War

An extraordinarily good man

David Talbot
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Dick Meister, former labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor and politics for a half-century. Contact him through his Web site, www.dickmeister.com, which includes more than 250 of his recent columns.

It was 40 years ago this month that Walter Reuther died in a plane crash. Forty years. Yet the auto workers leader remains an important inspirational figure – a man whose life holds crucial lessons for those who are today seeking to revitalize the American labor movement.
 
I came upon him late in his career, and to me he seemed verbose, distant and a bit pompous: a do-gooder who didn’t smoke, didn’t drink, didn’t wench; who did only good things, and always in the artfully arranged glare of publicity.
 
He couldn’t possibly be as good as those who had known the man for a long time claimed him to be. But they were right. Walter Reuther was an extraordinarily good man.
 
He was truly the conscience of organized labor – a crusader struggling very, very hard against the stagnation he found in a movement he had helped found, lead, and, finally, had tried to reform.
 
Reuther was the conscience as well of a lot of people who never paid union dues in their lives. I mean those who saw him as the embodiment of their hopes to change this imperfect society in ways that would better the lives of those at the bottom of its social, economic and political ladder.
 
It was Reuther, as much as any union leader, who brought dignity and economic security to the mass of Americans, expanding the country’s major concerns beyond the elementary economic concerns that preoccupied most people in the years before World War II.
 
Reuther’s specific contributions were many. There was the central role he played in establishing the United Auto Workers Union, over which he eventually presided.  There was his role in forging together the country’s industrial unions and in leading them, as president of the Congress of Industrial Organization – the CIO – in struggles for broad economic and social causes.
 
There was Reuther’s exceptional success in negotiating better wages, hours and working conditions for the auto workers that were pace-setting marks for workers in all industries and all occupations.
 
And there were Reuther’s many efforts to shift the labor movement in new directions.  His last attempt, and surely his boldest, came in 1969 when he led the United Auto Workers out of the AFL-CIO and into an “Alliance for Labor Action” with the then-unaffiliated Teamsters Union.
 
Reuther hoped the alliance of the country’s two largest unions could begin carrying out the programs he had suggested repeatedly to the AFL-CIO, only to be rebuffed by the former American Federation of Labor leaders who dominated the federation.
 
The alliance planned organizing drives among white-collar workers and other groups, particularly in the South, that the AFL-CIO had been neglecting. But the new organization hoped to go beyond organizing the unorganized, as important as that was.
 
The goals of the alliance were nothing less than a summary of the great needs of the country: Helping build low-cost housing, for instance; developing new job training programs; unifying the poor and minority groups; vastly improving education and health services; effectively attacking racial discrimination, poverty,  consumer fraud, and the particular problems of the young and the aged, and attacking urban decay, pollution and other environmental problems.
 
The alliance never really got going before Reuther’s death and dissolved shortly afterward.  Some of Reuther’s fellow labor leaders had scoffed, in any case, that it was actually nothing more than an attempt by Reuther to satisfy the ambitions for broad union leadership he had been unable to realize within the AFL-CIO.
 
“Walter,” they would tell you, “is just being Walter – all talk and no action.”
 
Well, they were right about one thing at least. The man could talk. Others were accustomed to it, after three decades of Reuther-watching, But he was new to me, and I marveled to see him hold audiences of thousands for an hour and more while speaking without a single note – strictly off the top of his head – and doing so with great and forceful eloquence.
 
I especially remember a talk he gave in 1966, in a dilapidated little auditorium in Delano, California, where vineyard workers led by Cesar Chavez just a few months before had begun the strike that someday would capture the attention of the entire country.
 
I played the sophisticate and smiled knowingly over Reuther’s wordy and dramatic promises to the farm workers. But then came the terrible news, four years later, of a plane down in Michigan, and I thought back to that cold December day in the grape country.
 
I remembered what those words had meant to the penniless, obscure and powerless band of farm workers who had gathered in the auditorium. There he was, one of the great leaders of America, promising to “stand with you until the end.”
 
I may have been fooled, but the farm workers were not fooled.  They knew that Walter Reuther meant exactly what he said.  He always did.
 
Dick Meister, former labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor and politics for a half-century. Contact him through his website, www.dickmeister.com, which includes more than 250 of his recent columns.

The eyes of Skye Thorstenson

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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The eyes of Skye Thorstenson

arts@sfbg.com

VIDEO Birds chirp and branches part like curtains in the opening scene of the music video for Myles Cooper’s anthem “Gonna Find Boyfriends Today.” Suddenly the pristine wilderness scene is shattered and, along with pulsating beats, a big-lipped strawberry greets us with Mickey Mouse paws. A Cyclops-peanut runs across the screen and leads us to a stack of televisions; zooming into one we catch Cooper singing, “It doesn’t matter what you wear/It doesn’t matter if you have money/We’ll find guys to buy us drinks/And tell us that we’re young and funny.”

“I think Myles’ video tells it best, because it’s this kinda caffeinated euphoria,” explains Skye Thorstenson, the mastermind behind the wild imagery of the video. “It’s unrealistic and there’s a little melancholy imbued in it, because this is sooo not the way life really is. There are no cupcakes who are going to help you find boyfriends.”

WHAT? No, wait, hold up. But I thought … So the mountain topped with lollipops looking like Candyland isn’t real? Without realizing that he’s burst my bubble, Thorstenson continues, “But I like that. I like to hide the fact that life is boring. What the world needs is some more color.”

“I never imagined myself doing music videos. For Myles, it was all about the music,” Thorstenson explains. “I wanted to do some visual thing. I told him it won’t be a music video, but it might be like a short film.” In the course of the narrative, Cooper finds puppet lovers, a chorus of gassed angels, and becomes the man-in-the-moon. In the end, a vagina dentata resembling Aunt Charlie’s Lounge — a dive-bar at Turk and Taylor streets— literally eats itself. “I feel like an Aunt Charlie’s is always going to be there, and it’s always going to eat its predecessor,” Thorstenson says. “And there are always different nights there, and sometimes they survive and sometimes they don’t. But what Myles and Alexis [Penney, who cohosts the club night High Fantasy with Cooper] created will always be there, or some essence of it.”

Throughout Thorstenson’s repertoire, he constantly plays with the notion of a fragmented past and explores how essences persist into the present. He is currently filming an experimental documentary that he named after Roland Barthes’ S/Z. It’s an extension of his earlier film, called Gunk Land, which starts at Wisconsin’s Oneida Indian reservation where Thorstenson’s mother lives. “I wanted to do a documentary on my identity: who I am and where I come from,” he explains. Highlighting the ambiguous — possibly fake — moments of documentaries, as in Leni Riefenstahl’s Olympia, which glamorizes pre-World War II Germany, or The Thin Blue Line, which reenacts a murder scene, Thorstenson utilizes reenactments with different edits and different actors playing him to construct an ambiguous reality. “With S/Z, it’s going to be more how I imagined it and colored in some ideas based on what my mom told me about my past.”

As with “Gonna Find Boyfriends Today” and Gunk Land, S/Z finds Thorstenson working with a mess of “floating fragments” left over from a childhood spent watching PBS specials and Disney movies. Pieces of puppets, stereotypes or songs — “like the plastic floating in the middle of the ocean,” as he puts it — are smashed together. In the 1970 book S/Z, Barthes explores how narrative works and how we recollect memories. Instead of linearity, Thorstenson explains, memory offers “more of a pastiche of experiences and sensations that are pulled together to bring an experience.” This, he adds, is how authors often work: the reader fills in the gaps and links the situations together.

Thorstenson’s take on S/Z turns this idea into a visual experience. It will be released online in pieces that can be navigated like a Choose Your Own Adventure book, and a path through separating branches might reveal the same scene reenacted with different actors, or the same scene with alternative edits. In this way, varied connections and present-versions of Skye are constructed, based on how the past is perceived. “You’re meant to know it might’ve gone differently,” Thorstenson says, “and you can’t trust anything.”

Even the way Thorstenson speaks parallels this fragmented pattern, as he seamlessly jumps from one memory to another or from one project to the next. “The music inspired that video and we worked closely together for four months,” he explains about his work with Cooper. He also has done videos set to Xiu Xiu and Antony and the Johnsons’ songs, to local music-maker Adam Finken’s “Firebird,” and is about to undertake a movie-themed project for San Francisco electronic duo johnathan. In all of the music videos, there’s an interaction between the mood, beats, and lyrics of the music and the visual narrative. “With me, it’s more about improvisation, and something magical happens. I have no idea how it happens, but I don’t intend for people to react. I’m always surprised at how people react to something.”

In undergrad film school at the Academy of Art, Thorstenson was taught how to look at film from a business perspective — it has to look clean, polished, and intentional. Grad school at CCA, along with a filmmaking crew he befriended, dubbed Nightmare City, allowed Thorstenson to think more about process, forcing his aesthetic to evolve. “I decided I’ll show faux interpretations of my process because I was curious about what is actually real.” These are readily featured in his work and create meta-moments, which make the viewer aware. “So I’m playing with this fake façade, and the truth hidden behind all these bright colors,” he said. “It’s the same thing with Myles’ video. There’s something behind all that happiness.”

www.skyethorstenson.com

King Z

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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King Z

FILMMAKER INTERVIEW In the event of an actual zombie outbreak, legendary horror director George A. Romero would no doubt survive. For one thing, he stands an imposing six-feet, five inches, and happens to maintain an anti-zombie stronghold — er, getaway — in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, where he’d just been vacationing before the press tour for the sixth film in his "Dead" series, Survival of the Dead. Plus, Night of the Living Dead came out in 1968, meaning Romero has more than 40 years of experience wrangling the undead. I asked him about that, and more, on his recent visit to San Francisco.

SFBG Did you ever think in 1968 that you’d still be making zombie movies in 2010?

George A. Romero Never. And I never thought of it as a series — it was a film. I didn’t want to make another one, especially after [Night] got "discovered." I said, I really can’t do another one unless I have a strong idea. Ten years later, I knew the people who were developing the first indoor shopping mall that any of us had ever seen, near Pittsburgh. I went out to visit it before it was even open, and the trucks were bringing in all this stuff, and I said, "Jesus Christ, it’s like this Taj Mahal to consumerism" — and then I said, "Ok, this might serve."

Completely serendipitously, I got a call from [Italian horror filmmaker] Dario Argento, and he said, "George, please, you must make another." He flew me over to Rome, stuck me in a little apartment, and told me to write the script [for 1978’s Dawn of the Dead]. That’s when I first started to think, "Boy, I could have fun with this." I could express myself, express my politics a little bit, poke a finger at society, and bring the zombies out every once in a while. The first four [Dead movies] were more than 10 years or more apart from each other. And I liked the idea that they were snapshots of different decades, stylistically and everything else.

After Land of the Dead (2005) — which was the first sort of big one, and I’m not sure I should have studio’d it up, if you know what I mean — I wanted to do something about emerging media and citizen journalism, so I had this idea to go back to Night [for 2007’s Diary of the Dead], go back to the roots, do it real guerrilla-style. Just like with Night, I thought it would be a one-shot deal: "I’m gonna take this little sidebar now, and try to have fun while I’m at it." [The company that financed the film] gave me final cut, creative control — first time since the very early films that I made — and [since] I stayed within a certain budget range, even though it had a limited distribution, it wound up making a lot of money. That’s why [Survival of the Dead] is here.

SFBG Survival of the Dead spins off a minor character from Diary of the Dead. Did you have that story line in mind while you were making Diary?

GAM When [the financers] said, "Well, we made so much money, we gotta do it again," I said, "OK, what if we do it again, and it makes a lot of money? You’re gonna want to do it again. So why don’t we go in thinking of a plan? I could take these characters from Diary, I had ’em all picked out — we could make three films, and I know exactly where they’re gonna go. And I will interweave the stories and introduce plot elements that recur, and characters that meet each other again." Which is something I always wanted to do, but I couldn’t with the first four films because they’re all owned by different people. So I said, we’ll take a broader topic like war, enmities that don’t die, and do this sort of structured set piece. Small budget but bigger scope. Then I thought, well, let’s play around with style too. So I got the idea for doing it like a Western, which came from an old William Wyler film called The Big Country (1958) — it’s the same two old farts shooting at each other. The next one, if we do it, I’d love to do it noir.

SFBG The zombie attack is already underway when Survival begins. The human survivors are almost jaded by their presence — the undead take a back seat to the human conflict more often than not.

GAM Yes, in this film, more than any of the other ones that I’ve done. In a way, if you think of it, my stories are all about the humans, because the zombies could be almost any disaster — it’s just that zombies are more fun for me and for horror fans. But in this one, they’re almost just an annoyance, like mosquitoes. Also, except for Night and Diary, they’ve always started with the thing well underway. I think there’s also a horror tradition there, too — from the second Godzilla movie on, it’s, "Oh, it’s just Godzilla."

SFBG Zombies seem to be enjoying a particularly high pop culture profile these days. What do you think is the reason behind their neverending popularity?

GAM I think video games really popularized them. There’s only been one real blockbuster zombie film, Zombieland (2009), and that’s very recent. It started with Resident Evil, House of the Dead. Now there’s this huge thing, Left 4 Dead. Zombies are perfect targets for a first-person shooter — they’re like the coyotes of monsterland. It’s fun to see them eat a stick of dynamite. But zombie walks — I’ve had my voice piped into Budapest for a zombie walk. What? Thousands of people coming out and doing this. It’s sort of a happening — go out and get drunk. It’s cheap costuming — smear up your clothes, slap some goop on your face, and go stumbling out. Even if you’re drunk, you can still stumble.

SFBG Do you watch the new zombie movies, like Zombieland?

GAM I don’t like them very much. As I said, I think it all started with video games — they have to move fast in video games to make the game fun. So filmmakers like Zack [Snyder], when he did the remake of Dawn of the Dead (2004), made the zombies run. I thought that was crazy. That whole evolution seems to have just warped it. To me, zombies should be like my guys, kind of stupidly stumbling along, and only have power in numbers or when people make mistakes.

SFBG Final question. Do you ever get tired of talking about zombies?

GAM [Laughs] Yeah! *

SURVIVAL OF THE DEAD opens Fri/28 in Bay Area theaters.

Our Weekly Picks

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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WEDNESDAY 26

MUSIC

Ramona Falls

They say taking time off can be good for the soul, but when Brent Knopf faced down-time from recording as one-third of Portland, Ore., band Menomena, he couldn’t unplug. Though it’s hard to call it a solo record when Intuit boasts more than 35 collaborators, Ramona Falls follows the tradition of Knopf’s day band, forming dense electronic atmospheres from piano and pairing them with energetic drum work. Here, Knopf’s vocals shine as the truest instrument. His voice sounds like a whisper even at its most expressive. It’s a life raft to cling to while more of the nebulous Intuit opens with each new listen. (Peter Galvin)

With The National

8:00 p.m. (also Thurs/27), $30

Fox Theatre

1807 Telegraph, Oakl.

1 (800) 745-3000

www.thefoxoakland.com

 

THURSDAY 27

COMEDY

Craig Robinson

Name a humorous TV show from the past five years, and chances are Craig Robinson made an appearance. Bit parts on Curb Your Enthusiasm, Friends, and The Bernie Mac Show led to his star-making role on The Office as Darryl, the warehouse manager who is constantly embattled by Steve Carell’s harangues and half-baked schemes. Something about Robinson’s dry wit and level gaze tempts us to throw in our lot with him in every comedic circumstance. And now? Big screen, baby — Knocked Up, Hot Tub Time Machine, Shrek 4. Come see him get down with his original gig — stand up. (Caitlin Donohue)

8 p.m. (through Sun/30; also Fri.–Sat., 10:15 p.m.), $23.50–$25.50

Cobb’s Comedy Club

915 Columbus, SF

(415) 928-4320

www.cobbscomedyclub.com

MUSIC

San Francisco Popfest 2010: Eux Autres

Popfest is back, and it’s time to celebrate with of SF’s best pop bands, Eux Autres, who are wise enough to worship Françoise Hardy. As they succinctly put it: “Most of [our] songs are about (a) military history (b) being ‘done wrong’ or (c) sports.” For this week’s video issue, in the Noise blog I talk with guitarist-vocalist Nicholas Larimer about five of his fave YouTube clips from the ’70s TV pop music motherlode Midnight Special. (Johnny Ray Huston)

With tUnE-yArDs, Social Studies, Knight School

8 p.m., $10–$12

Rickshaw Stop

155 Fell, SF

(415) 861-2011

www.rickshawstop.com

PERFORMANCE/VISUAL ART

“Making Visible”

At a dance recital, the audience can only see so much. Beholding the coiffed hair, makeup, and costumes, it’s hard to imagine what goes on behind the scenes. But inside a dance studio, the creative process comes alive. Within countless hours of rehearsals, despite the blisters and sore joints, something alluring gradually begins to form. The Marina Abramovic Institute West offers a unique chance to witness how a recital comes together. Their series of performances are live rehearsals in which dancers learn the choreography onstage. (Elise-Marie Brown)

4:30 p.m. (through June 13), free

Marina Abramovic Institute West

575 Sutter, SF

www.marinaabramovicinstitute.org

SATURDAY 29

CLUBS/MUSIC

Surya Dub Three-Year Anniversary

It’s been a while since they blew our woofers on the regular, but our ambassadors of dread bass have been busy spreading the gospel of global dubstep to farther shores. Lucky for our feet, the Surya Dub crew are roaring back to Club Six to celebrate their third year with excellent special guest urban-electro blaster from Montreal, Ghislain Poirier (now just “Poirier”). Maneesh the Twister, Kush Arora, Kid Kameleon, Ripley, DJ Amar, J.Rogers, and Jimmy Love gird the boom with subcontinental vibes, stirring bhangra, ragga, and other worldly sounds into the low, low, low. Expect eclecticism, receive rad riddims. (Marke B.)

10 p.m.–3 a.m., $10

Club Six

66 Sixth St., SF

www.suryadub.com

MUSIC

El Radio Fantastique, Shovelman

Let us tip our hats to the newest venue along the Valencia corridor, Viracocha. It’s a wood-paneled treasure trove of for-sale antiquity. At night, the place is transformed into an atmospheric community space, a venue for word, thought, and lovely live music — like that of El Radio Fantastique, whose peculiar blend of musical theater seems straight from someone’s front porch in the Louisiana bayou. Which, come to think of it, matches the vibe at Viracocha nicely. Shovelman, a.k.a. Isaac Frankle, takes over the upstairs stage for the night. Expect to hear folksy stomp music. (Donohue)

7:45 p.m.–11 p.m., donations accepted

Viracocha

998 Valencia, SF

(415) 374-7048

www.viracochasf.blogspot.com

MUSIC

Frog Eyes

He can’t get no respect! Though the epic compositions of Frog Eyes rival those of contemporary pals Spencer Krug and Dan Bejar, as reflected by the trio’s work together in Swan Lake, Carey Mercer’s full-time band is consistently shunted to the background. Mercer can howl and he has an antiquated cadence to his voice that makes Paul’s Tomb: A Triumph sound like it belongs in another century. He’s never been in a Wolf Parade or joined the New Pornographers, but those of you who turned up Sunset Rubdown might be surprised by how much you like Frog Eyes. (Galvin)

With Mt. St. Helens Vietnam Band and Dominique Leone

9:30 p.m., $10

Hemlock Tavern

1131 Polk, SF

(415) 923-0923

www.hemlocktavern.com

DANCE

Scott Wells & Dancers: Ballistic

Did you fall in love last year with Scott Wells’ two jugglers? Apparently Wells’ dancers did as well. For Ballistic, all seven engage in elegant athleticism. Not that athleticism is new in Wells’ repertoire. Wild chaos and meticulous order — with and without projectiles — always share the game. It all looks like child’s play, but isn’t, except for an uncanny ability to be totally present in the moment. Contact improvisation — the movement genre Wells has fundamentally influenced — is often more fun to do than to watch. Not with Wells. He is a consummate man of the theater. Jin-Wen Yu Dance shares the program on the first two weekends. (Rita Felciano)

8 p.m. (through June 19)

CounterPULSE

1310 Mission, SF

brownpapertickets.com

www.scottwellsdance.com

MUSIC

Simian Mobile Disco DJ Set

With school out and summer swinging into high gear, lazy days that consist of sleeping in and drinking in the park are here. If you have a day job like me and need to pay the bills, you can free your soul at night with an epic dance party. Simian Mobile Disco has heard my call. Dress to dance and get ready to sweat. (Brown)

With Tenderlions, Ryan Poulsen

9 p.m., $15

Mezzanine

444 Jessie, SF

(415) 625-8880

www.mezzaninesf.com

MUSIC

Ab Soto

Queer hip-hop — are we done with it yet? Nope, but this time we’re laying off the “Isn’t this groundbreaking?” tiredness and having fun. The recent crop of homo-hoppers like Cazwell and local hottie Kid Akimbo are doing it cute and naturally. Enter Hollywood’s Ab Soto, whose neon-bright hotness, scruffy hipster looks, and fierce-ruling SpongeBob muumuus are more about giving you banjee boy wet dreams than making political statements. He’ll be throwing down live at the circus-crazy Big Top party. Please keep him away from my boyfriend. (Marke B.)

9 p.m.–3 a.m., $10.

Club Eight

1551 Folsom, SF.

www.eightsf.com

SUNDAY 30

EVENT

San Francisco Carnaval: “Colors Of Sound, Splashes Of Culture”

Carnaval isn’t just a festival where people drink and eat to their heart’s content. In San Francisco, we focus on Latin American and Caribbean cultures through dance and music. Of course, food is on the menu. The all-day event includes salsa and samba lessons, games, breakdancing, ecofriendly exhibits, and even a health screening center. This time, Sunday is the right day for indulgence. (Brown)

9:30 a.m., free

Bryant and 24th St., SF

(415) 642-1748

www.sfcarnaval.com

MUSIC

Kurt Elling with the Count Basie Orchestra

Kurt Elling has won Down Beat and JazzTimes critics’ polls three years in a row for best male singer. Most recently, he won his first Grammy for best jazz vocal album. Tonight he’s backed by the Count Basie Orchestra, the most prominent big band of the past 60 years. The band has accompanied Ella Fitzgerald, Ray Charles, and Frank Sinatra, and continues to support the great jazz singers of our time. As part of the SF Jazz Spring Series, Elling and the Basie Orchestra perform some of the original Basie/Sinatra charts arranged by the legendary Quincy Jones. The Basie Orchestra opens the night with classic repertoire. (Lilan Kane)

7 p.m., $25

Davies Symphony Hall

201 Van Ness, SF

(415) 864-6000

www.sfjazz.org

MUSIC

KBLX Stone Soul Concert

Wrap up your Memorial Day weekend with some soul and sunshine. A longtime Bay Area source for the soul music, KBLX has booked a solid lineup of some of smooth voices. This year’s artists include Charlie Wilson; New Edition members Bobby Brown, Johnny Gill, and Ralph Tresvant; Minnesota’s Mint Condition, and none other than Mr. Biggs himself, Ronald Isley. This concert serves up favorite jams spanning from the 1970s to the present. (Kane)

Noon, $45

Sleep Train Pavilion

2000 Kirker Pass, Concord

(925) 676-8742

www.kblx.com

www.livenation.com

MONDAY 31

MUSIC

Dark Tranquillity

It’s easy to lump them in with the rest of the ’90s Gothenburg death metal scene, but that sort of careless taxonomy is unfair to a band like Dark Tranquillity. The Swedish sextet have carved out a niche of their own on the strength of their anthemic, atmospheric melodicism, having weathered the storms that afflicted fellow travelers In Flames and Soilwork with dignity and grace. Though the music features the kind of keyboard and electronic textures that tend to alienate bread-and-butter death metal fans, these flourishes fit seamlessly into the band’s dystopian, space-age aesthetic, reinforcing the punishing grooves and soaring melodies. (Ben Richardson)

With Threat Signal, Mutiny Within

8 p.m., $18

Slim’s

333 11th St., SF

(415) 255-0333

www.slims-sf.com

MUSIC

The Very Best

A collaboration between Malawian vocalist Esau Mwamwaya and London production duo Radioclit, the Very Best offers vocals in Chichewa over dance beats that translate to fun in any language. Fun is the chief goal of the duo, who rose to blog fame in 2008 with Malawian remixes of Vampire Weekend and M.I.A. If you need proof that smiles are contagious, singer Esau Mwamwaya has a grin that is promptly reflected on the frowniest of show-goers. Trust me, it’s undeniable. (Galvin)

With Disco Shawn

8:00 p.m., $18 (21 and over)

The Independent

628 Divisadero, SF

(415) 771-1421

www.theindependentsf.com

TUESDAY 1

COMEDY/PERFORMANCE

Cloris Leachman

At 84, actress Cloris Leachman shows no sign of slowing down. From her first major film role in the noir classic Kiss Me Deadly, to her portrayal of Ruth Popper in The Last Picture Show (which won her an Oscar for best supporting actress), to her hilarious turn as Frau Blucher in Young Frankenstein, Leachman has memorably seized the big screen. The nine-time Emmy Award winner made her mark on The Mary Tyler Moore Show and Phyllis and keeps on keeping on with recent stints on Malcolm In The Middle and Dancing With The Stars. This six-night run of her one-woman stage show takes audiences on a trip through moments from her extraordinary life. (McCourt)

8 p.m. (through June 6), $40–$45

Rrazz Room

222 Mason, SF

www.therrazzroom.com

MUSIC

Gates of Slumber

The Indianapolis warriors in Gates of Slumber play an arresting offshoot of doom metal, a NWOBHM-inflected rumble that sounds like Cirith Ungol fighting St. Vitus to the death. Singer Karl Simon is built like a barbarian but sings like a dying druid, all reverb and haunting, ethereal resonance, and his band is well-built to underscore his epic tales of war and bloodshed. If there were a way to resurrect Frank Frazetta with the power of down-tuned guitars and thunderous drumming, these guys would have figured it out by now. Unfortunately, all we can do is mourn and bang our heads. (Richardson)

With Black Cobra, Slough Feg, Salvador

8 p.m., $10

Thee Parkside

1600 17th St., SF

(415) 252-1330

www.theeparkside.com

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Stage Listings

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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0

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

THEATER

OPENING

“Something C.O.O.L.: The Summer Cabaret Festival” Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson; www.brownpapertickets.com. Free-$10. Opens Mon/31, 7:30pm. Runs Mon-Tues, 7:30pm; Wed, 8pm. Through June 27. Cabaret singer Carly Ozard presents six diverse showcases (Mon-Tues nights) and hosts open mics (Wed nights) with professional performers.

