, who also directs) is an awkward limo driver with filthy dreads and an anger management problem. He does his best to court equally awkward Connie (Amy Ryan), while his best friends Clyde (John Ortiz) and Lucy (Daphne Rubin-Vega) watch their marriage collapse, spectacularly. Given the talent involved, Jack Goes Boating might be mistaken for a better film than it is. There are moments, in fact, when it’s almost good. But the movie is unpleasant on every level — and not in an engaging way, like far better Noah Baumbach films about dysfunction. The romance is strained and unrelatable: you want Jack and Connie to make it work, if only so that the movie can end. (1:29) Embarcadero, Shattuck. (Peitzman)

Last Train Home In Lixin Fan’s documentary, a Chinese couple moves from their rural village to the city to find factory work, hoping to provide a better life for the young daughter they leave behind. (1:27) Shattuck.

Legend of the Guardians: The Owls of Ga’hoole In which owls enter the uncanny valley. (1:31) Presidio.

Never Let Me Go The time is not so long ago, and the atmosphere is of a rural England that resists change. So it takes a while for us to realize that this adaptation of Kazuo Ishiguro’s acclaimed book (by fellow novelist Alex Garland) takes place in an alternative recent past in which society has indeed changed in ways that are few, yet enormous. Raised at what appears to be a familiar if slightly peculiar English boarding school, the students of Hailsham are given limited but highly specific education preparing them for an adulthood of service. A short adulthood, that is, for they are clones grown from "originals," considered not quite human, their purpose being eventual willing harvest for organs by a populace whom medical science breakthroughs can now allow extraordinarily long lifespans. Placidly preparing for that future sacrifice are best friends Ruth (Keira Knightley), Tommy (Andrew Garfield), and Kathy (Carey Mulligan), the latter such a born accommodator that she doesn’t utter a peep of protest when Ruth grabs Tommy as her boyfriend — destroying all Kathy’s hopes and probably dimming Tommy’s somewhat as well. Directed by Mark Romanek (2002’s One Hour Photo), Never Let Me Go spans a couple of decades, but its aura of mournful melancholy never wavers. The results are well cast, handsomely outfitted (Rachel Portman contributes a plaintive string score), tasteful, and just a little bit more monotonous and less touching than you might hope. Not particularly plot-driven, this is a good film that’s also another illustration (like such recent examples as 2009’s The Road and 2008’s Revolutionary Road) of how sometimes no amount of intelligent effort can make a movie achieve everything that some literature can. (1:43) Embarcadero. (Harvey)

The Romantics Katie Holmes, Anna Paquin, Josh Duhamel, and assorted other pretty people star in this wedding-themed ensemble comedy. (1:35) Shattuck.

Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps Hold onto your wallets: greedy Gordon Gekko (Michael Douglas, reprising his Oscar-winning role) returns. (2:13) Cerrito, Elmwood, Four Star, Marina.

Whiz Kids "One of the bad things about all methods of dating," according to 17-year-old Harmain Khan, "is that if you want to date something, you have to destroy it." A rather advanced notion about relationships, if not for the fact that the teen is actually referring to using electron spin resonance to date fossilized crocodile teeth. Yeah. And yet, he’s the most oddly charismatic among the three nerds at center in Tom Shepard and Tina DiFeliciantonio’s Whiz Kids. Like 2002’s Spellbound, the doc follows quirky kids as they prepare for an important competition, in this case the Intel Science Talent Search. Though the film isn’t ground-breaking, the subjects amuse with their odd mixture of scientific maturity and age-appropriate social naiveté; there’s a lot to relate to, even if they’re hoping to get into Harvard and solve the environmental crisis, and you at that age were just hoping to make it to graduation. (1:22) Balboa. (Prendiville)

You Again Two generations of former high school rivals (Kristen Bell vs. Odette Yustman and Sigourney Weaver vs. Jamie Lee Curtis) do battle on the eve of a family wedding. (1:30) Elmwood, Presidio.

ONGOING

*The Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector Alternately slavish and critical, simultaneously buying into and subtly resisting the hype, The Agony and the Ecstasy of Phil Spector is a bit like the renowned producer himself, who said this to biographer Mick Brown in 2007’s Tearing Down the Wall of Sound: the Rise and Fall of Phil Spector: "I have a bipolar personality … I have devils inside that fight me. And I’m my own worst enemy … I would say I’m probably relatively insane." You can see why director Vikram Jayanti scored the interview with Spector at the center of Agony, since he gets on board the musicmaker’s bifurcated, multichannel tip. The doc is both fascinating and monotonous, respectful of Spector’s achievements as well as the sensation surrounding his blighted celebrity. The filmmaker stays away from the specifics of the night in 2003 when Lana Clarkson was found dead at Spector’s mansion, while recontextualizing the producer’s words and music with images culled from the murder trial and other footage. The end result is an innuendo-laden pastiche that resembles an echo chamber reverberating with all the doomed dramatics of "He Hit Me (It Felt Like a Kiss)." (1:42) Roxie, Smith Rafael. (Chun)

Alpha and Omega (1:28) 1000 Van Ness.

