YBCA Archives — Page 14 of 26 — San Francisco Bay Guardian Archive 1966

On the Cheap Listings

Andrew Lam

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August 16, 2011

WEDNESDAY 17

“A New Space Telescope Project: Testing What We Think We Know About the Universe” Randall Museum, 199 Museum Way, SF. (415) 554-9600, www.randallmuseum.org. 7:30pm, free. Research astrophysicist Michael Gregg will flash fascinating, lovely images of space taken by the Hubble Space Telescope. Surprise — they also mapping an area of the universe four times farther out than any previous distance measurement technology.

Smack Dab open mic Magnet, 4122 18th St., SF. www.magnetsf.org. 7:30pm, free. A gently regimented open mic (one song or two-and-a-half double spaced pages of prose only, people) leads up to a performance by Fleigh, a queer underground ukelele duo.

thursday 18

“An Evening With the Collection: Celebrating the Fall Harvest” California Historical Society Museum, 678 Mission, SF. (415) 357-1848, www.californiahistoricalsociety.org. 5:30pm, $4 donation suggested. The historical society’s ongoing sneak-peeks at its collection continue, tonight with a look at agricultural-themed ephemera. Produce labels, harvest propaganda, olive ads, and more. Snacks served!

“Ken Shelf: Life Contained” The Rare Bird, 3883 Piedmont, Oakl. (510) 653-2473, www.therarebird.com. 6-9pm, free. Ken Shelf loves plants. He owns Succulence, Bernal Heights’ cacti supply central, and now is expanding into an even more artistic allegiance with flora. This art opening, held in conjuncture with the Piedmont Art Walk, features a shower of glass globes, enclosed terrarium ecosystems suspended from the ceiling.

FRIDAY 19

Free acupuncture Friday Potrero Community Acupuncture, Suite B, 1796 18th St., SF. (415) 658-5132, www.potrerocommunityacupuncture.com. 10am-4pm, free. Welcome Potrero Community Acupuncture into the neighborhood — the low-cost puncture providers are holding their grand opening today, and you can be the beneficiary. Just head over to the business’ Facebook page to sign up for a free acupuncture treatment.

SATURDAY 20

Japan Center Malls “Waikiki Paradise” celebration Japantown Peace Plaza, Post and Buchanan, SF. www.sfjapantown.org. 2-10pm, free. This day-long event kicks off with kiddy crafts — ti leaf bracelet-making, origami, hula, and more — continues with hours of traditional Hawaiian and Polynesian performance and finishes out with a screening of the first of three successful Elvis-in-aloha flicks: Blue Hawaii.

Art and Soul Festival Frank Ogawa Plaza and City Center, Oakl. (510) 444-CITY, www.artandsouloakland.com. Also Sun/21. Noon-6pm, $15 one-day admission. Goapele, the Kev Choice Ensemble, Tower of Power, and Sistas in the Pit, and an all-day gospel stage on Saturday are but a few of the soulful sounds coming from this public transit-accessible summer jam.

American Indian Market and Powwow Julian between 14th and 15th sts., SF. www.friendshiphousesf.org. 10am-6pm, free. Dancers, arts ‘n’ crafts, drum groups, and Indian tacos — a day to honor Native American families and their contributions to their community. The fair is put on by Friendship House Association of American Indians, Inc., a group that has been supplying substance abuse treatment through an 11-bed residential program since 1963.

Literary Death Match Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF. (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. Noon-8pm, free. Literary luminaries duke it out in this showdown of the minds: slam artist Chinaka Hodge, Portuguese Artists Colony founder Caitlin Myer, and authors Susan Steinberg and Jonathan Keats will throw down. Plus, check out the artists featured in YBCA’s Bay Area Now 6 Festival, for free.

SUNDAY 21

Open Cockpit Day Oakland Aviation Museum, 8252 Earhart, Oakl. (510) 638-7100, www.oaklandaviationmuseum.org. Noon-4pm, $9. True enthusiasts of this event will find the following words thrilling: A-3 Skywarrior, A-4 Skyhawk, P-51B Red Tail Mustang, USAF T-39 Sabreliner — and of course, the Solent flying boat from Raiders of the Lost Ark. Yes indeed, today is the day you can lumber into all of these aircraft at the aviation museum, try out cockpit stimulators, and generally geek out on airborne enthusiasm.

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

Stage Listings

Andrew Lam

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August 9, 2011

0

THEATER

OPENING

Bedtime in Detroit Boxcar Theatre Studios, 125A Hyde, SF; www.boxcartheatre.org. $15. Opens Thurs/11, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 4pm. Through Aug 21. Boxcar Theatre’s first-ever Directing Lab Performance is of Ellen K. Anderson’s drama, set in Detroit on Devil’s Night.

True West NOHspace, 2840 Mariposa, SF; 1-800-838-3006, www.truewestsf.com. $10-28. Previews Fri/12, 8pm. Opens Sat/13, 8pm. Runs Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Sept 17. Expression Productions presents Sam Shepard’s tale of two brothers.

BAY AREA

Candida Bruns Memorial Amphitheater, 100 California Shakespeare Theatre Way, Orinda; www.calshakes.org. $35-66. Previews Wed/10-Fri/12, 8pm. Opens Sat/13, 8pm. Runs Tues-Thurs, 7:30pm; Fri-Sat, 8pm (also Sept 3, 2pm); Sun, 4pm. Through Sept 4. Cal Shakes artistic director helms this taken on George Bernard Shaw’s classic about a housewife torn between her husband and a new suitor.

Seven Guitars Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller, Mill Valley; (415) 388-5208, www.marintheatre.org. $34-55. Previews Thurs/11-Sat/13, 8pm; Sun/14, 7pm. Opens Tues/16, 8pm. Runs Tues and Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Aug 25, 1pm; Aug 20 and Sept 3, 2pm); Wed, 7:30pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through Sept 4. Marin Theatre Company performs August Wilson’s 1940s-set entry into his series of plays about the African-American experience.

ONGOING

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

“AfroSolo Arts Festival” Various venues, SF; www.afrosolo.org. Free-$100. Through Oct 20. The AfroSolo Theatre Company presents its 18th annual festival celebrating African American artists, musicians, and performers.

American Buffalo Actors Theatre of San Francisco, 855 Bush, SF; (415) 345-1287, www.actorstheatresf.org. $26-38. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through Sept 3. Actors Theatre of San Francisco performs the David Mamet crime classic.

Billy Elliot Orpheum Theater, 1192 Market, SF; www.shnsf.com/shows/billyelliot. $35-200. Tues-Sat, 8pm (also Wed, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through Aug 21. As a Broadway musical, Billy Elliot proves more enjoyable than the film. The movie’s T. Rex score may have been a major selling point, but it was a bit maudlin for a story that needed no help in that department. The musical naturally has a sentimental moment or three, but it’s much more often funny, muscular in its staging (with repeatedly inspired choreography from Peter Darling), and expansive in its eclectic score (Elton John) and well-wrought book and lyrics (Lee Hall). Moreover, Stephen Daldry (who also directed the 2000 film) plays up bracingly the too-timely class politics of the modest 1980s English mining town besieged by Margaret Thatcher’s neoliberal regime in the latter’s ultimately successful bid to crush the once-powerful miners union. The cast is likewise very strong. The second act is not as strong as the first, but as crowd-pleasing entertainment the musical burrows deep and more often than not comes up with gold. (Avila)

The Book of Liz Custom Made Theatre, 1620 Gough, SF; www.custommade.org. $25-32. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. Extended through Aug 28. Custom Made Theatre performs David and Amy Sedaris’ comedy about an unconventional nun.

Country Club Catastrophe Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $20. Thurs/11-Sat/13, 8pm. Back Alley Theater Company performs its first original production, a farcical comedy set at a country club.

Gilligan’s Island: Live On Stage! 2011 Garage, 975 Howard, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $10-20. Sat-Sun, 8pm. Through Aug 28. Moore Theatre and SAFEhouse for the Performing Arts presents this updated, ribald take on TV’s classic castaways.

Left-Handed Darling Exit Theatre, 156 Eddy, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. $15-30. Fri/12-Sat/13, 8pm. This American gothic from Foul Play productions and playwright Nikita Schoen, directed by Michelle Talgarow, moves too listlessly and could use some trimming besides — besides the trimming invoked in the story, that is. Still, it offers spirited moments and morbid chuckles in its macabre tale about a little girl named Calliope (a nicely remote if somewhat wooden Amanda Ortmayer) who runs off to join the circus sideshow. Her shut-in parents once comprised a magic act there, but a gruesome tragedy inadvertently provoked by the infant Calliope has her father (Don Wood) pretending to be a lone convalescent to a charitable neighboring farmer (Sean Owens), as her mother (Kimberly Maclean) tries to keep hidden directly behind him (for reasons stemming from the aforementioned tragedy). In the face of parental opposition to her sideshow fever, Calliope’s willfulness gets the better of her — all the worse for mom and dad, and a girls’ academy recruiter (Mikka Bonel). Embraced by a set of sideshow freaks as one of their own, Calliope discovers stardom and “belonging” not what they were cracked up to be. Don Seaver’s moody sound design and a large freaky caricature-puppet (crafted by Peter Q. Parish) lend atmosphere, while solid turns from Owens (including as the sideshow’s half-man half-woman) and the bright, agile Bonel (including as an armless sideshow Venus) bring needed punch. Less consistent but fiery Mikl-Em has good moments too as sideshow barker Sugarchurch. But the production’s shuffling gait and slightly muddled storyline make small beer of its embroidered dialogue and wistful denouement. (Avila)

A Midsummer Night’s Dream Steve Silver Theater, 1101 Eucalyptus (on the Lowell High School campus), SF; www.bathwater.org. $20. Thurs-Sat, 7:30pm. Through Aug 20. Bathwater Productions performs an acrobatic version of the Shakespeare classic.

The Nature Line Phoenix Theater, 414 Mason, SF; www.sleepwalkerstheatre.com. $17-20. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Aug 27. With The Nature Line, Sleepwalkers Theatre concludes playwright J.C. Lee’s ambitious apocalypse trilogy, “This World and After.” Now well into the post-apocalyptic age, Aya (Charisse Loriaux) buries her miscarriages in the hardscrabble earth, tended by a blind one-breasted s/he named T (Amy Prosser) who plants a would-be garden and collects tattered love letters from a past when people could still physically — and emotionally — touch one another. All that’s been banished now, Aya’s friend Arty (Ariane Owens) tells us, along with the onetime plague of “sadness.” The few humans remaining huddle in the antiseptic arms of a corporate entity represented by a bossy nurse (Janna Kefalas) and her spacey assistant (Lissa Keigwin), who manage an artificial insemination clinic fueled by a stable of four comic-book–reared studs, or “dudes” in the argot of the future (a sensitive crooner smitten with Aya, played by Joshua Schell, and a boisterously adolescent fantastic three played by the roundly hilarious Roy Landaverde, Jeff Moran, and Jomar Tagatac). This all takes place at the edge of a vast, reportedly menacing frontier. Lured by an enchanting dream, and urged by T, Aya crosses over into this forbidding land, followed willy-nilly by everyone else, only to find another Eden of sorts, inhabited by the, at first, unrecognized figures of Aya’s lost and future familia (Soraya Gillis and Carla Pantoja) — a poignant moment comes in a bilingual reunion that magically erases barriers of language and time. Indeed, if Lee’s title suggests “line” as both lineage and division, the play recovers a timeless order by challenging the artificial lines between persons; people and “nature”; past, present, and future; or dream and reality. Director Mina Morita’s staging is fleet and at times poetic, while she gets generally solid performances from her cast (the more comical parts working best). Imaginative, just a little risqué, and reminiscent in its heightened vernacular, low humor, and romantic optimism of word-struck apocalypto-dramas like Liz Duffy Adams’ Dog Act, Nature is a well-constructed narrative with a theme and dialogue that can feel alternately eloquent and heavy-handed. That said, its final image remains an apt conclusion for the trilogy as a whole, amid another Eden where the first kiss, and first heartbreak, starts the beating all over again. (Avila)

Peaches en Regalia Stage Werx, 533 Sutter, SF; www.wilywestproductions.com. $12-24. Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through Aug 27. The new comedy by Bay Area playwright Steve Lyons borrows its title from a Frank Zappa instrumental and stamps it on the menu of a local diner (tangibly evoked in Wes Cayabyab and Quinn J. Whitaker’s spiffy set design), where new employee and recent college graduate Peaches (an endearingly offbeat Sarah Moser) revels in her impulse decision to leave a job at an investment bank to work at a place with such an auspicious side dish. We meet Peaches, as well as best friend Joanne (Nicole Hammersla), nebbish customer Norman (Philip Goleman), and confident guy’s guy Syd (Cooper Carlson), through a set of discrete monologues, each illustrated with mute help from the other characters. Philosophies of life and hidden desires are all on display but the plot is a prix fixe menu of romance, marriage, and parenthood as deliberate encounters lead to unexpected matches. Sharp performances crisply directed by Sara Staley add zest to otherwise average comic fare, but the writing has several inspired flights of zaniness too. Questionable whether the second act’s course is warranted, however, since it’s plot to pull into parenthood a reluctant Norman — for whom the pace of events collapses nine months and more into a dizzying time warp — is a bit too I Love Lucy to concentrate on without itching to change the channel. (Avila)

Tigers Be Still SF Playhouse, 522 Sutter, SF; www.sfplayhouse.org. $30-50. Tues-Wed, 7pm; Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 3pm). Through Sept 10. SF Playhouse performs Kim Rosenstock’s quirky comedy.