BAY AREA

“Fireworks Festival” Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Thrust Stage, 2025 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $25-35. June 1-July 3, showtimes vary. This performance festival includes work by John Leguizamo, David Sedaris (whose show is already sold out), Dan Hoyle, and Wes “Scoop” Nisker.

1001 Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant, Berk; (510) 488-4116, www.justtheater.org. $15-30. Previews Fri/28-Sat/29, 8pm. Opens Mon/31, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm (no show June 6). Through June 20. Just Theater performs Jason Groete’s Arabian Nights-inspired tale of post-9/11 life.

Woody Guthrie’s American Song Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller, Mill Valley; (415) 388-5208, www.marintheatre.org. $34-54. Previews Thurs/27-Sat/29, 8pm; Sun/30, 2 and 7pm. Opens June 1, 8pm. Runs Tues, Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also June 10, 1pm; June 5 and 20, 2pm); Wed, 7:30pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Marin Theatre Company presents Peter Glazer’s musical based on the life and times of the legendary songwriter.

ONGOING

Andy Warhol: Good For the Jews? Jewish Theatre, 470 Florida; 292-1233, www.tjt-sf.org. $15-45. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through June 20. Renowned monologist Josh Kornbluth is ready to admit his niche is a narrow one: he talks about himself, and more than that, he talks about his relationship to his beloved late father, the larger-than-life old-guard communist of Kornbluth’s breakthrough Red Diaper Baby. So it will not be surprising that in his current (and still evolving) work, created with director David Dower, the performer-playwright’s attempt to “enter” Warhol’s controversial ten portraits of famous 20th-century Jews (neatly illuminated at the back of the stage) stirs up memories of his father, along with a close family friend — an erudite bachelor and closeted homosexual who impressed the boyhood Josh with bedtime stories culled from his dissertation. The scenes in which Kornbluth recreates these childhood memories are among the show’s most effective, although throughout the narrative Kornbluth, never more confident in his capacities, remains a knowing charmer. (Avila)

The Apotheosis of Pig Husbandry SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter; www.sfplayhouse.org. $20-30. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through June 12. SF Playhouse presents the world premiere of William Bivins’ new play, set at the sleazy Lazy Eight Motel, as part of its stripped-down Sandbox Series.

Bone to Pick and Diadem Cutting Ball Theater, Exit on Taylor, 277 Taylor; 1-800-838-3006, www.cuttingball.com. $15-30. Opens Thurs/27, 8pm (gala opening Fri/28, 8pm). Runs Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through June 20. Cutting Ball Theater closes its tenth season with a pair of plays by Eugenie Chan.

Boys Will Be Boys New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness; 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $22-40. Wed-Sat, 8pm; June 6, 23, and 20, 2pm. Through June 26. What happens when you realize you have Gay Attention Deficit Disorder? This comedic musical aims to find out.

The Breath of Life NohSpace, 2840 Mariposa; www.brownpapertickets.com. $25. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through June 6. Spare Stage Productions performs David Hare’s drama about a wife and mistress dumped by the same man.

Company Fat Exit Stage Left, 156 Eddy; www.brownpapertickets.com. $20-25. Thurs/27-Sat/29, 8pm. Exit Theatre and Pumpjam Productions perform Bill Levesque’s darkly comic play, set in the Depression-era South.

Eat, Pray, Laugh! Off-Market Theaters, 965 Mission; www.brownpapertickets.com. $20. Wed/26, 8pm. Off-Market Theaters presents stand up comic and solo artist Alicia Dattner in her award-winning solo show.

Echo’s Reach Brava Theater Center, 2781 24th St; 665-2275, www.citycircus.org. $14-35. Fri/28-Sat/29, 8pm (also Sat/29, 4pm); Sun/30, 4pm. City Circus premieres an urban fairytale by Tim Barsky.

*Fishing Shotwell Studios, 3252 19th St; www.fishingtheplay.com. $25. Fri/28-Sat/29, 8pm. David J. Duman’s piquant and entirely palatable satire of San Francisco foodie culture gets a knowing, deceptively casual staging from savvy newcomers OpenTab Productions in association with Footloose. The story, divided scene-wise into a series of short comic morsels, unfolds in a rising seafood restaurant with a recently branded three-star rating, run by an unusually talented but haplessly oafish chef (Matt Ingle) and his bright but bored manager (Laurie Burke) with her eye on getting the hell out of the restaurant world. (Good luck.) They soon begin a semi-torrid affair — much to the suspicion of their prurient young wait staff, comprised of a bright, gay know-it-all waiter (Ben Euphant) and a coarse, cutie bartender sans scruple (Carla Pauli). Other regular occupants include a fussy, sexually frustrated couple (Molly Gazay and Alex Plant) cocky-proud of their entirely sublimated, half-assed knowledge of food and wine. Director Mark Drumm keeps the pace swimming and the performances are uniformly crisp and captivating in this truth-filled night of “dinner” theater served up on a bed of filthy innuendo and rampant promiscuity. (Avila)

Giant Bones Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy; (650) 728-8098, www.brownpapertickets.com. $15-50. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through June 19. Fantasy author Peter S. Beagle (The Last Unicorn) penned the source material for Stuart Bousel’s world-premiere play.

*Hot Greeks Hypnodrome Theatre, 575 Tenth St; 1-800-838-3006, www.thrillpeddlers.com. $30-69. Thurs, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through June 27. On the principle that when you’ve got it you should really flaunt it, San Francisco’s Thrillpeddlers essay their second revival of a musical by the storied Cockettes. Hot Greeks, which premiered in midnight performances at the old Palace Theater in 1972, was the gleefully crazed cross-dressing troupe’s only other fully scripted musical besides, of course, Pearls Over Shanghai.

While not the Oresteia or anything, Hot Greeks is more than an excuse for a lot of louche, libidinous hilarity. Okay, not much more. But it is a knowing little romp — supported by some infectious songs courtesy of Martin Worman and Richard “Scrumbly” Koldewyn — wedding trashy high school romance with the trashy ancient Greece of Aristophanes and the Peloponnesian War. (Avila)

*How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Lost My Virginity SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter; www.sfplayhouse.org. $20. Sun, 7pm. Through June 27. A natural born charmer and a comedic actor with hard-won training behind her, Aileen Clark wins over an audience within about ten seconds. But her stories (co-scripted by John Caldon and ably directed by Claire Rice) turn out to be just as solid: all of them loving, irreverent, and unfailingly hilarious autobiographical accounts of coming of age across three cultures. Born to a Nicaraguan mother and a Scottish father and raised principally in Brazil, Managua and San Francisco, Clark’s perfectly pitched monologue comes liberally spiced with Spanish and Portuguese, sweetened by an affecting but never maudlin honesty, and stirred with a feisty humor clearly a lifetime in the making. As well paced and energetic as this Guerilla Rep and Ann Marie co-production is, it could probably be tightened further by shaving some 10 minutes off the 90-minute run time. Nonetheless, you are not likely to regret a minute of this frank and funny, wise and sassy visit to Aileen’s world. (Avila)

Marga Gomez is Proud and Bothered New Conservatory Theater Center, 25 Van Ness; 861-6988, www.nctcsf.org. $18-40. Thurs-Sat, 8pm (no show June 25); Sun, 2pm. Through June 26. Gomez performs her GLAAD Media award-winning comedy.

*Pearls Over Shanghai Hypnodrome, 575 Tenth St.; 1-800-838-3006, www.thrillpeddlers.com. $30-69. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through June 26. Starting July 10, runs Sat, 8pm and Sun, 7pm. Through August 1. Thrillpeddlers presents this revival of the legendary Cockettes’ 1970 musical extravaganza.

Peter Pan Threesixty Theater, Ferry Park (on Embarcadero across from the Ferry Bldg); www.peterpantheshow.com. $30-125. Tues and Thurs, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 7:30pm (also Sat, 2pm); Wed, 2pm; Sun, 1 and 5pm. Through August 29. JM Barrie’s tale is performed in a specially-built 360-degree CGI theater.

The Real Americans The Marsh, 1062 Valencia; 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $18-50. Wed/26-Fri/28, 8pm; Sat/29, 5pm; Sun/30, 3pm. Starting July 8, runs Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm; Sun, 3pm, through Aug 8. The Marsh presents the world premiere of Dan Hoyle’s new solo show.

Rhino Boxcar Playhouse, 505 Natoma; 776-1747, www.boxcartheatre.org. $14-25. Wed/26-Sat/29, 8pm. A stark spotlight, a vibrant cellist, masked players, and a chairless theatre space greet audience members attending Boxcar Theatre’s Ionesco adaptation, Rhino. Though encouraged to move about freely, most audience members (the night I attended) settled for turning their otherwise static bodies to follow the action occurring in every corner of the small room. Though a courageous choice in staging, it didn’t quite provide the feeling of the familiar under siege that it could have with more overt interaction with the not-quite-captive-enough public. And while certain of the short snipped scenes were tense and evocative, less subtle imaginings such as the intermittent lockstep marches fell flat. (Gluckstern)

“San Francisco International Arts Festival” Various venues; 1-800-838-3006, www.sfiaf.org. Most shows $25. Through May 31. In its seventh incarnation, the fest hosts dance, theater, and other artists from ten countries.

Sandy Hackett’s Rat Pack Show Marines’ Memorial Theater, 609 Sutter; 771-6900. $30-89. Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through June 27. From somewhere before the Beatles and after Broadway “Beatlemania” comes this big band cigarettes-and-high-ball nightclub act, recreating the storied Vegas stage shenanigans of iconic actor-crooners Frank Sinatra (David DeCosta), Dean Martin (Tony Basile), and Sammy Davis Jr. (Doug Starks), and sidekick comedian Joey Bishop (Sandy Hackett). The band is all-pro and the songs sound great — DeCosta’s singing as Sinatra is uncanny, but all do very presentable renditions of signature songs and standards. Meanwhile, a lot of mincing about the stage and the drink cart meets with more mixed success, and I don’t just mean scotch and soda. The Rat Pack is pre-PC, of course, but the off-color humor, while no doubt historically sound, can be dully moronic. (Avila)

Speed the Plow Royce Gallery, 2910 Mariposa; 1-866-811-4111, www.speedtheplowsf.com. $28. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through June 19. Expression Productions performs David Mamet’s black comedy.

What Mama Said About Down There Our Little Theater, 287 Ellis; 820-3250, www.theatrebayarea.org. $15-25. Thurs-Sun, 8pm. Through July 30. Writer-performer-activist Sia Amma presents this largely political, a bit clinical, inherently sexual, and utterly unforgettable performance piece.

BAY AREA

*East 14th: True Tales of a Reluctant Player Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sun/30, June 6, 20, 7pm; June 4, 11, 18, 9pm; June 12, 8pm. Through June 20. Don Reed’s solo play, making its Oakland debut after an acclaimed New York run, is truly a welcome homecoming twice over. (Avila)

God’s Ear Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $15-28. Wed, 7pm; Thurs-Sat, 8pm; and Sun, 5pm. Through June 20. Shotgun Players perform Jenny Schwartz’s drama about grief; Erica Chong Shuch directs.

*In the Wake Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $13.50-71. Tues and Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Thurs and Sat, 2pm; no matinees Sat/29, June 3, 12, or 17; no show June 25); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm). Through June 27.

Brilliantly weaving the political and the personal, New York playwright Lisa Kron takes on the myth and mayhem of American exceptionalism through the prism of a compelling lefty smarty-pants named Ellen (Heidi Schreck) and her “alternative” family circle, as it slowly unravels during the first decade of the 21st century. From her modest Manhattan perch — shared with adoring, wise-cracking longtime boyfriend Danny (Carson Elrod) — Ellen rails against the ineptitude of the Democrats in the face of the rising Right and its season of havoc. But she’s already told the audience she has a problem with “blind spots,” much like the country. Projections of headlines and sound bites, intermittently splayed across the fortified proscenium arch, locate the action at precise moments in the dreary political timeline of the last decade, beginning with the 2000 election coup that has put a damper on Thanksgiving festivities (despite inclusion of Pilgrim smocks). Her sister (Andrea Frankle) and sister’s wife (Danielle Skraastad) are there too, along with Ellen’s older friend Judy (Deidre O’Connell), a cranky, deceptively oblivious relief worker just back from a refugee camp in Africa. As time goes by, and Ellen turns to an open relationship with a woman filmmaker (Emily Donahoe), our protagonist’s bedrock assumptions about the natural order of things get sorely tested. Leigh Silverman directs a top-notch cast in a remarkably engaging mix of political dialogue and personal entanglements, written for the most part with stirring intelligence and incisive humor. If the play loses focus and momentum by the second act — despite a wonderfully charged scene between Ellen and Judy that is the play’s most memorable — its wit, real anger and constructive irreverence still make it too good to miss. (Avila)

Twelfth Night La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; www.impacttheatre.com. $10-20. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through June 12. You’ve got to hand it to Impact Theatre: they make reimagining Shakespeare look so darned easy. To set a crass comedy about class, obsession, and mistaken identity at “Illyria Studios” in the heart of tawdry Tinseltown seems like such an obvious take, you wonder why it took someone so long to get around to doing it. True, the execution is not as vivacious as last year’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but overall, the enthusiastic cast and timeless humor win the night. (Gluckstern)

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $10-50. Sun, 11am. Through June 27. The Amazing Bubble Man, a.k.a. Louis Pearl, performs his family-friendly show.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

Dan Carbone Dark Room, 2263 Mission; 401-7987. Fri, 10pm, $10. The absurdist writer-performer presents an encore performance of his new works.

Circus Finelli Revue Stage Werx Theatre, 533 Sutter; www.brownpapertickets.com. Wed, 8pm. $10-15. This variety show features music, circus arts, and comedy.

Dionysian Festival Mary Sano School of Duncan Dancing, 245 Fifth St, Studio 314; 357-1817, www.duncandance.org. Sat, 8pm; Sun-Mon, 6pm. $18. The Mary Sano School of Duncan Dancing presents its annual celebration of Isadora Duncan’s birth.

“Formerly Known As: Male Sex Worker Performance” LGBT Center, 1800 Market; www.brownpapertickets.com. Tues, 7pm. $10-20. Kirk Read curates this evening of performance, with Suppositori Spelling, Inbred Hybrid Collective, Adela Vazquez, and more. Scott Wells and Dancers CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission; www.counterpulse.org. Fri-Sun, 8pm (June 19 show, 9:30pm). Through June 19. $22. The high-flying company performs BALL-IST-IC.

Film Listings

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

OPENING

*Big River Man Some people are just larger than life. Martin Strel is 53-year-old overweight, alcoholic, endurance swimmer from Slovenia who has made it his calling to swim the world’s longest rivers. Borut Strel, his son and primary publicist, might say his father does it to increase awareness about pollution or, in the Amazon’s case, deforestation, but we quickly see that there is a deeper compulsion that goes into Martin’s swims. Big River Man chronicles Martin’s descent down the Amazon river, from Peru to Brazil, as he scoffs at piranhas and alligators, all while drinking two bottles of wine a day. Martin is definitely a funny guy and he helps make Big River Man a funny film, but most impressive is the subtle shift from quirky human interest documentary to Heart of Darkness-style thriller when too many days in the sun cause Martin to lose his grip on reality. (1:34) Roxie. (Peter Galvin)

*The Father of My Children Grégoire Canvel (Louis-Do de Lencquesaing) is a perpetual motion machine: a Paris-based veteran film producer of complicated multinational whose every waking moment is spent pleading, finessing, reassuring, and generally putting out fires of the artistic, logistic, or financial kind. But lately the strain has begun to surpass even his Herculean coping abilities. Debtors are closing in; funding might collapse for a brilliant but uncommercial director’s already half-finished latest. After surviving any number of prior crises, Gregoire’s whole production company might finally dissolve into a puddle of red ink and lawsuits. He barely has time to enjoy his perfect family, with Italian wife Sylvia (Chiara Caselli) and three young daughters happily ensconced in a charming country house. Something’s got to give — and when it does, writer-director Mia Hansen-Love’s drama (very loosely based on the life of a late European film producer) drastically shifts its focus midway. Her film’s first half is so arresting — with its whirlwind glimpse at a job so few of us know much about, yet which couldn’t be more important in keeping cinema afloat — that the second half inevitably seems less interesting by comparison. Still, for about 55 minutes The Father of My Children offers something you haven’t quite seen before, an experience well worthwhile even if the subsequent 55 are less memorable. (1:50) Embarcadero. (Harvey)

*Looking for Eric Eric Bishop (Steve Everts) is a single dad, frustrated at his inability to bond with his teenage sons and heartbroken over his failed marriage to Lily (Stephanie Bishop), the woman he walked out on 20 years ago but never managed to get over. Just when things are looking dire, Eric is delivered in surprising, magical fashion by hallucinatory visitations from Eric Cantona, his favorite soccer player, a philosophical Frenchman who was as renowned for his inscrutable press conferences as he was for his scintillating goals. Cantona plays himself, and passes pensive joints with Bishop as they slowly piece his shattered life back together. American viewers might be have trouble deciphering the intricacies of soccer culture or the molasses-thick Mancunian accents, but at its heart the movie (by Brit director Ken Loach) is an amusing, tautly crafted fable of middle-aged alienation giving way to hope and gumption. (1:57) Opera Plaza, Smith Rafael. (Richardson)

Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time Jake Gyllenhaal stars as the titular hero this video game adaptation. (2:10) California, Presidio.

Sex and the City 2 Oh my god, (more) shoes. (2:24) Castro, Cerrito, Marina, Presidio, Shattuck.

Survival of the Dead See Trash. (1:30) Lumiere, Shattuck.

ONGOING

Alice in Wonderland Tim Burton’s take on the classic children’s tale met my mediocre expectations exactly, given its months of pre-release hype (in the film world, fashion magazines, and even Sephora, for the love of brightly-colored eye shadows). Most folks over a certain age will already know the story, and much of the dialogue, before the lights go down and the 3-D glasses go on; it’s up to Burton and his all-star cast (including numerous big-name actors providing voices for animated characters) to make the tale seem newly enthralling. The visuals are nearly as striking as the CG, with Helena Bonham Carter’s big-headed Red Queen a particularly marvelous human-computer creation. But Wonderland suffers from the style-over-substance dilemma that’s plagued Burton before; all that spooky-pretty whimsy can’t disguise the film’s fairly tepid script. Teenage Alice (Mia Wasikowska) displaying girl-power tendencies is a nice, if not surprising, touch, but Johnny Depp’s grating take on the Mad Hatter will please only those who were able to stomach his interpretation of Willy Wonka. (1:48) SF Center. (Eddy)

*Babies Thomas Balmes’ camera records the first year in the lives of four infants in vastly different circumstances. They’re respectively born to hip young couple in Tokyo’s high-tech clutter; familiar moderately alterna-types (the father is director Frazer Bradshaw of last year’s excellent indie drama Everything Strange and New) in SF’s Mission District; a yurt-dwelling family isolated in the vast Mongolian tundra; and a Namibian village so maternally focused that adult menfolk seem to have been banished. Yes, on one level this is the cutest li’l documentary you ever saw. But if you were planning to avoid thinking that is all (or most) of what Babies would be like, you will miss out big time. Void of explanatory titles, voice-over narration, or subtitle translations, this is a purely observatory piece that reveals just how fascinating the business of being a baby is. There’s very little predictable pooping, wailing, or coddling. Instead, Balmes’ wonderful eye captures absorbing moments of sussing things out, decision-making, and skill learning. While the First World tykes firstborns both — are hauled off to (way) pre-school classes, the much less day planned Third Worlders have more complex, unmediated dealings with community. Those range from fending off devilish older siblings to Mongol Bayarjargal’s startlingly casual consorting with large furry livestock. (Imagine the horror of parents you know were their baby found surrounded by massive cows — a situation that here causes no concern whatsoever for adults, children, or bovines.) So accustomed to the camera that it doesn’t influence their behavior, the subjects here are viewed with an intimacy that continually surprises. Babies is getting a wider-than-usual release for a documentary, one cannily timed to coincide with Mother’s Day. But don’t be fooled: this movie is actually very cool. (1:19) Albany, Empire, 1000 Van Ness, Piedmont, Smith Rafael, Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

*City Island The Rizzo family of City Island, N.Y. — a tiny atoll associated historically with fishing and jurisdictionally with the Bronx — have reached a state where their primary interactions consist of sniping, yelling, and storming out of rooms. These storm clouds operate as cover for the secrets they’re all busy keeping from one another. Correctional officer Vince (Andy Garcia) pretends he’s got frequent poker nights so he can skulk off to his true shameful indulgence: a Manhattan acting class. Perpetually fuming spouse Joyce (Julianna Margulies) assumes he’s having an affair. Daughter Vivian (Dominik García-Lorido) has dropped out of school to work at a strip joint, while the world class-sarcasms of teenager Vinnie (Ezra Miller) deflect attention from his own hidden life as an aspiring chubby chaser. All this (plus everyone’s sneaky cigarette habit) is nothing, however, compared to Vince’s really big secret: he conceived and abandoned a “love child” before marrying, and said guilty issue has just turned up as a 24-year-old car thief on his cell block. Writer-director Raymond De Felitta made a couple other features in the last 15 years, none widely seen; if this latest is typical, we need more of him, more often. Perfectly cast, City Island is farcical without being cartoonish, howl-inducing without lowering your brain-cell count. It’s arguably a better, less self-conscious slice of dysfunctional family absurdism than Little Miss Sunshine (2006) — complete with an Alan Arkin more inspired in his one big scene here than in all of that film’s Oscar-winning performance. (1:40) Lumiere, Shattuck. (Harvey)

The City of Your Final Destination In James Ivory’s latest literary adaptation, Omar (Omar Metwally), an Iranian American graduate student of Latin American literature, precipitously descends on a rural estate in Paraguay, hoping to petition the relatives of deceased writer Jules Gund for authorization to write his biography. Numbering among the somewhat complicated ménage are Gund’s widow, Caroline (Laura Linney), his mistress, Arden (Charlotte Gainsbourg), their child, Portia (Ambar Mallman), the author’s brother, Adam (Anthony Hopkins), and Adam’s lover, Pete (Hiroyuki Sanada), a household that the film depicts as caught in a sedative isolation obstructing any progress or flourishing or change. But where Gund’s violent suicide has failed to produce a cataclysmic shift, the somewhat hapless Omar manages to interrupt their idle routines and mobilize them, stirring up sentiment and ambition. The notion of redirected fate is telegraphed by the title, but what the film does best is show the calm before the storm (really more of a heavy downpour) — and showcase the fineness of Hopkins’s and Linney’s dramatic abilities. In the final act, we see the characters being moved about rather than moved, and the sound of screeching brakes applied as the film reaches its conclusion undoes much of the subtlety invested in their performances. (1:58) Embarcadero, Shattuck. (Rapoport)

Clash of the Titans The minds behind Clash of the Titans decided their movie should be 3D at the last possible moment before release. Consequently, the 3D is pretty janky. I don’t know what the rest of the film’s excuse is. Clash of the Titans retreads the 1981 cult classic with reasonable faithfulness, though Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion effects have been (of course) replaced with CG renderings of all the expected monsters, magic, gods, etc. Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes — as other reviews have pointed out: Schindler’s List (1993) reunion! — glow and glower as Zeus and Hades, while Sam Worthington (2009’s Avatar) once again fills the role of bland hero, this time as a snooze-worthy Perseus. You might have fun in the moment with Clash of the Titans, but it’s hardly memorable, and certainly nowhere near epic. (1:58) SF Center. (Eddy)

*Dirty Hands The 1990s-ish iconoclastic, workaholic breed of Asian hipster is obsessively worked by David Choe in Dirty Hands. Exhaustively documenting the Los Angeles-born artist for eight years as he matures before our eyes, director Harry Kim charts the growth spurts: from mischievous tot to shoplifter and graf artist to porn illustrator to street-art superstar to spiritual penitent after a stint in a Tokyo jail. The filmmaker doesn’t seem to know quite when to stop, but then neither does his subject: an obviously intelligent, playful talent who specializes in compulsively analyzing himself and pushing himself to the limits of the law, his work, and his own (r)evolution as a human being. So driven in his pursuit of edge-skating experiences that he comes off as less hipster than haunted, Choe and his Bukowskian tendencies, Vice aesthetics, and “deep” thoughts rivet long after the bodily fluids and sensory overload murals congeal. (1:33) Roxie. (Chun)