*The American George Clooney caught in a moodily paranoid, yet exquisitely photographed, ’70s-style suspense-arthouse death-trap? Belmondo and Beatty could empathize. Nonetheless, veteran rock photographer and Control (2007) director Anton Corbijn suffuses the chilly proceedings with a fresh, wintry beauty, the carefully balanced sense of highly charged tension and silky smoothness that a gunsmith would appreciate, and a resonance that feels personal. How else would an ex-rock shooter like Corbijn, who’s made iconic images of the Clash, U2, and others, connect with this tale of an assassin masquerading as a photographer, one who’s constantly glancing behind and around himself — justifiably wary of being caught in another killer’s sights — and seemingly just as wary of the director’s, and audience’s, gaze? A character who wouldn’t be out of place in a Camus novella or a Melville brooder, Jack/Edward, or more accurately "the American," (Clooney) is in exile after a bad collision with a girlfriend and hitmen in Sweden and hiding out in a picturesque Italian village, conspicuously the more-cold-than-cool outsider and doing one immaculate job for a gorgeous mysterious woman (Thekla Reuten). Is he a good or bad guy? The local priest (Paolo Bonacelli), who knows and sees all like a great eye in the sky, is trying to find out, as is the most beautiful prostitute in town (Violante Placido). The answers are nowhere near as clear or as plainly painted as a Sergio Leone Western, although Corbijn nods to the maestro when stone-cold killer Henry Fonda, then playing shockingly against type, appears on a cafe TV screen in Once Upon a Time in the West (1968). But the director’s care and attention to beauty — as well as the lines carved in the face of Clooney’s lean, mean-looking American, a whore like any other — say more than words. (1:43) Empire, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

*Animal Kingdom More renowned for its gold rush history and Victorian terrace homes than its criminal communities, Melbourne, Australia gets put on the same gritty map as Martin Scorsese’s ’70s-era New York City and Quentin Tarantino’s ’90s Los Angeles with the advent of director-writer David Michôd’s masterful debut feature. The metropolis’ sun-blasted suburban homes, wood-paneled bedrooms, and bleached-bone streets acquire a chilling, slowly building power, as Michôd follows the life and death of the Cody clan through the eyes of its newest member, an unformed, ungainly teenager nicknamed J (James Frecheville). When J’s mother ODs, he’s tossed into the twisted arms of her family: the Kewpie doll-faced, too-close-for-comfort matriarch Smurf (Jacki Weaver), dead-eyed armed robber Pope (Ben Mendelsohn), Pope’s best friend Baz (Joel Edgerton), volatile younger brother and dealer Craig (Sullivan Stapleton), and baby bro Darren (Luke Ford). Learning to hide his responses to the escalating insanity surrounding the Codys’ war against the police — and the rest of the world — and finding respite with his girlfriend, Nicky (Laura Wheelwright), J becomes the focus of a cop (Guy Pearce) determined to take the Codys down — and discovers he’s going to have use all his cunning to survive in the jungle called home. Stunning performances abound — from Frecheville, who beautifully hides a growing awareness behind his character’s monolithic passivity, to the adorably scarifying Weaver — in this carefully, brilliantly detailed crime-family drama bound to land at the top of aficionados’ favored lineups, right alongside 1972’s The Godfather and 1986’s At Close Range and cult raves 1970’s Bloody Mama and 1974’s Big Bad Mama. (2:02) Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

Bran Nue Dae An energetic screen translation of a 1990 Australian stage musical, Rachel Perkins’ film is tourist cliché spun into crowd-pleasing slop, like a Down Under Riverdance. Young Aboriginal Willie (Rockie McKenzie) escapes the "corrective" environ of a 1969 Perth Catholic boarding school and flees homeward, only to be pursued by mercilessly hammy Geoffrey Wright’s racist priest baddie. The crude humor, generic tunes, and hectically shot and dance-poor numbers have about as much to do with Aussie abo culture as The Lion King does with "Africa" — it’s prefab feel-good pap posing as multicultural representation. (1:28) Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

Cairo Time (1:29) Embarcadero, Shattuck, Smith Rafael.

Catfish Please do not reveal the secret to Catfish — relax, I’m not going to. What I will say is this: Catfish’s uber-secretive, Paranormal Activity-esque ad campaign is effective, but the film ultimately stands on its own merits. This is an intriguing, relatable documentary, and if the studio feels that they’ll sell more tickets by promoting it in a certain way, so be it. Without giving away too much, Catfish is the spontaneous documentary that arose when filmmakers Rel Schulman and Henry Joost began filming Rel’s brother, Nev. Like so many of us, Nev finds himself drawn to a person he’s never met — embarking on a relationship through Facebook photos and wall posts. Of course, as is so often the case with the internet, nothing is quite what it seems. Catfish has already found its critics, particularly those who insist the documentary is a fake. I believe it, but either way it’s an impressive achievement: the best film yet about social networking. (1:26) Metreon. (Peitzman)

Devil (1:20) 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck.