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

BAY AREA

Communicating Doors Live Oak Theatre, 1301 Shattuck, Berk; www.aeofberkeley.org. $12-15. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun/14, 2pm. Through Aug 20. Actors Ensemble of Berkeley performs Alan Ayckbourn’s “time-travel-battle-of-the-sexes comedy.”

The Complete History of America (abridged) Dominican University of California, Forest Meadows Amphitheater, 1475 Grand, San Rafael; (415) 499-4488, www.marinshakespeare.org. $20-35. Performance times vary; check website for schedule. Through Sept. 25. Marin Shakespeare Company performs Adam Lon, Reed Martin, and Austin Tichenor’s three-person romp through American history.

Fly By Night Lucie Stern Theatre, 1305 Middlefield, Palo Alto; (650) 463-1960, www.theatreworks.org. $19-69. Wed/10, 7:30pm; Thurs/11-Sat/13, 8pm (also Sat/13, 2pm). TheatreWorks performs the world premiere of Kim Rosentock, Michael Mitnick, and Will Connolly’s musical, set in 1965 New York.

Macbeth Dominican University of California, Forest Meadows Amphitheater, 1475 Grand, San Rafael; (415) 499-4488, www.marinshakespeare.org. $20-35. Performance times vary; check website for schedule. Through Sun/14. Marin Shakespeare Company takes on the Scottish play.

Madhouse Rhythm Cabaret at Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $15-35. Thurs, 7:30pm. Through Aug 25. Joshua Walters performs his hip-hop-infused autobiographical show about his experiences with bipolar disorder.

A Midsummer’s Night Dream This week: Downtown Library, 400 Front, Danville; www.womanswill.org. Free (donations requested). Sat/13, 2pm. Amador Valley Community Park, 4455 Black, Pleasanton. Sun/14, 4:30pm. Performances continue at Bay Area parks through Aug 21. Woman’s Will performs the Shakespeare favorite.

Not a Genuine Black Man Marsh Berkeley, TheaterStage, 2120 Allston, Berk; 1-800-838-3006, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Sat, 5pm (also Sept 8 and 22, 7:30pm). Through Sept 24. This is it: the final extension of Brian Copeland’s solo show about growing up in (nearly) all-white San Leandro.

Reduction in Force Berkeley City Club, 2315 Durant, Berk; (510) 558-1381, www.centralworks.org. $14-25. Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Aug 20 and 27, 5pm); Sun, 5pm. Through Aug 28. Central Works performs “an economic comedy about back-stabbing, ass-kissing, and survival of the sneakiest.”

The Road to Hades John Hinkel Park, Southampton Ave, Berk; (510) 841-6500, www.shotgunplayers.org. $10 (suggested donation; no one turned away for lack of funds). Sat-Sun, 3pm. Through Sept 11. Shotgun Players presents a new comedy written by and starring veteran comedian and clown Jeff Raz.

Strange Travel Suggestions Cabaret at Marsh Berkeley, 2120 Allston, Berk; (415) 282-3055, www.themarsh.org. $20-50. Fri, 8pm; Sat, 5pm. Through Aug 27. Jeff Greenwald returns with a new version of his hit show of improvised monologues about travel.

“2011 New Works Festival” TheatreWorks at Lucie Stern Theatre, 1355 Middlefield, Palo Alto; (650) 463-1960, www.theatreworks.org. $19-29. Schedule varies. Through Aug 21. TheatreWorks presents its annual festival of new musicals and plays, performed in workshop or staged-reading form, plus a panel discussion.

2012: The Musical! This week: Live Oak Park, Shattuck and Berryman, Berk; www.sfmt.org. Free. Sat/13-Sun/14, 2pm. Continues through Sept 25 at various Bay Area venues. San Francisco Mime Troupe mounts their annual summer musical; this year’s show is about a political theater company torn between selling out and staying true to its anti-corporate roots.

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

Lily Cai Dance Company Novellus Theater, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 700 Howard, SF; (415) 978-ARTS, www.ybca.org. Sat, 8pm. $25-40. The company’s 2011 Home Season Concert includes the world premieres Shifting and What Is Missing, plus Candelas.

“Mortified” DNA Lounge, 375 11th St, SF; www.getmortified.com. Fri, 8pm, $17. The popular storytelling series (famous for its embarassing tales) moves into its biggest venue yet, with way more room for sympathetic cringing.

“Permutae/Reception” CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF; www.counterpulse.org. Fri-Sat, 8pm. $10-20. Mary Franck/Finley Coyl and Tessa Wills contribute to these evenings of shared performance.

BAY AREA

“Hella Gay Comedy Show” La Estrellita Café, 446 E. 12th St, Oakl; (510) 465-7188. 9pm, $10. Charlie Ballard hosts this showcase of LGBT comedians.

“My Fair Lady” Woodminster Amphitheater, Joaquin Miller Park, 3300 Joaquin Miller, Oakl; (510) 531-9597, www.woodminster.com. $26-42. Woodminster Summer Musicals presents the classic makeover tale, selected by Woodminster audiences as their choice for this season’s musical.

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.

Rep Clock

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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August 2, 2011

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Schedules are for Wed/3–Tues/9 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double features are marked with a •. All times are p.m. unless otherwise specified.

BALBOA 3620 Balboa, SF; www.balboamovies.com. $7.50-20. Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff (McCall, 2010), Wed, 2; Thurs, 4:30, 7. “From Britain with Love:” In Our Name (Welsh, 2010), Wed, 4:30; Africa United (Gardner-Paterson, 2010), Wed, 7; Third Star (Dalton, 2010), Wed, 9; A Boy Called Dad (Percival, 2009), Thurs, 2; Neds (Mullan, 2010), Thurs, 9.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $7.50-13. “Legendary Composer Max Steiner (1888-1971):” •The Big Sleep (Hawks, 1946), Wed, 2:50, 7, and Key Largo (Huston, 1948), Wed, 4:55, 9:05; •King Kong (Cooper and Schoedsack, 1933), Thurs, 2:40, 7, and The Searchers (Ford, 1956), Thurs, 4:35, 9. “Midnites for Maniacs: Dance Till the Cows Come Home Triple Feature:” Flashdance (Lyne, 1983), Fri, 7:30; Dirty Dancing (Ardolino, 1987), Fri, 9:30; The Apple (Golan, 1979), Fri, 11:45. Moulin Rouge! (Luhrmann, 2001), Sat, 2, 4:30, 7, 9:30.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $10.25. The Names of Love (Leclerc, 2010), call for dates and times. Cameraman: The Life and Work of Jack Cardiff (McCall, 2010), Wed-Thurs, 7. Crime After Crime (Potash, 2011), Aug 5-11, call for times.

“FILM NIGHT IN THE PARK” This week: Creek Park, 451 Sir Francis Drake, San Anselmo; (415) 272-2756, www.filmnight.org. Donations accepted. Gasland (Fox, 2010), Fri, 8; Toy Story 3 (Unkrich, 2010), Sat, 8.

JACK LONDON SQUARE 66 Franklin, Oakl; www.jacklondonsquare.com. Free. “Waterfront Flicks:” Ratatoullie (Bird and Pinkava, 2007), Thurs, sunset.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “John Musker on the Art of Animation:” “The Animator’s Art: Lecture and Clips,” Wed, 6:30; The Princess and the Frog (Musker and Clements, 2009), Thurs, 6:30; Pinocchio (Ferguson, Hee, Jackson, Kinney, Luske, Roberts, and Sharpsteen, 1940), Sun, 3. “Hands Up: Essential Skolimowski:” Four Nights With Anna (2008), Fri, 7 and Sun, 5; King Queen Knave (1972), Fri, 8:50. “Japanese Divas:” Equinox Flower (Ozu, 1958), Sat, 6:30. “Bernardo Bertolucci: In Search of Mystery:” Besieged (1998), Sat, 8:55.

PARAMOUNT 2025 Broadway, Oakl; 1-800-745-3000, www.ticketmaster.com. $5. Back to the Future (Zemeckis, 1985), Fri, 8.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $5-9.75. World on a Wire (Fassbinder, 1973), Wed-Thurs, 7. Crime After Crime (Potash, 2010), Aug 5-11, 7, 9 (also Sat-Sun, 3, 5).

2969 MISSION 2969 Mission, SF; (415) 8*1-6545, www.answersf.org. $5-10 (no one turned away for lack of funds). The End of Poverty? (Diaz, 2009), Thurs, 7.

YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-8. “Smut Capital of America: San Francisco’s Sex Cinema Revolution:” “Hard Shorts,” introduced by pre-1986 American hardcore cinema expert Joe Rubin, Thurs, 7:30; The Meatrack (Stockton, 1968), Fri, 7:30.

Rep Clock

Andrew Lam

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July 19, 2011

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Schedules are for Wed/20–Tues/26 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features are marked with a •. All times are p.m. unless otherwise specified.

AFRICAN AMERICAN ART AND CULTURE COMPLEX 762 Fulton, SF; (415) 922-2049. Free. Crisis in the Congo: Uncovering the Truth, Wed, 6.

BALBOA 3620 Balboa, SF; www.balboamovies.com. $7.50-20. “Opera, Ballet, and Shakespeare in Cinema:” Giselle, performed by the Royal Ballet, London, Wed, 7:30. Make Believe (Tweel, 2011), July 22-28, call for times. Idiots and Angels (Plympton, 2011), Mon-Tues, 9. With shorts and animator Bill Plympton in person.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $7.50-13. •Poison (Haynes, 1991), Wed, 3, 7, and Safe (Haynes, 1995), Wed, 4:35, 8:40. San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, Thurs and July 23-28. Check www.sfjff.org for complete schedule and ticket info. •Wild at Heart (Lynch, 1990), Fri, 7, and Vampire’s Kiss (Bierman, 1988), Fri, 9:20.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $10.25. Buck (Meehl, 2011), call for dates and times. Page One (Rossi, 2011), call for dates and times. The Tree of Life (Malick, 2011), call for dates and times. The Trip (Winterbottom, 2010), call for dates and times. Road to Nowhere (Hellman, 2010), July 22-28, call for times.

“FILM NIGHT IN THE PARK” This week: Creek Park, 451 Sir Francis Drake, San Anselmo; (415) 272-2756, www.filmnight.org. Donations accepted. Double Indemnity (Wilder, 1944), Fri, 8. True Grit (Coen, 2010), Sat, 8.

FOUR STAR 2200 Clement, SF; www.lntsf.com. $10. “Asian Movie Madness” •Red Cliff Part I (Woo, 2008), and Red Cliff Part II (Woo, 2009), Thurs, call for times.

JACK LONDON SQUARE 66 Franklin, Oakl; www.jacklondonsquare.com. Free. “Waterfront Flicks:” Big Night (Scott and Tucci, 1966), Thurs, sunset.

JAPANESE CULTURAL CENTER AND COMMUNITY CENTER OF NORTHERN CALIFORNIA 1840 Sutter, SF; www.jetaanc.org. Free. The Five Bandits, Sun, 2.

MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; (415) 393-0100, rsvp@milibrary.org. $10. “CinemaLit Film Series: Music and Nostalgia:” The Night They Raided Minsky’s (Friedkin, 1968), Fri, 6.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Bernardo Bertolucci: In Search of Mystery:” Partner (1968), Wed, 7; Last Tango in Paris (1972), Sat, 8:10. “Japanese Divas:” Late Spring (Ozu, 1949), Thurs, 7; Early Summer (Ozu, 1951), Sun, 5. “Hands Up: Essential Skolimowski:” Deep End (1970), Fri, 7; The Shout (1978), Fri, 8:50; Identification Marks: None (1964), Sun, 7:30. “Going South: American Noir in Mexico:” The Great Flamarion (Mann, 1945), Sat, 6:30.

PARAMOUNT 2025 Broadway, Oakl; 1-800-745-3000, www.ticketmaster.com. $5. Jaws (Spielberg, 1975), Fri, 8.

RED VIC 1727 Haight, SF; (415) 668-3994; www.redvicmoviehouse.com. $6-10. The Last Waltz (Scorsese, 1978), Wed, 2, 7, 9:25. Harold and Maude (Ashby, 1971), Fri-Mon, 7:15, 9:15 (also Sat-Sun, 2, 4).

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $5-9.75. Enforcing the Silence (Nguyen, 2011), Thurs, 7. Road to Nowhere (Hellman, 2011), July 22-28, 7 (also Fri, 9:30; Sat-Sun, 2). Monte Hellman in person Fri/22. Ride in the Whirlwind (Hellman, 1965), Sat, 4:30, 9:20. The Shooting (Hellman, 1966), Sun, 4:30, 9:20. Two-Lane Blacktop (Hellman, 1971), Mon, 9:15 and July 27, 7. Cockfighter (Hellman, 1974), Tues and July 27, 9:20.

VORTEX ROOM 1082 Howard, SF; www.myspace.com/thevortexroom. $5 donation. “The United States of Vortex:” •Death Race 2000 (Bartel, 1975), Thurs, 9, and Mr. Freedom (Klein, 1969), Thurs, 11. YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-8. Pornography in Denmark (de Renzy, 1969),Thurs, 7:30.