*Exit Through the Gift Shop Exit Through the Gift Shop is not a film about the elusive graffiti-cum-conceptual artist and merry prankster known as Banksy, even though he takes up a good chunk of this sly and by-no-means impartial documentary and is listed as its director. Rather, as he informs us — voice electronically altered, face hidden in shadow — in the film’s opening minutes, the film’s real subject is one Thierry Guetta, a French expat living in LA whose hangdog eyes, squat stature, and propensity for mutton chops and polyester could pass him off as Ron Jeremy’s long lost twin. Unlike Jeremy, Guetta is not blessed with any prodigious natural talent to propel him to stardom, save for a compulsion to videotape every waking minute of his life (roughly 80 percent of the footage in Exit is Guetta’s) and a knack for being in the right place at the right time. When Guetta is introduced by his tagger cousin to a pre-Obamatized Shepard Fairey in 2007, he realizes his true calling: to make a documentary about the street art scene that was then only starting to get mainstream attention. Enter Banksy, who, at first, is Guetta’s ultimate quarry. Eventually, the two become chummy, with Guetta acting as lookout and documenter for the artist just as the art market starts clambering for its piece of, “the Scarlet Pimpernel of street art,” as one headline dubs him. When, at about three quarters of the way in, Guetta, following Banksy’s casual suggestion, drops his camcorder and tries his hand at making street art, Exit becomes a very different beast. Guetta’s flashy debut as Mr. Brainwash is as obscenely successful as his “art” is terribly unimaginative — much to the chagrin of his former documentary subjects. But Guetta is no Eve Harrington and Banksy, who has the last laugh here, gives him plenty of rope with which to truss himself. Is Mr. Brainwash really the ridiculous and inevitable terminus of street art’s runaway mainstream success (which, it must be said, Banksy has handsomely profited from)? That question begs another: with friends like Banksy, who needs enemies? (1:27) Embarcadero, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Sussman)

*The Ghost Writer Roman Polanski’s never-ending legal woes have inspired endless debates on the interwebs and elsewhere; they also can’t help but add subtext to the 76-year-old’s new film, which is chock full o’ anti-American vibes anyway. It’s also a pretty nifty political thriller about a disgraced former British Prime Minister (Pierce Brosnan) who’s hanging out in his Martha’s Vineyard mansion with his whip-smart, bitter wife (Olivia Williams) and Joan Holloway-as-ice-queen assistant (Kim Cattrall), plus an eager young biographer (Ewan McGregor) recently hired to ghost-write his memoirs. But as the writer quickly discovers, the politician’s past contains the kinds of secrets that cause strange cars with tinted windows to appear in one’s rearview mirror when driving along deserted country roads. Polanski’s long been an expert when it comes to escalating tension onscreen; he’s also so good at adding offbeat moments that only seem tossed-off (as when the PM’s groundskeeper attempts to rake leaves amid relentless sea breezes) and making the utmost of his top-notch actors (Tom Wilkinson and Eli Wallach have small, memorable roles). Though I found The Ghost Writer‘s ZOMG! third-act revelation to be a bit corny, I still didn’t think it detracted from the finely crafted film that led up to it. (1:49) Elmwood, Opera Plaza. (Eddy)

*The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo By the time the first of Stieg Larsson’s so-called “Millennium” books had been published anywhere, the series already had an unhappy ending: he died (in 2004). The following year, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo became a Swedish, then eventually international sensation, its sequels following suit. The books are addicting, to say the least; despite their essential crime-mystery-thriller nature, they don’t require putting your ear for writing of some literary value on sleep mode. Now the first of three adaptive features shot back-to-back has reached U.S. screens. (Sorry to say, yes, a Hollywood remake is already in the works — but let’s hope that’s years away.) Even at two-and-a-half hours, this Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by necessity must do some major truncating to pack in the essentials of a very long, very plotty novel. Still, all but the nitpickingest fans will be fairly satisfied, while virgins will have the benefit of not knowing what’s going to happen and getting scared accordingly. Soon facing jail after losing a libel suit brought against him by a shady corporate tycoon, leftie journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) gets a curious private offer to probe the disappearance 40 years earlier of a teenage girl. This entangles him with an eccentric wealthy family and their many closet skeletons (including Nazi sympathies) — as well as dragon-tattooed Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace), androgynous loner, 24-year-old court ward, investigative researcher, and skillful hacker. Director Niels Arden Oplev and his scenarists do a workmanlike job — one more organizational than interpretive, a faithful transcription without much style or personality all its own. Nonetheless, Larsson’s narrative engine kicks in early and hauls you right along to the depot. (2:32) Bridge, Piedmont, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

Harry Brown Shades of Dirty Harry (1971) for the tea cozy and tweed set: elegantly rendered and very nicely played, Harry Brown might be the dark, late-in-the-day elder brother to 1971’s Get Carter, in the hands of eponymous lead Michael Caine. He’s a pensioner mourning the passing of his beloved wife, his mysterious life as a Marine stationed in Northern Ireland firmly behind him. Then his chess-playing pal Leonard (David Bradley) is terrorized and killed by the unsavory gang of heroin dealing hoodlums who lurk near their projects in a tunnel walkway like gun-toting, foul-mouthed, sociopathic trolls. Harry Brown is, er, forced to forsake a vow of peace and go commando on the culprits’ asses, triggering some moments of ultraviolence that are unsettling in their whole-hearted embrace of vigilante justice. Like predecessors similarly fixated on vengeance in their respective urban hells, a la Hardcore (1979) and Taxi Driver (1976) (Harry Brown echoes key moments in the latter, in particular — see, for instance, its keenly tense, eerily humorous gun shopping scene), Harry Brown is essentially an arch-conservative film, if good looking and even likable with Caine meting out the punishment. The overall denouement just might make some seniors feel very, very good about the coiled potential for hurt embedded in their aging frames. (1:42) Embarcadero, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

How to Train Your Dragon (1:38) 1000 Van Ness.

The Human Centipede (First Sequence) Director Tom Six had a vision, a glorious dream of surgically connecting three human beings via their gastro-intestinal systems, or as Kevin Smith would say — “ass to mouth.” When two girlfriends on a road trip across Europe get a flat tire, they stumble upon the home of a mad doctor (Dieter Laser) with a similar dream, who drugs them and ties them up in his basement laboratory. The Human Centipede is an entry into the torture porn arena, but it feels especially icky because you just know that the girls have zero chance of escaping the “100 percent medically accurate!” surgery. Once hooked up, there’s nowhere for the film to go and two out of three actors can’t talk because they are sewn to someone else’s anus. Still, as one-note as The Human Centipede is, I think we’d do well to encourage more films to be as batshit insane as this one. (1:30) Lumiere. (Galvin)

*Iron Man 2 Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) returns, just as rich and self-involved as before, though his ego his inflated to unimaginable heights due to his superheroic fame. Pretty much, he’s put the whole “with great power comes great responsibility” thing on the back burner, exasperating everyone from Girl Friday Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow); to BFF military man Rhodey (Don Cheadle, replacing the first installment’s Terrence Howard); to certain mysterious Marvels played by Samuel L. Jackson and Scarlett Johansson; to a doofus-y rival defense contractor (Sam Rockwell); to a sanctimonius Senator (Garry Shandling). Frankly, the fact that a vengeful Russian scientist (Mickey Rourke) is plotting Tony’s imminent death is a secondary threat here — for much of the film, Tony’s biggest enemy is himself. Fortunately, this is conveyed with enjoyable action (props to director Jon Favreau, who also has a small role), a witty script (actor Justin Theroux — who knew? He also co-wrote 2008’s Tropic Thunder, by the way), and gusto-going performances by everyone, from Downey on down. Stay for the whole credits or miss out on the geek-gasm. (2:05) California, Castro, Empire, Four Star, Marina, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Just Wright (1:51) 1000 Van Ness.

*Kick-Ass Based on a comic book series by Mark Millar, whose work was also the model for 2008’s Wanted, Kick Ass is a similarly over-the-top action flick that plays up its absurdity to even greater comedic effect. High school nerd Dave (Aaron Johnson) decides to become the world’s first real superhero. Donning a green wetsuit he bought on the internet and mustering some unlikely courage, he takes to the streets to avenge wrongdoing. Unsurprisingly, Dave is immediately beaten almost to death because he’s just a kid who has no idea what he’s doing, but Kick-Ass‘ greatest achievement is knowing exactly how to subvert audience expectations. Scenes that marry the film’s innocent story with enormously exaggerated violence enhance the otherwise Superbad-lite high-school comedy unfolding around them, and a parallel plot-line involving Nicolas Cage instructing his 12-year-old daughter to commit grievous murders will probably end up being the most gratifying aspect of the film. Though too much set-up and spinning gears mars the middle act, it’s hard to fault the film for competently setting up one of the most crowd-pleasing endings in recent memory. (1:58) 1000 Van Ness. (Galvin)

Kites As randomly exuberant, shamelessly cheesy, and as garishly OTT as an amalgam of Bollywood song-and-dance flash and ’80s Hollywood blockbuster can get, Kites is a lovable mutt through and through — ready for its stateside close-up with by way of a forthcoming Brett Ratner English-language “remix” treatment. But first the two-hour original: J (Hrithik Roshan) is a poor but studly, V-chested dance teacher who hits the jackpot in Vegas with Gina (Kangna), his besotted student and the daughter of a powerful and deadly casino owner. Their dance competition number — jumpily cut like a hybrid of Dancing With the Stars, Saturday Night Fever (1977), and Fame (1980) — lands J in the bosom of Gina’s family, where he meets her sadistic bro, Tony (Nick Brown), and his fiancée, Natasha (Barbara Mori), an illegal immigrant from Mexico. But J and Natasha have met briefly before, when she hired him to marry her for a green card. How can a connected, killer family possibly get in the way of true love — between two leads who resemble a youthful, performance-enhanced, manically happily Nicolas Cage and Megan Fox? Smoothly integrating the dance numbers into the predictable narrative, Kites has polished off any possible edge from its high-energy Bollywood riff on the movies of Michael Bay and Ridley Scott, but that doesn’t mean you can tear your eyes from the screen, or stop the music. (1:30) SF Center. (Chun)

Letters to Juliet If you can stomach the inevitable Barbara Cartland/Harlequin-romance-style clichés — and believe that Amanda Seyfried as a New Yorker fact-checker — then Letters to Juliet might be the ideal Tuscan-sunlit valentine for you. Seyfried’s Sophie is on a pre-honeymoon trip to Verona with her preoccupied chef-restaurateur intended, Victor (Gael Garcia Bernal), who’s more interested in sampling cheese and purchasing vino than taking in the romantic attractions of Verona with his fiancée. Luckily she finds the perfect diversion for a wannabe scribe: a small clutch of diehard romantics enlisted by the city of Verona to answer the letters to Juliet posted by lovelorn ladies. They’re Juliet’s secretaries — never mind that Juliet never managed to maintain a successful or long-term relationship herself. When Sophie finds a lost, unanswered letter from the ’50s, she sets off sequence of unlikely events, as the letter’s English writer, Claire (Vanessa Redgrave), returns to Verona with her grandson Charlie (Christopher Egan), in search of her missed-connection, Lorenzo. Alas, Lorenzo’s long gone, and the fact-checker decides to help the warm-hearted, hopeful Claire find her lost lover. Unfortunately Sophie’s chemistry with both her matches isn’t as powerful as Redgrave’s with real-life husband Franco Nero — after all he was Lancelot to her Guenevere in 1967’s Camelot and the father of her son. Still, Redgrave’s power as an actress — and her relationship with Nero — adds a resonance that takes this otherwise by-the-numbers romance to another level. (1:46) Elmwood, 1000 Van Ness, Piedmont, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

MacGruber Mudflaps, moptops, box-office flippity-flops, such is the sad transition Saturday Night Live skits make to the big screen. Handicapped as such MacGruber also has a very specific demographic in mind: the Gen-Xers who popularized the use of MacGyver as a verb and harbor a picture-tube-deep ironic affection for the lousy ’80s TV action shows of their youth. Does anyone younger — or older — than that population get MacGruber‘s interest in Howard Stern-style transgressive humor, its “Cunth”/dick/poop/butt jokes, and its shameful identification with badly dated hair styles? That said, MacGruber isn’t half bad if one keeps expectations nice ‘n’ low, much like its hero’s brow, and one enjoys a comic antihero who uses his buds as human shields and can’t MacGyver a weapon out of a tennis ball and rubber-band to save his life. Laughs can be had — as long as your bad Gen-X self is still in touch with your inner 13-year-old. MacGruber won’t make the Bay Area-born-and-bred Will Forte a superstar, but at least it gives Kristen Wiig fans another, if somewhat inexplicable, chance to glimpse their heroine in action, with little to do — someone get this smart, likable actress into a Nicole Holofcener comedy ASAP. (1:39) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Chun)

*Mid-August Lunch Gianni Di Gregorio’s loose, engaging comedy is about an aging bachelor still living with his ancient mum in their Rome flat. When his landlord offers to forgive some debts in return for briefly taking in his own elderly ma, Gianni (played by the director himself) soon finds himself in cat-herding charge of no less than five old ladies who delight in one another’s company while running him ragged. Gomorrah (2008) screenwriter Di Gregorio used nonprofessionals to play those parts in this semi improvised miniature, which is as light and flavorful as a first course of prosciutto and mozzarella. It’s a solid addition to the canon of palate-pleasing culinary flicks such as Big Night (1996) and Babette’s Feast (1987), as opposed to the repulsive ones like Super Size Me (2004) or Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life (1983). (1:15) Opera Plaza. (Harvey)

La Mission A veteran S.F. vato turned responsible — if still muy macho — widower, father, and Muni driver, fortysomething Che (Benjamin Bratt) isn’t the type for mushy displays of sentiment. But it’s clear his pride and joy is son Jess (Jeremy Ray Valdez), a straight-A high school grad bound for UCLA. That filial bond, however, sustains some serious damage when Che discovers Jes has a secret life — with a boyfriend, in the Castro, just a few blocks away from their Mission walkup but might as well be light-years away as far as old-school dad is concerned. This Bratt family project (Benjamin’s brother Peter writes-directs, his wife Talisa Soto Bratt has a supporting role) has a bit of a predictable TV-movie feel, but its warm heart is very much in the right place. (1:57) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Harvey)

Mother and Child Adoption advocates who railed against Orphan (2009) should turn their sights on Mother and Child, a ridiculous melodrama with a thoroughly vile message. I’d wager writer-director Rodrigo García didn’t set out to make an anti-adoption film: this is a movie about the relationship between mothers and daughters. But the undertones are impossible to miss. Annette Bening plays Karen, a miserable woman consumed by regret for putting her daughter up for adoption 37 years ago. That biological daughter is Elizabeth (Naomi Watts), who — despite having been adopted at birth — speaks dismissively of her “adoptive” parents as though they were never really hers. She’s cold and manipulative, sleeping with her boss and married neighbor because she can. Mother and Child offers no real explanation for why these women are so unpleasant, so we’re forced to conclude it’s the four decades-old adoption. Despite a stellar cast, which also includes Kerry Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, and S. Epatha Merkerson, the film’s misguided politics are too distracting to ignore. (2:06) Sundance Kabuki. (Peitzman)

*OSS 117: Lost in Rio The Cold War heated up a public appetite for spy adventures well before James Bond became a pop phenomenon. In fact, Ian Fleming hadn’t yet created 007 in 1949, when Jean Bruce commenced writing novels about Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath, a.k.a. Agent OSS 117. This French superspy was ready-made to join the ranks of umpteen 007 wannabes, appearing in somewhere between six and 11 films (it’s unclear whether all involved de La Bath, or were just Bruce-based) through 1970, played by at least four actors. The series remained well-known enough to get a new life in 2006 when director Michel Hazanavicius and top French comedy star Jean Dujardin sought to spoof 1960s espionage flicks a la Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997). That was a big hit, so now we’ve got a sequel. OSS 117: Lost in Rio isn’t as fresh or funny as the preceding Cairo, Nest of Spies. But it’s still a whole lot fresher and funnier than Austin Powers Nos. two (1999) and three (2002). Dujardin’s de La Bath is the very model of jet-set masculinity, twisting the night away at a ski chalet with umpteen soon-to-be-machine gunned “Oriental” lovelies in the opening sequence. Of course such pleasure pursuits take place strictly between car chases, shootouts, and karate fights. Agreeably silly, Lost in Rio doesn’t go for Hollywood-style slapstick and gross out yuks. Instead, its biggest laughs are usually droll throwaways, as when 117 explains a shocking sudden costume change with the unlikely declaration “I sew,” or during an LSD-dosed hippie orgy proves quite willing to go with the flow — even when that involves another guy’s groovy finger breaching security up the pride of French intelligence’s derriere. (1:37) Lumiere, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

*Please Give Manhattan couple Kate (Catherine Keener) and Alex (Oliver Platt) are the proprietors of an up-market vintage furniture store — they troll the apartments of the recently deceased, redistributing the contents at an astonishing markup — and they’ve purchased the entire apartment of their elderly next-door neighbor (Ann Guilbert). As they wait for her to expire so they can knock down a wall, they try not to loom in anticipation in front of her granddaughters, the softly melancholic Rebecca (Rebecca Hall) and the brittle pragmatist Mary (Amanda Peet). Filmmaker Nicole Holofcener has entered this territory before, examining the interpersonal pressures that a sizable income gap can exert in 2006’s Friends with Money. Here she turns to the pangs and blunderings of the liberal existence burdened with the discomforts of being comfortable and the desire to do some good in the world. The film capably explores the unexamined impulses of liberal guilt, though the conclusion it reaches is unsatisfying. Like Holofcener’s other work, Please Give is constructed from the episodic material of mundane, intimate encounters between characters whose complexity forces us to take them seriously, whether or not we like them. Here, though, it offers these private connections as the best one can hope for, a sort of domestic grace accrued by doing right, authentically, instinctively, by the people in your immediate orbit, leaving the larger world to muddle along on its axis as best it can. (1:30) Clay, SF Center, Shattuck. (Rapoport)

Princess Kaiulani Well-meaning and controversial (the independent’s first title, Barbarian Princess, and the tragic events it depicts has distressed some native Hawaiians) in its own inoffensive way, Princess Kaiulani is unfortunately overshadowed by star Q’orianka Kilcher’s first film, 2005’s The New World, in which she portrayed Pocahontas. The Hawaii-raised Kilcher appears to be getting typecast as a tragic, romanticized native royal. Still, if you can get past director Marc Forby’s weak attempts to match New World director Terrence Malick’s searingly poetic montages and the clunky History Channel-by-the-numbers screenplay, you might give a little credit to the makers for bringing to the screen the tale of Hawaii’s last intelligent, beautiful, and accomplished princess — a young woman determined to fight an overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy and battle its annexation against the white land owners and descendents of missionaries who tried to block the voting rights of native Hawaiians. Kilcher possesses some of the noble charisma claimed by the real Kaiulani, but the obligatory romance superimposed on the narrative and the neglect of some of genuinely promising threads, such as Kaiulani’s friendship with Robert Louis Stevenson, make Princess Kaiulani feel as faux as those who pretended to Hawaii’s rule. (2:10) Elmwood, Embarcadero. (Chun)

Robin Hood Like it or not, we live in the age of the origin story. Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood introduces us to the outlaw while he’s still in France, wending his way back to Albion in the service of King Richard III. The Lionheart soon takes an arrow in the neck in order to demonstrate the film’s historical bona fides, and yeoman archer Robin Longstride (Russell Crowe) — surrounded by a nascent band of merry men — accidentally embroils himself in a conspiracy to wrest control of England. The complications of this intrigue hie Robin to Nottingham, where he is thrown together with Maid Marion (Cate Blanchett), a plucky rural aristocrat who likes getting her hands dirty almost as much as she likes a bit of smoldering Crowe seduction. A lot of hollow medieval verisimilitude ensues, along with a good bit of slow-mo swordplay, but the cumulative effect is tepid and rote. (2:20) Cerrito, Empire, 1000 Van Ness, Sundance Kabuki. (Richardson)

The Secret in Their Eyes (2:07) Albany, Embarcadero.

Shrek Forever After 3D It’s easy to give Dreamworks a hard time for pumping out a fourth sequel to a film that never really needed a sequel in the first place. But Shrek Forever After isn’t all that bad — it’s mostly just irrelevant. The film does begin on an interesting note, with Shrek discovering the consequences of settling down with a wife and kids: serious ennui. It’s refreshing to see a fairy tale in which “happily ever after” is revealed to be rather mundane. But soon there are wacky magical hijinks that spawn an alternate universe, a cheap way to inject new life into tired old characters. (You like Puss in Boots? Well, he’s fat now.) Luckily, the voice actors are still game and the animation remains top-notch. The 3D effects are well used for once, fleshing out Shrek’s world rather than providing an unnecessary distraction. The end result is a mildly entertaining addition to the franchise, but like the alternate universe in which Shrek finds himself stranded, there’s no real reason it should exist. (1:33) Four Star, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, Sundance Kabuki. (Peitzman)

Touching Home Hometown boys (Logan and Noah Miller) make good in this based-on-a-true-story tale of identical twins who must divide their time at home between training for major league baseball and looking after their alcoholic father. The brothers, who also wrote and directed the film, aim for David Gordon Green by way of Marin, but fall short of mastering that director’s knack for natural dialogue. Ed Harris is, unsurprisingly, compelling as the alcoholic father, but the actors in the film who are not named Ed Harris tend to contribute to the script’s distracting histrionics. Touching Home has some amazing NorCal cinematography, and I could see how family audiences might enjoy its “feel bad, then feel good” style of melodrama. But while it’s awkward to say that someone’s real-life experiences come off as trite, there are moments here that feel as clichéd as a Lifetime movie. (1:48) Smith Rafael. (Galvin)

The Daily Blurgh: Out of Bolivia, park-ing lessons

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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The Daily Blurgh: Out of Bolivia, park-ing lessons

Curiosities, quirks, oddites, and items from around the Bay and beyond

Today in animals: Former circus lions from Bolivia plan SF stopover before cold chillin’ the rest of their days away in sunny San Andreas, crocodile mummies are returned to UC Berkeley, and the American Kennel Club allows mutts (aka “All Americans”) to compete in their own category.

*****
Rescue 911 — not so great from a cell phone.

*****

What better way to fight the war on terror than to discredit your enemy than by leaking a “video” of his supposed child-raping conquests?

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So, you wanna build a parklet...
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Headline of the day: “‘I am a predator’ – ruin follows him everywhere“

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Crack is whack! (via SFist)

 

Lefty protesters greet Obama in SF

Sasha Cuttler
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President Barack Obama arrives in San Francisco this afternoon (5/25) for a fundraiser at the Fairmont Hotel, where he’ll be greeted by protesters from at least two realms of the progressive movement: immigrant rights activists unhappy with his administration’s reluctance to take on immigration reform, and anti-war activists angry that Obama has continued President George W. Bush’s pro-war and anti-civil liberties policies.

Both groups have been increasingly unhappy with a president whose candidacy they supported for the most part. In particular, the coalition of immigrant rights groups that will gather on the steps of Grace Cathedral starting at 3:30 pm say Obama hasn’t done enough to counter rising nativist extremism or Arizona’s SB1070, and that his administration has essentially nullified sanctuary city ordinances by extending the federal government’s Secure Communities, which allows immigration officials direct access to information on arrestees in jails throughout the country (see our story in this week’s Guardian for more).

“We are gathering to lament the intolerance and extremism that are setting back the national discussion on immigration. We need real solutions that uphold our values of fairness and compassion, and we pray for the President to take leadership to stop this heart-breaking separation of families,” Rev. Debbie Lee of Interfaith Coalition for Immigrant Rights said in a press release.

Meanwhile, Code Pink, World Can’t Wait, and other groups will also gather near the hotel starting at 3:30 to protest what it calls ongoing war crimes by the administration, including the escalation of war in Afghanistan, predator drone assassinations in Pakistan, Obama’s continued use of extraconstitutional war powers claimed by Bush, opposition to efforts to expose and redress imperial excesses by the Bush Administration, and denial of due process rights to those labeled enemy combatants.

World Can’t Wait has even made a point of calling on Obama supporters to hold him accountable with the slogan, “Crimes are crimes not matter who does them.”

Attendees to Obama’s Fairmont fundraiser are shelling out $17,500 each to Sen. Barbara Boxer and the Democratic Senatorial Campaign Committee, while an even higher roller affair will be held later that night at the home of Ann and Gordon Getty.

Most Californians want legal weed

Sasha Cuttler
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Most Californians want legal weed

By Brady Welch

Puff, puff, pass on the good news. A new poll finds that a majority of California voters—51 percent—support the fall ballot measure to legalize, tax, and regulate marijuana for even strictly recreational uses (40 percent opposed it). And support rises a point when respondents are asked about its various benefits.

According to the poll by Oakland-based firm EMC, 69 percent agree that the initiative “will raise needed tax revenue,” arguably its largest selling point. Supporting this notion of turning green into more green, the state’s tax regulator, the Board of Equalization, issued a study last summer noting that taxing pot could bring in an estimated $1.4 billion to state and local governments’ starved coffers.

“We only need fifty plus one,” Dale Sky Clare, Executive Chancellor of Oaksterdam University, told us referring to the percentage needed to pass the initiative. “We’re excited. Even with conservative questions, the poll numbers still show support.”

Six in 10 voters believe the initiative “will save the state money.” This is in line with the nonpartisan Legislative Analyst’s office estimation of “savings of several tens of millions of dollars annually… on the costs of incarcerating and supervising certain marijuana offenders,” according to a report on its website. Even a number of state law enforcement figures have come out in support of the initiative, including Oakland City Attorney John Russo.

“Folks are becoming frustrated with the politics of pure symbols,” Russo told us, referring to the failed War on Drugs. “Marijuana is widespread among otherwise law-abiding people, and it’s viewed by people morally as no different from alcohol. We should stop pretending.”

Other polls have been floating around recently, some slightly higher in one direction or the other, but overall, the numbers suggest the political winds are moving in the right direction. More than three in four voters (77 percent) have heard of the initiative, according to EMC, and awareness is particularly high among newer voters, young folks, and independents—exactly the kind of people who voted for change in 2008, and exactly the kind of voters that will move California, and the country, into a greener (in more ways than one) and brighter future.