*Easy A Take the sex out of a teen sex comedy and hone in on the heard-it-yesterday info overload of the highly social-networked ’00s, and you get Easy A, a whip-smart striver looking to give a whole new definition to fast fiction. The brainy grandchild of 1930s screwball comedies and the knowing offspring of more recent spoofs of the Clearasil years like Clueless (1995) — with blood ties to the on-point pop of pater familias John Hughes — Easy A doesn’t quite aspire to the grainy, your-so-called-reality of YouTube auteurs, à la The Virginity Hit, though Bert V. Royal’s script is just as steeped in the culture of viral gossip and TMZ-writ-small, as well as the high-low literary and cinematic referents, that ’80s babies-and-up were succored on. Welcome to the postmodern mixed-up world of the girl who gets straight As, a marked contrast to all the bromancin’ going down in other parts of the cineplex: Olive Penderghast (Emma Stone) is curious enough to venture fully down the rabbit hole of bad-girl schoolyard celebrity after fabricating a story about losing her virginity. Despite the swelling disapproval of Marianne (Amanda Bynes) and her virginal Christian fundamentalist crew, Olive’s soon giving pity faux-fucks to all the misfits on campus in exchange for gift cards to big-box stores. Her hilariously staged tryst with classmate Brandon (Dan Byrd), who’s sick of getting beaten up every day because he’s gay, is up there with anything in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off (1986). And though Easy A often seems pitched more to adults, like Olive’s wise-cracking parents (Patricia Clarkson and Stanley Tucci), its entertainingly self-aware fiction is still likely to bridge generational divides as much as anything on Facebook. (1:30) Marina, 1000 Van Ness, Shattuck. (Chun)

Eat Pray Love The new film based on Elizabeth Gilbert’s chart-busting memoir, Eat Pray Love, benefits greatly from the lead performance by Julia Roberts, an actor who can draw from her own reserves of pathos when a project has none of its own. The adaptation, about a whiny American author farting around the globe in search of what amounts to spiritual room service, is nothing without her. The journey begins with the Type-A, book contract-inspired premise that Gilbert will travel to three appointed countries over the course of a year in order that, having thrice denied herself absolutely nothing, she might come out the other end a better-balanced human being. The first stop is Italy, where her entire plan is to finally unbutton her jeans and indulge in a celebrated cuisine, as if her home base of Manhattan were a culinary backwater. But this film is all about tired equivalencies, so Italy equals food, and expressive hand gestures, and "the art of doing nothing." India, her next stop, equals enlightenment (her discovery that the guru she’s come to see is currently at an ashram in New York is an irony lost on the movie). And Bali, her final getaway, apparently equals contradictory but flattering aphorisms and thematically hypocritical romances. The sole appeal to a moviegoer here is aspirational. What’s so embarrassing about Eat Pray Love is its insistence that this appeal sprouts from the spiritual quest itself, and not just from the privilege that enables Gilbert to have such an extravagant quest in the first place. But then, self-awareness is supposed to be a obstacle to enlightenment. She’s got nothing to worry about there. (2:30) Empire, 1000 Van Ness, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Jason Shamai)

Get Low Born from the true story of Felix Bush, an eccentric Tennessee hermit who invited the world to celebrate his funeral in advance of his own death, Get Low is a loose take on what might inspire a man to do a thing like that. It’s a small story, and unlikely to attract the attention of popcorn-addled viewers in the midst of the summer blockbuster season, but Get Low has a whopper of a character in Felix Bush. Robert Duvall becomes Bush, constructing a quiet man who sees it all and speaks only when he has something to say, and supporting roles from Sissy Spacek and Bill Murray are expectedly solid, but the real surprise is what a strong eye director Aaron Schnieder has. In allowing scenes to unfold on their own terms and in their own time, Schneider gives a real humanity to what could have been a Hallmark movie. (1:42) Four Star, Shattuck. (Galvin)

*The Girl Who Played With Fire Lisbeth Salander is cooler than you are. The heroine of Stieg Larsson’s bestselling book series is fierce, mysterious, and utterly captivating: in the movie adaptations, she’s perfectly realized by Noomi Rapace, who has the power to transform Lisbeth from literary hero to film icon. Rapace first impressed audiences in The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo (2009), a faithful adaptation of Larsson’s premiere novel, and she returns as Lisbeth in The Girl Who Played With Fire. The sequel, as is often the case, isn’t quite on par with the original, but it’s still a page-to-screen success. And while the first film spent equal time on journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist), The Girl Who Played With Fire is almost entirely Lisbeth’s story. Sure, there’s more to the movie than the hacker-turned-sleuth — and the actor who plays her — but she carries the film. Rapace is Lisbeth; Lisbeth is Rapace. I’d watch both in anything. (2:09) Four Star, Lumiere, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Peitzman)