Music Listings

Andrew Lam

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July 19, 2011

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WEDNESDAY 20

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Barn Owl, Sean Smith, 3 Leafs Elbo Room. 9pm, $8.

Brush Prairie, Sexy Water Spiders, Ruby Feathers Knockout. 9pm, $10.

“DAMSF” DNA Lounge. 10pm. Emerging artists’ showcase with dancers, musicians, and more.

Liturgy, Chelsea Wolfe, Common Eider King Eider, DJ Rob Metal Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

Hamilton Loomis Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $18.

Mental 99, Wesley Morgan Madrone Art Bar. 7pm, free. Every Wed. in July.

Jeremy Messersmith, Lumineers, Rin Tin Tiger Hotel Utah. 8pm, $10.

Paper City Kimo’s. 8pm, $6.

Tim Robbins and the Rogues Gallery Band Bimbo’s 365 Club. 8pm, $28.

Spyrals, VonVeederVeld, Nectarine Pie, Outlaw Hemlock Tavern. 8:30pm, $8.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

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

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

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

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

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

“Outsound New Music Summit: Face Music” San Francisco Community Music Center, 544 Capp, SF; www.outsound.org. 8:15pm, $12.

“Underground Sound” Stage Werx, 533 Sutter, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. 8pm, $12. With Kurt Weill Project and Kat Downs.

DANCE CLUBS

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

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

Joe Clausell, Afrolicious DJs Public Works, 161 Erie, SF; www.publicsf.com. 10pm.

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

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

Third Wednesdays Underground SF. 10pm-2am, $3. With Ms. Jackson, DJ Loryn, and Becky Knox spinning electro, tech, house, and breaks.

THURSDAY 21

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Big Talk with Ronnie Vannucci Rickshaw Stop. 10pm, $15. Plus Popscene DJs.

Con Brio, Audiafauna Café Du Nord. 8:30pm, $13.

Dreamdate, Lotus Moons, Skystone Amnesia. 9pm, $7.

Johnny Gill with live band Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $38.

Laurie Morvan Band Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $16.

Mannequin Planet, Slave Unit, Spellbound, Scission Red Devil Lounge. 9pm, $6.

Memory Tapes, Painted Palms, Sleep Over Slim’s. 9pm, $15.

Asada Messiah, Lord Dying, Nether Regions, Pigs Thee Parkside. 9pm, $7.

Naked Fiction 50 Mason Social House, 50 Mason, SF; www.50masonsocialhouse.com. 9pm, free.

Soundgarden, Mars Volta Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, 99 Grove, SF; www.ticketmaster.com. 7:30pm, $62.75.

Steel Hot Cakes, Olive Ewe, Inferno of Joy Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Superhumanoids, Easy Street, Half-handed Cloud Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

Chris Webby 330 Ritch. 8pm.

Zodiac Death Valley, Lilac, Cannons and Clouds, DJ Mikey Tashjian Independent. 8pm, $12.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

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

Dime Store Dandy Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; www.ritespotcafe.net. 9pm.

Gilbert Fix Trio Rose Pistola, 532 Columbus, SF; www.rosepistola.com. 8pm, free.

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

“Outsound New Music Summit: The Freedom of Sound” San Francisco Community Music Center, 544 Capp, SF; www.outsound.org. 8:15pm, $12.

Savanna Jazz jam Savanna Jazz. 7pm, $5.

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

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

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Crooked Still, Cahalen Morrison and Eli West Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $20.

Muddy Roses, Emily Bonn and the Vivants Hotel Utah. 9pm, $6.

DANCE CLUBS

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

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

Double Down John Colins, 138 Minna, SF; www.johncolins.com. 9pm, $5. Soul, funk, and hip-hop with DJs Guillermo, E Da Boss, and Kung Fu Chris, plus a live performance by Myron & E.

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

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

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

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

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

FRIDAY 22

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Automatic Rival, Endroit, Phantoms, Era Escape Blue Macaw, 2565 Mission, SF; www.thebluemacawsf.com. 9pm, $10.

B’z Fillmore. 8pm, $55.

Frank Bey Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

Mike Burns Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; www.ritespotcafe.net. 9pm.

Earth, Angelo Spencer et Les Hauts Sommets, Whirr Slim’s. 9pm, $15.

Ben Folds, Kenton Chen Warfield. 8pm, $38.

I The Mighty, A Lot Like Birds, Case In Theory, Quiet Game Starting Now Bottom of the Hill. 8:30pm, $12.

Love is Chemicals, Mist and Mast, To The Sea Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $8.

Odd Future Regency Ballroom. 8pm, $22.

Old-Fashioned Way, Altars, Upstairs Downstairs, Honey for the Bears Café Du Nord. 9:30pm, $12.

Peeling Grey, Tongue + Teeth, DJ MIB Retox Lounge. 9pm.

Langhorne Slim, Henry Wolfe Independent. 9pm, $15.

Tainted Love, This Charming Band Bimbo’s 365 Club. 8pm, $23.

Velvet Teen, Silian Rail, Worker Bee, Not to Reason Why Great American Music Hall. 8:30pm, $13.

Nick Waterhouse and the Tarots, Allah-Las, DJ Lucky Elbo Room. 10pm, $10.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

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

Dan Heffez Trio Rose Pistola, 532 Columbus, SF; www.rosepistola.com. 8pm, free.

“Outsound New Music Summit: The Art of Composition” San Francisco Community Music Center, 544 Capp, SF; www.outsound.org. 8:15pm, $12.

Suzanna Smith Savanna Jazz. 7pm, $8.

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

Vaughan Johnson Jazz Combo Jack’s Club, 2545 24th St., SF; (415) 641-1880. 7pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Spoonbill 50 Mason Social House, 50 Mason, SF; www.50masonsocialhouse.com. 9pm, free.

DANCE CLUBS

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

Baxtalo Drom Amnesia. 9pm, $7-10. Gypsy punk and belly dance.

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

Doc Martin, Garth, Nikola Baytala, Galen, Bo, Rouzbeh Public Works, 161 Erie, SF; www.publicsf.com. 10pm.

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

Dillon Francis, Adam F., Ototoxik, Manics, Ultraknock Rickshaw Stop. 10pm, $13-16.

Greasetrap Underground SF. 10pm. DJs Cutso, Doc Fu, and Mr. Lucky spin ghettotech, booty bass, and more.

Hubba Hubba Revue: That Old Time Religion DNA Lounge. 9pm, $10-15. Bible-thumpin’ bump n’ grind.

Soul Rebel Koko Cocktails, 1060 Geary, SF; www.kokococktails.com. 10pm, free. Reggae, punk, 2tone, oi, and more with Dougie, Tim, and Tomas.

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

SATURDAY 23

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Ambrosia Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $30.

Audiodub, Sean Tabor Band, Starving Millionaires Independent. 9pm, $15.

Alvarius B, Porest, Cave Bears Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $12.

Alan Choy and Dingle 50 Mason Social House, 50 Mason, SF; www.50masonsocialhouse.com. 9pm, free.

Ferocious Few, Rad Cloud, Indianna Hale Amnesia. 9pm, $10.

Hallflowers Rite Spot, 2099 Folsom, SF; www.ritespotcafe.net. 9pm.

Mister Loveless, Books On Tape, Stripmall Architecture Bottom of the Hill. 10pm, $10.

Nothington, Build Us Airplanes, Semi Evolved Simians, Why I Hate Thee Parkside. 9pm, $8.

Socialists Party, Yes Gos Thee Parkside. 3pm, free.

Tainted Love, This Charming Band Bimbo’s 365 Club. 8pm, $23.

Uncle Rebel, Soft White Sixties, Hypnotist Collectors Slim’s. 8:30pm, $14.

Wallpaper, Hood Internet Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $19.

Zoo Station: The Complete U2 Experience, Lovefool: The Quintessential 90s Party Band Café Du Nord. 9pm, $15.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Dee Dee Bridgewater Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8 and 10pm, $25-30.

Eddie Duran Duo Rose Pistola, 532 Columbus, SF; www.rosepistola.com. 8pm, free.

Escalay Seventh Avenue Performances, 1329 Seventh Ave, SF; www.sevenperforms.org. 7:30pm, $15-20.

Gina Harris and Mark Jordan Savanna Jazz. 7pm, $10.

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

Lisa Mezzacappa’s Bait and Switch Red Poppy Art House. 9pm, $10-12.

“Outsound New Music Summit: Sonic Foundry Too!” San Francisco Community Music Center, 544 Capp, SF; www.outsound.org. 8:15pm, $12.

Sunday jazz jam 50 Mason Social House, 50 Mason, SF; www.50masonsocialhouse.com. 9pm, free.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Hafez Modirzadeh and Ethel Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. 8pm, $25.

Maurice Tani, Jenn Courtney, 77 El Deora St. Cyprian’s Episcopal Church, 2097 Turk, SF; www.noevalleymusicseries.com. 8pm, $13-15.

DANCE CLUBS

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

Bootie SF: Mysterious D’s Birthday DNA Lounge. 9pm, $8-15. Mash-ups with a special birthday set by resident DJ Mysterious D.

Fog & Laser #2 Rickshaw Stop. 10pm, $7-10. With DJs EmDee and RamblinWorker, plus an electro set by Little Wings.

4OneFunktion Elbo Room. 10pm, $5-10. Hip-hop and funk DJs.

Go Bang! Deco Lounge, 510 Larkin, SF; www.gobangsf.com. 9pm, $5. Atomic dance floor disco action with DJs Pat Les Stache, Mykill, Kuze, Steve Fabus, and Sergio.

SUNDAY 24

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Cody Canada and the Departed Slim’s. 8pm, $15.

Coathangers, Swann Danger, Morning Crazies Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.

Cults Redwood Room and Velvet Room, Clift Hotel, 495 Geary, SF; cliftsessions@morganshotelgroup.com. 9pm, free (RSVP required).

Pokey LaFarge and the South City Three, Swamp Noir Amnesia. 9pm, $7-10.

Emily Wells, Blank Tapes Café Du Nord. 8pm, $10.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Dee Dee Bridgewater Yoshi’s San Francisco. 5 and 7pm, $5-25.

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

Little Brown Brother Jazz and Blues Jam Savanna Jazz. 7pm, $5.

Rob Evans Trio Rose Pistola, 532 Columbus, SF; www.rosepistola.com. 8pm, free.

Sherri Roberts, David Udolf, Chris Amberger Bliss Bar, 4026 24th St, SF; www.blissbarsf.com. 4:30pm, $10.

San Francisco Symphony Sigmund Stern Grove, 19th Ave at Sloat, SF; www.sterngrove.org. 2pm, free.

Sunday jazz jam 50 Mason Social House, 50 Mason, SF; www.50masonsocialhouse.com. 9pm, free.

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

DANCE CLUBS

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

Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $6. Dub, roots, and classic dancehall with DJ Sep, J Boogie, and guest Dub Snakkr.

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

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

MONDAY 25

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Zachary Cale, Fort King, Cabinet of Curiosities Knockout. 9pm, $7.

Cold Cave, Austra, Prurient Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $16.

Fucked Up Independent. 9pm, $15.

Iceage, Cult of Youth, DJ Omar Elbo Room. 9pm, $12.

Project Film, Moonbell, Horsefly Kimo’s. 8pm.

Ana Popovic Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $22.

DANCE CLUBS

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

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

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

TUESDAY 26

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Sharif Ali and the Radical Folksonomy Kimo’s. 8pm, $6.

Bombino, Magic Leaves Slim’s. 8pm, $25.

Faye Carol Yoshi’s San Francisco. 8pm, $10-20.

Ghost Animals, Kids on a Crime Spree, Permanent Collection Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.

Iceage Amoeba, 1855 Haight, SF; www.amoeba.com. 6pm, free.

Thurston Moore, Kurt Vile, Hush Arbors Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $22.

Sheens, Sad Bastard Book Club, Cryptics Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $8.

Tidelands, Debbie Neigher, Blue Rabbit Café Du Nord. 8pm, $10.

Yuck, Unknown Mortal Orchestra Independent. 8pm, $15.

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

California dreaming

Andrew Lam

-

July 19, 2011

2

arts@sfbg.com

HAIRY EYEBALL In his review of the latest Venice Biennale, Boston Globe art critic Sebastian Smee threw down something of a gauntlet when he wrote, “The received wisdom is that contemporary art is mostly about ideas. In truth, however, it’s mostly about gestures.”

Smee’s generalization offers plenty to chew on and plenty to disagree with. For starters, it implicitly presents one of art’s oldest chicken-egg scenarios — one that was muddied decades ago by Marcel Duchamp and later Conceptual Art — as a false choice between thought and spectacle, sustained engagement and capricious showmanship.

But it can also be read as a pretty spot-on diagnosis of the current moment in art — at least, as refracted through the fun house mirror of the Biennale — in which having a gimmick, however thought through or critically engaged, or bringing out the big guns guarantees attention in an increasingly crowded market already clogged with gimmicks and big guns.

Bay Area Now, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’ triennial snapshot of local creative culture, is the closest thing the Bay Area has to the Biennale and also, thankfully, the furthest thing from it. Still, Smee’s comment provides a useful rubric for navigating its sixth installment, which is full of gestures (some well-executed, others not so much) that at times overshadow the ideas (some half-baked, others worth mulling over) they’re meant to put across.