Quick Lit: May 19-May 25

David Talbot
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Quick Lit: May 19-May 25

Literary readings, book tours, and talks this week

Michael Chabon, Chuck Palahniuk, a celebration of Bukowski, Carol Queen revisits exhibitionism, Rebecca Solnit and Mona Caron create a California bestiary, and more

Wednesday, May 19

A California Bestiary
Authors Rebecca Solnit and Mona Caron partnered to create their own book of magical California beasts inspired by medieval bestiaries that were more fanciful than factual.
7 p.m., free
Green Arcade
1680 Market, SF
(415) 431-6800

Celebrate Bukowski
Celebrate the release of Absence of the Hero: Uncollected Stories and Essays by Charles Bukowski with editor David Calonne in conversation with Garrett Caples and readings from Stephen Elliot and Daphne Gottlieb.
7 p.m., free
City Lights Bookstore
261 Columbus, SF
(415) 362-8193

The Empire Strikes Out
Author Robert Elias reads from his new book The Empire Strikes Out: How baseball sold U.S. foreign policy and promoted the American way abroad, which takes an eye-opening look at baseball’s relationship to the American empire, from the revolutionary era to the present.
7:30 p.m., free
Pegasus Books Downtown
2349 Shattuck, Berk
(510) 649-1320

Michael Chabon
Join bestselling and Pulitzer Prize-winning author Michael Chabon as he discusses his new memoir, Manhood for Amateurs.
7:30 p.m., free
The Booksmith
1644 Haight, SF
(415) 863-8688

“Massive Stars and Their Temper Tantrums”
Join UC Berkeley professor Dr. Nathan Smith as he discusses the properties of the most massive stars, and the life and death of large, unstable stars, such as Eta Carinae.
7:30 p.m., free
Randall Museum
199 Museum Way, SF
(415) 554-9600
www.randallmuseum.org

Carol Queen
Attend a book party for Queen’s 1996 book, Exhibitionism for the Shy, featuring new chapters on internet exhibitionism and added interviews. Dress up, show off, and talk hot at this discussion on finding your own erotic identity and comfort zone to become the erotically outgoing soul you’d like to be.
6:30 p.m., free
Good Vibrations Berkeley
2504 San Pablo, Berk.
http://events.goodvibes.com

Thursday, May 20

An evening with Chuck Palahniuk
Hear the famed author of Fight Club discuss his new book Tell All, a Sunset Boulevard homage to Old Hollywood, filled with name-dropping and nostalgia.
7:30 p.m., $36
Swedish American Hall
2174 Market, SF
(415) 863-8688

California Condors
Learn more about the reestablished population of California Condors after their near extinction 30 years ago at this talk with National Park Service wildlife biologist Daniel George titled, “The Natural History and Future of California Condors.”
7:30 p.m., free
First Unitarian Universalist Church
1187 Franklin, SF
www.goldengateaudubon.org

The Food Industry
Hear Pulitzer Prize winner and New York Times reporter Michael Moss discuss lapses in food safety, nutrition related issues, the White House’s war on obesity and more in conversation with KQED reporter Sarah Varney.
Noon, $20
Commonwealth Club
2nd floor
595 Market, SF
(415) 597-6700

Hearts for Madeline
Hear author Page Hodel talk about her new book about when she met Madelene Rodriguez, who soon after died of cancer, and how she still leaves crafted hearts on her doorstep to say ‘I love you.’
7:30 p.m., free
Books Inc.
2275 Market, SF
(415) 864-6777

InsideStorytime: Crime
Enjoy readings from crime writers Lisa Lutz, author of The Spellmans Strike Again, Mark Coggins, author of The Big Wake-up, Seth Harwood, author of Jack Wakes Up, Mitzi Ngim, and Julie Graham with MC Ransom Stephens.
6:30 p.m., $3-$5 sliding scale
Café Royale
800 Post, SF
(415) 505-0869
www.insidestorytime.com

Low Bite
Attend this launch of Sin Soracco’s new prison novel about survival, dignity, friendship, and insubordination inside a women’s prison.
7 p.m., free
Modern Times Bookstore
888 Valencia, SF
www.mtbs.com

“Lyman vs. Niman: Can you be a good environmentalist and still eat meat?”
Raising livestock is resource-intensive and, we are beginning to learn, a significant contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. Nicolette Hahn Niman, a Marin rancher and author of Righteous Porkchop, will argue that there is an ecologically sustainable way to eat meat against Howard Lyman, the author of Mad Cowboy: Plain truth from a cattle rancher who won’t eat meat.
7 p.m., $10-$20
David Brower Center
Richard & Rhoda Goldman Theater
2150 Allston, Berk.
(510) 859-9100

Friday, May 21

To Teach: The Journey, In Comics
Graphic artist Ryan Alexander-Tanner brings William Ayers’ memoir To Teach: The journey of a teacher to life in this new graphic novel.
7 p.m., free
Green Arcade
1680 Market, SF
(415) 431-6800

Saturday, May 22

“Shanghai”
Attend an Asian Art Museum docent talk featuring a lecture and slideshow presentation about the museum’s exhibition “Shanghai.” The talk will be in English and Cantonese.
2:30 p.m., free
Chinatown Branch Library
Community Room
1135 Powell, SF
(415) 355-2888

Very Good-Looking Seeks Same
Author Robert Philipson will read from his new book, Very Good-Looking Seeks Same: Gay profiles in search of love, a new volume of transgressive, internet inspired poems, at this event featuring refreshments and live jazz music.
5 p.m., free
San Francisco LGBT Center
4th floor
1800 Market, SF
(415) 865-5555

Sunday, May 23

Broken Promises, Broken Dreams
Hear author Alice Rothchild explore the complexities of Jewish Israeli attitudes and the hardships of Palestinians living in the West Bank and Gaza through personal narratives based on work with medical delegations in the region.
3 p.m., free
Modern Times Bookstore
888 Valencia, SF
www.mtbs.com

Monday, May 24

Sunnyside
Bay Area author Glen David Gold discusses his new American epic, Sunnyside, starring Charlie Chaplin, about dreams, ambition, and the birth of modern America.
7:30 p.m., free
The Booksmith
1644 Haight, SF
(415) 863-8688

War: As Soldiers Really Live It
Hear Sebastian Junger discuss his new book about the reality of combat, the fear, honor and trust among men in an extreme situation whose survival depends on their absolute commitment to one another. His on-the-ground account follows a single platoon through a 15 month tour of duty in the most dangerous outpost in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley.
7:30 p.m., $12
First Congregational Church of Berkeley
2345 Channing, Berk.
(510) 848-6767

Tuesday, May 25


A Poem for Mother Earth
Attend this poetry sharing and community healing ceremony featuring poetry, spoken word, and music from migrant Raza, indigenous youth, adults, and elders in poverty focused on the impacts of climate change  on indigenous peoples and poor people of color.
Noon, free
Galleria de la Raza
2857 24th St., SF
www.poormagazine.org

Will cyclists and motorists ever get along?

Sasha Cuttler
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34
Will cyclists and motorists ever get along?

Bicyclists and motorists often clash in San Francisco, over space on the roadways and in conversations about each others’ behaviors, often in the most acrimonious fashion imaginable. My recent writing on bike issues has prompted lots of feedback and controversy – including lovely comments such as “Steve, keep riding your bike without a helmet, with any luck you’ll get in an accident and what little brains you have will spill out onto the street and we won’t have to read your smug condescending bullshit about bikes anymore.” – but I’m not the only one interested in trying to figure out how this gulf got so wide or how to bridge it.

The San Francisco Civil Grand Jury recently issued a report entitled “Sharing the Roadway: From Confrontation to Conversation,” that identifies strife between cyclists and drivers as a serious problem and seeks “to move towards everyone seeing him/her self as part of the community sharing the roadway.”

It’s an admirable goal that echoes that of the SF Bicycle Plan, and the 40-page report occasionally offers some insight into diagnosing why the problem exists, although it focuses mostly on the behaviors of bicyclists and the view by motorists that people who bike are arrogant, dangerous, irresponsible, erratic, inconvenient, vulnerable, and despised, all adjectives it gleaned for a 2002 study in Scotland, for some reason.

The report calls for more education and enforcement that targets all road users, but it seems most focused on criticizing bicyclists for running stop signs and other traffic violations, noting how cyclists are rarely given citations and saying that’s at least partly because cyclists have become politically powerful and are more likely to file complaints about cops who ticket them. In other words, we cyclists are the overentitled special interest that the angriest motorists say we are.

The report even discusses such radical ideas as requiring cyclists to get licenses, pay registration fees, and buy insurance, but it gives no mention to radical ideas on the other end of the spectrum, such as importing traffic laws from Idaho, where cyclists legally treat stop signs as yield signs and stop lights as stop signs, which conforms to current behaviors and the laws of momentum and doesn’t steal anyone’s right-of-way. Clearly, this was not a report written by cyclists.

“If San Francisco truly wants to increase responsible bicycle use, it will need to solve the issues of anger, misunderstanding, and mistrust between motorists and cyclists, and increase everyone’s view of shared responsibility on the roadway,” recommends the report.

I thought it was a bit vague and one-sided, but San Francisco Bicycle Coalition acting director Renee Rivera said it strongly supports the SFBC-backed Bike Plan, which was its target subject. “The report goes into a lot of anecdotal detail, but the recommendations are pretty good stuff,” she said, adding that SFBC’s members aren’t exclusively cyclists, “but people using different modes at different times for different reasons.”

On the other end of the spectrum are people like local bike messenger Adam Shapiro, who says he also wants to improve communication between cyclists and motorists, but he’s come up with a different kind of conversation starter, one he’s been handing out to fellow cyclists.

It’s a magnetized “Yellow Card” that cyclists can toss onto a car that reads, “This magnet was tossed onto your car by a cyclist who felt that you had been driving in a way that could endanger their life. They chose to toss this magnetic note because it can neither damage your automobile, nor will it disrupt your driving. It serves as our communication in a world buffered by steel, glass, and speed. With mutual respect, we can each adjust our behavior to allow all people to live in safety. This is a yellow card, your awareness can keep us out of the Red.”

Shapiro said he heard about the idea from East Coast cyclist Peter Miller, who he met and borrowed the concept from, changing the wording on his version. “This is starting a conversation between two human beings who can be more civil to each other than they have been,” Shapiro told me. Shapiro said he’s experienced the full range of emotional responses to threatening behavior by motorists, from fear to rage to “dreary acceptance,” but that lately, “I’ve shifted away from cycling as war.”

He still rides quite aggressively, in a fashion likely to anger many biker-haters, and he says that his Yellow Card is actually made more for good, respectful cyclists that want to communicate their fear and vulnerability to distracted or self-centered motorists, but who often feel powerless to do so in a highly buffered urban culture. “This subversion of that is unique in saying, ‘We can communicate in a way that’s non-violent,” he said.

And perhaps that’s true, although I tend to think that neither the yellow cards nor educational campaigns are likely to lessen the tension anytime soon. There’s still too much resentment on both sides, with motorists feeling judged for their wasteful and dangerous transportation choice and outraged that bicyclists flout traffic laws, and bicyclists feeling judged for riding in a way that makes sense (even to The Ethicist Randy Cohen) and doesn’t hurt anyone and outraged for being the target of such scorn for choosing such a widely beneficial way of getting around.

But Rivera said she thinks tensions will wane as traffic design improvements “lessen the places where friction develops on the streets,” and the growing number of cyclists forces everyone to get used to each other and figure out strategies for peaceful coexistence.

San Francisco gaze

David Talbot
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0
San Francisco gaze

arts@sfbg.com

MUSIC On certain mornings in San Francisco, I step outside and feel as if I’m enveloped by clouds. Dew drops slide off of wiry branches, sparkling as they hit the cement sidewalk. Is it pretty or is it dark? It’s pretty and dark. Before I lived here, it wasn’t clear to me that this was even possible. As the day unravels, it reveals both sunny and stormy moments.

Much like a San Francisco day, the no-fi psych-rock of Young Prisms casts sunbeams and rain showers. Sitting with the group on the rooftop of Ruminator Audio, a studio space in the Mission, I ask about the moods it aims to create and receive. I hear the words "dream-state," "California," "tripped-out," "engaging," "engrossing," and, finally, guitarist-vocalist Matthew Allen’s breakdown: "It’s made so you can hear it two different ways. So each time you listen to it, whether at a show or on your headphones, you’ll discover totally different things."

Four-fifths of the group spent their childhoods in all-boy or all-girl schools on the Peninsula, where a strange amalgam of suburbia and house parties drove them to wage war against ennui by making music. Randomly — once — they performed as individual musicians at an improv show at Mills College before they found each other as a band. Bassist-vocalist Giovanni Betteo played a miked typewriter; Allen and guitarist-vocalist Jason Hendardy played guitar.

Eventually, in a desperate attempt to escape the suburban boredom that bubbled outward as they got older, the barely 20-year-olds moved into a house in San Francisco. Here they met Jordan Silbert, a Detroit native, who completed the prism as drummer. As Silbert jokes, "It’s been the worst two years of my life."

In the YP’s Mission house, the friends became a band. The energy of "a crammed, shitty apartment," as Betteo deems it, led to productivity and tomfoolery. "But at least we were able to practice there," Betteo notes. To which vocalist Stefanie Hodapp adds, "And play music how we wanted to."

"We had just started writing songs again for the first time in years, and also had just met Jordan. So things were really weird," Betteo elaborates. "We were trying to understand each other’s personal styles for a while and what we’re into. We would try different techniques, like jamming together or individually bringing in parts of songs."

"One day it all freely came out," he says. And the band’s self-titled EP for Mexican Summer was born. Its combination of shredded chords, dreary drumbeats, and nostalgic crooning is luminous and murky.

SXSW and an accompanying tour forced YP to abandon their San Francisco rental, and on returning, they’ve found themselves scattered across the city — in the closet spaces of their friends in the group Weekend and on borrowed couches. "We are certain there will be a new YP home," the band declares. "Sometime soon, we hope." The house had negative and positive aspects, they explain. Someone on their block was shot in the dick. There was blood on their porch for weeks.

Young Prisms’ upcoming show with Weekend celebrates a new split-single on Transparent. It is the first in a succession of releases from the prolific band: a split 7-inch with Mathemagic on Atelier Ciseaux, a live 12-inch on Under Water Peoples, and a full-length that might be released at the end of the summer.

According to Batteo, the track on the Weekend split, titled "I Don’t Get Much," is a precursor to the sound of the upcoming full-length. The album is being mixed by Monte Vallier beneath the roof where we sit. "It’s the last song we wrote in the apartment," Betteo says. "From there, the songs have become more cohesive. There is more focus and more of a mission."

"I Don’t Get Much" slowly flows in with shoegaze reverb, rises up, and then drags the listener down. The water levels eventually re-rise and plateau. There are echoes, heartbeats, and an apocalyptic romance, as male and female vocals repetitively discuss the end.

When I ask the band to explain the existentialist undercurrent that ripples throughout the song, Allen rhetorically asks: "If you don’t do anything, what does it really matter?" And vocalist-partner Hodapp notes, "It’s about how dying does not matter once you get in the ground."

Can a dark day be textured with the pretty? Or is the sunny sky filled with clouds? Young Prisms have the answers. *

YOUNG PRISMS

With Weekend, Grave Babies, and Swanifant

Sun/30, 9:30 p.m., 8 p.m., $8

Hemlock Tavern

1131 Polk St., S.F.

(415) 923-0923

www.youngprisms.com

Stage listings

David Talbot
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0

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

THEATER

OPENING

The Apotheosis of Pig Husbandry SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter; www.sfplayhouse.org. $20-30. Previews Wed/19-Fri/21, 8pm. Opens Sat/22, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through June 12. SF Playhouse presents the world premiere of William Bivins’ new play, set at the sleazy Lazy Eight Motel, as part of its stripped-down Sandbox Series.

Bone to Pick and Diadem Cutting Ball Theater, Exit on Taylor, 277 Taylor; 1-800-838-3006, www.cuttingball.com. $15-30. Previews Fri/21-Sat/22, 8pm; Sun/23, 5pm. Opens May 27, 8pm (gala opening May 28, 8pm). Runs Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through June 20. Cutting Ball Theater closes its tenth season with a pair of plays by Eugenie Chan.

The Breath of Life NohSpace, 2840 Mariposa; www.brownpapertickets.com. $25. Opens Fri/21, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through June 6. Spare Stage Productions performs David Hare’s drama about a wife and mistress dumped by the same man.

How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Lost My Virginity SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter; www.sfplayhouse.org. $20. Opens Sun/23, 7pm. Runs Sun, 7pm. Through June 27. Aileen Clark returns with a special run of her autobiographical comedy.

"San Francisco International Arts Festival" Various venues; 1-800-838-3006, www.sfiaf.org. Most shows $25. May 19-31. In its seventh incarnation, the fest hosts dance, theater, and other artists from ten countries.

BAY AREA

God’s Ear Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; www.shotgunplayers.org. $15-28. Previews Wed/19, 7pm; Thurs/20, 8pm. Runs Wed, 7pm; Thurs-Sat, 8pm; and Sun, 5pm. Through June 20. Shotgun Players perform Jenny Schwartz’s drama about grief; Erica Chong Shuch directs.

ONGOING

An Apology for the Course and Outcome of Certain Events Delivered by Doctor John Faustus on This His Final Evening Garage, 975 Howard; 585-1221, http://pustheatre.com. $15. Thurs/20-Sat/22, 8pm. This new, relatively short play with the long title, presented by Performers Under Stress, struts and frets a wearying hour upon the stage as actor Scott Baker’s haughty and high-strung Faust, knowing he is bound for hell at the end of the evening, pleads his case before the audience, shadowed all the while by a speechless but expressive Mephistopheles (played with sly showmanship and moody animal intelligence by Valerie Fachman). Free brew aside, there’s little merit in playwright Mickle Maher’s self-conscious rambling, which more than anything chases its own tale — running in semantic circles without progressing anywhere or landing a bite. (Avila)

Andy Warhol: Good For the Jews? Jewish Theatre, 470 Florida; 292-1233, www.tjt-sf.org. $15-45. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through June 20. Renowned monologist Josh Kornbluth is ready to admit his niche is a narrow one: he talks about himself, and more than that, he talks about his relationship to his beloved late father, the larger-than-life old-guard communist of Kornbluth’s breakthrough Red Diaper Baby. So it will not be surprising that in his current (and still evolving) work, created with director David Dower, the performer-playwright’s attempt to "enter" Warhol’s controversial ten portraits of famous 20th-century Jews (neatly illuminated at the back of the stage) stirs up memories of his father, along with a close family friend — an erudite bachelor and closeted homosexual who impressed the boyhood Josh with bedtime stories culled from his dissertation. The scenes in which Kornbluth recreates these childhood memories are among the show’s most effective, although throughout the narrative Kornbluth, never more confident in his capacities, remains a knowing charmer. (Avila)

Company Fat Exit Stage Left, 156 Eddy; www.brownpapertickets.com. $20-25. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through May 29. Exit Theatre and Pumpjam Productions perform Bill Levesque’s darkly comic play, set in the Depression-era South.

Eat, Pray, Laugh! Off-Market Theaters, 965 Mission; www.brownpapertickets.com. $20. Wed, 8pm. Through May 26. Off-Market Theaters presents stand up comic and solo artist Alicia Dattner in her award-winning solo show.

Echo’s Reach Brava Theater Center, 2781 24th St; 665-2275, www.citycircus.org. $14-35. Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 4pm); Sun, 4pm. Through May 30. City Circus premieres an urban fairytale by Tim Barsky.

Fishing Shotwell Studios, 3252 19th St; www.fishingtheplay.com. $25. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through May 29. David Duman’s new play satirizes foodie culture.

Geezer Marsh MainStage, 1062 Valencia; 1-800-838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Fri/21, 8pm; Sat/22, 8:30pm; Sun/23, 7pm. Geoff Hoyle presents a workshop performance of his new solo show about aging.

Giant Bones Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy; (650) 728-8098, www.brownpapertickets.com. $15-50. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through June 19. Fantasy author Peter S. Beagle (The Last Unicorn) penned the source material for Stuart Bousel’s world-premiere play.

*Hot Greeks Hypnodrome Theatre, 575 Tenth St; 1-800-838-3006, www.thrillpeddlers.com. $30-69. Thurs, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Through June 27. On the principle that when you’ve got it you should really flaunt it, San Francisco’s Thrillpeddlers essay their second revival of a musical by the storied Cockettes. Hot Greeks, which premiered in midnight performances at the old Palace Theater in 1972, was the gleefully crazed cross-dressing troupe’s only other fully scripted musical besides, of course, Pearls Over Shanghai.

While not the Oresteia or anything, Hot Greeks is more than an excuse for a lot of louche, libidinous hilarity. Okay, not much more. But it is a knowing little romp — supported by some infectious songs courtesy of Martin Worman and Richard "Scrumbly" Koldewyn — wedding trashy high school romance with the trashy ancient Greece of Aristophanes and the Peloponnesian War. (Avila)

Marga Gomez is Proud and Bothered New Conservatory Theater Center, 25 Van Ness; 861-6988, www.nctcsf.org. $18-40. Thurs-Sat, 8pm (no show June 25); Sun, 2pm. Through June 26. Gomez performs her GLAAD Media award-winning comedy.

*Pearls Over Shanghai Hypnodrome, 575 Tenth St.; 1-800-838-3006, www.thrillpeddlers.com. $30-69. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through June 26. Starting July 10, runs Sat, 8pm and Sun, 7pm. Through August 1. Thrillpeddlers presents this revival of the legendary Cockettes’ 1970 musical extravaganza.

Peter Pan Threesixty Theater, Ferry Park (on Embarcadero across from the Ferry Bldg); www.peterpantheshow.com. $30-125. Tues and Thurs, 7pm; Fri-Sat, 7:30pm (also Sat, 2pm); Wed, 2pm; Sun, 1 and 5pm. Through August 29. JM Barrie’s tale is performed in a specially-built 360-degree CGI theater.

The Real Americans The Marsh, 1062 Valencia; 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $18-50. Wed-Thurs and May 28, 8pm; Sat, 5pm; Sun, 3pm. Through May 30. Starting July 8, runs Thurs-Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm; Sun, 3pm, through Aug 8. The Marsh presents the world premiere of Dan Hoyle’s new solo show.

Rhino Boxcar Playhouse, 505 Natoma; 776-1747, www.boxcartheatre.org. $14-25. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through May 29. A stark spotlight, a vibrant cellist, masked players, and a chairless theatre space greet audience members attending Boxcar Theatre’s Ionesco adaptation, Rhino. Though encouraged to move about freely, most audience members (the night I attended) settled for turning their otherwise static bodies to follow the action occurring in every corner of the small room: a hypersomniac’s nightscapes, a lethargic love affair between a pair of petit bourgeoisie, the slowly unraveling radio announcer reporting on the encroaching tide of rhinoceres, a fraught spinster hysterical over the fate of her pussy (cat). Though a courageous choice in staging, it didn’t quite provide the feeling of the familiar under siege that it could have with more overt interaction with the not-quite-captive-enough public. And while certain of the short snipped scenes were tense and evocative — in particular the homesick lamentations and anxiety-laden dreams of Eugene (Ross Pasquale) — less subtle imaginings such as the intermittent lockstep marches fell flat. Bad German accents have a well-respected place in Monty Python sketches and the like — not so much in a play whose original strength of metaphor doesn’t need such obvious machinations. However, in keeping with an already-established Boxcar Theatre tradition, design elements such as lighting (Nick A. Olivero) and sound design (Sara Huddleston) were impeccable. (Nicole Gluckstern)

*Round and Round the Garden American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary; 749-2228, www.act-sf.org. $10-82. Wed/19-Sat/22, 8pm (also Wed/19 and Sat/22, 2pm); Sun/23, 2pm. American Conservatory Theater offers a canny and contagious production of Alan Ayckbourn’s 1973 sex farce, one of the gems in the British playwright’s well-loved trilogy, "The Norman Conquests," which variously lands on the same group of related characters — centered on the loveable and lovelorn reprobate Norman (a charmingly unstrung Manoel Felciano) — during the course of a single weekend spent in giddy, desperate, troubled infidelities. Director John Rando and a razor-sharp cast deliver a very entertaining evening. (Avila)

Sandy Hackett’s Rat Pack Show Marines’ Memorial Theater, 609 Sutter; 771-6900. $30-89. Thurs/20-Sat/22, 8pm (also Sat/22, 2pm); Sun/23, 2pm. Starting May 28, runs Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through June 27. From somewhere before the Beatles and after Broadway "Beatlemania" comes this big band cigarettes-and-high-ball nightclub act, recreating the storied Vegas stage shenanigans of iconic actor-crooners Frank Sinatra (David DeCosta), Dean Martin (Tony Basile), and Sammy Davis Jr. (Doug Starks), and sidekick comedian Joey Bishop (Sandy Hackett). The band is all-pro and the songs sound great — DeCosta’s singing as Sinatra is uncanny, but all do very presentable renditions of signature songs and standards. Meanwhile, a lot of mincing about the stage and the drink cart meets with more mixed success, and I don’t just mean scotch and soda. The Rat Pack is pre-PC, of course, but the off-color humor, while no doubt historically sound, can be dully moronic. (Avila)

Speed the Plow Royce Gallery, 2910 Mariposa; 1-866-811-4111, www.speedtheplowsf.com. $28. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through June 19. Expression Productions performs David Mamet’s black comedy.

Very Warm for May Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson; 255-8207. $38-44. Wed/19, 7pm; Thurs/20-Fri/21, 8pm; Sat/22, 6pm; Sun/23, 3pm. 42nd Street Moon kicks off their Jerome Kern Celebration with this Oscar Hammerstein II script that features Kern’s final Broadway score.

What Mama Said About Down There Our Little Theater, 287 Ellis; 820-3250, www.theatrebayarea.org. $15-25. Thurs-Sun, 8pm. Through July 30. Writer-performer-activist Sia Amma presents this largely political, a bit clinical, inherently sexual, and utterly unforgettable performance piece.