Going the Distance If you live in San Francisco, don’t try to date someone in New York. It’s just not worth the hassle. But hey, maybe you’re as adorable as Drew Barrymore, and your boyfriend’s as charming as Justin Long — you can’t be expected to let a little geographical complication get in the way. That’s the driving force behind Going the Distance, a romcom that stars real-life couple Barrymore and Long as Erin and Garrett, two crazy kids trying to make it work cross-country. In many ways, the film is your standard boy-meets-girl story, but it’s cute enough that the predictability factor doesn’t really matter. The cast is universally strong, with bonus points to the standouts: It’s Always Sunny in Philadelphia‘s Charlie Day as Garrett’s embarrassing roommate, and Christina Applegate as Erin’s germaphobe sister. The humor is surprisingly sharp — and raunchy, which earned Going the Distance an R-rating. I’m not going to say Long’s bare ass is worth the price of admission, but it’s certainly a selling point. (1:43) 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Shattuck. (Peitzman)

*Heartbreaker French import Heartbreaker is a star-driven romantic comedy that underlines how lame and formulaic Hollywood’s current endeavors in that genre almost invariably are. Not that it isn’t formulaic — but you don’t feel nose-led by a committee of script-coarsening hacks, and the usual escapist lifestyle pleasures don’t come off as a product-placement parade. Alex (Romain Duris) is the star performer in a biz run with pragmatic sibling Mélanie (Julie Ferrier) and her genially vague husband Marc (François Damiens). They orchestrate breakups with maximum guile but also strict ethical rules ("We open their eyes, not their legs … We only step in if the woman is unhappy"), usually hired by families desperate to wean daughters from bad relationships. An amusing montage of Alex essaying various roles — window washer, sushi chef, redeemable criminal — establishes this is an enterprise both elaborately thought-out and costly. Indeed, Alex and Co. are in debt, thanks to his theatrical perfectionism. Ergo they’ve no choice but to violate rules and accept a lucrative new assignment whose target seems far from unhappy. There’s never any doubt where Heartbreaker is headed. Cocky Alex will fall hard, repent his professional Don Juan fakery, almost lose the game, then grovel sufficiently to pull a Graduate as scruffy charmer triumphs over dully respectable Mr. Right. What happens after the fade, when reality dawns? We probably don’t want to know. Yet Heartbreaker earns that suspension of disbelief, arriving at a unabashedly melodramatic climax just as romantically intoxicating as it aims to be. (1:44) Albany, Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

I’m Still Here This examination of Joaquin Phoenix’s self-imposed Hollywood exile is neither fascinating nor insightful. More like tedious and aggravating, really. Whether or not "JP" — as the erstwhile Oscar nominee refers to himself as he takes on a new persona as unwashed hip-hop artist — is faking his downward spiral is supposed to be the great attraction for Casey Affleck’s apparently vérité vehicle. But Phoenix is so (deliberately?) unlikable it’s hard to care one way or the other. If he is having a breakdown, conveniently captured on film from multiple angles, he’s still a spoiled, private jet-taking movie star moping about existential woes while living a privileged life (hotel suites, fawning personal assistants, etc.) If he’s faking it, it’s unclear what the point of I’m Still Here is supposed to be, other than a "fuck you" to the industry that made Phoenix rich and famous. Either way, ugh. (1:48) Lumiere. (Eddy)

Inception As my movie going companion pointed out, "Christopher Nolan must’ve shit a brick when he saw Shutter Island." In Nolan’s Inception, as in Shutter Island, Leonardo DiCaprio is a troubled soul trapped in a world of mind-fuckery, with a tragic-vengeful wife (here, Marion Cotillard) and even some long-lost kids looming in his thoughts at all times. But Inception, about a team of corporate spies who infiltrate dreams to steal information and implant ideas, owes just as much to The Matrix (1999), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), and probably a James Bond flick or two. Familiar though it may feel, at least Inception is based on a creative idea — how many movies, much less summer blockbusters, actually require viewer brain power? If its complex house-of-cards plot (dreams within dreams within dreams) can’t quite withstand nit-picking, its action sequences are confidently staged and expertly directed, including a standout sequence involving a zero-gravity fist fight and elevator ride. Though it’s hardly genius — and Leo-recycle aside — Inception is worth it, if you don’t mind your puzzle missing a few pieces. (2:30) 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