Visual art curators Betti-Sue Hertz and Thien Lam have pared the number of participating artists, now augmented by art collectives, to a tidy 18. This smaller range gives each participant’s work — most of it created especially for BAN6 — a little more breathing room, although the exhibition’s layout isn’t exactly conducive to following the connecting threads (environmentalism, geopolitics, Americana, and local subcultures, among other topics) unspooled in their curators’ statement.

Tammy Rae Carland’s wonderful series of work about the self-effacing price female comedians have had to pay (and continue to pay) to get a laugh is the first thing you see when you enter. But her photographs of local comediennes in ambiguous forms of self-presentation, text pieces that isolate the painful punch lines of Phyllis Diller, Joan Rivers, et al., and banana peels cast in brass are spread between two floors: a confusing arrangement if you don’t directly proceed up the stairway next to which Carland has created an elegiac installation that, save for the large helium balloons suspending a porcelain microphone, is also easy to miss.

YBCA’s main gallery is another case in point: it’s a good site for large installations that pack a lot of visual impact (think Song Dong’s Waste Not or Nick Cave’s soundsuits), but can pose a challenge for arranging groups of smaller-scale pieces coherently. It’s too bad, then, that the three box-like structures housing works by Brion Nuda Rosch, Rio Babe International, and Chris Sollars cut diagonally across the space like a semipermeable wall of shipping crates. Incidentally, these installations are also some of BAN6’s least compelling pieces.

Harder to ignore is Ben Venom’s See You on the Other Side, a giant quilt whose centerpiece motif of snakes sprouting from a human skull, all made from old metal band T-shirt scraps, only becomes visible as your eyes adjust to the surrounding negative space. It is, in a word, awesome. But it’s also a canny fusion of craft traditions already present in metal subcultures — the quilt is flanked by two cut-off embroidered and studded denim vests, familiar handmade vestments of the tribe — with an older American precedent.

Quilting is also taken up in Suzanne Husky’s nearby Sleep Cell Hotel installation, a collection of three potentially inhabitable nest-like wooden structures that resemble porcupines, replete with quilts covered in radical slogans. A goofy infomercial touts the dwellings as the next development in politically conscious eco-tourism, while a hand-drawn sign warns of their structural unsoundness. Husky’s isolation tanks take the piss out of radical chic and backpackers alike while questioning the impact even the most well-intentioned and off-the-grid 21st century nomads leave in the wake of their habitats beyond carbon footprints.

That question is reframed in more ambiguous terms by Ranu Mukherjee’s wonderful series of drawings and watercolors of “nomadic artifacts” located in YBCA’s smaller second gallery. Each work is based on an image or stories sent to Mukherjee by friends and associates that reflect their conception of the nomadic, a process of translation neatly embodied by the blank fields against which a camper van or an ancient Egyptian temple is depicted. Isolated from their original contexts, these purloined postcards from the edge form an ongoing archive of mobile existence (the call for submissions is still open).

This second room — darkened to accommodate a video projection by Mukherjee as well as Sean McFarland’s crepuscular, large-format photographs of forest interiors — is actually BAN6’s most coherent grouping, with Weston Teruya’s architectural model-like paper sculptures and Richard T. Walker’s winsome three channel video installation rounding out a chorale of differing takes on land use, abuse, occupation, and representation.

In many cases at BAN6, ambition tends to exceed execution, but the results — as with Tony Labat’s large neon marijuana leaf that, seen from the outside, makes YBCA’s Mission Street lobby look like the city’s chicest pot dispensary — still pack a punch. Whether that is enough, or enough for a “moment in time” group survey such as this, is another question.

BAY AREA NOW 6

Through Sept. 25

Thurs.–Sat., noon–8 p.m.; Sun, noon–6 p.m., $5–$7

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission, SF

www.ybca.org

Hot reels

Andrew Lam

-

July 12, 2011

0

culture@sfbg.com

LUST FOR LIFE In 1969, San Francisco became the first American city to legalize screening hardcore pornography. In honor of director Michael Stabile’s documentary-in-progress Smut Capital of America, which chronicles the 1969 event and SF’s ensuing pivotal role in the adult film industry during the early 1970s, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts is sponsoring a festival from July 14-Aug. 24 that will screen Stabile’s project and seven vintage porn films.

The festival kicks off with an evening featuring Smut Capital, a post-screening Q&A, rare vintage porn clips, and a discussion between Stabile and YBCA film and video curator Joel Shepard on SF sex culture in the 1960s and ’70s. After seeing the 16 minute-excerpt of the film, I ‘m already intrigued, entertained, and offended.

Smut Capital does more than give a blow-by-blow (sorry for the pun) porn history. It is also one of the few existing histories of sex work and queerness in the 1970s Tenderloin district. There is some pretty transphobic and sexist language in the footage (said by interviewees, not the filmmaker), and its treatment of street sex work and survival sex feels weirdly lighthearted. But because documenting the Tenderloin’s importance to queer and sex cultures is rare, I’m glad this film is in the works. I’m interested to see what other footage Stabile has for us down the road.

YBCA is also screening good old-fashioned smut — a passel of 1960s and ’70s blue shorts and full-lengths are on the schedule. And for another take on the era, a perspective piece from right in the thick of things, look to director Alex De Renzy’s Pornography in Denmark (1969), a controversial (at the time — but then, what wasn’t?) documentary he made during the first Danish adult trade expo to shoot its load after the country rescinded many of its anti-sex laws. De Renzy went on to direct such gems as 1989’s Bring on the Virgins and 1997’s Trashy Ass Deliquents, so you can probably guess where he stands on matters of sexual freedom.

Pornography in Denmark is far more interesting as a historical document than as a documentary or a porn film. As far as docs go, it’s slow; as far as porn goes, well, there’s nudity and sex, but they’re not very arousing. The film is a bit dry and long-winded, with the narrator earnestly explaining the history of porn in Denmark, right down to reciting the national average of production costs.

The interviews with sex industry workers are interesting, though, and some of the dialogue is priceless. I was having giggle fits over lines like “Probably not many men carry a vibrator in their attaché case”; “A tourist’s raincoat has deep pockets”; and “Making a pornographic film can raise a sharp appetite!”

All in all, these events are definitely worth checking out. I’ll be at “Smut Capital” — see you there?

SMUT CAPITAL OF AMERICA: SAN FRANCISCO’S SEX FILM REVOLUTION

Smut Capital , Thurs/14, 7:30 p.m., $6–$8

Pornography in Denmark , July 21, 7:30 p.m., $6–$8

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission, SF

www.ybca.org

Hot sexy events: July 6-12

Andrew Lam

-

July 6, 2011

0

Good news this week’s gang: Femina Potens has found a new brick and mortar gallery! The sex-positive, high-art fetish org will be moving out to Cesar Chavez between Mission and Valencia, high times for those of us in favor of artsy bondage nights and feminist porn-o-rama. We’ll keep you posted as this story progresses… now onto the sex events!

Feelmore510 erotic film night

Didja catch our recent profile of Oakland’s dopest new sex toy store? Certainly worth a trip to downtown Oak-town, so why not make it tonight for owner Nena Joiner’s screening of blue films. Tonight’s theme is vintage – maybe it’ll get you all stoked for next week’s YBCA retro porn festival?

Weds/13 7:30-9 p.m., free

Feelmore510

1703 Telegraph, SF

(510) 891-0199

www.feelmore510.com

Pink

Oh man, you’re all dressed up in your marabou finery, you’re at Mission Control, there’s a sexy cat or Dorothy or mermaid sitting across the room giving you the come-hither gaze – and you freeze. Don’t worry, times like these just call for a workshop. You can get that before you hit this week’s Pink play party at the regular pre-party class, which this time around features Martha Baczynski teaching you the fine art of the swinger come-on. Just remember, you gotta bring a “responsible partner” to Pink.

Pre-workshop 9-10:15 p.m.

Play party 10 p.m.-3 a.m., $30 for both, members only

Mission Control

www.missioncontrolsf.org

Screwup

Guess what trannies, genderqueers, and the like: you now have your very own coffee meet-and-greet! Hie thee hence to Wicked Grounds, where you will find not only a gender-nuetral bathroom, but a roomful of fun, interesting, sexy folks who defy the gender binary that persists in asking: coffee or tea? at SF’s S-M cafe extraordinaire.

Sat/9 7-9 p.m., free

Wicked Grounds

289 Eighth St., SF

(415) 503-0405

www.wickedgrounds.com

11th Annual South Bay Kink Ride

Board your choppers and bring your appetite – this South Bay tradition takes you to that most suburban of restaurants, to a small park for singetail slingin’, and then out through the Santa Cruz Mountains – and lunch, of course. Perfect for those who enjoy the feel of fresh air whipping by their sexy loins. And whips, of course.

Sun/10 9 a.m. breakfast, 10:30 ride, free except for cost of food

Marie Callender’s

18500 Sutter, Morgan Hill

www.soj.org/calendar

Naked Girls Eating

The gang — Lady Monster, Carol Queen, Cherry Galette, Ophelia Coeur de Noir, and Isis Starr from Naked Girls Reading is back — and they’ve brought snacks. This month, the rude nudes will be orating from tales of delectable food porn — and all the while you can feast on their bodacious bods and treats from SF’s own BDSM coffeeshop, Wicked Grounds. Delicious!

Sun/10 8-10 p.m., $15-20

Center for Sex and Culture

1349 Mission, SF

(415) 552-7399

www.sexandculture.org

“Fabulous Fellatio: The Art of Oral Sex” and “Petting the Kitty: Cunnilingus and Female Massage”

Megan Andelloux‘s gotta have a great mouth. The sexpert is teaching not one, but two nights that’ll teach all comers the art of going downtown on their Charlie Brown (and Lucy). Hetero couples: going to one and not the other? Not fun at all, make it a two-fer and everyone goes home happy!

Fellatio: Mon/11 6:30-8:30 p.m., $20-25

Petting: Tues/12 6:30-8:30 p.m., $20-25

Good Vibrations

1620 Polk, SF

(415) 345-0500

www.goodvibes.com

On the Cheap

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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July 5, 2011

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On the Cheap listings are compiled by Jackie Andrews. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

THURSDAY 7

SPACEcraft’s birthday bash CELLspace, 2050 Bryant, SF; www.cellspace.org. 7-11pm, free. This one-night-only event featuring visual art, music, and performances from emerging artists has been going strong every first Thursday at CELLspace for two years now. It is once again time for the yearly celebration of this local art collective with a show featuring the works of Grace Cooper (you may also know her from the Sandwitches), Kool Kid Kreyola (yeah, that Kid Kreyola), and 25 others – not to mention musical performances from Panic is Perfect, Late Space Empire, and more.

SATURDAY 9

Renegade Craft Fair Fort Mason Center Festival Pavilion, Marina and Buchanan, SF.; www.renegadecraft.com. Sat/9 and Sun/10, 11am-7pm, free. Been jonesing for some post-Maker Faire handmade whatchamacallits? Get your D.I.Y. fix at this two-day smorgasbord of handmade goods – everything from jewelry, clothing, ceramics, stationary, and housewares to comics, art, and more. Looking for something specific? Plushy pomegranate-shaped salt and pepper shakers? If it’s handmade, it’s fair game and chances are you will find whatever you are looking for here – if not the inspiration to make it yourself.

Bay Area Now 6 Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF.; (415) 978-ARTS, www.ybca.org. Noon, free. This is the YBCA’s triennial nod to outstanding artistic talents who are inspired by the Bay Area – whether it be African American identity in Oakland as expressed in the afro-futurist canvasses of David Huffman or the re-birth of heavy metal, articulated in the quilting of Ben Venom. However varied the media and styles, the works are all connected by a common thread that resonates Golden Gate.

“Sees Girls” opening reception Mission Comics and Art, 3520 20th St., SF; (415) 695-1545, www.jenwang.net, www.missioncomicsandart.com. 7pm, free. Jen Wang – San Francisco native now living in L.A. – can add artist, illustrator, cartoonist, paper doll designer, and now graphic novelist to her curriculum vitae. Having contributed artwork to various art anthologies and McSweeny’s publications in the past, Wang has recently published her very own graphic novel, Koko Be Good, a colorful tale of a happy 20-something drifter living in San Francisco about to embark on some big life changes. Be sure to check out her homecoming exhibition, mostly of recent paintings, illustrations, and (hopefully) fan-art (fingers crossed – we hear she’s a big Game of Thrones enthusiast).

A Rocky Horror roller disco Big Gay Warehouse, SF; www.biggaywarehouse.com, Facebook: Rocky Horror Roller Disco. 7pm, sliding scale donation. Dust off your roller skates, this will be the last event ever at the Big Gay Warehouse – for real this time, (sadly) we swear. Be sure to bring some cash because they need help with their moving costs. It will surely be worth every penny with the night they have planned – lot’s of bands, a showing of Rocky Horror Picture Show (“I’m just a sweet transvestite, from Transsexual, Transylvania”) and a roller disco with DJs spinning everything from – surprise! – disco to house and hardcore. Be sure to check Facebook – the exact address will be disclosed the day of for the newbies.

SUNDAY 10

The Stranger Dinners Various locations, SF; www.strangerdinner.org. Time TBD, $5-10 suggested donation. Tonight (and usually about once or twice a month), groups of six strangers will come together to create a collaborative meal without any expectations or commitment attached. Did you say the guy across from you chews with his mouth full? Gross! You won’t ever have to see him again. But more than likely, you will make a new friend or two, snag a couple of recipes or learn a new joke, because you’re an amazing, outgoing, and adventurous person, right? Bring your favorite dish to share (social lubricants provided) and get ready for a serendipitous adventure! Don’t forget to register online to participate and receive the deets, like time and location.