BAY AREA

*East 14th: True Tales of a Reluctant Player Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Fri/21, June 4, 11, 18, 9pm; Sat/22, June 12, 8pm; May 30, June 6, 20, 7pm. Through June 20. Don Reed’s solo play, making its Oakland debut after an acclaimed New York run, is truly a welcome homecoming twice over. (Avila)

In the Wake Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $13.50-71. Opens Wed/19, 8pm. Runs Tues and Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Thurs and Sat, 2pm; no matinees Thurs/20, May 29, June 3, 12, or 17; no show June 25); Wed and Sun, 7pm (also Sun, 2pm). Through June 27. Berkeley Rep and Center Theatre Group perform Lisa Kron and Leigh Silverman’s drama about a woman on the verge of a nervous breakdown after she begins to question her faith in country, relationships, and herself.

Twelfth Night La Val’s Subterranean, 1834 Euclid, Berk; www.impacttheatre.com. $10-20. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through June 12. You’ve got to hand it to Impact Theatre: they make reimagining Shakespeare look so darned easy. To set a crass comedy about class, obsession, and mistaken identity at "Illyria Studios" in the heart of tawdry Tinseltown seems like such an obvious take, you wonder why it took someone so long to get around to doing it. True, the execution is not as vivacious as last year’s A Midsummer Night’s Dream, but overall, the enthusiastic cast and timeless humor win the night. (Gluckstern)

What Just Happened? Cabaret at the Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; 1-800-838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Fri/21, 9pm; Sat/22, 8pm. Nina Wise’s show, an improvised work based on personal and political recent events, extends and re-opens at a new venue.

The World’s Funniest Bubble Show Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 826-5750, www.themarsh.org. $10-50. Sun, 11am. Through June 27. The Amazing Bubble Man, a.k.a. Louis Pearl, performs his family-friendly show.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

"Baggage Allowance" Z Space at Theater Artaud, 450 Florida; www.brownpapertickets.com. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 3pm. $16-20. Composer and artist Pamela Z presents her world-premiere multi-layered performance work.

"BorderOUT Collaborative: Noche de Inspiracion y Tradicion" Red Poppy Art House, 2698 Folsom; 826-2402. Fri, 8pm. $10-15. Music, theater, spoken word, acrobatics, stilt walking, and more from BorderOUT’s LGBTQ immigrant artists.

Crooked Jades with Kate Weare Dance Co. Noe Valley Ministry, 1021 Sanchez; 454-5238, www.noevalleymusicseries.com. Sat, 8pm. $20. The old-time music group performs with the modern dance company.

"Dream Come True: All-Female Battle and Showcase" City Dance Studios, 10 Colton; www.myspace.com/allfemalebattle. Sat, 8pm. $10-15. MCs, DJs, musicians, and dancers participate in this b-girl competition.

Sara Shelton Mann and David Szlasa Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Novellus Theater, 700 Howard; 978-2787, www.ybca.org. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. $30. The choreorgrapher and media artist present a world premiere collaboration, tribes/dominion.

"2010 Rhino Benefit Spectacular" Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson; 1-800-838-3006, www.therhino.org. Tues, 8pm. $20. Raise money for queer theater pioneers Theatre Rhinoceros by attending this show, featuing Leanne Borghese, Connie Champagne, Matthew Martin, and other performers.

Film listings

David Talbot
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0

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

OPENING

The City of Your Final Destination In James Ivory’s latest literary adaptation, Omar (Omar Metwally), an Iranian American graduate student of Latin American literature, precipitously descends on a rural estate in Paraguay, hoping to petition the relatives of deceased writer Jules Gund for authorization to write his biography. Numbering among the somewhat complicated ménage are Gund’s widow, Caroline (Laura Linney), his mistress, Arden (Charlotte Gainsbourg), their child, Portia (Ambar Mallman), the author’s brother, Adam (Anthony Hopkins), and Adam’s lover, Pete (Hiroyuki Sanada), a household that the film depicts as caught in a sedative isolation obstructing any progress or flourishing or change. But where Gund’s violent suicide has failed to produce a cataclysmic shift, the somewhat hapless Omar manages to interrupt their idle routines and mobilize them, stirring up sentiment and ambition. The notion of redirected fate is telegraphed by the title, but what the film does best is show the calm before the storm (really more of a heavy downpour) — and showcase the fineness of Hopkins’s and Linney’s dramatic abilities. In the final act, we see the characters being moved about rather than moved, and the sound of screeching brakes applied as the film reaches its conclusion undoes much of the subtlety invested in their performances. (1:58) Embarcadero, Shattuck. (Rapoport)

*Dirty Hands The 1990s-ish iconoclastic, workaholic breed of Asian hipster is obsessively worked by David Choe in Dirty Hands. Exhaustively documenting the Los Angeles-born artist for eight years as he matures before our eyes, director Harry Kim charts the growth spurts: from mischievous tot to shoplifter and graf artist to porn illustrator to street-art superstar to spiritual penitent after a stint in a Tokyo jail. The filmmaker doesn’t seem to know quite when to stop, but then neither does his subject: an obviously intelligent, playful talent who specializes in compulsively analyzing himself and pushing himself to the limits of the law, his work, and his own (r)evolution as a human being. So driven in his pursuit of edge-skating experiences that he comes off as less hipster than haunted, Choe and his Bukowskian tendencies, Vice aesthetics, and "deep" thoughts rivet long after the bodily fluids and sensory overload murals congeal. (1:33) Roxie. (Chun)

Kites This Bollywood action-romance is "presented by" Brett Ratner (apparently, he helped re-edit this English version). (1:30)

MacGruber Will Forte’s bemulleted, MacGyver-biting Saturday Night Live character gets his own movie. (1:39)

Paper Man Though certainly offbeat enough to fall into the quirky indie category, Paper Man reminds us that weird is not always good. There’s very little original about the main conceit: plagued by writer’s block, Richard Dunn (Jeff Daniels) rents a house in Montauk where he befriends outcast Abby (Emma Stone), a teenage girl with a tragic past. The film’s unique addition is Richard’s imaginary friend Captain Excellent, played by Ryan Reynolds in full-on superhero attire. But Captain Excellent is so absurdly campy that he’s almost too much to take — which wouldn’t be such a problem if Paper Man weren’t asking us to take it seriously. The wacky superhero scenes are mostly out-of-place, and all the heavy drama moments fall flat. But even without the muddled tone, Paper Man is riddled with clichés. We’ve seen enough of the zany manchild learning valuable life lessons, and the troubled teen forming an unlikely bond. At this point, there’s nothing super about it. (1:50) Lumiere. (Peitzman)

Shrek Forever After 3D Mike Myers has sure gotten a lot of longevity out of his Scottish accent. (1:33) Four Star, Presidio.

ONGOING

Alice in Wonderland Tim Burton’s take on the classic children’s tale met my mediocre expectations exactly, given its months of pre-release hype (in the film world, fashion magazines, and even Sephora, for the love of brightly-colored eyeshadows). Most folks over a certain age will already know the story, and much of the dialogue, before the lights go down and the 3-D glasses go on; it’s up to Burton and his all-star cast (including numerous big-name actors providing voices for animated characters) to make the tale seem newly enthralling. The visuals are nearly as striking as the CG, with Helena Bonham Carter’s big-headed Red Queen a particularly marvelous human-computer creation. But Wonderland suffers from the style-over-substance dilemma that’s plagued Burton before; all that spooky-pretty whimsy can’t disguise the film’s fairly tepid script. Teenage Alice (Mia Wasikowska) displaying girl-power tendencies is a nice, if not surprising, touch, but Johnny Depp’s grating take on the Mad Hatter will please only those who were able to stomach his interpretation of Willy Wonka. (1:48) SF Center. (Eddy)

*Babies Thomas Balmes’ camera records the first year in the lives of four infants in vastly different circumstances. They’re respectively born to hip young couple in Tokyo’s high-tech clutter; familiar moderately alterna-types (the father is director Frazer Bradshaw of last year’s excellent indie drama Everything Strange and New) in S.F.’s Mission District; a yurt-dwelling family isolated in the vast Mongolian tundra; and a Namibian village so maternally focused that adult menfolk seem to have been banished. Yes, on one level this is the cutest li’l documentary you ever saw. But if you were planning to avoid thinking that is all (or most) of what Babies would be like, you will miss out bigtime. Void of explanatory titles, voice-over narration, or subtitle translations, this is a purely observatory piece that reveals just how fascinating the business of being a baby is. There’s very little predictable pooping, wailing, or coddling. Instead, Balmes’ wonderful eye captures absorbing moments of sussing things out, decision-making, and skill learning. While the First World tykes firstborns both — are hauled off to (way) pre-school classes, the much less day planned Third Worlders have more complex, unmediated dealings with community. Those range from fending off devilish older siblings to Mongol Bayarjargal’s startlingly casual consorting with large furry livestock. (Imagine the horror of parents you know were their baby found surrounded by massive cows — a situation that here causes no concern whatsoever for adults, children, or bovines.) So accustomed to the camera that it doesn’t influence their behavior, the subjects here are viewed with an intimacy that continually surprises. Babies is getting a wider-than-usual release for a documentary, one cannily timed to coincide with Mother’s Day. But don’t be fooled: this movie is actually very cool. (1:19) Albany, Empire, 1000 Van Ness, Piedmont, Smith Rafael, Sundance Kabuki. (Harvey)

The Back-Up Plan (1:40) SF Center.

*Casino Jack and the United States of Money Casino Jack is big-budget documentary filmmaking, glossy and prone to expensive music cues, but I suppose you get a license to be flashy when you’ve proven to be as good at it as Alex Gibney. The director of Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005) and Academy Award winner Taxi to the Dark Side (2007), Gibney sets his sights on Washington lobbyist Jack Abramoff with an abundantly in-depth exploration of government greed and fraud. Investigating Abramoff’s indiscretions, from his introduction as chairman of the College Republicans, to his illegal selling of House votes for sweatshops in the Mariana Islands and over-billing of numerous Indian casinos, Gibney solidly serves Abramoff his just desserts. The director is equally interested in questioning the kind of government America has fostered that turns a blind eye to this sort of behavior. (2:02) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Galvin)

*City Island The Rizzo family of City Island, N.Y. — a tiny atoll associated historically with fishing and jurisdictionally with the Bronx — have reached a state where their primary interactions consist of sniping, yelling, and storming out of rooms. These storm clouds operate as cover for the secrets they’re all busy keeping from one another. Correctional officer Vince (Andy Garcia) pretends he’s got frequent poker nights so he can skulk off to his true shameful indulgence: a Manhattan acting class. Perpetually fuming spouse Joyce (Julianna Margulies) assumes he’s having an affair. Daughter Vivian (Dominik García-Lorido) has dropped out of school to work at a strip joint, while the world class-sarcasms of teenager Vinnie (Ezra Miller) deflect attention from his own hidden life as an aspiring chubby chaser. All this (plus everyone’s sneaky cigarette habit) is nothing, however, compared to Vince’s really big secret: he conceived and abandoned a "love child" before marrying, and said guilty issue has just turned up as a 24-year-old car thief on his cell block. Writer-director Raymond De Felitta made a couple other features in the last 15 years, none widely seen; if this latest is typical, we need more of him, more often. Perfectly cast, City Island is farcical without being cartoonish, howl-inducing without lowering your brain-cell count. It’s arguably a better, less self-conscious slice of dysfunctional family absurdism than Little Miss Sunshine (2006) — complete with an Alan Arkin more inspired in his one big scene here than in all of that film’s Oscar-winning performance. (1:40) Lumiere, Shattuck. (Harvey)

Clash of the Titans The minds behind Clash of the Titans decided their movie should be 3D at the last possible moment before release. Consequently, the 3D is pretty janky. I don’t know what the rest of the film’s excuse is. Clash of the Titans retreads the 1981 cult classic with reasonable faithfulness, though Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion effects have been (of course) replaced with CG renderings of all the expected monsters, magic, gods, etc. Liam Neeson and Ralph Fiennes — as other reviews have pointed out: Schindler’s List (1993) reunion! — glow and glower as Zeus and Hades, while Sam Worthington (2009’s Avatar) once again fills the role of bland hero, this time as a snooze-worthy Perseus. You might have fun in the moment with Clash of the Titans, but it’s hardly memorable, and certainly nowhere near epic. (1:58) SF Center. (Eddy)

Date Night By today’s comedy standards, Date Night is positively old-fashioned: a case of mistaken identity causes a struggling married couple (Steve Carell and Tina Fey) to be tangled in a ransom plot for a stolen flash drive that belongs to a local mob boss. Unfussy plots are par for the course for films belonging to the all-but-lost "madcap all-nighter" genre, and in this case the simplicity of the set-up becomes Date Night‘s greatest asset, allowing Carell and Fey free reign to joke and ad lib lines. Like it or loathe it, the pair’s trademark senses of humor are the movie, and they arrange some pretty gleefully entertaining bits on the fly. Toss in a bunch of cameos from the likes of Ray Liotta and Mark Wahlberg and you’ve got yourself a bona fide movie-film, but it’s difficult not to see what Date Night might have been with just a smidge more effort. (1:27) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Galvin)

*Exit Through the Gift Shop Exit Through the Gift Shop is not a film about the elusive graffiti-cum-conceptual artist and merry prankster known as Banksy, even though he takes up a good chunk of this sly and by-no-means impartial documentary and is listed as its director. Rather, as he informs us — voice electronically altered, face hidden in shadow — in the film’s opening minutes, the film’s real subject is one Thierry Guetta, a French expat living in LA whose hangdog eyes, squat stature, and propensity for mutton chops and polyester could pass him off as Ron Jeremy’s long lost twin. Unlike Jeremy, Guetta is not blessed with any prodigious natural talent to propel him to stardom, save for a compulsion to videotape every waking minute of his life (roughly 80 percent of the footage in Exit is Guetta’s) and a knack for being in the right place at the right time. When Guetta is introduced by his tagger cousin to a pre-Obamatized Shepard Fairey in 2007, he realizes his true calling: to make a documentary about the street art scene that was then only starting to get mainstream attention. Enter Banksy, who, at first, is Guetta’s ultimate quarry. Eventually, the two become chummy, with Guetta acting as lookout and documenter for the artist just as the art market starts clambering for its piece of, "the Scarlet Pimpernel of street art," as one headline dubs him. When, at about three quarters of the way in, Guetta, following Banksy’s casual suggestion, drops his camcorder and tries his hand at making street art, Exit becomes a very different beast. Guetta’s flashy debut as Mr. Brainwash is as obscenely successful as his "art" is terribly unimaginative — much to the chagrin of his former documentary subjects. But Guetta is no Eve Harrington and Banksy, who has the last laugh here, gives him plenty of rope with which to truss himself. Is Mr. Brainwash really the ridiculous and inevitable terminus of street art’s runaway mainstream success (which, it must be said, Banksy has handsomely profited from)? That question begs another: with friends like Banksy, who needs enemies? (1:27) Embarcadero, Shattuck, Smith Rafael, Sundance Kabuki. (Sussman)

Furry Vengeance (1:32) SF Center.

*The Ghost Writer Roman Polanski’s never-ending legal woes have inspired endless debates on the interwebs and elsewhere; they also can’t help but add subtext to the 76-year-old’s new film, which is chock full o’ anti-American vibes anyway. It’s also a pretty nifty political thriller about a disgraced former British Prime Minister (Pierce Brosnan) who’s hanging out in his Martha’s Vineyard mansion with his whip-smart, bitter wife (Olivia Williams) and Joan Holloway-as-ice-queen assistant (Kim Cattrall), plus an eager young biographer (Ewan McGregor) recently hired to ghost-write his memoirs. But as the writer quickly discovers, the politician’s past contains the kinds of secrets that cause strange cars with tinted windows to appear in one’s rearview mirror when driving along deserted country roads. Polanski’s long been an expert when it comes to escalating tension onscreen; he’s also so good at adding offbeat moments that only seem tossed-off (as when the PM’s groundskeeper attempts to rake leaves amid relentless sea breezes) and making the utmost of his top-notch actors (Tom Wilkinson and Eli Wallach have small, memorable roles). Though I found The Ghost Writer‘s ZOMG! third-act revelation to be a bit corny, I still didn’t think it detracted from the finely crafted film that led up to it. (1:49) Opera Plaza, Presidio. (Eddy)

*The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo By the time the first of Stieg Larsson’s so-called "Millennium" books had been published anywhere, the series already had an unhappy ending: he died (in 2004). The following year, The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo became a Swedish, then eventually international sensation, its sequels following suit. The books are addicting, to say the least; despite their essential crime-mystery-thriller nature, they don’t require putting your ear for writing of some literary value on sleep mode. Now the first of three adaptive features shot back-to-back has reached U.S. screens. (Sorry to say, yes, a Hollywood remake is already in the works — but let’s hope that’s years away.) Even at two-and-a-half hours, this Girl With the Dragon Tattoo by necessity must do some major truncating to pack in the essentials of a very long, very plotty novel. Still, all but the nitpickingest fans will be fairly satisfied, while virgins will have the benefit of not knowing what’s going to happen and getting scared accordingly. Soon facing jail after losing a libel suit brought against him by a shady corporate tycoon, leftie journalist Mikael Blomkvist (Michael Nyqvist) gets a curious private offer to probe the disappearance 40 years earlier of a teenage girl. This entangles him with an eccentric wealthy family and their many closet skeletons (including Nazi sympathies) — as well as dragon-tattooed Lisbeth Salander (Noomi Rapace), androgynous loner, 24-year-old court ward, investigative researcher, and skillful hacker. Director Niels Arden Oplev and his scenarists do a workmanlike job — one more organizational than interpretive, a faithful transcription without much style or personality all its own. Nonetheless, Larsson’s narrative engine kicks in early and hauls you right along to the depot. (2:32) Bridge, Piedmont, Shattuck. (Harvey)

The Greatest Lofty title aside, there’s nothing particularly extraordinary about The Greatest. In many ways, it’s your standard grief porn, in that it focuses on a group of characters mourning a dead teenager for an hour and a half. On the other hand, the cast is tremendous — Susan Sarandon and Pierce Brosnan are solid as the parents of the broken Brewer family, but the young actors give the most memorable performances. Fresh off her Oscar nomination for An Education (2009), Carey Mulligan continues to mingle precociousness and naiveté. The Greatest also showcases the very talented Johnny Simmons, whose past films — Hotel for Dogs (2009) and Jennifer’s Body (2009) — haven’t exactly earned him exposure. For its genre, then, The Greatest is actually quite good. It has plenty of charm mixed with moments of genuine emotion, often marked by much welcome restraint. But even with a slight twist on the convention (Mulligan’s Rose is pregnant with the dead kid’s baby), it’s still just a well-made tearjerker. (1:36) Smith Rafael. (Peitzman)

Harry Brown Shades of Dirty Harry (1971) for the tea cozy and tweed set: elegantly rendered and very nicely played, Harry Brown might be the dark, late-in-the-day elder brother to 1971’s Get Carter, in the hands of eponymous lead Michael Caine. He’s a pensioner mourning the passing of his beloved wife, his mysterious life as a Marine stationed in Northern Ireland firmly behind him. Then his chess-playing pal Leonard (David Bradley) is terrorized and killed by the unsavory gang of heroin dealing hoodlums who lurk near their projects in a tunnel walkway like gun-toting, foul-mouthed, sociopathic trolls. Harry Brown is, er, forced to forsake a vow of peace and go commando on the culprits’ asses, triggering some moments of ultraviolence that are unsettling in their whole-hearted embrace of vigilante justice. Like predecessors similarly fixated on vengeance in their respective urban hells, a la Hardcore (1979) and Taxi Driver (1976) (Harry Brown echoes key moments in the latter, in particular — see, for instance, its keenly tense, eerily humorous gun shopping scene), Harry Brown is essentially an arch-conservative film, if good looking and even likable with Caine meting out the punishment. The overall denouement just might make some seniors feel very, very good about the coiled potential for hurt embedded in their aging frames. (1:42) Embarcadero, Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

How to Train Your Dragon (1:38) 1000 Van Ness.

The Human Centipede (First Sequence) Director Tom Six had a vision, a glorious dream of surgically connecting three human beings via their gastro-intestinal systems, or as Kevin Smith would say — "ass to mouth." When two girlfriends on a road trip across Europe get a flat tire, they stumble upon the home of a mad doctor (Dieter Laser) with a similar dream, who drugs them and ties them up in his basement laboratory. The Human Centipede is an entry into the torture porn arena, but it feels especially icky because you just know that the girls have zero chance of escaping the "100 percent medically accurate!" surgery. Once hooked up, there’s nowhere for the film to go and two out of three actors can’t talk because they are sewn to someone else’s anus. Still, as one-note as The Human Centipede is, I think we’d do well to encourage more films to be as batshit insane as this one. (1:30) Bridge. (Galvin)

*Iron Man 2 Tony Stark (Robert Downey Jr.) returns, just as rich and self-involved as before, though his ego his inflated to unimaginable heights due to his superheroic fame. Pretty much, he’s put the whole "with great power comes great responsibility" thing on the back burner, exasperating everyone from Girl Friday Pepper Potts (Gwyneth Paltrow); to BFF military man Rhodey (Don Cheadle, replacing the first installment’s Terrence Howard); to certain mysterious Marvels played by Samuel L. Jackson and Scarlett Johansson; to a doofus-y rival defense contractor (Sam Rockwell); to a sanctimonius Senator (Garry Shandling). Frankly, the fact that a vengeful Russian scientist (Mickey Rourke) is plotting Tony’s imminent death is a secondary threat here — for much of the film, Tony’s biggest enemy is himself. Fortunately, this is conveyed with enjoyable action (props to director Jon Favreau, who also has a small role), a witty script (actor Justin Theroux — who knew? He also co-wrote 2008’s Tropic Thunder, by the way), and gusto-going performances by everyone, from Downey on down. Stay for the whole credits or miss out on the geek-gasm. (2:05) California, Castro, Empire, Four Star, Marina, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, Sundance Kabuki. (Eddy)

Just Wright (1:51) 1000 Van Ness.