*The Kids Are All Right In many ways, The Kids Are All Right is a straightforward family dramedy: it’s about parents trying to do what’s best for their children and struggling to keep their relationship together. But it’s also a film in which Jules (Julianne Moore) goes down on Nic (Annette Bening) while they’re watching gay porn. Director Lisa Cholodenko (1998’s High Art) co-wrote the script (with Stuart Blumberg), and the film’s blend between mainstream and queer is part of what makes Kids such an important — not to mention enjoyable — film. Despite presenting issues that might be contentious to large portions of the country, the movie maintains an approachability that’s often lacking in queer cinema. Of course, being in the gay mecca of the Bay Area skews things significantly — most locals wouldn’t bat an eye at Kids, which has Nic and Jules’ children inviting their biological father ("the sperm donor," played by Mark Ruffalo) into their lives. But for those outside the liberal bubble, the idea of a nontraditional family might be more eye-opening. It’s not a message movie, but Kids may still change minds. And even if it doesn’t, the film is a success that works chiefly because it isn’t heavy-handed. It refuses to take itself too seriously. At its best, Kids is laugh-out-loud funny, handling the heaviest of issues with grace and humor. (1:47) Opera Plaza, Piedmont. (Peitzman)

*Machete Probably the first movie that was initially conceived solely as a fake-movie trailer (as part of Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez’s 2007 Grindhouse), Rodriguez’s Machete emerges in full-length form to take on everyone’s sky-high expectations. I mean, the trailer promised motorcycles soaring through flames, a gun-toting priest, and the line "You just fucked with the wrong Mexican." Fortunately, Machete the film does Machete the trailer proud; its deliberately silly revenge plot is both spot-on vintage homage and semi-serious commentary on America’s ongoing immigration debate. In addition, it features more severed limbs, gunshots to the head, irresponsible sex, and smirking Steven Seagal close-ups than any other movie in recent memory. Frequent Rodriguez supporting player Danny Trejo pretty much kills it as the title badass — but then, you already knew he would. (1:45) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Eddy)

*Mademoiselle Chambon Stéphane Brizé’s new Mademoiselle Chambon is a movie whose protagonists lunge toward each other — even though they shouldn’t, for their own sakes and everyone else’s. Grave-voiced, craggy-faced Jean (Vincent Lindon) is a construction-site laborer; Anne Marie (Aure Atika) his assembly-line worker wife; Jeremy (Arthur Le Hourerou) the eight-year-old offspring who’s already better educated than either of them. One day Anne Marie suffers a temporarily disabling factory accident, leaving Jean to pick up Jeremy from school. There, Jean first encounters Jeremy’s teacher, Véronique Chambon (Sandrine Kiberlain). She has the willowy body of a veteran ballet dancer and a naturally refined air — at least by his limited experiential standards. There’s an immediate if unadmitted spark between them, yet Mademoiselle Chambon doesn’t get cheap about it. None of these people are more than ordinary, kinda-attractive. As temptations and related tensions unravel their stability, Brize allows his characters to slip grip gracefully. No one behaves well, but they do behave credibly. Mademoiselle Chambon sees rational folk with well-organized lives stubbornly resisting a mutual pull whose logical outcome will surely suck for all concerned. It’s a fine, measured drama presented with typical Gallic insouciance — tenderly discreet even when conventional art and commerce shout for something more crudely dramatic. (1:41) Albany, Clay. (Harvey)

*Mao’s Last Dancer Based on the subject’s autobiography of the same name, this Australian-produced drama chronicles the real-life saga of Li Cunxin (played as child, teen, and adult by Huang Wen Bin, Chengwu Guo, and Chi Cao), who was plucked from his rural childhood village in 1972 to study far from home at the Beijing Dance Academy. He attracted notice from Houston Ballet artistic director Ben Stevenson (Bruce Greenwood) during a cultural-exchange visit, and was allowed to go abroad for a Texas summer residency. At first the film looks headed toward well-handled but slightly pat inspirational territory pitting bad China against good America, as it cuts between Li’s grueling training by (mostly) humorless Party ideologues, and his astonishment at the prosperity and freedom in a country he’d been programmed to believe was a capitalist hellhole of injustice and deprivation. (Though as a Chinese diplomat cautions, not untruthfully, he’s only been exposed to "the nice parts.") Swayed by love and other factors, Li created an international incident — tensely staged here — when he chose to defect rather than return home. But Jan Sardi’s script and reliable Aussie veteran Bruce Beresford’s direction refuse to settle for easy sentiment, despite a corny situation or two. Our hero’s new life
isn’t all dream-come-true, nor is his past renounced without serious consequence (a poignant Joan Chen essays his peasant mother). The generous ballet excerpts (only slightly marred by occasional slow-mo gimmickry) offer reward enough, but the film’s greatest achievement is its honestly earning the right to jerk a few tears. (1:57) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Harvey)