Sunday Streets: Great Highway! Great Highway, SF; www.sundaystreetssf.com. 11am-4pm, free. The fifth “Streets” of the season returns to the Great Highway. It will begin at the SF Zoo and follow Route 1 to Golden Gate Park and continue down JFK Drive to Stanyan. Bring your roller skates, unicycle, skateboard, or just a plain pair of walking shoes and enjoy the activities and vendors that line the nearly six miles of car-free roads.

Smells like motherland spirit

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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June 28, 2011

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cheryl@sfbg.com

FILM When North Korea makes the news, it’s usually under unpleasant headlines containing words like “nuclear” and “hostilities.” What most Americans know of this secretive country is either drawn from these dire reports or formed via pop culture. Notable are Vice magazine’s surprisingly illuminating North Korean travelogue, which “aired” online, and a pair of 2004 films: doc A State of Mind, about two girls training for the country’s circus-on-a-terrifying-scale Mass Games, and, of course, Team America: World Police.

For the sum of a few thousand euros, Beijing-based Koryo Tours can book Westerners (except journalists — NO JOURNALISTS ALLOWED!) on trips that include the Mass Games, the DMZ, Baekdu Mountain, and more (act now for the “Kim Il Sung 100th Birthday Ultimate Mega Tour 2012”!) The Koryo website’s FAQ (“Will the guides try to brainwash me?”) offers quite an education about how controlled access to the country really is — as you might suspect, tourists have to be extremely careful where they point their cameras. Still, a vacation in North Korea would surely be a one-of-a-kind experience.

With that in mind, Koryo is sponsoring a screening of a one-of-a-kind — at least in America — film, Centre Forward, a 1978 curio that was digitally restored in 2010. Directed with limited artistic flair by Pak Chong-Song (according the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts’ website, “considered one of the DPRK’s finest filmmakers”), this 75-minute, black-and-white propaganda piece weaves the tale of Comrade In Son, a gifted but inexperienced soccer player struggling to succeed on a team that recently upgraded its training regime from merely exhausting to sadistically brutal.

Along the way, the lad wearing No. 17 learns important lessons from his sister (a dancer whose training also tends toward the sadistically brutal), his roommate (an older player with international triumphs under his belt), his coach (who gives motivational speeches that invoke the teachings of the Fatherly Leader), and the lyrics of the rousing tunes that play over the film’s many montages — “Oh we are sportspersons of the Leader, let us demonstrate wisdom and vigor,” that sort of thing. There’s never any doubt, because it’s emphasized over and over, that sporting glory is owned by the motherland, not individual players. (Though if you fail, you’re personally responsible for hindering the DPRK’s pursuit of being “a kingdom of sports.”)

Centre Forward‘s original release must’ve stirred the hearts of North Korean soccer fans who recalled the national team’s best-ever World Cup showing; in 1966, it reached the quarter-finals after defeating perennial powerhouse Italy. Contemporary fans might better remember the 2010 World Cup, though they’d probably prefer not to — while even qualifying for the tournament was an accomplishment (and the extreme underdogs did score a goal in their game against Brazil), the team exited after three losses, including a humiliating 0-7 defeat versus Portugal.

The media, of course, feasted on the oddities the outsider country brought to the World Cup stage: the identically-dressed fans that were alleged to be Chinese actors imported to South Africa for the occasion; the assertion that the North Korean coach was getting pitch-side advice from Kim Jong-il via an invisible phone invented by the Supreme Leader himself. We chuckled, sure. But who didn’t worry a bit when the team had to trudge back to Pyongyang, still stinging from having their asses handed to them on international television by Cristiano Ronaldo and company?

Multiple sources reported the team and coach were “publicly rebuked” (some said for six hours) for their poor showing, and that the team was forced to “reprimand” their own coach, who was then quickly shunted into a laboring job (see above, re: “kingdom of sports.”) Superstar striker Jong Tae-se — loyal to North Korea, but born in Japan, so he enjoys the decadent luxury of playing in Europe — was spared from this punishment. But what happened to the other players? If Centre Forward‘s “no pain-no gain” training philosophy at all resembles real life, I shudder to imagine.

CENTRE FORWARD

Thurs/30, 7:30 p.m., $6–$8

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission, SF

(415) 978-2787

www.ybca.org

Rep Clock

Maria Poblet

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June 28, 2011

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Schedules are for Wed/29–Tues/5 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features are marked with a •. All times are p.m. unless otherwise specified.

BALBOA 3620 Balboa, SF; www.balboamovies.com. $20. “Opera, Ballet, and Shakespeare in Cinema:” Rigoletto, performed by Placido Domingo, Wed, 7:30.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $7.50-10. •The Blue Angel (von Sternberg, 1930), Wed, 3, 7, and The Devil is a Woman (von Sternberg, 1935), Wed, 5:15, 9. Beautiful Darling: The Life and Times of Candy Darling, Andy Warhol Superstar (Rasin, 2010), Thurs, 7, 9:15. “Peaches Christ presents:” Purple Rain (Magnoli, 1984), Fri, 8. With star Apollonia in person; for tickets ($23) and more info, visit www.peacheschrist.com. “Scary Cow’s 14th Indie Film Festival,” Sat, 3. For more info, visit www.scarycow.com. Call for Sun-Tues program info.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $10.25. Buck (Meehl, 2011), call for dates and times. The Tree of Life (Malick, 2011), call for dates and times. The Trip (Winterbottom, 2010), call for dates and times. Page One (Rossi, 2011), July 1-7, call for times.

“FILM NIGHT IN THE PARK” This week: Creek Park, 451 Sir Francis Drake, San Anselmo; (415) 272-2756, www.filmnight.org. Donations accepted. Breaking Away (Yates, 1979), Fri, 8; The Princess Bride (Reiner, 1987), Sat, 8.

FOUR STAR 2200 Clement, SF; www.lntsf.com. $10. “Asian Movie Madness” •Ip Man 2 (Yip, 2010), and Tiger Cage 2 (Yuen, 1990), Thurs, call for times.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Arthur Penn: A Liberal Helping:” The Missouri Breaks (1976), Wed, 7. “Japanese Divas:” The Life of Oharu (Mizoguchi, 1952), Thurs, 7; Rashomon (Kurosawa, 1950), Sat, 6:30; Sansho the Bailiff (Mizoguchi, 1954), Sat, 8:20. “Going South: American Noir in Mexico:” Ride the Pink Horse (Montgomery, 1947), Fri, 7; Where Danger Lives (Farrow, 1950), Fri, 9:10.

RED VIC 1727 Haight, SF; (415) 668-3994; www.redvicmoviehouse.com. $6-10. Orgasm Inc. (Canning, 2011), Wed-Thurs, 7:15, 9:15. Rango (Verbinski, 2011), Fri-Sun, 7:15, 9:20 (also Sat-Sun, 2, 4:15). Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1958), July 5-6, 7, 9:25 (also July 6, 2).

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $5-9.75. Making the Boys (Robey, 2009), Wed, 9; Thurs, 9:15. Meek’s Cutoff (Reichardt, 2010), Wed, 7. “San Francisco United Film Festival,” Wed-Thurs, 6. Yoga Is (Bryant, 2011), Thurs, 7. Happy (Belic, 2011), Fri-Sun, 7, 8:30 (also Sat-Sun, 3:30, 5:15); July 4-7, 7 and 9.

SAN FRANCISCO PUBLIC LIBRARY Koret Auditorium, 100 Larkin, SF; www.greenplanetfilms.org. Free. Green (Rouxel, 2009), Wed, 6:15.

“TEMESCAL STREET CINEMA 2011” 49th St at Telegraph, Oakl; www.temescalstreetcinema.com. Free. “Animation + Experimentation,” short films, Thurs, 8:45. With music by Amber Gougis at 8pm.

TOP OF THE MARK InterContinental Mark Hopkins, One Nob Hill, SF; www.topofthemark.com. Free. Dirty Harry (Siegel, 1971), Tues, 7:30. YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-8. Centre Forward (Pak, 1978/2010), Thurs, 7:30.

Rep Clock

Maria Poblet

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June 21, 2011

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Schedules are for Wed/22–Tues/28 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features are marked with a •. All times are p.m. unless otherwise specified.

BALBOA 3620 Balboa, SF; www.balboamovies.com. $20. “Opera, Ballet, and Shakespeare in Cinema:” Rigoletto, performed by Placido Domingo, Sat-Sun, 10am.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $7.50-10. “Frameline 35: San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival,” Wed-Sun. Visit www.frameline.org for complete schedule and ticket information. Stonewall Uprising (Davis and Heilbroner, 2010), Tues, 7. Free screening.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $10.25. The Tree of Life (Malick, 2011), call for dates and times. The Trip (Winterbottom, 2010), call for dates and times. Coppelia, performed by the Bolshoi Ballet, Thurs, 7 and Sun, 1. This event, $18. Buck (Meehl, 2011), June 24-30, call for times.

“FILM NIGHT IN THE PARK” This week: Creek Park, 451 Sir Francis Drake, San Anselmo; (415) 272-2756, www.filmnight.org. Donations accepted. Breakfast Club (Hughes, 1985), Fri, 8; National Velvet (Brown, 1944), Sat, 8.

FOUR STAR 2200 Clement, SF; www.lntsf.com. $10. “Asian Movie Madness” •The Host (Bong, 2006), and Yang Zean (1979), Thurs, call for times.

MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; (415) 393-0100, rsvp@milibrary.org. $10. “CinemaLit Film Series: Music and Nostalgia:” The Blues Brothers (Landis, 1980), Fri, 6.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “Japanese Divas:” Tokyo Story (Ozu, 1953), Wed, 7; Dragnet Girl (Ozu, 1933), Fri, 7; Sisters of the Gion (Mizoguchi, 1936), Fri, 9; Street of Shame (Mizoguchi, 1956), Sat, 8:45. “The Cult of the Kuchars:” “8mm Films by George and Mike Kuchar,” Thurs, 7; Weather Diary 1 (George Kuchar, 1986), Sat, 6. “Secession from the Broadcast: The Internet and the Crisis of Social Control,” lecture by Gene Youngblood, Sat, 3:30. “Arthur Penn: A Liberal Helping:” Little Big Man (1970), Sun, 5:30; Night Moves (1975), Sun, 8:10.

RED VIC 1727 Haight, SF; (415) 668-3994; www.redvicmoviehouse.com. $6-10. “Midnites for Maniacs:” •The Purple Rose of Cairo (Allen, 1985), Wed, 2, 9:15, and Broadway Danny Rose (Allen, 1984), Wed, 7:15. Single film, $7; double feature, $10. Forgetting Dad (Minnich, 2009), Thurs, 7:15, 9:25. The Warriors (Hill, 1979), Fri-Sat, 7:15, 9:20 (also Sat, 2, 4:15). Phil Ochs: There But For Fortune (Bowser, 2011), Sun-Tues, 7:15, 9:20 (also Sun, 2, 4:15).

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $5-9.75. “Frameline 35: San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival,” Wed-Thurs. Visit www.frameline.org for complete schedule and ticket information. Making the Boys (Robey, 2009), Wed-Thurs, 7:30, 9:30.

SUBTERRANEAN ARTHOUSE 2179 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 540-7185, www.brownpapertickets.com. $10. “Innovative California Dance Films,” Fri, 8:30.

“TEMESCAL STREET CINEMA 2011” 49th St at Telegraph, Oakl; www.temescalstreetcinema.com. Free. Trust (Kelly and Yamamoto, 2010), Thurs, 8:45. With music by Ash Reiter at 8pm.

TOP OF THE MARK InterContinental Mark Hopkins, One Nob Hill, SF; www.topofthemark.com. Free. Bullitt (Yates, 1968), Tues, 7:30. YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-8. Oki’s Movie (Hong, 2010), Thurs, 7:30; Sun, 2.

The Performant: Impossible weekend! Or: what to do when there’s everything to do?

Andrew Lam

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June 21, 2011

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Bicycle Music Festival and “A Clockwork Orange Afternoon”

Oh lordy, let me catch my breath. Weekend, you have officially kicked my ass.

Merely mortal, I found it difficult to plot an itinerary efficient enough to be able to hit every event that beckoned my attention over those bright and sunny 48 hours. Would I attend the annual Juneteenth street festival or a lecture on the benefits of zombie domestication? Journey to the End of the Night or a CLASH scavenger hunt? Sharon Jones and the Dap Kings at Stern Grove or Klaus Kinski at YBCA? Cloning myself seems a more attractive option by the day.

Spoiled for choice, and seeking the sun, I was wooed by the Bicycle Music Festival on Saturday afternoon. Located in the comfy meadow just past the De Young in Golden Gate Park, the Bicycle Music Fest kicked off with local folk rockers StitchCraft. Heather Normandale’s Jolie-Holland husk accompanied by her own guitar and Joey “Cello Joe” Chang wafted sweetly in the mild breeze while a team of stationary-bike pedalers powered up the PA system.