*Kick-Ass Based on a comic book series by Mark Millar, whose work was also the model for 2008’s Wanted, Kick Ass is a similarly over-the-top action flick that plays up its absurdity to even greater comedic effect. High school nerd Dave (Aaron Johnson) decides to become the world’s first real superhero. Donning a green wetsuit he bought on the internet and mustering some unlikely courage, he takes to the streets to avenge wrongdoing. Unsurprisingly, Dave is immediately beaten almost to death because he’s just a kid who has no idea what he’s doing, but Kick-Ass‘ greatest achievement is knowing exactly how to subvert audience expectations. Scenes that marry the film’s innocent story with enormously exaggerated violence enhance the otherwise Superbad-lite high-school comedy unfolding around them, and a parallel plot-line involving Nicolas Cage instructing his 12-year-old daughter to commit grievous murders will probably end up being the most gratifying aspect of the film. Though too much set-up and spinning gears mars the middle act, it’s hard to fault the film for competently setting up one of the most crowd-pleasing endings in recent memory. (1:58) 1000 Van Ness, SF Center. (Galvin)

Letters to Juliet If you can stomach the inevitable Barbara Cartland/Harlequin-romance-style clichés — and believe that Amanda Seyfried as a New Yorker fact-checker — then Letters to Juliet might be the ideal Tuscan-sunlit valentine for you. Seyfried’s Sophie is on a pre-honeymoon trip to Verona with her preoccupied chef-restaurateur intended, Victor (Gael Garcia Bernal), who’s more interested in sampling cheese and purchasing vino than taking in the romantic attractions of Verona with his fiancée. Luckily she finds the perfect diversion for a wannabe scribe: a small clutch of diehard romantics enlisted by the city of Verona to answer the letters to Juliet posted by lovelorn ladies. They’re Juliet’s secretaries — never mind that Juliet never managed to maintain a successful or long-term relationship herself. When Sophie finds a lost, unanswered letter from the ’50s, she sets off sequence of unlikely events, as the letter’s English writer, Claire (Vanessa Redgrave), returns to Verona with her grandson Charlie (Christopher Egan), in search of her missed-connection, Lorenzo. Alas, Lorenzo’s long gone, and the fact-checker decides to help the warm-hearted, hopeful Claire find her lost lover. Unfortunately Sophie’s chemistry with both her matches isn’t as powerful as Redgrave’s with real-life husband Franco Nero — after all he was Lancelot to her Guenevere in 1967’s Camelot and the father of her son. Still, Redgrave’s power as an actress — and her relationship with Nero — adds a resonance that takes this otherwise by-the-numbers romance to another level. (1:46) Marina, 1000 Van Ness, Piedmont, SF Center, Sundance Kabuki. (Chun)

The Little Traitor Lynn Roth’s film is set in 1947 Palestine, shortly before Israel became a state. Young Proffi Liebowitz (Ido Port) wasn’t yet born when his parents fled the Holocaust in Poland, but he’s politically tuned-in enough to form a mini-resistance group with his neighborhood pals, who plot against the occupying British forces (sample act of rebellion: "British Go Home" graffiti). Caught one night scampering home after the citywide curfew, Proffi meets Sergeant Dunlop (Alfred Molina), whose kindness makes the boy realize his black-and-white view of the enemy might have some room for color after all. Of course, Proffi’s friendship with the Brit, who teaches him to play snooker and pronounce complicated English words like "flatulence," is not received well by his community (see: film’s title). Despite its political undertones, this is a pretty standard coming-of-age tale (including the de rigueur "peeping on the sexy neighbor" subplot). Too bad the director decided to film so much of it in English — kid actor Port is far less cloying when he’s speaking his native Hebrew. (1:29) Opera Plaza. (Eddy)

*Mid-August Lunch Gianni Di Gregorio’s loose, engaging comedy is about an aging bachelor still living with his ancient mum in their Rome flat. When his landlord offers to forgive some debts in return for briefly taking in his own elderly ma, Gianni (played by the director himself) soon finds himself in cat-herding charge of no less than five old ladies who delight in one another’s company while running him ragged. Gomorrah (2008) screenwriter Di Gregorio used nonprofessionals to play those parts in this semi improvised miniature, which is as light and flavorful as a first course of prosciutto and mozzarella. It’s a solid addition to the canon of palate-pleasing culinary flicks such as Big Night (1996) and Babette’s Feast (1987), as opposed to the repulsive ones like Super Size Me (2004) or Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life (1983). (1:15) Opera Plaza, Shattuck. (Harvey)

La Mission A veteran S.F. vato turned responsible — if still muy macho — widower, father, and Muni driver, fortysomething Che (Benjamin Bratt) isn’t the type for mushy displays of sentiment. But it’s clear his pride and joy is son Jess (Jeremy Ray Valdez), a straight-A high school grad bound for UCLA. That filial bond, however, sustains some serious damage when Che discovers Jes has a secret life — with a boyfriend, in the Castro, just a few blocks away from their Mission walkup but might as well be light-years away as far as old-school dad is concerned. This Bratt family project (Benjamin’s brother Peter writes-directs, his wife Talisa Soto Bratt has a supporting role) has a bit of a predictable TV-movie feel, but its warm heart is very much in the right place. (1:57) Opera Plaza, Shattuck, SF Center. (Harvey)

Mother and Child Adoption advocates who railed against Orphan (2009) should turn their sights on Mother and Child, a ridiculous melodrama with a thoroughly vile message. I’d wager writer-director Rodrigo García didn’t set out to make an anti-adoption film: this is a movie about the relationship between mothers and daughters. But the undertones are impossible to miss. Annette Bening plays Karen, a miserable woman consumed by regret for putting her daughter up for adoption 37 years ago. That biological daughter is Elizabeth (Naomi Watts), who — despite having been adopted at birth — speaks dismissively of her "adoptive" parents as though they were never really hers. She’s cold and manipulative, sleeping with her boss and married neighbor because she can. Mother and Child offers no real explanation for why these women are so unpleasant, so we’re forced to conclude it’s the four decades-old adoption. Despite a stellar cast, which also includes Kerry Washington, Samuel L. Jackson, and S. Epatha Merkerson, the film’s misguided politics are too distracting to ignore. (2:06) Shattuck, Sundance Kabuki. (Peitzman)

A Nightmare on Elm Street I’ll say this about the remake of A Nightmare on Elm Street: it could have been worse. Yes, it’s pointless and unimaginative and producer Michael Bay should still be ashamed, but I didn’t hate every minute of it. Don’t get me wrong, the movie is not good. It’s not terrible, if only because it has a few decent scares — all of which are, of course, shamelessly lifted from the original. Mostly, however, A Nightmare on Elm Street is a waste of time, updating Freddy Krueger with an icky twist (which I won’t spoil here) and culling together more jump scares than should ever be shoved into one film. The cast is passable, with relative newbie Rooney Mara taking on Nancy — she’s fine but forgettable. Jackie Earle Haley does a solid job with Freddy, but he was doomed from the start, just by virtue of not being Robert Englund. This Freddy is more brutal, to be sure, but he’s also far less fun. One pun in the entire movie? He might as well be Jason Voorhees. (1:42) 1000 Van Ness. (Peitzman)

*October Country In taking on the subject of family in the documentary October Country, co-directors Michael Palmieri and Donal Mosher face some imposing specters, and I’m not just talking about the varied stories of the Mosher family. If there’s any micro-genre within documentary that has become embattled over the past decade, it’s the family portrait, thanks to controversial or contentious works such as Andrew Jarecki’s Capturing the Friedmans and Jonathan Caouette’s Tarnation (both from 2003), son-of-Grey Gardens freakouts which incited claims of exploitation and sensationalism on their paths to a larger public profile. Palmieri’s and Mosher’s movie is a quieter work, yet it isn’t folksy in a complacent Sundance manner, either. The list of the maladies plaguing the Mosher clan — physical abuse, drug abuse, war trauma, custody battles, and abortion, to name a handful — would provoke an ambulance-chasing impulse in some filmmakers, blood ties be damned. But Palmieri (who edited and did cinematography) and Mosher (a former San Francisco resident whose photo essays on his family were shown at Artists’ Television Access) realize these are common American problems, and their treatment of them is at once deeper and more ephemeral. They use the passage of a year from one Halloween to the next to reveal the changes wrought — or evident — on a person’s face, and when they can, a person’s life. (1:20) Roxie. (Huston)

*OSS 117: Lost in Rio The Cold War heated up a public appetite for spy adventures well before James Bond became a pop phenomenon. In fact, Ian Fleming hadn’t yet created 007 in 1949, when Jean Bruce commenced writing novels about Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath, a.k.a. Agent OSS 117. This French superspy was ready-made to join the ranks of umpteen 007 wannabes, appearing in somewhere between six and 11 films (it’s unclear whether all involved de La Bath, or were just Bruce-based) through 1970, played by at least four actors. The series remained well-known enough to get a new life in 2006 when director Michel Hazanavicius and top French comedy star Jean Dujardin sought to spoof 1960s espionage flicks a la Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997). That was a big hit, so now we’ve got a sequel. OSS 117: Lost in Rio isn’t as fresh or funny as the preceding Cairo, Nest of Spies. But it’s still a whole lot fresher and funnier than Austin Powers Nos. two (1999) and three (2002). Dujardin’s de La Bath is the very model of jet-set masculinity, twisting the night away at a ski chalet with umpteen soon-to-be-machine gunned "Oriental" lovelies in the opening sequence. Of course such pleasure pursuits take place strictly between car chases, shootouts, and karate fights. Agreeably silly, Lost in Rio doesn’t go for Hollywood-style slapstick and grossout yuks. Instead, its biggest laughs are usually droll throwaways, as when 117 explains a shocking sudden costume change with the unlikely declaration "I sew," or during an LSD-dosed hippie orgy proves quite willing to go with the flow — even when that involves another guy’s groovy finger breaching security up the pride of French intelligence’s derriere. (1:37) Lumiere, Shattuck, Smith Rafael. (Harvey)

*Please Give Manhattan couple Kate (Catherine Keener) and Alex (Oliver Platt) are the proprietors of an up-market vintage furniture store — they troll the apartments of the recently deceased, redistributing the contents at an astonishing markup — and they’ve purchased the entire apartment of their elderly next-door neighbor (Ann Guilbert). As they wait for her to expire so they can knock down a wall, they try not to loom in anticipation in front of her granddaughters, the softly melancholic Rebecca (Rebecca Hall) and the brittle pragmatist Mary (Amanda Peet). Filmmaker Nicole Holofcener has entered this territory before, examining the interpersonal pressures that a sizable income gap can exert in 2006’s Friends with Money. Here she turns to the pangs and blunderings of the liberal existence burdened with the discomforts of being comfortable and the desire to do some good in the world. The film capably explores the unexamined impulses of liberal guilt, though the conclusion it reaches is unsatisfying. Like Holofcener’s other work, Please Give is constructed from the episodic material of mundane, intimate encounters between characters whose complexity forces us to take them seriously, whether or not we like them. Here, though, it offers these private connections as the best one can hope for, a sort of domestic grace accrued by doing right, authentically, instinctively, by the people in your immediate orbit, leaving the larger world to muddle along on its axis as best it can. (1:30) Clay, SF Center, Shattuck. (Rapoport)

Princess Kaiulani Well-meaning and controversial (the independent’s first title, Barbarian Princess, and the tragic events it depicts has distressed some native Hawaiians) in its own inoffensive way, Princess Kaiulani is unfortunately overshadowed by star Q’orianka Kilcher’s first film, 2005’s The New World, in which she portrayed Pocahontas. The Hawaii-raised Kilcher appears to be getting typecast as a tragic, romanticized native royal. Still, if you can get past director Marc Forby’s weak attempts to match New World director Terrence Malick’s searingly poetic montages and the clunky History Channel-by-the-numbers screenplay, you might give a little credit to the makers for bringing to the screen the tale of Hawaii’s last intelligent, beautiful, and accomplished princess — a young woman determined to fight an overthrow of the Hawaiian monarchy and battle its annexation against the white land owners and descendents of missionaries who tried to block the voting rights of native Hawaiians. Kilcher possesses some of the noble charisma claimed by the real Kaiulani, but the obligatory romance superimposed on the narrative and the neglect of some of genuinely promising threads, such as Kaiulani’s friendship with Robert Louis Stevenson, make Princess Kaiulani feel as faux as those who pretended to Hawaii’s rule. (2:10) Embarcadero. (Chun)

Robin Hood Like it or not, we live in the age of the origin story. Ridley Scott’s Robin Hood introduces us to the outlaw while he’s still in France, wending his way back to Albion in the service of King Richard III. The Lionheart soon takes an arrow in the neck in order to demonstrate the film’s historical bona fides, and yeoman archer Robin Longstride (Russell Crowe) — surrounded by a nascent band of merry men — accidentally embroils himself in a conspiracy to wrest control of England. The complications of this intrigue hie Robin to Nottingham, where he is thrown together with Maid Marion (Cate Blanchett), a plucky rural aristocrat who likes getting her hands dirty almost as much as she likes a bit of smoldering Crowe seduction. A lot of hollow medieval verisimilitude ensues, along with a good bit of slow-mo swordplay, but the cumulative effect is tepid and rote. (2:20) Empire, 1000 Van Ness, Presidio, Sundance Kabuki. (Richardson)

The Secret in Their Eyes (2:07) Albany, Embarcadero.

Touching Home Hometown boys (Logan and Noah Miller) make good in this based-on-a-true-story tale of identical twins who must divide their time at home between training for major league baseball and looking after their alcoholic father. The brothers, who also wrote and directed the film, aim for David Gordon Green by way of Marin, but fall short of mastering that director’s knack for natural dialogue. Ed Harris is, unsurprisingly, compelling as the alcoholic father, but the actors in the film who are not named Ed Harris tend to contribute to the script’s distracting histrionics. Touching Home has some amazing NorCal cinematography, and I could see how family audiences might enjoy its "feel bad, then feel good" style of melodrama. But while it’s awkward to say that someone’s real-life experiences come off as trite, there are moments here that feel as clichéd as a Lifetime movie. (1:48) Smith Rafael. (Galvin)

Vincere Given the talent involved, Vincere should be a better film that it is. Director Marco Bellocchio has a lengthy track record of successes, and star Giovanna Mezzogiorno is one of the biggest names in contemporary Italian cinema. The based-on-a-true-story plot is certainly worthy of being filmed: Mezzogiorno plays Ida Dalser, secret wife of Mussolini and mother of the dictator’s first-born son. When Ida begins to make trouble for Il Duce by publicly proclaiming their marriage, she is locked away in a mental hospital. But while Vincere‘s subject is compelling, the film as a whole falls flat. Moments of greatness are few and far between, and the rest of the movie gets by on mediocrity. It’s likely the fault lies with the script, which is too scattered and unfocused to maintain an audience’s focus. Why after almost two hours of watching Ida’s struggle are we suddenly left with her son’s descent into madness? How depressing that a film about a woman forgotten by history is, itself, mostly forgettable. (2:02) Smith Rafael. (Peitzman)

Music listings

David Talbot
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Music listings are compiled by Paula Connelly and Cheryl Eddy. Since club life is unpredictable, it’s a good idea to call ahead to confirm bookings and hours. Prices are listed when provided to us. Submit items at listings@sfbg.com.

WEDNESDAY 19

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Dead Souls, Winston Tong, Graves Bros. Deluxe, Carletta Sue Kay Elbo Room. 9pm, $8. Ian Curtis memorial show.

Francis and the Lights, Teen Inc. Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $16.

Frightened Rabbit Fillmore. 8pm, $22.50.

Gosta Berling, Matinees, Foreign Cinema El Rio. 8pm, $5.

Groundation, Orgone, DJ Jeremiah Independent. 9pm, $27.

Hounds and Harlots, Bomber, Poison Control, Mick Leonardi Thee Parkside. 8pm, $10.

Kacey Johansing, Honeycomb, Dovekins, Range of Light Wilderness Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $10.

Jerry Joseph and the Jackmormons, Jeremy Messersmith Hotel Utah. 9pm, $12.

Khi Darag!, Charming Hostess, Mitch Marcus Quintet Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $12.

Pebble Theory, Fleeting Trance, JJ Schultz, Wolf Larsen Café du Nord. 8pm, $10.

Planet Loop Madrone Art Bar. 9:30pm, free.

Chris Pureka, Ramaya Soskin, Fences Slim’s. 8pm, $16.

Todd Wolfe Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Michael Abraham Jazz Session, Gaucho Amnesia. 8pm, free.

Jim Page Plough and Stars. 9pm.

DANCE CLUBS

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

Hands Down! Bar on Church. 9pm, free. With DJs Claksaarb, Mykill, and guests spinning indie, electro, house, and bangers.

Machine Sloane, 1525 Mission, SF; (415) 621-7007. 10pm, free. Warm beats for happy feet with DJs Sergio, Conor, and André Lucero.

Mary-Go-Round Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 10pm, $5. A weekly drag show with hosts Cookie Dough, Pollo Del Mar, and Suppositori Spelling.

RedWine Social Dalva. 9pm-2am, free. DJ TophOne and guests spin outernational funk and get drunk.

Respect Wednesdays End Up. 10pm, $5. Rotating DJs Daddy Rolo, Young Fyah, Irie Dole, I-Vier, Sake One, Serg, and more spinning reggae, dancehall, roots, lovers rock, and mash ups.

Synchronize Il Pirata, 2007 16th St, SF; (415) 626-2626. 10pm, free. Psychedelic dance music with DJs Helios, Gatto Matto, Psy Lotus, Intergalactoid, and guests.

Yoruba Dance Sessions Bacano! Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 9pm, free. With resident DJ Carlos Mena and guests spinning afro-deep-global-soulful-broken-techhouse.

THURSDAY 20

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Danny Cohen, Jonah Kit, Powell St. John and the Aliens Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.

Roky Erickson, Okkervil River Fillmore. 8pm, $29.50.

Funk Revival Orchestra, Stymie and the Pimp Jones Luv Orchestra, Loveseat Trio Red Devil Lounge. 9pm, $8.

*Sean Hayes, Laura Goldhamer and the Silvernail, DJ Harry D Independent. 8pm, $17.

In the Belly of the Falcon, Tiny Television, Sons of Eden Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $10.

Izabella, Nat Keefe, Aaron Redner, and Erik Yates Café du Nord. 9pm, $12.

Kehoe Nation, HoneyDust, Polar Bears Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

John Németh Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $18.

Tender Box, Deadbeat Darling, Margins Hotel Utah. 9pm, $7.

30db Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $20.

DANCE CLUBS

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $10. DJs Pleasuremaker and Señor Oz with guest Black Dynamite Sound spin Afro-tropical, samba, and funk.

Caribbean Connection Little Baobab, 3388 19th St, SF; (415) 643-3558. 10pm, $3. DJ Stevie B and guests spin reggae, soca, zouk, reggaetón, and more.

Club Jammies Edinburgh Castle. 10pm, free. DJs EBERrad and White Mice spinning reggae, punk, dub, and post punk.

Drop the Pressure Underground SF. 6-10pm, free. Electro, house, and datafunk highlight this weekly happy hour.

Electric Feel Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 9pm, $2. With DJs subOctave and Blondie K spinning indie music videos.

Good Foot Yoruba Dance Sessions Bacano! Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 9pm, free. A James Brown tribute with resident DJs Haylow, A-Ron, and Prince Aries spinning R&B, Hip hop, funk, and soul.

Koko Puffs Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm, free. Dubby roots reggae and Jamaican funk from rotating DJs.

Mestiza Bollywood Café, 3376 19th St, SF; (415) 970-0362. 10pm, free. Showcasing progressive Latin and global beats with DJ Juan Data.

Nightvision Harlot, 46 Minna, SF; (415) 777-1077. 9:30pm, $10. DJs Danny Daze, Franky Boissy, and more spinning house, electro, hip hop, funk, and more.

Peaches Skylark, 10pm, free. With an all female DJ line up featuring Deeandroid, Lady Fingaz, That Girl, and Umami spinning hip hop.

Popscene 330 Rich. 10pm, $10. Rotating DJs spinning indie, Britpop, electro, new wave, and post-punk.

Rock Candy Stud. 9pm-2am, $5. Luscious Lucy Lipps hosts this electro-punk-pop party with music by ReXick.

Solid Thursdays Club Six. 9pm, free. With DJs Daddy Rolo and Tesfa spinning roots, reggae, dancehall, soca, and mashups.

FRIDAY 21

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Bonerama Red Devil Lounge. 9pm, $15.

Broken Bells, Morning Benders Regency Ballroom. 9pm, $37.

Clem Snide, Whiskey and the Devil Chaplain, Heligoats Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $12.

Dredg, Facing New York, Trophy Fire Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $20.

Dynamic Coda. 10pm, $10.

Nokie Edwards, Venturesmania, Deke Dickerson and the Ecco-Fonics, Pollo Del Mar Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $20.

*Fresh and Onlys, Jacuzzi Boys, Sonny and the Sunsets, Art Museums Thee Parkside. 9pm, $8.

Katie Garibaldi Abbey Tavern, 4100 Geary, SF; www.abbeytavern-sf.com. 9:30pm, free.

Heticide, Sweet Nothing, Le Fleur El Rio. 9pm, $3-5.

Shooter Jennings and Hierophant, Lukas Nelson and Promise of the Real Independent. 9pm, $20.

Jetskiis, Repeater, Northern Key Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $6.

Kaki King Fillmore. 9pm, $20.

Mata Leon, Silent Comedy, Mississippi Man, Steelwells Elbo Room. 9pm, $8-10.

Paper Suns, Scraping for Change, Attack Plan, Five Minutes to Freedom Café du Nord. 9pm, $10.

Jackie Payne and Steve Edmonson Band Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

Pillows, Noodles, Pop Chocolat, Monokuro Slim’s. 8pm, $28.

Soul Delights Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; www.myspace.com/ritespot. 9pm, free.

Temporary Rock Formation, Tsigoti Hotel Utah. 9pm, $7.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Audium 9 1616 Bush, SF; (415) 771-1616. 8:30pm, $15.

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

Emily Anne’s Delights Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:45pm, free.

Eric Kurtzrock Trio Ana Mandara, Ghirardelli Square, 891 Beach, SF; (415) 771-6800. 8pm, free.

Eddie Palmieri and La Perfecta II Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $25-30.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Bluegrass Revolution Plough and Stars. 9pm.

Johnny G and Hi Ukelele Socha Café, 3235 Mission, SF; (415) 643-6848. 8:30pm, free.

Rob Reich and Craig Ventresco Amnesia. 7pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Activate! Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 9pm, $3. Face your demigods and demons at this Red Bull-fueled party.

Blow Up Rickshaw Stop. 10pm, $10. With rotating DJs.

Deep Fried Butter, 354 11th St, SF; (415) 863-5964. DJs jaybee, David Justin, and Dean Manning spinning indie, dance rock, electronica, funk, hip hop, and more.

Dirty Rotten Dance Party Madrone Art Bar. 9pm, $5. With DJs Morale, Kap10 Harris, and Shane King spinning electro, bootybass, crunk, swampy breaks, hyphy, rap, and party classics.

Exhale, Fridays Project One Gallery, 251 Rhode Island, SF; (415) 465-2129. 5pm, $5. Happy hour with art, fine food, and music with Vin Sol, King Most, DJ Centipede, and Shane King.

Farewell to Berlin Mezzanine. 9pm, free. With Claude, Justin Martin, Worthy and Christian Martin.

Fat Stack Fridays Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm, free. With rotating DJs Romanowski, B-Love, Tomas, Toph One, and Vinnie Esparza.

Gay Asian Paradise Club Eight, 1151 Folsom, SF; www.eightsf.com. 9pm, $8. Featuring two dance floors playing dance and hip hop, smoking patio, and 2 for 1 drinks before 10pm.

Good Life Fridays Apartment 24, 440 Broadway, SF; (415) 989-3434. 10pm, $10. With DJ Brian spinning hip hop, mashups, and top 40.

Hot Chocolate Milk. 9pm, $5. With DJs Big Fat Frog, Chardmo, DuseRock, and more spinning old and new school funk.

House of Voodoo Medici Lounge, 299 9th St., SF; (415) 501-9162. 9pm. With DJs voodoo and Purgatory spinning goth, industrial, deathrock, glam, darkwave, and eighties.

Hubba Hubba Revue DNA Lounge. 9pm, $10-15. With the Ogres and burlesque performances.

Lago Roots Blue Macaw, 2565 Mission, SF; (415) 920-0577. 9pm, $12. With DJs Kush Arora, Matt Haze and Manitous, and B-Haul spinning afrobeat.

Look Out Weekend Bambuddha Lounge. 4pm, free. Drink specials, food menu and resident DJs White Girl Lust, Swayzee, Philie Ocean, and more.

Loose Stud. 10pm-3am, $5. DJs Domino and Six spin electro and indie, with vintage porn visual projections to get you in the mood.

M4M Fridays Underground SF. 10pm-2am. Joshua J and Frankie Sharp host this man-tastic party.

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

Radioactivity 222 Hyde, SF; (415) 440-0222. 6pm. Followed by Warm Leatherette at Space Gallery, 1141 Polk, SF; (415) 377-3325. 9pm. A back to back traveling Cold Wave night with DJs spinning danceable post-punk and psychedelic.

Rockabilly Fridays Jay N Bee Club, 2736 20th St, SF; (415) 824-4190. 9pm, free. With DJs Rockin’ Raul, Oakie Oran, Sergio Iglesias, and Tanoa “Samoa Boy” spinning 50s and 60s Doo Wop, Rockabilly, Bop, Jive, and more.

SATURDAY 22

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Seth Augustus Revolution Café, 3248 22nd St, SF; (415) 642-0474. 8:45pm, free.

Stacy Dee and Lil Jen, Jeson Welt, Mike McGuire, Roland Finn Hemlock Tavern. 5pm, $5.

Evelyn Evelyn, Sxip Shirley, Amanda Palmer, Jason Webley Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $26.

*Finches, Key Losers, Breezy Days Band Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $8.

“Forever Young: Bob Dylan Birthday Tribute” Ireland’s 32. 9pm, $10. With Crooked Roads, Warehouse Eyes, Z-Trane Electric Band, and more.

Leatherface, Ninja Gun, Young Livers Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $12.

Motherlode, Devil’s Own, Belltower, Brad Brooks Thee Parkside. 9pm, free.

Rod Piazza and the Mighty Flyers Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $22.

Splinters, Superstitions, Larry and the Angriest Generation, Machete Pissed-Off Pete’s, 4528 Mission, SF; (415) 584-5122. 9pm.

State Radio, Kelley James Independent. 9pm, $20.

Sugar Spun, Sky Flakes, Lost Puppy Thee Parkside. 3pm, free.

This Charming Band, Love Vigilantes, Fascination Street Slim’s. 9pm, $15.

“Traffic: A Benefit for the Somaly Mam Foundation” Elbo Room. 10pm, $15-20. With Cold Shot.

We Be the Echo, Ventid, Form and Fate, Art in Heaven El Rio. 9pm, $7.

Y&T, Don Dokken Fillmore. 9pm, $36.50

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Audium 9 1616 Bush, SF; (415) 771-1616. 8:30pm, $15.

Eric Kurtzrock Trio Ana Mandara, Ghirardelli Square, 891 Beach, SF; (415) 771-6800. 8pm, free.

Eddie Palmieri and La Perfecta II Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $30.

Marlina Teich Quintet and Two Generations of Perkoff Savanna Jazz. 7:30pm.

Soulive, Will Blades OGD Palace of Fine Arts Theatre, 3301 Lyon, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 8pm, $25-45.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Yacouba Diarra Red Poppy Art House. 8pm, $10-$15.

Frank Jordan and the Wrenboys Plough and Stars. 9pm.

Hallflowers Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; www.myspace.com/ritespot. 9pm, free.

Honky-Tonk Showdown Café Du Nord. 8pm, $13. With Whisky Richards, Misisipi Rider, Bootcuts, and Toshio Hirano.

Honoring St. Francis Mission Dolores Basilica, 3321 Dolores, SF; (415) 621-8203. 8pm, free.

Kafana Balkan, Brass Menazeri Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $10.

Nay Virtuoso, Bassam Saba, and guests Yerba Buena Gardens, Mission between 3rd and 4th St., SF; www.arabculturalcenter.org. 1pm, free.

Royal Deuces, Old Death Whisper Amnesia. 9pm, $7-$10.

Socha All-Stars Socha Café, 3235 Mission, SF; (415) 643-6848. 8:30pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Bar on Church 9pm. Rotating DJs Foxxee, Joseph Lee, Zhaldee, Mark Andrus, and Niuxx.

Barracuda 111 Minna. 9pm, $5-10. Eclectic 80s music with Djs Damon, Phillie Ocean, and Javier, plus free 80s hair and make-up by professional stylists.

Bootie DNA Lounge. 9pm, $6-12. Prom-themed festivities and mash-ups with Adrian and Mysterious D.

Colombia y Panama Coda. 10pm, $5. With DJs Beto, Vinne Esparza, and Guillermo.

Dead After Dark Knockout. 6-9pm, free. With DJ Touchy Feely.

Debaser Knockout. 9pm, $5. The 90s dance party goes hip-hop this week with DJs Jamie Jams, EmDee, and Stab Master Arson.

DJ Kaskade Mezzanine. 9pm, $40.

EpiscoDisco Grace Cathedral, 1100 California, SF; (415) 869-7817. 7pm, free. A monthly event featuring art, installations, live music, drinks, and DJs.