*Mesrine: Killer Instinct This first half of a two-part film about notorious French bank robber Jacques Mesrine examines the early life of its subject, before he was a flamboyant, headline-grabbing folk hero. The very first scene uses 70s-style split-screens to revel Mesrine’s violent 1979 death; writer-director Jean-François Richet (2005’s Assault on Precinct 13) then jumps back 15 or so years for a glimpse of our (anti-) hero’s soldiering days in Algeria. Before long, "Jacky" (an outstanding Vincent Cassel, in a César-winning performance) is back in Paris, horrifying his upper-class parents and young wife by choosing the underworld over conventional pencil-pushing. (A near-unrecognizable Gérard Depardieu appears as a mob boss.) Killer Instinct, which is adapted from Mesrine’s own prison-penned autobiography, suffers from some standard biopic problems — it tries to cram in too much, and feels mighty rushed at times. But there’s still plenty of bad, bad behavior to enjoy, including the film’s spectacular last act, a breakneck recreation of one of the daring prison escapes that helped make Mesrine a legend. Continuation Mesrine: Public Enemy No. 1, which beings where this film ends, is now playing. (1:53) Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

*Mesrine: Public Enemy No. 1 If you see writer-director Jean-François Richet’s Mesrine: Killer Instinct (review above), you’re pretty much obligated to see this sequel, especially since the earlier film beings with the main character’s death, then flashes back and never catches up to it. This installment was actually filmed first, allowing star Vincent Cassell to pack on nearly 50 pounds to play the oldier, portlier version of the legendary French bank robber. Mesrine’s prowess as an escape artist allows him to spend much of this film on the lam with partner François (Mathieu Amalric) and girlfriend Sylvia (Ludivine Sagnier). Along the way, the headline-hungry crook declares himself a revolutionary, poses for Paris Match, kidnaps a billionaire, spends his ill-gotten money on diamonds and BMWs, tortures a journalist, and does as much as he can to further the Myth of Mesrine. The foreknowledge of Mesrine’s ultimate end lends a sense of ticking-clock doom; the first time we see it, in Killer Instinct, it’s from the point of view of Mesrine and Sylvia. Richet films the death scene here from the perspective of the police who tracked him, with increasing frustration, for years. Clever twists like this make it preferable to watch both films back-to-back, though Cassell’s commanding performance makes each a worthwhile stand-alone. (2:14) Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

The Other Guys Will Ferrell and Adam McKay can do no wrong in some bro-medy aficionados’ eyes, but The Other Guys is no Talladega Nights: The Ballad of Ricky Bobby (2006) or Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy (2004). The other two Ferrell-McKay team-ups made short work of men’s jobs, in addition to genre filmmaking tropes, with crisper, cut-to-the-gag punchiness. And despite its laugh-out-loud first quarter — and some surprising TLC references by Michael Keaton, of all people, The Other Guys is about half a genuinely hilarious film that pokes fun at masculinity, as well as, interestingly, whiteness and beyond-the-pale, big-bucks white-collar crime. This lampoon of action buddy-cop flicks is dealt a semi-fatal blow when excess-loving, damage-dealing supercops Samuel Jackson and Dwayne Johnson exit, manically chewing scenery as they go. Two forgotten desktop jocks, forensic accounting investigator-with-a-past Allen (Ferrell) and ragaholic screwup Terry (Mark Wahlberg), must step it up when the dynamic duo dissipates, and go after crooked financier David Ershon (Steve Coogan). The second half of The Other Guys could have used some of the dramatic tension budding between buddy team Jackson-Johnson and reluctant cohorts Ferrell-Wahlberg, especially when Wahlberg begins to get bogged down in single-gear disbelief. But perhaps we should just be grateful for what few yuks we can glean from the atrocities of Great Recession-era robber barons. (1:47) 1000 Van Ness. (Chun)

Resident Evil: Afterlife (1:30) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center.

*Scott Pilgrim vs. The World For fans of Bryan Lee O’Malley’s just-completed comics saga Scott Pilgrim, the announcement that Edgar Wright (2004’s Shaun of the Dead, 2007’s Hot Fuzz) would direct a film version was utterly surreal. Geeks get promises like this all the time, all too often empty (Guillermo del Toro’s Hobbit, anyone?). But miraculously, Wright indeed spent the past five years crafting the winning Scott Pilgrim vs. the World. The film follows hapless Toronto 20-something Scott Pilgrim (Michael Cera), bassist for crappy band Sex Bob-omb, as he falls for delivery girl Ramona Flowers (Mary Elizabeth Winstead), only to find he must defeat her seven evil exes — like so many videogame bosses — before he can comfortably date her. As it happens, he’s already dating a high-schooler, Knives (Ellen Wong), who’s not coping well with Scott moving on. Cera plays a good feckless twerp; his performance isn’t groundbreaking, but it dodges the Cera-playing-his-precious-self phenomenon so many have lamented. The film’s ensemble cast maintains a sardonic tone, with excellent turns by Alison Pill, Aubrey Plaza, and newcomer Wong. Jason Schwartzman is perfectly cast as the ultimate evil ex-boyfriend — there’s really no one slimier, at least under 35.The film brilliantly cops the comics’ visual language, including snarky captions and onomatopoetic sound effects, reminiscent onscreen of 1960s TV Batman. Sometimes this tends toward sensory overload, but it’s all so stylistically distinctive and appropriate that excess is easily forgiven. (1:52) California, 1000 Van Ness. (Sam Stander)