Introduced by festival organizer and Rock the Bike founder Paul “Fossil Fool” Freedman as an “OG” of the Bicycle Music movement, Normandale is a fixture with the Pleasant Revolution bicycle-powered music touring group, including a five-month tour of Europe with fellow BMF-featured performers, The Ginger Ninjas, as well as a participant of the Shake Your Peace 2009 Winter Walking Tour. Next up, Cradle Duende brought the gypsy noise followed by Evan Francis and fellow jazz mafiosos who played a mellow, sax-heavy set, warm as the rare June sunshine.

Solar-charged, pedal-powered, and ready for shade, I made tracks on Sunday for “A Clockwork Orange Afternoon” at the Edinburgh Castle. A celebration of the 40-year anniversary of the notorious Kubrick film made of the Anthony Burgess book of the same name, choice excerpts were read, and partly enacted, by Castle regulars: Jack Boulware as narrator, pub proprietor Alan Black as a slew of bit characters (including a spot-on interpretation of the Prison Chaplain), and bowler-hatted Crispin Barker as “Little Alex”.

At 49, the book itself is still pretty spry, alternating between restless and relentless, full of ultra-violence, yes, and weepy devotchkas and the red, red vino on tap — but not far below the shock value of its remorseless protagonist’s actions lies Burgess’ unwavering belief that the basis for our humanity is our power of choice, for good or for ill.

“When a man cannot choose he ceases to be a man,” asserts the prison chaplain doggedly, a statement echoed by Burgess himself in his 1986 essay “A Clockwork Orange, Resucked”. Stripped of his ability to choose his own moral path, and simultaneously losing his ability to listen to Beethoven’s Ninth (for Burgess, a self-taught composer, this was undoubtedly the ultimate cruelty), Alex pays dearly for his state-sanctioned “freedom”. And nearly fifty years later, the dire implications of the “Ludovico technique” still provoke as strongly as any spot of “twenty-to-one”.

The faith and the fury

Andrew Lam

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June 14, 2011

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arts@sfbg.com

FILM Hell hath no fury like an enraged Klaus Kinski. The late German actor, who rose to prominence in the 1970s as the combusting supernova at the center of the Wernzer Herzog films Aguirre: The Wrath of God (1972) and Cobra Verde (1987), was as famous for his coruscating off-camera temper as for his onscreen intensity. With Kinski, there is always the near-unanswerable question of to what extent is his performance acting and to what extent is he just being himself. Are we watching someone who has totally, obsessively (unhealthily?) committed to his craft, or a petulant diva whose overinflated ego perhaps bruises too easily?

Klaus Kinski: Jesus Christ the Savoir, a recently rediscovered concert film of a 1971 solo performance, makes a riveting case for all of the above. Filmed a year before he headed to the South American jungle with Herzog, Jesus Christ finds Kinski alone on a spot-lit stage before a packed house delivering a monologue that frames Christ as a persecuted outlaw. “Wanted: Jesus Christ,” he purrs, “charged with seduction, anarchistic tendencies, conspiracy against the authority of the state.”

Not five minutes in the catcalls begin, no doubt encouraged by Kinski’s sudden switch to the first person, making overt the already implicit and problematic association of himself with his subject. “I want my 10 marks back!” cries one audience member. “Shut up!” Kinski volleys back. When one particularly bold heckler climbs on stage to chasten Kinski for his un-Christ-like language, the actor has his security guards forcibly remove the young man and storms off stage to the audience’s cries of “fascist.”

Things only get uglier as the evening progresses. Kinksi returns a second time to proselytize for the continued relevance of scripture by drawing comparisons to then-current issues such as Vietnam and the growing counterculture. The audience, both fascinated and repelled by this wealthy actor whose truculent delivery and hostility toward his flock undercuts his message of nonviolence and justified outrage at the world’s horrors, continues to have its say. Many times, in fact. Kinski walks away from the mic twice more in disgust at the “riffraff.” It is only after the film’s credits that the visibly drained thespian finally delivers his sermon in full to the remaining faithful.

What’s surprising is the palpable sincerity beneath Kinski’s vitriol: He seems genuinely exasperated by the unreceptive crowd, even as each successive disciplinary outburst further alienates them. Of course, such naiveté is another symptom of privilege, but rarely are the privileged as hypnotic or as loose a cannon as Kinski. God bless him.

KLAUS KINSKI: JESUS CHRIST THE SAVIOR

Thurs/16, 7:30 p.m.; Sun/19, 2 p.m., $6–$8

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission, SF

(415) 978-2787

www.ybca.org *

Stage Listings

Maria Poblet

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June 14, 2011

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

THEATER

OPENING

Assisted Living: The Musical Imperial Palace, 818 Washington, SF; 1-888-88-LAUGH, www.assistedlivingthemusical.com. $79.59-99.50 (includes dim sum). Opens Sat/18. Runs Sat-Sun, noon (also Sun, 5pm). Through July 31. Rick Compton and Betsy Bennett’s comedy takes on “the pleasures and perils of later life.”

Indulgences in the Louisville Harem Phoenix Theatre, 414 Mason, SF; 1-800-838-3006, www.offbroadwaywest.org. $20-40. Opens Thurs/17, 8pm. Runs Thurs-Sat, 8pm. Through July 30. Two spinster sisters find unlikely beaux in Off Broadway West Theatre’s production of John Orlock’s play.

ONGOING

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

Assassins Eureka Theatre, 215 Jackson, SF; www.roltheatre.com. $20-36. Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2pm. Through June 25. Whether the world truly needed a Sondheim musical about the joys of political assassination or not is debatable, but as long as there is one it might as well go for the gusto. Brought to you by Ray of Light Theatre, the folks behind last year’s production of Jerry Springer the Opera, Assassins imbues society’s greatest misfits with quirky relatability. From Joel Roster’s hangdog portrayal of Leon Czolgosz (McKinley’s assassin) to Lisa-Marie Newton’s frazzled Sara Jane Moore (attempted to off Ford), Danny Cozart’s foul-mouthed, Santa Claus-suited, Samuel Byck (out for Nixon) to Gregory Sottolano’s loopy Charles Guiteau (bagged Garfield), the solid cast examines the assassination impulse in a breezy, borderline goofy manner. The production takes a more somber tone when Lee Harvey Oswald (Michael Scott Wells) takes the stage, encouraged by John Wilkes Booth (Derrick Silva) to turn a presumptive suicide attempt into one of assassination, while the other assassins beg him to legitimize their dark impulse through his action. The pacing works best when at its most frenetic, though Silva’s Booth, a pokerfaced elder statesman, lends an air of balancing gravitas. But the true stars of the show might well be the ultra-tight, eight-person house band playing a wide variety of American musical styles from the last 150 years, confidently directed by David Möschler.(Nicole Gluckstern) *Blue Man Group Golden Gate Theatre, 1 Taylor, SF; www.tickets.shnsf.com. $50-200. Wed/15-Sat/18, 8pm (also Sat/18, 2pm); Sun/19, 2pm. Jaw-slackening feats of circus skill combine with elaborate otherworldly percussion, subtle fresh-off-the-spaceship clowning, and of course lots of blue body paint in the updated version of the long-running now internationally strewn multi-group Blue Man Group. Mutatis mutandis, it’s a two decades–old formula. But its driving, eyeball-popping musical spectacle and wry, deft way with mass culture send-ups and (albeit rather pushy) audience participation can’t help but entertain. (Avila)

Fighting Mac! Thick House Theatre, 1695 18th St, SF; 1-800-838-3006, www.therhino.org. $15-30. Wed/15-Sat/18, 8pm; Sun/19, 3pm. Theatre Rhinoceros performs John Fisher’s play about real-life queer British general Hector MacDonald.

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

*Little Shop of Horrors Boxcar Theatre Playhouse. 505 Natoma; www.boxcartheatre.org. $20-50. Tues-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through June 26. From the moment the irritable Mr. Mushnik (Alex Shafer) chases his temp clerk (Amy Lizardo) out the lobby door and onto the street for the opening number, it’s clear that Boxcar Theatre’s production of Little Shop of Horrors is going to be unique. Boasting an energetic cast, an ingenious set, a few updated lyrics, and a marvelously menacing man-eating plant, Little Shop is engaging enough to distract from the somewhat awkwardly-mixed wireless mikes, and the fact that the doo-wop trio (Nikki Arias, Lauren Spencer, and Kelly Sanchez), though each individually blessed with awesome pipes, don’t always vocally blend well together. But they play their streetwise characters to a tough and tender T, while the awkwardly schlubby Seymour Kleborn (John R. Lewis) and his battered muse Audrey (Bryn Laux) tend Seymour’s mysterious botanical discovery and their burgeoning love affair with real sweetness. Everyone’s favorite badass dentist is played to sadistic perfection by Kevin Clarke, who rolls up Natoma Street on an actual motorcycle, while the able chorus morphs from skid row bums to cynical ad execs without missing a musical beat. As usual, Boxcar Theatre’s design team is a strong one, particularly in the case of puppet designers Greg Frisbee and Thomas John, whose trio of Audrey Jrs. are superbly executed. (Gluckstern)

Much Ado About Lebowski Cellspace, 2050 Bryant, SF; www.sfindie.com. $25. Fri-Sun, 8pm. Through June 28. SF IndieFest and the Primitive Screwheads perform a Shakespeare-inflected take on the Coen Brothers’ classic film.

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

Risk is This…The Cutting Ball New Experimental Plays Festival EXIT on Taylor, 227 Taylor; (800) 838-3006, www.cuttingball.com. Free. Fri-Sat, 8pm. Through June 25. Cutting Ball Theater closes its 11th season with a festival of experimental plays, including works by Eugenie Chan, Rob Melrose, and Annie Elias.

The Stops New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness; 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $24-40. Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through June 25. New Conservatory Theater Center presents a musical comedy set in San Francisco.

A Streetcar Named Desire Actors Theatre, 855 Bush; 345-1287, www.actorstheatresf.org. $26-38. Wed-Sat, 8pm. Through June 25. Actors Theatre of San Francisco presents the Tennessee Williams tale.

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

Wish We Were Here New Conservatory Theatre Center, 25 Van Ness, SF; (415) 861-8972, www.nctcsf.org. $20-32. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2pm. Through June 25. Slacker meets genie in this Michael Phillis comedy.

BAY AREA

Care of Trees Ashby Stage, 1901 Ashby, Berk; (510) 841-6500, www.shotgunplayers.org. $17-26. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 5pm. Through June 26. E. Hunter Spreen’s Care of Trees, which is receiving an inventively bold world premiere production in Shotgun’s capable hands is at once ambitious yet unsatisfying. The basic plot — “girl meets boy then turns into a tree &ldots; sort of” — is a quirky premise full of untapped potential. With so many possible interpretations of Georgia’s (Liz Sklar) unique predicament, the one that seems most predominant is an unwitting critique of the banality of the self-realization movement. “If I don’t do &ldots; what I see as right, then I’ll be lost to myself,” she tells her understandably frustrated husband Travis (Patrick Russell), as she abruptly shuts off her empathy-meter and bids him to do the same. During isolated pockets of dramatic tension, Georgia is stabbed in an altercation with a tree-hugger, suffers a series of violent seizures, is shuttled off to a battery of clueless doctors, and granted an audience with a Peruvian shaman, yet the underlying significance of actually turning into a tree, is barely explored, certainly never understood. Sklar and Russell turn in standout performances as the forest-crossed lovers, and the canopy of Nina Ball’s inventive set soars, but overall this Tree could stand to develop some stronger roots. (Gluckstern)

Distracted 529 South Second St, San Jose; (408) 295-4200, www.cltc.org. $15-35. Thurs/16-Sat/18, 8pm; Sun/19, 2pm. City Lights Theater Company of San Jose presents a drama written by Lisa Loomer and directed by Lisa Mallette.

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

Edward Albee’s Tiny Alice Marin Theatre Company, 397 Miller, Mill Valley; (415) 388-5208, www.marintheatre.org. $32-53. Tues, Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Thurs/16, 1pm; June 25, 2pm); Wed and Sun, 7:30pm (also Sun, 2pm). Through June 26. Marin Theatre Company performs Albee’s most divisive play, an erotic thriller-cum-comic allegory.

Let Me Down Easy Berkeley Repertory Theatre, Roda Theatre, 2015 Addison, Berk; (510) 647-2949, www.berkeleyrep.org. $17-73. Tues and Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Wed, 7pm; Sun, 2pm. Through June 26. Anna Deavere Smith performs her latest solo show.

Metamorphosis Aurora Theatre, 2081 Addison, Berk; (510) 843-4822, www.auroratheatre.org. $10-55. Previews Wed/15, 8pm. Opens Thurs/16, 8pm. Runs Tues, 7pm; Wed-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through July 17. Aurora Theatre Company performs a terrifying yet comic adaptation of Kafka’s classic by David Farr and Gísli Örn Gardarsson.

[title of show] TheatreWorks at the Mountain View Center for the Performing Arts, 500 Castro, Mtn View; (650) 463-1960, www.theatreworks.org. $24-42. Tues-Wed, 7:30pm; Thurs-Sat, 8pm (also Sat, 2pm); Sun, 2 and 7pm. Through June 26. TheatreWorks performs a new musical about musicals by Hunter Bell and Jeff Bowen.