Go Bang! Deco SF, 510 Larkin, SF; (415) 346-2025. 9pm, $5. Recreating the diversity and freedom of the 70’s/ 80’s disco nightlife with DJs Tres Lingerie, Steve Fabus, Nicky B., and more.

HYP Club Eight, 1151 Folsom, SF; www.eightsf.com. 10pm, free. Gay and lesbian hip hop party, featuring DJs spinning the newest in the top 40s hip hop and hyphy.

Junk Food Love Madrone Art Bar. 9pm, $5. With DJ A-Ron, Sneak-E Pete, and more spinning hip hop, soul, reggae, and electrofunk.

Reggae Gold Club Six. 9pm, $15. With DJs Daddy Rolo, Polo Mo’qz, Tesfa, Serg, and Fuze spinning dancehall and reggae.

Slide into Summer Mighty. 9pm, $20. With DJs Solar and Galen, Sammy D, Chris Smith and Rooz, and more.

Social Club Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 9pm. Shake your money maker with DJs Lee Decker and Luke Fry.

Spirit Fingers Sessions 330 Ritch. 9pm, free. With DJ Morse Code and live guest performances.

SUNDAY 23

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

“Battle of the Bands” DNA Lounge. 5:30pm, $12. With Alrt, Sirly, Sherlock Tones, and more.

Caribou, Toro y Moi Independent. 8pm, $17.

Bone Cootes, Joe and Vicki Price Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; www.myspace.com/ritespot. 6pm, free.

Evelyn Evelyn, Sxip Shirley, Amanda Palmer, Jason Webley Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $26.

Horse Feathers, Dawn Landes, Garrett Pierce Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $12.

Indian Valley Line, Drew Grow and the Pastors’ Wives, James Finch Jr. Hotel Utah. 9pm, $7.

Lecherous Gaze, Switchblade Riot, Butcher Cover, Bang Maiden Thee Parkside. 8pm, free.

Lucabrazzi Pissed-Off Pete’s, 4528 Mission, SF; (415) 584-5122. 9pm.

Raccoons, Slaves, Tunnels, Kevin Shields Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Emily Jane White, Slow Motion Cowboys, Devotionals Café du Nord. 8pm, $12.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Helladelics Red Poppy Art House. 7pm, $12-$15. Greek roots music.

Jamie Davis Quintet San Francisco Conservatory of Music Concert Hall, 50 Oak, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 7pm, $25.

Eddie Palmieri and La Perfecta II Yoshi’s San Francisco. 5 and 7pm, $5-30.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Louie Romero y su Mazacote Coda. 8pm, $10.

John Sherry, Kyle Thayer and friends Plough and Stars. 9pm.

Starlene Thee Parkside. 4pm, free.

Vission Latina El Rio. 4pm, $8.

Zithers of East Asia Mercy High School, 3250 19th Ave., SF; (415) 668-8111. 3pm, $15-$20. Part of the 28th annual San Francisco Gu-Zheng Music Society Concert.

DANCE CLUBS

DiscoFunk Mashups Cat Club. 10pm, free. House and 70’s music.

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

Gloss Sundays Trigger, 2344 Market, SF; (415) 551-CLUB. 7pm. With DJ Hawthorne spinning house, funk, soul, retro, and disco.

Honey Soundsystem Paradise Lounge. 8pm-2am. “Dance floor for dancers – sound system for lovers.” Got that?

Jock! Lookout, 3600 16th St, SF; (415) 431-0306. 3pm, $2. This high-energy party raises money for LGBT sports teams.

Kick It Bar on Church. 9pm. Hip-hop with DJ Zax.

Lowbrow Sunday Delirium. 1pm, free. DJ Roost Uno and guests spinning club hip hop, indie, and top 40s.

One Love Sundays Gravity Room, 3251 Scott, SF; (415) 776-1928. 9pm, $8. With DJs Senseless and Young Fyah spinning reggae, dancehall, and soca.

Religion Bar on Church. 3pm. With DJ Nikita.

Stag AsiaSF. 6pm, $5. Gay bachelor parties are the target demo of this weekly erotic tea dance.

MONDAY 24

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Baths, Future Islands, Lower Dens El Rio. 7pm, $5.

Demon Hunter, Stick To Your Guns, War of Ages, Great Commission Slim’s. 7:30pm, $16.

“Felonious Presents Live City Revue” Coda. 9pm, $7.

Kina Grannis Café du Nord. 8pm, $14.

*Talib Kweli and Hi-Tek Fillmore. 8pm, $29.50.

Shalants, Bitter Honeys, Harry Merry, Dark Sun Sky Pilot Knockout. 9pm, $7.

Worm Ouroboros, Pussygutt, A Story of Rats, Prizehog Elbo Room. 9pm, $7.

X (Australia), A-Frames, Hank IV Hemlock Tavern. 7pm, $12.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Earl Brothers Amnesia. 8:30pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

Bacano! Som., 2925 16th St, SF; (415) 558-8521. 9pm, free. With resident DJs El Kool Kyle and Santero spinning Latin music.

Black Gold Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; (415) 885-4788. 10pm-2am, free. Senator Soul spins Detroit soul, Motown, New Orleans R&B, and more — all on 45!

Death Guild DNA Lounge. 9:30pm, $3-5. Gothic, industrial, and synthpop with Decay, Joe Radio, and Melting Girl.

Krazy Mondays Beauty Bar. 10pm, free. With DJs Ant-1, $ir-Tipp, Ruby Red I, Lo, and Gelo spinning hip hop.

M.O.M. Madrone Art Bar. 6pm, free. With DJ Gordo Cabeza and guests playing all Motown every Monday.

Manic Mondays Bar on Church. 9pm. Drink 80-cent cosmos with Djs Mark Andrus and Dangerous Dan.

Monster Show Underground SF. 10pm, $5. Cookie Dough and DJ MC2 make Mondays worth dancing about, with a killer drag show at 11pm.

Network Mondays Azul Lounge, One Tillman Pl, SF; www.inhousetalent.com. 9pm, $5. Hip-hop, R&B, and spoken word open mic, plus featured performers.

Skylarking Skylark. 10pm, free. With resident DJs I & I Vibration, Beatnok, and Mr. Lucky and weekly guest DJs.

TUESDAY 25

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Califa, Astral Force El Rio. 8pm, free.

Congress Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $8.

Crow, Talk Is Poison, Yakodai Knockout. 9pm, $10.

Massive Attack, Martina Topley-Bird, Anti Pop Consortium Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $47.50-52.50.

Maus Haus, Boomsnake, Hosannas Hemlock Tavern. 8pm, $8.

Olehole, Build Us Airplanes, Kairu Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.

Landon Pigg, Madi Diaz Café du Nord. 8:30pm, $14.

Plants and Animals, Lost in the Trees Independent. 8pm, $14.

Spectrum, Wooden Shjips, DJ Britt Govea Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $20.

DANCE CLUBS

Alcoholocaust Presents Argus Lounge. 9pm, free. With DJ Ravi Rocka and DJ Big Nate.

Eclectic Company Skylark, 9pm, free. DJs Tones and Jaybee spin old school hip hop, bass, dub, glitch, and electro.

La Escuelita Pisco Lounge, 1817 Market, SF; (415) 874-9951. 7pm, free. DJ Juan Data spinning gay-friendly, Latino sing-alongs but no salsa or reggaeton.

Rock Out Karaoke! Amnesia. 7:30pm. With Glenny Kravitz.

Share the Love Trigger, 2344 Market, SF; (415) 551-CLUB. 5pm, free. With DJ Pam Hubbuck spinning house.

Womanizer Bar on Church. 9pm. With DJ Nuxx.

Alerts

David Talbot
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0

alert@sfbg.com

WEDNESDAY, MAY 19

Solutions for Survival

Empower young people, support vivacious media, and support work on climate justice at this launch/fundraiser for this global youth media program that aims to uncover local, equitable solutions for climate change. Featuring guest speakers, food and wine, DJs, a silent art auction, and more.

7:30 p.m., free

Women’s Building

3543 18th St., SF

www.projectsurvivalmedia.org

THURSDAY, MAY 20

"Stand-In" for Safety


Protest the proposed "sit/lie" ordinance, which would make it illegal to sit or lie on SF sidewalks. The law would target sex workers, homeless people, youths, and immigrants, pushing them further underground and into more isolated, dangerous situations and areas.

Noon, free

Corner of Polk and Sutter, SF

www.allwomencount.net

FRIDAY, MAY 21

Rally for Peace


Say no to the war in Afghanistan, where deaths of U.S. troop Afghan civilians continue to rise. Demand that we bring our troops home now.

2 p.m., free

Corner of Acton and University, Berk.

(510) 841-4143

Berkeleygraypanthers.mysite.com

SATURDAY, MAY 22

Live in Peace March


Join KIPP Bayview Academy (KBA) students and community members for this peace march through the Bayview neighborhood to promote peaceful resolutions to social issues culminating in a scholarship ceremony. The Live in Peace March offers students and community members the opportunity to take a public stance against issues plaguing southeastern SF and attempts to ignite social change from within neighborhoods.

Noon, free

KIPP Bayview Academy

1060 Key, SF

www.kippbayarea.org

Walk to End Poverty


Help raise awareness about poverty at this walk around Lake Merritt followed by a multicultural family party featuring jazz, dance, kids activities, a community awards ceremony, and more.

10 a.m. walk, 11 a.m. party; free

Lake Merritt Bandstand

666 Bellevue, Oakl.

(510) 238-2362

SUNDAY, MAY 23

Beach cleanup


Celebrate World Turtle Day by removing plastic litter and garbage from Ocean Beach to help endangered leatherback sea turtles. The waters off San Francisco are popular with leatherbacks looking to feed on jellyfish, but ingesting plastic bags and other human garbage is known to kill leatherbacks worldwide.

10 a.m., free

Meet at north Ocean Beach

1000 Great Highway, SF

www.seaturtles.org

Rally against the pope


Join San Francisco and East Bay atheists in a call for a transparent investigation into the policies of the Catholic Church, which have perpetuated the sexual abuse of children all over the world. Demand the resignation of Pope Benedict XVI.

9:30 a.m., free

St. Mary’s of the Assumption Catholic Church

111 Gough, SF

www.atheists.meetup.com

Save the Whales


Show your opposition to the International Whaling Commission’s proposal to remove the ban on commercial whaling at this rally featuring SF Sup. Ross Mirkarimi and others.

Noon, free

Steps of San Francisco City Hall

1 Dr. Carlton B. Goodlett Place, SF

www.greenpeace.org 2

Mail items for Alerts to the Guardian Building, 135 Mississippi St., SF, CA 94107; fax to (415) 255-8762; or e-mail alert@sfbg.com. Please include a contact telephone number. Items must be received at least one week prior to the publication date.

An environmental and worker disaster

David Talbot
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0

Dick Meister, former labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor and politics for a half-century


It‘s coming up on 10 o’clock in the evening aboard a massive oil rig, the Deepwater Horizon, 130 miles off the Louisiana coast in the Gulf of Mexico. It’s Tuesday, April 20. The rig sways gently in the calm waters. Then, suddenly . . . BOOM!

A huge explosion rocks the rig, releasing tons of oil that soon will spread over an area of at least 2,500 square miles. Of course it’s an environmental disaster, probably the worst oil spill ever. That’s what draws massive attention from the media. But what of the workers aboard the rig, who suffered terrible trauma, serious injury and death?

Too often, the mainstream corporate media all but ignore workers’ suffering in such disasters. They sometimes seem more concerned with the degradation of the environment than with the suffering of humans. They focus almost solely on the environmental damage, and its cost to those who employ the workers.

Too often, the workers are treated as mere numbers. Eleven dead, 17 injured, said the media accounts of the Deepwater Horizon explosion.  But just what does that mean? Precisely how were the workers made to suffer? Might they suffer in the future because of their injuries? What can and should be done to make future work safer for them and others? The mainstream media rarely ask such questions. Working people, be they on land or sea, are of secondary concern to them.

The explosion was horrendous. It turned the Deepwater Horizon’s deck into what one worker described as “like a war zone.” One of his co-workers told of seeing “guys burning” and “some guy missing limbs.” The scene was indeed what he recalled as “extremely gruesome.”

Flames from the burning oil shot into the sky, high as a multi-story building, as some of the 126 people on board leaped overboard to reach lifeboats waiting in the water 80 feet below. It took 45 minutes for Coast Guard rescue boats and helicopters to reach the rig, the heat of the oil flames so intense by then it melted paint off the rescue boats.

Some survivors were rescued by a supply ship operated by British Petroleum (BP), which had leased the Deepwater Horizon from the Transocean corporation. Seven BP executives who were on board were injured, but that didn’t move them to express any concern for the future safety of their employees.

Transocean, meanwhile, has tried to keep the workers from filing for legal judgments that would grant them compensation for any alleged negligence that caused the explosion and for any psychiatric problems and other injuries that stemmed from the blast.
The workers were rushed under employer escort to hospitals and a New Orleans hotel immediately after rescue and not allowed to contact their families or anyone else who might advise them on whether they should agree to initial forms that Transocean lawyers insisted they initial.

The form said in effect that the worker had been on the rig when it exploded, but had seen nothing or did see something and was or was not hurt.

In the meantime, the media continue to report in detail about the serious effects the explosion has had on the environment while all but ignoring its serious effects on the workers involved.

To concerned environmentalists, the accident is yet another strong argument against the folly of offshore oil drilling, But a more immediate concern should be the dangers faced by workers involved in the continued drilling. For if the drilling is not to be halted, there’s a great need for much greater safety procedures.

Accidents have taken the lives of nearly 70 oil rig workers over the past nine years, including the 11 who died in the Gulf of Mexico. Protect the environment, yes.
But first, protect human lives.

Dick Meister, former labor editor of the SF Chronicle and KQED-TV Newsroom, has covered labor and politics for a half-century.  Contact him through his website, www.dickmeister.com, which includes more than 250 of his recent columns.

It’s reigning men!

Sue Vaughan
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0
It’s reigning men!

Thrillpeddlers peddle more Cockettes in Hot Greeks and SF Playhouse gets kinda Guignol with Slasher

On the principle that when you’ve got it you should really flaunt it, San Francisco’s Thrillpeddlers essay their second revival of a musical by the storied Cockettes. Hot Greeks, which premiered in midnight performances at the old Palace Theater in 1972, was the gleefully crazed cross-dressing troupe’s only other fully scripted musical besides, of course, Pearls Over Shanghai, which Thrillpeddlers revived to long-running fame almost a year ago and which will run in repertory with the limited-run Greeks.

While not the Oresteia or anything, Hot Greeks is more than an excuse for a lot of louche, libidinous hilarity. Okay, not much more. But it is a knowing little romp — supported by some infectious songs courtesy of Martin Worman (book and lyrics) and Richard “Scrumbly” Koldewyn (music and additional lyrics, and musical director-accompanist for the revival) — wedding trashy high school romance with the trashy ancient Greece of Aristophanes and the Peloponnesian War.

As Athens U. prepares for the big game against traditional rival Sparta, pent-up frustrations on and off the field reach new heights when Tri Thigh Sorority’s own buxom-and-then-some head cheerleader, Lysistrata (played to deadpan perfection by Michael Soldier), leads her squad in a revolt against male domination, leaving the boys literally hard up (prostheses and the rest of the wonderful costuming on display by Kara Emry and Morningwood). A little gridiron frisking around (encouraged by the rousing patriotic ditty, “Everybody’s Got a Buddy on the Front,” featuring the always impressive Connie Champagne as dean’s wife Clitoristra) and finally a little sexual affirmative action by Lysistrata make everything all right in the end.

You’d expect Pearls to be a hard act to beat, but director Russell Blackwood’s Greeks is a blast — lovingly detailed, gamely performed, and voiced by a diverse and charmingly pan-sexual cast, and carefully choreographed, it’s a shrewd and sharply executed production that manages to remain always rambunctiously carefree in tone. But there’s more Cockettes mayhem in the second half of the evening, which is devoted to a floorshow menagerie of greatest hits and a chronological musical trip down memory lane with narrator Scrumbly Koldewyn, who begins things in Gertrude Stein drag for a rendition of “Gert’s Postcard” from the 1971–72 New Years Eve show Les Etoiles de Minuit, before taking over at the piano.

Together with Hot Greeks, the brightly executed and equally entertaining pieces on display in the floorshow serve to remind audiences of the perennial zest in much Cockettes material as well as the considerable talent that was there under all that glitter and pubic hair.

Texas cinematic massacre
 
Male domination gets a feminist comeuppance in Slasher, at SF Playhouse, but the effort seems both more serious and less supple than the joyfully subversive sexual pandemonium in Hot Greeks.

As the only breadwinner for her meds-addled wheelchair-bound mother (Susi Damilano) and kid sister (Melissa Quine), Sheena (Tonya Glanz) suffers run-of-the-mill humiliation and exploitation as a waitress at an Austin eatery frequented by film nerds like shaggy good-natured acquaintance Jody (Cole Alexander Smith). When Jody convinces an aging low-budget horror meister (Robert Parsons) to meet him there, the leering eye of the filmmaker takes in Sheena and convinces her to take the starring role as “the last girl” in his latest project, Blood Bath. Sheena’s big break, if that’s what it is, gets put in jeopardy by her vengeful haute-feminist mother, who plans to disrupt the shoot in no uncertain terms.

Unfortunately, no amount of stage blood can brighten the dreary sense of predictability in Slasher, though capable performances from an impressive cast directed by Jon Tracy go some way toward alleviating the chill lack of chills or the ho-hum aspect of its hardly fresh or revelatory feminist angle on the horror genre. Playwright Allison Moore has a talent for dialogue, though, and this regional premiere still manages to show her off as someone to watch.

Hot Greeks
Through June 27
Thurs, 8 p.m.; Sun, 7 p.m., $30-69
Hypnodrome Theatre, 575 Tenth St, SF
1-800-838-3006, www.thrillpeddlers.com

Slasher
Through June 5
Tues, 7pm; Wed-Sat, 8 p.m. (also Sat, 3 p.m.), $40
SF Playhouse, 533 Sutter, SF
(415) 677-9596, www.sfplayhouse.org

Whistling in the dark: Noir returns to the Roxie

Sue Vaughan
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1
Whistling in the dark: Noir returns to the Roxie

It’s hard to guess what fictive icons of popular culture will endure and which will evaporate from the collective memory. In the 1940s, probably few would have imagined kiddie heroes Batman or Superman retaining marquee value into the next century. Bigger bets would no doubt have been placed on the Shadow, the Saint, and the Whistler, long-running radio men of mystery with uncanny (but not exactly supernatural, or super-heroic) abilities to witness the moral misdeeds of mortal men, not to mention their inevitable comeuppance.

In fact, the S-men usually doled out that payback themselves. Even more evanescent than his compatriots, the Whistler was less hands-on, more a Greek chorus sardonically telling the tale of each episode’s protagonists, gloating over the impending arrival of their just desserts. He was never a participant — was even a He, or an otherworldly It? He was, simply, a gimmicked-up omniscient narrator, the storyteller’s own voice turned into a character slash-framing device.

As a result the Whistler probably didn’t seem natural movie material — what can you do with a character that isn’t seen and doesn’t interact with others? Yet the 13-year series’ popularity was such that Columbia Pictures took the plunge anyway. The result was eight films made between 1944 and 1948, six showing during the two weeks of “I Still Wake Up Dreaming!,” Elliot Lavine’s latest noir revival extravaganza at the Roxie — in restored 35mm prints struck for the occasion, yet. (The Whistlers will also play Berkeley’s Pacific Film Archive May 29-June 5.)

These “B” programmers were economical in budget and length. But on both levels they got a lot out of a little: benefiting fully from Columbia’s production gloss despite their humble status (destined for the lower half of double bills), often packing an almost epic narrative arc and tonal gamut into about 65 minutes. They weren’t great movies, but they were great examples of the solid craft and pulp entertainment value “golden era” Hollywood managed even (or even especially) when just churnin’ them out.

Each opens with a silhouette in trench coat and fedora floating along sidewalks and alley walls, uncredited actor Otto Forrest’s voice intoning “I am the Whistler … I know many strange tales, hidden in the hearts of men and women who have stepped into the shadows.” He then guides our attention to this particular case’s subject, who’s either planning something terrible or oblivious to the terrible something about to befall them.

If these central protagonists seemed oddly alike, that was because they were all played by one actor. Richard Dix was a big star of the 1920s and early 30s who was by then in his 50s, and looked it. He could credibly sport a tuxedo, bum’s rags, or murderous glare. Yet by and large he struck a placid, almost disinterested attitude throughout the series, despite his characters’ wildly varied circumstances. These included playing men who lose their identity (an amnesiac in 1945’s Power of the Whistler) or steal the wrong one (1944’s Mark of the Whistler); a terminally ill tycoon who marries a gold digger (1945’s Voice of the Whistler); or a gold digger sniffing inheritance dough (1946’s Secret of the Whistler, 1946’s The Mysterious Intruder).

The basic plot elements were interchangeable. But the particulars (often penned  by pulp masters like Cornell Woolrich) were complex — so many hitherto lawful characters turning homicidally venal on a dime — the support casts colorful, and execution snappy or moody as needed. (Directing four entries was William Castle, who’d turn to more garish thrills as the showman behind such gimmick-driven horror potboilers as 1964’s Strait-Jacket and 1965’s I Saw What You Did.)

There are a lot of other rarities in the Roxie fortnight, highlights including the entirely SF-shot 1949 cheapie Treasure of the Monte Cristo and Phil Karlson’s excellent 1953 99 River Street. Particularly fascinating are late entries showing in studio archive prints: 1958’s flop-sweaty NYC-set Cop Hater; 1963’s crazily cast (Mort Sahl! Sammy Davis Jr.! Pre-Bewitched Elizabeth Montgomery!), quite nasty mafioso meller Johnny Cool; and 1959’s The Fearmakers. The latter’s finger-waggling about “packaged politicians,” “well-heeled lobbyists,” and “phony front groups” muddying D.C. democracy played Red-scary then, but sure sound prescient in our post-Cold War now.
 
“I Still Wake Up Dreaming: Noir is Dead!/Long Live Noir!”
May 14-27, $5-9.75
Roxie, 3117 16th St, SF
(415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com 

Quick Lit: May 12-May 18

David Talbot
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0
Quick Lit: May 12-May 18

Literary readings, book tours, and talks this week

Norris Chruch Mailer, Daniel Clowes, real live magic, authors on immigration, the urban farming movement, and more.

Wednesday, May 12

Cakewalk
Hear author Kate Moses disuss her new memoir about being a self-taught baker whose appetite for sugar helped her to survive a tumultuous sixties-era childhood and the friendships she forged with famous authors while working in the editorial department of the North Point Press in Berkeley.
7:30 p.m., free
The Booksmith
1644 Haight, SF
(415) 863-8688
www.booksmith.com

Chronic
Hear D.A. Powell read from his new book of poetry.
6 p.m., free
University Press Books
2430 Bancroft, Berk.
www.universitypressbooks.com

“Urban Farming Movement”
Join leaders of the urban farming movement as they discuss their aspirations to shift our culture away from chain grocery stores in favor of local urban businesses. Featuring Jason Mark, manager of Alemany Farm and editor-in-chief of Earth Island Journal, Novella Carpenter, author of Farm City, and Christopher Burley, founder of Hayes Valley Farm.
6:30 p.m., $20
Commonwealth Club
595 Market, 2nd floor, SF
www.commonwealthclub.org

Thursday, May 13

Daniel Clowes
Enjoy a visual presentation and conversation with Oscar-nominated screenwriter and award-winning cartoonist, Daniel Clowes, about his new graphic novel, Wilson.
7:30 p.m., free
The Booksmith
1644 Haight, SF
(415) 863-8688
www.booksmith.com

Jamy Ian Swiss
Enjoy some live magic and conversation with slight-of-hand artist Jamy Ian Swiss, author of Shattering Illusions and The Art of Magic. In conversation with Adam Savage.
8 p.m., $20
Herbst Theater
401 Van Ness, SF
www.cityboxoffice.com

Saturday, May 15

Unbound: A true tale of war, love, and survival
Hear author Dean King discuss his new book about 30 women who participated in China’s Long March in 1934.
2:30 p.m., free
San Francisco Public Library
Chinatown Branch
1135 Powell, SF
www.shanghaicelebration.com

West Coast Live
Attend this live radio broadcast with host Sedge Thomson and guests Norris Church Mailer, author of A Ticket to the Circus, Eric Puchner, author of Model Home, Abraham Verghese, author of Cutting Stone, and more.
10 a.m., $18
Freight and Salvage
2020 Addison, Berk.
www.wcl.org

Monday, May 17

Authors on Immigration
Hear Peter Schrag, author of Not Fit for Society, discuss the modern immigration controversy within the context of three centuries of debate and Tyche Hendricks, author of The Wind Doesn’t Need a Passport, talk about her experience in the U.S.-Mexico borderlands and the ordinary Americans and Mexicans who live there.
7:30 p.m., free
The Booksmith
1644 Haight, SF
(415) 863-8688
www.booksmith.com

Counselor: Life at the Edge of History
Hear author Theodore Sorensen recount his experience as former Special Counsel and Advisor to President John F. Kennedy, including his significant input into JFK’s most important speeches.
6 p.m., $20
Commonwealth Club
595 Market, 2nd floor, SF
www.commonwealthclub.org

The Frugal Foodie Cookbook
Learn some tips on “Frugal Beauty” from author Lara Starr like how to make “sugar-free spa candy” and “wake up and smell the coffee scrub” as she discusses her new book, The Frugal Foodie Cokbook: Waste not recipes for the wise cook.
7:30 p.m., free
Pegasus Books Downtown
2349 Shattuck, Berk.
www.pegasusbookstore.com

Norris Church Mailer
Hear Norris Church Mailer discuss her new memoir, A Ticket to the Circus, that depicts the evolution of her marriage to Norman Mailer, as well as her early years in Little Rock Arkansas, where she was a young beauty queen who dated Bill Clinton.
8 p.m., $18-$20
Jewish Community Center of San Francisco
Kanbar Hall, 3200 California, SF
(415) 292-1233
www.jccsf.org/arts

Tuesday, May 18

Point Dume
Hear author Katie Arnoldi talk about her new novel set in Malibu where she takes on the death of surf culture, human trafficking, drug cartels, and the environmental devastation caused by illegal pot farms on public lands.
7:30 p.m., free
The Booksmith
1644 Haight, SF
(415) 863-8688
www.booksmith.com

Wordcatcher
Hear Phil Cousineau discuss his new book, Wordcatcher: An odyssey into the world of weird and wonderful words.
6 p.m., $12
Mechanics’ Institute
Room 406
57 Post, SF
www.milibrary.org

The sound of the city

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks
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3
The sound of the city

STREETS OF SAN FRANCISCO Do you have a favorite musician who plays outside in San Francisco? I’d name many, if I knew their names. There’s the kid no older than 10 who led a two-piece rock band (himself on voice-guitar) through a great show to a growing crowd at Dolores Park, then played soccer immediately after. There’s the guy at 24th Street BART who sounds like Johnny Cash. There’s the man with the white guitar by San Francisco Center, and the guy who used to sing opera by Macy’s. It’s all too easy to miss the sound of life when your ears are plugged by little headphones. With that in mind, and with Heddy Honigmann’s great 1998 documentary The Underground Orchestra as one inspiration, it seemed right to talk to some of the people who make music for those who listen. Thanks to Elise-Marie Brown, Nicole Gluckstern, D. Scot Miller and Amber Schadewald for their contributions to this piece. (Johnny Ray Huston)


Name: Antone Lee

What styles of music do you play? I play a mix of folk and modern country on my guitar. Most of my music is original.