*Sicilian Girl Spoiled daddy’s girl Rita Atria (Veronica D’Agostino) is traumatized at age 11 when her beloved papa is killed by Mafia associates. At 17, she’s pushed over the edge when an older brother meets the same fate. It’s then, in 1991,
that she breaks the omertà, or code of silence, by cooperating with judicial authorities, putting herself under severe witness-protection limitations while still at high assassination risk. This dramatized real-life story doesn’t offer cliché heroism: as portrayed by fireball D’Agostino, Rita is bratty, obstinate, not especially bright or pretty, her dedication more selfishly vengeful than concerned with the public good. She’s also a naive teenager susceptible to manipulation, especially by questionably motivated boyfriends. Yet she takes a stand and refuses to back down. The likely consequences of that courage make for a suspenseful drama director Marco Amenta ably steers to a conclusion both tragic and inspiring. (1:50) Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

Soul Kitchen Director Fatih Akin (2004’s Head-On) offers a tribute to the German Heimat ("homeland") film, as well as to his own hometown, Hamburg, with this gritty comedy set in a restaurant dubbed Soul Kitchen. Star Adam Bousdoukos, who co-wrote the script with Akin, really did own a similar greasy spoon, and his knowledge of what makes an eatery soar or fail is exaggerated here to humorous and occasionally surreal effect. Bousdoukos’ character, the scruffy Zinos, loves funk music; he’s also in an existential funk, having just seen his girlfriend move to Shanghai. What’s worse, he’s just injured his back, necessitating the hiring of snooty chef Shayn (Head-On‘s Birol Ünel); his ne’er-do-well brother (Moritz Bleibtreu) is freshly out of jail; and he owes big bucks to the local tax board. Also, an old childhood pal turned sleazy businessman (Wotan Wilke Möhring) is circling his property with sharky hunger. Will everything that can possibly go wrong, go wrong, with a side of ketchup and mayonnaise? Of course it will. Stylish direction and a game cast, including winning newcomer Anna Bederke as Zinos’ shot-gulping waitress, make Soul Kitchen a fun if non-essential diversion. (1:33) Opera Plaza. (Eddy)

*The Tillman Story To what extent is our government prepared to lie to us? Not just on a policy level, but a personal level, perverting actual instances of heroic self-sacrifice into propagandistic pablum? The answer during our prior White House administration was clearly: as far as possible, until caught. Perhaps the most egregious such instance was the case of Pat Tillman, who gave up a lucrative NFL contract, becoming a U.S. Army Ranger enlistee in a burst of genuine patriotic fervor post-9/11. He was subsequently killed in Afghanistan — but the "friendly fire" circumstances of that death, and its apparent cover-up, scandalized not only his military superiors but a command chain of deliberate disinformation stretching all the way to the White House. Amir Bar-Lev’s The Tillman Story is a documentary expose of unusual immediacy, narrative thrust, and outrage, which may partly stem from its being such a Bay Area story. The deceased subject’s South Bay family were diehard liberals dedicated to values that might be considered eccentric anywhere else. The mistake authorities made in casting Tillman’s death as a battlefield martyrdom — a scenario amply undermined by footage and testimony here — lay in underestimating the well-educated skepticism and doggedness of his blood relations, most notably mom, Mary. While other families might have simply accepted an official scenario, the Tillmans found logistical gaps, then pushed, and pushed. The Tillman Story is a journey toward justice (if not nearly enough). It’s engrossing, appalling, heartrending, and enraging, the nonfiction equivalent to last year’s underseen body bag drama The Messenger. (1:34) Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

The Town While not quite on par with The Departed (2006) or Gone Baby Gone (2007), The Town is a solid entry into the Boston crime drama genre. Ben Affleck directs — it’s his second full-length feature after Gone Baby Gone — and stars as Doug MacRay, a lifelong bank robber who wants out of the family business. His desire to change is further complicated when he falls for Claire (Rebecca Hall), the woman he and his gang took hostage during their latest robbery. The Town doesn’t offer much in the way of surprises: if you’re familiar with the genre, you know what to expect. But it’s sleek and well-paced, with a script that at least raises some thought-provoking questions. The film also boasts a universally accomplished cast. Affleck, Hall, and Academy Award nominee Jeremy Renner are predictably good, but the two standouts are actors better known for their television work: Mad Men‘s Jon Hamm as an FBI agent and Gossip Girl‘s Blake Lively (yes, really) as a drug-addled single mom.(2:10) California, Cerrito, Empire, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Peitzman)