*Welcome Home, Julie Sutter Marion E. Greene Black Box Theater, 531 19th St, Oakl; www.theatrefirst.com. $10-30. Thurs/16-Sat/18, 8pm; Sun/19, 2pm. On her first day back from Iraq, African American Marine, mother, and amputee Jenny Sutter (a pensive, quietly affecting Omoze Idehenre) sits in Beckett-like stasis at a bus depot operated by a wound-up cockroach-crazed attendant (Joe Estlack), until a chatty middle-aged woman named Louise (Nancy Carlin), recovering from addiction to everything, convinces her to come to Slab City. The off-the-grid settlement of semi-permanent campers and kooks on the desert edge of Los Angeles turns out to have once been a Marine base, much to the dismay of traumatized and anguished Jenny, who can’t work up the courage to answer the cell phone calls from her mother and children, let alone return to them. A physically handicapped internet-certified preacher (Brett David Williams) meanwhile takes it upon himself to help Jenny, with assistance from sometime girlfriend and recidivist Louise and a local soi-disant shrink (Karol Strempke). They throw a public coming-home ceremony for the cast-off vet. It’s Slab City’s socially awkward and pugnacious jewelry maker Donald (a sharp Jon Tracy) who challenges the militarism and religious pabulum in this enterprise, even as he finds himself irresistibly drawn to the deeply wounded Jenny. Nevertheless, playwright Julie Marie Myatt’s involving story (smoothly and engagingly directed for TheatreFIRST by Domenique Lozano) carries a real if not quite heavy-handed spiritual dimension, peppered with traditional gospel tunes (heard in Johnny cash recordings during scene transitions but echoed by cast members at other times) and undergirded by doubting Jenny’s unconscious quest for signs of a seemingly absent Christian god. What she finds is a community of equally messed up but compassionate souls, and that’s enough. (Avila)

PERFORMANCE/DANCE

Epiphany Productions Sonic Dance Theater ODC Theater, 3153 17th St, SF; (415) 863-9834, www.odctheatre.org. Fri-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. $15-20. The company performs its 2011 home season, with Heelomali, Alonesome/Twosome, and Solo Lo Que Fue.

“Fauxgirls!” Kimo’s, 1351 Polk, SF; (415) 885-4535. Sat, 10pm. Free. The drag revue celebrates its 10th anniversary with Victoria Secret, Chanel, Davida Ashton, and more.

“Fresh Meat Festival” Z Space at Theater Artaud, 450 Florida, SF; www.freshmeatproductions.org. Thurs-Sat, 8pm; Sun, 7pm. $15-20. Transgender and queer performers take the stage at this 10th annual festival.

“Garage All-Stars II” Garage, 975 Howard, SF; www.975howard.com. Sat-Sun, 8pm, $10-20. Part of the National Queer Arts Festival, this performance includes new choreography by Sara Yassky and Tim Rubel Human Shakes.

“Here: An Evening of Work by Katherine Kawthorne” Shotwell Studios, 3252-A 19th St, SF; (415) 298-2000, www.ftloose.org. Fri-Sat, 8pm, $10-15. Multimedia dance works including Living Line, Sferic, and Lumen.

kDub Dance CounterPULSE, 1310 Mission, SF; 1-800-838-3006, www.counterpulse.org. Fri-Sat, 8pm. $16-20. The Los Angeles company makes its SF debut with the evening-length dance work Fruit.

“Radar Spectacle” Verdi Club, 2424 Mariposa, SF; www.brownpapertickets.com. Fri, 7pm. $10-100. Support the 2011 Radar LAB Writers’ Retreat by checking out this event, with performances by Cintra Wilson, Fauxnique, Keith Hennessy, Lovewarz, Lil Miss Hot Mess, and more.

San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. Sat, noon; Sun, 1pm. Free-$24. The third weekend of the 33rd annual festival includes events celebrating the Rumson Ohlone tribe plus dance set to the words of transcendent poets.

“Trouble In Mind” Zeum Theatre, 221 Fourth St., SF; (415) 474-8800. Mon, 8pm, $30. The Lorraine Hansberry Theatre benefits from this staged reading of Alice Childress’ play, with Peter Coyote, Geoff Hoyle, Margo Hall, and others.

Rep Clock

Maria Poblet

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June 14, 2011

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Schedules are for Wed/15–Tues/21 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features are marked with a •. All times are p.m. unless otherwise specified.

BALBOA 3620 Balboa, SF; www.balboamovies.com. $20. “Opera, Ballet, and Shakespeare in Cinema:” Coppelia, performed by Bolshoi Ballet, Wed, 7:30.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $7.50-10. •Repulsion (Polanski, 1965), Wed, 2:50, 7, and Bunny Lake Is Missing (Preminger, 1965), Wed, 4:50, 9. “Frameline 35: San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival,” June 16-26. Visit www.frameline.org for complete schedule and ticket information.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $10.25. These Amazing Shadows (Mariano and Norton, 2011), Sun, 7. With filmmakers and special guest Peter Coyote in person. The Tree of Life (Malick, 2011), June 17-23, call for times. The Trip (Winterbottom, 2010), June 17-23, call for times. The Cove (Psihoyos, 2010), Tues, 7. This event, featuring a live performance by Bob Weir, $40; proceeds benefit Earth Island Institute and SaveJapanDolphins.org.

“FILM NIGHT IN THE PARK” This week: Old Mill Park, 300 block of Throckmorton, Mill Valley; (415) 272-2756, www.filmnight.org. Donations accepted. How to Train Your Dragon (DeBlois and Sanders, 2010), Fri, 8. Dolores Park, Dolores and 19th St, SF. Caddyshack (Ramis, 1980), Sat, 8.

FOUR STAR 2200 Clement, SF; www.lntsf.com. $10. “Asian Movie Madness” •Lovers in Turbulent Days (1980), and Rorita Couple, Thurs, call for times. For mature audiences only.

MARSH ARTS CENTER 2120 Allston, Berk; www.culturedisabilitytalent.org. $5-20. “Superfest 2011 International Disability Film Festival,” Fri, 11am-4pm; Sat, 10:30am-2:30pm; Sun, 11am-4pm. Films that portray the disability experience.

OPERA PLAZA 601 Van Ness, SF; www.anightmaretoremember.com. $12. “A Nightmare to Remember Film Festival,” horror films, Sat, 7-10.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “The Cult of the Kuchars:” “Beyond Melodrama: Short Films By George and Mike Kuchar,” Wed, 7; “Artist Friends: Videos by George and Mike Kuchar,” Sun, 4:30; “Mike Kuchar Selects:” Empty Canvas (Damiani, 1963), Sun, 6:50. “Arthur Penn: A Liberal Helping:” The Chase (1966), Thurs, 7; Alice’s Restaurant (Penn, 1969), Sat, 6; Bonnie and Clyde (1967), Sat, 8:40. “Japanese Divas:” Ugetsu (Mizoguchi, 1953), Fri, 7; Odd Obsession (Ichikawa, 1959), Fri, 9.

RED VIC 1727 Haight, SF; (415) 668-3994; www.redvicmoviehouse.com. $6-10. The Cockettes (Weber and Weissman, 2002), Wed, 2, 7:15, 9:30. Insidious (Wan, 2011), Thurs-Sat, 7:15, 9:25. Wings of Desire (Wenders, 1988), Sun-Mon, 7:30 (also Sun, 2, 4:45). “Midnites for Maniacs:” •Broadway Danny Rose (Allen, 1984), June 21-22, 7:15; The Purple Rose of Cairo (Allen, 1985), June 21-22, 9:15 (also June 22, 2). Single film, $7; double feature, $10.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $5-9.75. “Another Hole in the Head Film Festival,” Wed-Thurs. Horror, sci-fi, and fantasy films; visit www.sfindie.com for complete schedule. Meek’s Cutoff (Reichardt, 2010), Wed-Thurs, 7. The Topp Twins: Untouchable Girls (Pooley, 2009), Wed-Thurs, 9. Making the Boys (Robey, 2010), June 17-23, call for times. “Frameline 35: San Francisco International LGBT Film Festival,” June 17-23. Visit www.frameline.org for complete schedule and ticket information. YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-8. Klaus Kinski: Jesus Christ the Savior (Geyer, 1971/2008), Thurs, 7:30; Sun, 2.

‘Dirty Diaries’ divulges the arousing truths about feminist-made porn

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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June 9, 2011

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‘Dirty Diaries’ divulges the arousing truths about feminist-made porn

“Be horny on your own terms,” says the collection of Swedish, female filmmakers behind Dirty Diaries, a series of shorts that fight the porn industry with totally hot, moan-worthy stimulation outside the usual boundaries. Tired of being told what’s hot and what’s not, these ladies strapped on their cameras and set out to create hardcore, feminist porn on their own terms, from raunchy BDSM and steamy phone sex, to flashing, fisting, and awesome fucking.

Mainstream smut loves to glorify silicon and fake orgasms. Their camera shots are predictable and proven to be cum-inspiring and cash-collecting.The industry is sexist, wallowing in our patriarchal society that brainwashes the consumer into thinking that only certain bodies and certain acts are jizz worthy. Dirty Diaries is not even close.

The project began after the film’s producer Mia Engberg, a well-respected Swedish filmmaker, put together a piece concentrating on the female orgasm, zooming in on the faces and bodies of real women. After its screening, Engberg was disgusted by the criticism she received from men in the audience; the women weren’t ‘pretty’ enough and the film didn’t appeal to male desires. Enough said.

Engberg recognized the need for more female-depictions of sexuality and decided to fill the void with some real-life erotic filling. She gathered up a bunch of novice filmmaker friends, encouraging them to run wild with their ideas and create the shorts they had always wanted to see. The result was Dirty Diaries’ 12 totally diverse films, released in Sweden in 2009. Some are hilarious, some are badass, but all keep it hot in their own style. The artistic approach is unlike anything else on the market and the variety of film styles, from gritty camera phones to an impressive animation, makes each piece a surprising tingle.

“On Your Back Woman!” searches for the female machismo through sadomasochistic wrestling

Joel Shepard, film/video curator at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts is proud to host the film’s U.S. premiere, with two showtimes— Thurs/9 and Sat/11, both at 7:30 p.m.– and hopes it will continue to shatter the ideas of how feminist porn looks, sounds, and feels.

“When you think of feminist erotica, it’s easy to stereotype and imagine something soft. I was amazed by how confrontational some of these scenes can be,” he says, noting particularly, the camera angle of a fisting scene in “Brown Cock.” Super close-up and no fuss, the viewer doesn’t see a single face, only parts; pure and proud, wet and happy. Other pieces like “Flasher Girl on Tour” and “Dildoman” are much lighter in visuals, but their messages are weighted in social commentary about male sexuality and sexist double standards. Yet, still totally arousing. Totally.

Even the government-funded Swedish Film Institute agreed, or basically– they granted the film a chunk of change, even amidst the Moderate Party‘s disapproval, who argued that mainstream porn wouldn’t be given funding, so why does this kind of kink deserve a check? The Film Institute didn’t back down and stated that they stood behind their choice because Dirty Diaries aimed to try a new approach to depicting female sexuality. Isn’t Sweden sexy?

“Flasher Girl on Tour” shows public masturbation in a whole new light

Tease yourself with the film’s trailer at www.DirtyDiaries.com and round up a crew of friends with diverse sexual preferences to see the film live– it’s a delightful kick in the pants for everyone.

DIRTY DIARIES

Thu/9 & Sat/11, 7:30 p.m., $8 regular; $6 students, seniors, teachers & YBCA members

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Screening Room

701 Mission St., SF

(415) 978-2787

www.ybca.org/film

Around the bay, around the world

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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June 7, 2011

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arts@sfbg.com

DANCE “When one door closes, another opens” is the kind of cliché that drives you batty when you’ve been fired, or your lover has literally showed you the door. But once in a while even clichés prove their right to exist. Take the San Francisco Ethnic Dance Festival, which last year faced homelessness when Caltrans requisitioned the Palace of Fine Arts’ parking lot for the duration of the Doyle Drive reconstruction. With poor access to MUNI and no parking lot, EDF had no choice but to start a frantic search for another venue. The crisis challenged them to rethink a format that has worked for them since 1989 — potentially very risky, because, to quote another cliché: “Don’t mess with success.”

With a need to move from one temporary shelter to another, EDF took the opportunity to reshape its offerings in a way that might yet prove beneficial to both audiences and performers.

For one group of dancers, however, this year’s EDF is a homecoming. For the first time in more than 200 years, dancers and musicians from the Rumsen Ohlone Tribe will perform on their own land. Decimated by disease and dispersed because of persecution and discrimination, most live in a diaspora in their own country. But they did not, as popular history and the federal government would have it, die out; the tribe is 2,000 members strong. Many, including tribal chief Tony Cerda have settled in the Pomona area. But their ancestors are buried below what is now Yerba Buena Center for the Arts.

On Friday, June 3, in the presence of tribal dancers and musicians, San Francisco Mayor Ed Lee presented Cerda with the EDF’s annual Malonga Casquelourd Lifetime Achievement Award. The homecoming festivities continue on June 18, when a half-dozen other California tribes join the Ohlones for an all-day “California Indian Big Time Gathering” at Yerba Buena Gardens.

Two other aspects of this year’s program deserve special attention. June 11 and 12, eight companies will perform at Zellerbach Hall in Berkeley for the first time. For dancers used to showing their work in community halls, stepping onto a generous professional stage (and in front of a potential audience of 2,000) will be both a challenge and a delight. In January, EDF held its auditions at Zellerbach to an enthusiastic response from the primarily East Bay crowd. The word clearly had gotten out about how much fun these auditions are. In previous years at the Palace, the events regularly sold out.