Where are your favorite places to play? I usually like to play down here (Civic Center BART station) because of the great sound and acoustics in the hallway.

How long have you been gigging on the streets or underground? I’ve been playing on the streets since I quit my job 3 years ago. This is what I do for a living. It’s pure joy.

What do you like about it and why do you do it? I like vibing off of people as they come and go. It’s nice to play whatever I’m feeling at the moment.

What don’t you like about it? Sometimes the people walking by can be sort of distracting. I usually just close my eyes and sink into the song.

Do you have recordings or a Web site? I have a MySpace (www.myspace.com/antoneleemusic) where some of my songs are, but I have about thirty songs that I’m waiting to record.

What street musicians and other musicians do you admire? I really like Fiddle Dave. He’s got a great original bluegrass sound. I also like Federico who plays more gypsy-styled café music.(Elise-Marie Brown)

Name: Ilya Kreymer

What styles of music do you play? I play eastern European music. A lot of Klezmer, Russian and Balkan music.

Where are your favorite sites to play? My favorite places to busk are the BART stations in the Mission, and also farmers’ markets. I usually like to busk two or three times a week.

How long have you been playing on the streets or underground? For five months.

What do you like about it, and why do you do it? I like the fact that it gives me a chance to practice and I get to see how people react to the music. The acoustics in the 16th and 24th BART stations are especially good. It’s also a good way to meet other musicians.

What don’t you like about it? Obviously there’s a lot of outside noise. You never know when you might be interrupted. Sometimes I might be doing really well and no one will be there to listen, but when I mess up more people might be around.

Do you have recordings or a Web site? I’ve actually got some recordings on reverbnation (www.reverbnation.com). But I’m hoping to update it soon with more songs. I’m also working on having a band that plays Russian music, too.

What street musicians or other musicians do you admire? There’s an accordion player that plays down at Civic Center. I think during morning rush hour. He also does magic tricks and wears outfits that match his accordion. He’s a longtime busker who I really admire.

What’s been your best experience playing? I had a really good experience at the Alemany market recently. A friend of mine was working at the farmers’ market. I was busking next to her booth while she danced. People were stopping by and taking notice, so that was really nice. (Brown)

 

Names: The Haight Street Vagabonds: Peter, Bucky, Crisp and Jack

Where do you play? Fisherman’s Wharf, on the sidewalk next to Cold Stone Creamery.

What styles of music do you play? Gypsy music, folk, Russian Folk. We jam. That’s like asking what kind of music the Grateful Dead play.

What are your usual instruments? Broken mandolin, harmonica, pots and pans, guitar, hand drums, children’s toys, hands, feet.

Why do you play? For fun, to entertain, and to keep our spirits up. I don’t want the money — then I feel like I’m whoring myself out to capitalism. I want food, beer, weed, cigarettes, and the best thing — instruments!

When do you play? Everyday. Sometimes the members change. Sometimes people walking by will join for a few minutes, hours or days.

How many years have you been playing on the street? Crisp has been playing for a year, Bucky since he left home four years ago at age 14.

What’s your philosophy about music? The best music has never been recorded. The best music is played for family and friends, at night, around a campfire. Or when you’re alone. (Amber Schadewald)

Name: Benjamin Barnes

What styles of music do you play? I play guitar and viola, but violin projects better and I know a lot of repertory. I’ve got maybe 3 hours of Bach memorized. It’s a meditative thing. There are six sonatas and six cello suites, and I play the cello suites on viola and violin. They’re nice profound pieces and sometimes people will stop and listen. I was playing Bach’s Chaconne and this guy stopped and listened to the whole piece and tipped me afterward.

Where are your favorite places to play? The Mission BART stations. The acoustics aren’t bad — you get a little reverb like you would in a hall. The first place I played was Powell Street station. It was 1989. I put my can down and basically practiced and made 15 dollars. I packed it all up and went home and threw the money on my bed and laughed. I was working at a coffee shop and putting myself through school.

I had a string quartet (the Rilke String Quartet) and we used to play at Montgomery and Embarcadero. We called it guerrilla musicianship.

What do you like about it, and why do you do it? It’s fulfilling to play these great pieces. I’ve been working on memorizing all these pieces and finding new ways to interpret them.

I was just in NY and saw people busking in Central Park and Greenwich Village. There’s a famous violinist, Joshua Bell, who played in the NY subway for a couple hours, and no one recognized him or that he was playing on a Stradivarius. Most people walked by or gave him a dollar, and one kid played air violin. He made 26 dollars.

Do you have recordings or a Web site? I have a lot of songs and string quartet and solo viola stuff that I’ve written and played on my website (www.benjaminbarnes.com). You can download it for free. There’s a spot where you can make a donation. I’ve gotten about 26 dollars. (Laughs)

I’m playing a free show at Caffeinated Comics on May 16th. We’re going to play an acoustic show, with songs I wrote and Bowie covers, Beatles covers, Led Zep and “The Devil Went Down to Georgia.” (Huston)

Name: Anthony

Where are your favorite places to play? Montgomery Bart Station, sometimes Fisherman’s Wharf.

What styles of music do you play? Love songs.

What are your favorite songs? “All The Woman I Need” by Luther Vandross, and anything Barry White.

How many years have you been playing on the street? 10.

What are your necessary accessories? Sparkly blue nail polish, mini Bible, Newports.

How long do you play? I stay until my dick gets hard and then probably longer.

Why do you do it? To entertain people and make some money. I don’t play for my health. (Schadewald)

Name: Brass Liberation Orchestra

When was the BLO founded? 2002-ish

How many members are there? Probably about 20 at the moment. 50 or more for the life of the band.

Where are your favorite spots to play? How do you get the word out? We play for change: picket lines, street marches, demonstrations. Wherever people want to dance in the street. We mostly play at events that other people are publicizing, (but) when we do our own shows, we use email and word of mouth.

What’s been your most memorable performance? Depends on who you ask! Demos at the start of the Iraq War where the band was arrested en masse? Oakland Oscar Grant marches? Whole Foods “Hey Mackey” pro-healthcare protest?

Are there other street bands you admire? There are many street bands whose music we admire. Some bands with similar political orientation include Rude Mechanical Orchestra (NYC), Chaotic Insurrection Ensemble (Montreal), Cackalack Thunder (Greensboro, NC). We also respect the youth work of Loco Bloco in the Mission, who are currently facing a budget crisis and could use some fundraising support.

What’s your favorite song to play together? A lot of us love New Orleans Second Line, and also Balkan brass music. One song we play at almost every gig is “Roma Rama,” a simplified Balkan-style tune written for us by Axel Hererra. (Nicole Gluckstern)

Name: Federico Petrozzino

What styles of music do you play? I play mostly folk and Beatles covers.

Where are your favorite places to play? I’ve played at Mills College and Ireland’s 32. But I make my living as a street musician playing around here (Powell BART station).

How long have you been playing on the streets or underground? I’ve been out here for about 3 months since I got in to town from Argentina.

What do you like about it, and why do you do it? It’s nice when you feeling like you’re doing good and people will walk by and smile or give you a wink.

What don’t you like about it? To be honest, I love the bums. But sometimes they can be crazy, which can turn some people away. It’s a distraction, but we try to be respectful.

Do you have recordings or a Web site? I have some of my stuff at purevolume (www.purevolume.com/fefon). The next step is to play at more places in the area.

What street musicians and other musicians do you admire? Frank Lynn. He’s been down here for over 30 years and is kind of a father to all of us street musicians. He’s an amazing musician and only plays on two strings. He has such a deep voice and everyone respects him.

What’s been your best experience playing? Just watching parents teach their children to appreciate music and give money. It’s great to see them learn how to be humble and respectful of the arts. (Brown)

 

Name: Larry “Bucketman” Hunt

How long have you been playing music? I’ve playing drums for 49 years. My first kit was a set of buckets when I was three years old.

I’m not from here. I’m from Kansas and I’ve had the chance to play with some of the greats all across the United States — Jimmy Smith, Pearl Bailey, The Drifters. I played with John Lee Hooker when he opened up the Boom Boom Room. This is what I do.

Where are your favorite places to play? 4th and Market, Powell and Geary (with New Funk Generation).

What don’t you like about playing music on the streets or underground? Old Navy, the Flood Building, their security is chasing me off now. I’ve been out here for fourteen years, was in Pursuit Of Happyness with Will Smith, and now they’re trying to get rid of me. They call the cops. The cops don’t want to do it, but they have to. (D. Scot Miller)

 

Vandalism Manifesto

David Talbot
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Vandalism Manifesto

Editor’s note: An earlier edition of this manifesto was scrawled onto the walls of an abandoned underground Muni tunnel somewhere in the Sunset District.

STREETS ISSUE The magic of the word — VANDALISM — is terribly offensive. Vandalism offends all the right people and launches an offensive against all the wrong people. Wait, vandalism converts our doublemoralspeak to honesty. Vandalism affirms a number of precarious values: freedom, justice, the art of unmediated living, etc.

Vandalism is not just a word. It’s a gaseous engine powering subversion, all saturated in viscous honey. A lifestyle set on boundless hope. A toy monkey you can buy on Haight Street. A self-imagined adventure ride in your Disneyland theme city of choice. A movement determined to strategically undermine deceptive imagery in favor of immediate experience — the sort of primitive amoebic goo that inspires the gorgeous muck of truthfulness. Vandalism lives in dirt and filth — the only organic material left unadulterated.

Vandalism has a healthy diet: iIt devours the monopoly on spectacle and excretes into the vast wastelands of intergalactic oil spills. Vandalism likes thrills: It’s a hyperdérive on the brink of the familiar, gathering as much intensity as possible before fluxing the rules of the game into a vortex of momentous vision. Vandalism wants to hold your hand. Vandalism is so charged that you might already feel an electric rage surging forth while reading this. If you don’t, you will. Does it burn and singe and bend and twist into the antennae of your fingertips? Channel that rage into acts of vandalism.

Vandalism is an awfully new phenomenon. It takes up arms all over the world: in big cities like New York and London, and in not-so-famous towns like Bakersfield and Danville. Well, maybe not Danville. Just wait, Danville.

Vandalism is an awfully old phenomenon. You can see nature desecrated, I mean subliminally mysticized, in the caves of Lascaux. Since we no longer live in pure nature but in concrete labyrinths built on top of iron cage islands, we must bring the caves of Lascaux and beaches of Eden and tornados of Jupiter to bear on today’s jungle city. We must subliminally mysticize the streets. Cue air horn.

Vandalism is so important that there are white wall guardians who repress it with nervous glances and waving arms. Byzantine policies regulate it. Laws have been established to punish transgressors. Yet vandalism doesn’t go away. Too many dreams fuel it. Too many imaginations keep it vital. Word on the street is that Werner Herzog is making a movie about it.

Vandalism doesn’t insist on art. It doesn’t get involved in arguments about whether something is or isn’t art. That conversation is terribly boring. Have you been to a modern museum lately? Didn’t you get the joke? OK, I admit, that conversation is irresistible. Here’s a clarification: Vandalism is an art form even if the graffiti itself is not artistic — a shrouded word meaning ultimately, technically savvy, or educated and properly executed. To this, I summon the ghost of a severe-faced vandal, Norman Mailer: Art is not peace but war! And war ain’t always pretty, or concerned with legality, soljah.

Vandalism would prefer to mark its ephemeral existence on the city skin, gushing down the fermented joys of unsanctioned life, mummifying itself in the cold caverns of a culture mausoleum. It would prefer to make you smile and laugh and wonder mercilessly to what happens in galleries: first confusion, then self-consciousness, and finally, the lingering pain of feeling slightly cheated. (Confession: I kinda stole that from Banksy. VANDALIZED!) No, vandalism doesn’t demand legitimacy in order to die in a sea of sterilized artifacts — all rotten fish skins and busted gall bladders in excessive frames. Museums sanctify the past. Vandalism prophesies the present.

History lesson: Street kids baptized vandalism in the slums, reconfiguring our country’s criminal policies of benign neglect into an acrobatic dance. They spun windmills into the future and set their gaze on the heavens. Among buildings reduced to rubble — a bombed out third world — they flipped the script and defined vandalism as bombing. The kids crucified monotony and sacrificed the crushing industrial rhythm of authority. They called themselves writers and painted their neon-tinted altar egos onto the shining armor of the behemoth subway trains and all over the walls. The names projected a faith in identity among the noise of polluted prayers.

Writers became pseudonymous in an abysmal well of city hustlers trying to make a legacy for themselves — billboard important and newsworthy. Writers preferred this life, fleeting and necessary and beautiful in the quixotic eternity of the now. The indifferent had no choice but to reckon with the writers.

Over 40 years strong, the writers still scour the marrow of their bones to re-enchant the lifeblood of the city. They craft enigmas out of the geometric lines and curves of the alphabet, making ferocious animals out of huge letters, feral and gunning in the jungle. The animals promulgate like bacteria, spawning writers-turned-shamans who cast spells of cryptic iconography wherever they go. Mummies, giraffes, and spaceships populate the jungle. An aura of prophecy emerges in the streets.

Writers wage war against the ubiquitous icons of worship mounted across the empire: those branded images manufacturing a spectacle of insurmountable desire and Sisyphean frustration. The marketers might have the money to buy permission to assault your eyes and make you feel bad about yourself; writers have the courage to forgo bureaucratic approval, stake claim on what rightfully belongs to all of us and conjure up a moveable feast. We believe in innocent pleasures, impulsive and vibrant, in order to dismantle the tyranny of monotony! More air horn, please.

Vandalism is degenerate. It’s not here to promote cleanliness and genteel manners of etiquette. Vandalism will replace honorifics with its own stamp of affirmation: Vandal Basquiat, Vandal Futura 2000, Vandal Taki 183, Vandal Debord, Haring, Burrows and Proudhon. But more than any of that, all the lower-case vandals on Muni set to burn their names on your retina.

Vandalism doesn’t care about rights to property. Vandalism stands by this ancient principle: property is theft. Vandalism doesn’t care about copyright. Copyright smacks of self-indulgence and greed. Quote me on that. Vandalism is universal and limitless, unwieldy and unbalanced, completely unhinged and frighteningly beautiful. It’s dangerous but welcoming. Come on. Give vandalism a try. Vandalism is the new gentrification; everyone’s doing it. It’s pushing emptiness and dullness out of the city and raising the quality of life to unpredictable heights of magnanimity. Your neutral walls do violence to our integrity. Whatcha got against color?

How does one live well and good? By doing vandalism. How does one become anonymously famous? By doing vandalism. With a flick of the wrists and a swagger of the step. Til’ one can’t stop and certainly won’t stop. It’s a terrible habit, an awfully time-consuming obsession. How can one get rid of everything grotesque and in bad taste? Vandalism. How do we reassert ourselves in the midst of corporate homogeny and increasing pressure to normalize? Vandalism. By what means do we establish our will to communicate freely and openly in the public sphere? Vandalism.

Vandalism cannot be bought or sold in your local Walgreens (maybe in Giant Robot, though). No no, vandalism is a nebulous thing, an utterly cosmic thing, dirty and scurrilous and always operating in the shadows, always slipping away from sterilization and appropriation like a rat with rabies on the run. What a charming nuisance. What a credible way to live! Street credible. The streets is a mother, and good ol’ vanguard vandalism — the first lesson.

Vandalism once brought down the Roman empire. We have yet to rebuild the world in its depths. (Wooley Van Dahl)

Time travel

David Talbot
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Time travel

arts@sfbg.com

LIT Sometimes when I’m bored walking around Union Square, I wonder how many of the well-heeled white guys heading toward the Financial District are really criminal types who should be followed. Say, maybe some higher-up at Wells Fargo or Citigroup who helped rip off thousands through subprime loans before getting a nice slice of that sweet Wall Street bailout money.

When I’m feeling that way, I’m under the influence of a seminal 20th century writer who spent his most productive years in San Francisco. Here’s a passage that sends me there:

She walked on down Post Street to Kearny, stopping, stopping every now and then to look — or to pretend to look — in store windows; while I ambled along sometimes beside her, sometimes, almost by her side, and sometimes in front.

She was trying to check the people around her, trying to determine whether she was being followed or not. But here, in the busy part of town, that gave me no cause for worry. On a less crowded street it might have been different, though not necessarily so.

There are four rules for shadowing: Keep behind your subject as much as possible; never try to hide from him; act in a natural manner no matter what happens; and never meet his eye. Obey them, and, except in unusual circumstances, shadowing is the easiest thing that a sleuth has to do.

The narrator so hep to the ways of the tail is Dashiell Hammett’s “Continental Op,” an operative for the fictional Continental Detective Agency, whose adventures in print include some of Hammett’s finest San Francisco tales.

Don Herron’s walking tour of landmarks associated with Hammett’s time in San Francisco is well worth making for anyone curious about the history of the author of The Maltese Falcon and The Thin Man, who helped create hardboiled crime fiction and was one its greatest practitioners. At three to four hours of often hilly trekking, it’s a bit of a commitment, but at $10, it’s an affordable way to engage in the next best thing to time travel.

Herron, author of books about pulp actioneer Robert Howard and noir craftsman Charles Willeford, has been informally conducting the tour for three decades. It started in 1977 as part of a “free college” known as Communiversity. The Dashiell Hammett Tour: Thirtieth Anniversary Guidebook (2009), which updates earlier versions, is a nifty package that belongs on the shelf of any self-respecting San Francisco denizen with a passion for our city’s often twisted past. It’s a lively combination of biographical material about Hammett, assorted related trivia that never seems trivial, and Herron’s memories from 30 years of accompanying a broad spectrum of writers, fans, and eccentrics through the former stomping grounds of Hammett and his fictional creations.

The tour starts near the former site of the San Francisco Library Main Branch, now the Asian Art Museum. In an era of economic collapse papered over with massive subsidies to the same financial entities that brought us to collapse in the first place, lessons from earlier belt-tightening eras are useful. Hence it’s only appropriate to tip our fedoras to the memory of an autodidact left-winger who never finished high school but, by devoting years to reading in public libraries, got a better education than most who did. Though Hammett was making good money from writing crime fiction by the late 1920s, when he lived at 620 Eddy St. in the early 1920s, he couldn’t afford books and the library was a lifeline. The 1923 photo on page 66 of the guidebook, of what Heron calls “Hammett’s Reading Room” in the old main library branch at 200 Larkin St., is a beaut.

When Hammett and his family lived at 620 Eddy, their landlady was a bootlegger. Hammett’s wife later recalled cops rousting people in front of their window to the street. As Herron notes, today’s prohibition on hard drugs is about as effective at deterring users as the earlier one on alcohol, and equally effective at creating endless business opportunities for motivated entrepreneurs. If you’re not legally blind and are paying any attention at all, it’s likely you may see one or two such enterprising businesspeople on the streets of the Hammett tour. It’s also a safe bet they might bear a resemblance to the Continental Op’s self-description: “My face doesn’t scare children, but it’s a more or less truthful witness to a life that hasn’t been overburdened with refinement and gentility.”

The 1920s in San Francisco were wild, wide-open years full of fast living and dodgy characters. The late venerable columnist Herb Caen wrote of the period: “The Hall of Justice was dirty and reeked of evil. The City Hall, the D.A., and the cops ran the town as though they owned it, and they did … You could play roulette in the Marina, shoot craps on O’Farrell, play poker on Mason, and get rolled at 4 a.m. in a bar on Eddy.”

Hammett toiled on his used Underwood typewriter late into the night, creating characters and stories based on what he’d seen in that milieu. During World War I, he contracted both Spanish influenza and tuberculosis. When his TB got so bad that it was hazardous to the health of his wife and baby to maintain a family abode, he moved out and lived in a succession of apartments, including one up the hill from Eddy Street at 891 Post St., at the corner of Hyde. In a corner apartment on the fourth floor of that building, Hammett pounded out his first three novels. If you’re lucky, on Herron’s tour you’ll be buzzed in and get to see where Hammett typed, ate, drank, and smoked furiously — and sometimes pulled down the Murphy bed to sleep. The apartment of The Maltese Falcon‘s tough detective Sam Spade was based on the snug little dwelling.

The current occupant is Bill Arney, an architect and Hammett fan. When he showed the tour I was on around the small one-bedroom unit, I noticed a great compilation of “crime jazz,” soundtrack music from black and white crime movies and TV shows, on top of a pile of CDs. Appropriate, since Arney serves as announcer for the Noir City film festival local mover and shaker Eddie Muller puts on at the Castro Theatre every January.

Hammett left a permanent mark on San Francisco. Specifically, on the block-long street that used to be called Monroe, which runs south off Pine in the block between Powell and Stockton. From what is now called Dashiell Hammett Street, walk east on Bush and on the right, at Burritt Street, just before the Stockton tunnel overpass, ponder the plaque that reads: ON APPROXIMATELY THIS SPOT/MILES ARCHER,/PARTNER OF SAM SPADE,/WAS DONE IN BY/BRIGID O’SHAUGHNESSY.

We are lucky to be in a city that commemorates one of its most accomplished past local residents with a plaque honoring a killing that was a product of that writer’s imagination. *

MORE ON SFBG.COM: Johnny Ray Huston’s illustrated look at the Vertigo tour

 

Secret agent “homme”

David Talbot
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Secret agent “homme”

NEW-OLD MOVIE The Cold War heated up a public appetite for spy adventures well before James Bond became a pop phenomenon. In fact, Ian Fleming hadn’t yet created 007 in 1949, when Jean Bruce commenced writing novels about Hubert Bonisseur de La Bath, a.k.a. Agent OSS 117 — eventually more than 90 of them. When Bruce died (crashing his Jaguar — what a man!) in 1963, just as the screen Bond was taking off, his widow wrote another 143. Then her children wrote two dozen more, as recently as 1992.

Needless to say, this French superspy was ready-made to join the ranks of umpteen 007 wannabes, appearing in somewhere between six and 11 films (it’s unclear whether all involved de La Bath, or were just Bruce-based) through 1970, played by at least four actors. The series remained well-known enough to get a new life in 2006 when director Michel Hazanavicius and top French comedy star Jean Dujardin sought to spoof 1960s espionage flicks a la Austin Powers: International Man of Mystery (1997).

That was a big hit, so now we’ve got a sequel. OSS 117: Lost in Rio isn’t as fresh or funny as the preceding Cairo, Nest of Spies. But it’s still a whole lot fresher and funnier than Austin Powers Nos. two (1999) and three (2002). Dujardin’s de La Bath is the very model of jet-set masculinity, twisting the night away at a ski chalet with umpteen soon-to-be-machine gunned “Oriental” lovelies in the opening sequence, flashing a pearly, superconfident smirk at the neverending stream of multinational babes elsewhere, wowing them poolside with his top-of-the-mid-1960s-line male physique (nice, but don’t expect visible abs). Of course such pleasure pursuits take place strictly between car chases, shootouts, and karate fights.

Posing (badly) as a reporter to root out Hitlerites hiding in Brazil, our lone-gun hero is distressed to discover he has help from Israeli Mossad agents, one a mere chick. “Hunt down a Nazi with Jews?” he exclaims, complaining the target villain “will recognize them … their noses, obviously.” Beyond its pitch-perfect recreation of swinging ’60s cinema clichés (Naugahyde-lounge muzak, slightly feverish Technicolor, etc.), these films’ main joke is how cluelessly, casually racist, sexist, and xenophobic de La Bath is. The joke is on him, but his charm is remaining blissfully unaware.

Agreeably silly, Lost in Rio doesn’t go for Hollywood-style slapstick and grossout yuks. Instead, its biggest laughs are usually droll throwaways, as when 117 explains a shocking sudden costume change with the unlikely declaration “I sew,” or during an LSD-dosed hippie orgy proves quite willing to go with the flow — even when that involves another guy’s groovy finger breaching security up the pride of French intelligence’s derriere.

OSS 117: LOST IN RIO opens Fri/14 in Bay Area theaters.

 

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