*Undertow This sexy and delicate drama is a bisexual triangle that continues beyond the grave. In a Peruvian coastal hamlet, fisherman Miguel (Cristian Mercado) loves his pregnant wife and fellow church leader Mariela (Tatiana Astengo). But he’s also having a secret, passionate affair with Santiago (Manolo Cardona), an urbanite who moved there to paint the land- and seascapes, and who chafes at the restrictions Miguel places on their relationship. At a certain point one character dies, and writer-director Javier Fuentes-León seamlessly handles Undertow‘s transition to magical realism. The leisurely story doesn’t go where one expects, ending on a perfect grace note of bittersweet acceptance. (1:40) Bridge. (Harvey)

The Virginity Hit To its credit, The Virginity Hit is not what you’d expect. The trailer and concept recall the teen sex comedy trend that sprung up after 1999’s American Pie, but the actual film is a far more grounded in reality. It’s also not nearly as good. The Virginity Hit is a well executed mockumentary, in that it feels amateur even in its most absurd moments. The movie follows Matt (Matt Bennett) in his attempts to lose his virginity after a disastrous attempt with his girlfriend Nicole (Nicole Weaver). As you’ve probably guessed, hilarity ensues — and it ensues, for a YouTube generation, in the form of viral videos and crude parodies. The problem with The Virginity Hit is that it just isn’t funny: the tone is all over the place, and the bits that should be amusing fall flat. It’s interesting as an experiment and the cast is quite convincing, but the material never elevates the film past its gimmick. (1:26) Metreon. (Peitzman)

A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop An intriguing misfire on par with his 2006 OTT bodice-heaver Curse of the Golden Flower, A Woman, a Gun and a Noodle Shop sees filmmaker Zhang Yimou playfully dispensing with the serious rep cultivated by such films as Red Sorghum (1987) and Raise the Red Lantern (1981), movies that made Zhang a central figure amid Chinese film’s Fifth Generation. Deep into middle age, with crowd-pleasers like Hero (2002) and House of Flying Daggers (2004) behind him, Zhang appears fully committed to the low road of commercial entertainments — an approach completely in line with his country’s embrace of market-driven economics. But why remake the Coen brothers’ career-making 1984 noir tribute, Blood Simple? Zhang does little to refresh and improve on Coens’ noir retool, apart from drenching the proceedings in his homeland’s very dated, broad slapstick, including a jarringly out-of-place noodle-dough twirling scene, and setting some of the action on the glorious painted-desert mountainsides of the Gansu province. It’s as if Zhang has decided to send up himself — the film’s vivid palette and adulterous couple compares unfavorably with 1990’s Ju Dou — as well as with the brudders Coen. (1:35) Opera Plaza, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

REP PICKS

*Three in the Attic You can get a pretty good idea where much of America’s head was at in 1968 via this largely forgotten American International Pictures release, which was a huge sleeper hit. What did Joes Blow and College think about all this love, peace, freedom, and revolution stuff? That it was gonna be a lot easier to find and ball swinging chicks, hopefully. Ergo Steven Yafa’s screenplay, directed by spotty industry veteran Richard Wilson (who curiously never made another feature after this peak commercial success) was the perfect male fantasy for the times. Campus stud Paxton Quigley (Christopher Jones) is a love ’em and leave ’em type who surprisingly surrenders to monogamy — briefly — upon meeting flaxen-haired Tobey (Yvette Mimieux). But what’s a poor boy to do when girls are practically forcing him to be bad? Soon he’s scheduling regular secret assignations with schoolteacher Eulice (Judy Pace), who affects the corniest honey-dripping Southern accent you ever did hear, and hippie ditz Jan (Maggie Thrett), who says things like "Do you think it possible for a woman to be both Jewish and psychedelic at the same time?" (After posing as a homosexual to get a first sympathy shag from her, he snarks "I sometimes think that faggots make with with more chicks than I do!" Har.) When all three find out he’s been getting triple tail, they do the practical thing: Drug him, then imprison him in Tobey’s sorority attic, taking turns "punishing" our hero by fucking him to exhaustion, penance, or death. Needless to say, this was one notion of female empowerment that highly appealed to guys at the time, making them feel hip while basically feeding them ye olden insatiable-female orgiastic fantasy with a gloss of love beads and ironed hair. Awesomely dated, Three in the Attic takes itself more seriously than you’d expect, which does not mean it gets away with it. One thing that hasn’t dated, however, is Chad and Jeremy’s theme song "Paxton Quigley’s Had the Course." The cofeature on this Vortex Room bill is 1976’s lower-education horror Massacre at Central High. (1:30) Vortex Room (www.myspace.com/thevortexroom). (Harvey)