The Zellerbach lineup aims to offer a similarly broad perspective of world dance. The eight companies will present taiko and Bharatanatyam contextualizing each other; African music and dance as practiced in Benin and Ghana; ancient belly dancing with a modern twist; and theatrically appropriate rituals from the Philippines and Bali. It also includes a barefoot version of flamenco, dances from a multicultural Veracruz, and, to top off the evening, a premiere for 100 celebrating Tahitian culture.

This year’s other innovation relates to performances June 19, 25, and 26 at YBCA’s Forum, where audience members will have the opportunity to enter the world of these dances. It makes sense. Culturally-rooted dance is integral to a community’s sense of well-being. It enhances milestones — courting, funerals, the changing of seasons, coming-of-age ceremonies, and thanksgiving practices.

These dances are not primarily meant to entertain — although of course they do — and many are participatory. When divorced from their contexts and put on a proscenium stage, something is inevitably lost. The Forum performances will restore some of the communal aspect of world dance. Each program offers a different quartet of companies that will perform a short piece, then invite the audience to join them in one aspect of their practice. You can choose among Balinese, Polish, square, Filipino, capoeira or African dance.

Or how about a piece of poppy seed cake served on a sword?

SAN FRANCISCO ETHNIC DANCE FESTIVAL

Through July 3, $18–$58

Various venues

www.sfethnicdancefestival.org

Rep Clock

Maria Poblet

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June 7, 2011

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Schedules are for Wed/8–Tues/14 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features are marked with a •. All times are p.m. unless otherwise specified.

BALBOA 3620 Balboa, SF; www.balboamovies.com. $20. “Opera, Ballet, and Shakespeare in Cinema:” Coppelia, performed by Bolshoi Ballet, Sat-Sun, 10am; June 15, 7:30.

BRAVA 2989 24th St, SF; www.qwocmap.org. Free. “Queer Women of Color Film Festival,” featuring five different screening programs, panel discussions, parties, and more, Fri, 7:30; Sat, 1; Sun, 2.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. Regular programming $7.50-10. “70mm Festival:” Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1958), Wed-Fri, 2, 5, 8; Lawrence of Arabia (Lean, 1962), Sat-Sun, 2, 7.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $10.25. The Double Hour (Capotondi, 2010), call for dates and times. The First Grader (Chadwick, 2010), call for dates and times. Queen to Play (Bottaro, 2009), call for dates and times. 13 Assassins (Miike, 2010), call for dates and times.

FOUR STAR 2200 Clement, SF; www.lntsf.com. $10. “Asian Movie Madness: Jet Li Now and Then” •Clash (Le, 2009), and Iron Fan and Magic Sword (Chan, 1971), Thurs, call for times.

LUMIERE 1572 California, SF; www.contractorsroutine.com. $8-10.50. Contractor’s Routine (Tsapayev, 2010), Wed-Thurs, 7.

MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; (415) 393-0100, rsvp@milibrary.org. $10. “CinemaLit Film Series: Music and Nostalgia:” Roxie Hart (Wellman, 1942), Fri, 6.

MISSION CULTURAL CENTER FOR LATINO ARTS 2969 Mission, SF; www.answercoalition.org. $5-10. South of the Border (Stone, 2009), Thurs, 7. With a report back on Cuba by Gloria La Riva.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. “The Cult of the Kuchars:” Sins of the Fleshapoids (Mike Kuchar, 1965), Fri, 7; The Devil’s Cleavage (George Kuchar, 1973), Sat, 6; Burlesk King (Chiongio, 1999), Sat, 8:35. “Arthur Penn: A Liberal Helping:” The Left Handed Gun (1958), Fri, 9; The Miracle Worker (1962), Sun, 5:30; Mickey One (1965), Sun, 7:30.

RED VIC 1727 Haight, SF; (415) 668-3994; www.redvicmoviehouse.com. $6-10. Wayne’s World (Spheeris, 1992), Wed, 2, 7:15, 9:20. House (Obayashi, 1977), Thurs, 7:15, 9:15. Kuroneko (Shindo, 1968), Fri-Sat, 7:15, 9:25 (also Sat, 2, 4:15). Mars Attacks! (Burton, 1996), Sun-Mon, 7:15, 9:30. Live music with the California Jug Band Association, Sun, noon-5. This event, $5. The Cockettes (Weber and Weissman, 2002), June 14-15, 7:15, 9:30 (also June 15, 2).

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $5-9.75. “Another Hole in the Head Film Festival,” through June 16. Horror, sci-fi, and fantasy films; visit www.sfindie.com for complete schedule.

VICTORIA 2961 16th St, SF; www.patagoniarising.com. $10. Patagonia Rising (Lilla, 2011), Wed, 8. YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-8. “Dirty Diaries,” 12 short erotic films by Swedish women directors, Thurs and Sat, 7:30.

A mother’s touch

Jesse Hawthorne Ficks

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May 31, 2011

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arts@sfbg.com

FILM The Rome of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s spirited second feature is that of the outer rings, the transitional borgata where ugly high-rise apartments interrupt wild grass and occasional industry. Pasolini, who lived for many years in such an outskirt with his mother, pointedly blurs development and ruin in his fluid camera observations of this liminal zone, much as he blurs the figure of mother and lover in Anna Magnani’s titular heroine. Like Mildred Pierce, Mamma Roma wishes prosperity for her child at any cost. She moves him from what she deems a rural backwater to the borgata for a shot at a “decent life,” which for her means selling vegetables rather than sex. Their new home is cruel in many ways, however. Ettore (Ettore Garofolo) slides toward delinquency, and soon an ex-lover presses Mamma Roma back into prostitution.

The basis of this mustachioed man’s hold on the proud woman is unclear, but it’s enough that we grasp the indentured terms of their relationship. The gaps in time and exposition feed the film’s tonal volatility. Poignant coming-of-age scenes in the grass slide into Magnani’s loud declamations, sociological analysis intermingles with passionate iconoclasm, all too brief glimpses of joy give way to degradation, and startling cuts between scenes set the whole thing aquiver. The basic dilemma is between critical detachment and confessional intimacy (the poet’s taste in men ran to young street kids like Ettore, and he had a worshipful relationship with his own mother, going so far as to cast her as Mary in his 1964 film, The Gospel According to St. Matthew). Mamma Roma is a study of the Italian postwar landscape, to be sure, but one which extends to the realms of desire and emotion.

Much of this comes down to the casting of Magnani, then entering the twilight of her career after a successful stint in Hollywood (where she nabbed the 1955 Oscar for her role in The Rose Tattoo, written expressly for her by a smitten Tennessee Williams). Jean-Luc Godard also made a film about a prostitute with an actress named Anna in 1962 (Vivre Sa Vie), but whereas he needed to make an imaginative leap to place Mlle. Karina in film history (her character goes to see fellow Dane Falconetti in The Passion of Joan of Arc), Magnani requires no such transference: her singular career thread the relative truths of neorealism and the Method. As Pasolini’s chosen symbol of self-sacrifice and Rome itself, perhaps the signal reference is her death scene in Roberto Rossellini’s Rome, Open City (1945).

Pasolini documents an economic occupation rather than a military one, and the spiritual malaise that hangs over the picture is more diffuse than in Rossellini’s picture. Nothing illustrates the director’s bending neorealism so well as a pair of recessive tracking shots of Mamma Roma walking the night. The shots are underexposed so that the street lights appears abstracted and the men who emerge from darkness as ghosts — or is she the ghost, persisting in her monologues no matter who’s listening? Done with a poverty of means, these sequences nonetheless conjure a kind of spiritual possession in the grip of material disgrace.

There are glimmers of Pasolini’s later films in Mamma Roma (a stray mention of Dante’s Circle of Shit flashing forward to his notorious 1975 movie, Salò, or the 120 Days of Sodom), but its most significant innovation may lie in its yoking melodrama to a caustic modernist sensibility, thereby preparing a whole vein of art cinema later epitomized by R.W. Fassbinder. Mamma Roma‘s lessons may well have been absorbed, but it still looks tender and dire as ever. *

MAMMA ROMA

Thurs/2 and Sat/4, 7:30 p.m;

Sun/5, 2 p.m.; $6–$8

Yerba Buena Center for the Arts

701 Mission, SF

(415) 978-2787

www.ybca.org

Rep Clock

Maria Poblet

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May 31, 2011

0

Schedules are for Wed/1–Tues/7 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features are marked with a •. All times are p.m. unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $8-10. “Mission Eye and Ear,” new film/video and music collaborations by Paul Clipson and Darren Johnston, Kerry Laitala and Aaron Novik, and Konrad Steiner and Matt Ingalls, Fri, 8.

BALBOA 3620 Balboa, SF; www.balboamovies.com. $20. “Opera, Ballet, and Shakespeare in Cinema:” Aida, performed by Maggio Musicale Fiorentino, Wed, 7:30; Romeo and Juliet, performed at the Globe Theater, Sat-Sun, 10am.

BRIDGE 3010 Geary, SF: www.peacheschrist.com. $17. “Midnight Mass:” Sleepaway Camp (Hiltzik, 1982), Sat, midnight.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. Regular programming $7.50-10. “The Castro Remembers Elizabeth Taylor (1932-2011):” •Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Nichols, 1966), Wed, 2:15, 7, and Boom! (Losey, 1968), Wed, 4:40, 9:25. “Sidney Lumet (1924-2011):” •Network (1976), Thurs, 2:45, 7, and 12 Angry Men (1957), Thurs, 5, 9:15. “Midnites for Maniacs: Debutantes Triple Feature:” •Cruel Intentions (Kumble, 1999), Fri, 7:20; The Virgin Suicides (Coppola, 1999), Fri, 9:30; Buffalo 66 (Gallo, 1998), Fri, 11:45. All three films, $12. “70mm Festival:” It’s a Mad Mad Mad Mad World (Kramer, 1963), Sat-Sun, call for times; Play Time (Tati, 1967), Mon-Tues, call for times.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $10.25. The Double Hour (Capotondi, 2010), call for dates and times. The First Grader (Chadwick, 2010), call for dates and times. Queen to Play (Bottaro, 2009), call for dates and times. La Traviata, performed by the Royal Opera House London, Thurs, 7; Sun, 1. This event, $18.

FOUR STAR 2200 Clement, SF; www.lntsf.com. $10. “Asian Movie Madness: Jet Li Now and Then” •The Warlords (Chan and Wai, 2007), and The Shaolin Temple (Zhang, 1982), Thurs, call for times.

LUMIERE 1572 California, SF; www.contractorsroutine.com. $8-10.50. Contractor’s Routine (Tsapayev, 2010), June 3-9, 7.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. Programming resumes June 10.

RED VIC 1727 Haight, SF; (415) 668-3994; www.redvicmoviehouse.com. $6-10. Kill the Irishman (Hensleigh, 2011), Wed, 2, 7:15, 9:30. Paperback Dreams (Beckstead, 2008), Thurs, 7:30. Repo Man (Cox, 1984), Fri-Sat, 7:15, 9:15 (also Sat, 2, 4). The Great Muppet Caper (Henson, 1981), Sun-Mon, 7:15, 9:20 (also Sun, 2, 4). Wayne’s World (Spheeris, 1992), June 7-8, 7:15, 9:20 (also June 8, 2).

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $5-9.75. “Another Hole in the Head Film Festival,” June 2-16. Horror, sci-fi, and fantasy films; visit www.sfindie.com for complete schedule. YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-8. Mamma Roma (Pasolini, 1962), Thurs and Sat, 7:30; Sun, 2.

Music Listings

Maria Poblet

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May 31, 2011

0

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

WEDNESDAY 1

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Calms, One Percent, Punk Group El Rio. 9pm, $5.

Flogging Molly Amoeba, 1865 Haight, SF; www.amoeba.com. 6pm, free.

Forever the Sickest Kids, Anarbor, I the Mighty Slim’s. 7:30pm, $16.

Gayngs, White Hinterland Independent. 8pm, $17.

Givers, Family of the Year, Caddywhompus Rickshaw Stop. 7:30pm, $12.

Jason King Band Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $15.

Moonbell, Down Dirty Shake Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Os Beaches, Grand Lodge, Festizio, Beehavers Café Du Nord. 9:30pm, $10.

Parlotones, Daylights, Farewell Typewriter Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $12.

“Penny Arcade: A Live Music Showcase Six-Year Anniversary Party” Make-Out Room. 8pm, $8. With Skystone, Forever Goldrush, Pat Parra, Will Sprott, and host Raul Sanchez.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

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

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

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

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

DANCE CLUBS

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

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

Footwerks Elbo Room. 9pm, $12. Hip-hop and electro with DJ Assault, Ripley, Dials, Sharon Needles, Ryury, and Electroass.

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

THURSDAY 2

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Architecture in Helsinki, Hooray for Earth Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $21.

Barcelona, Holcombe Waller, Jenny O Swedish American Hall (upstairs from Café Du Nord). 7:30pm, $16.

Botticellis, Breathe Owl Breathe, Yesway, Hold Outs Bottom of the Hill. 8:30pm, $10.

Dirty Ghosts, Swiftumz, Golden Void Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.

John Grant, Heidi Independent. 8pm, $20.

Gruff Rhys, Y Niwl, DJ Aaron Axelsen, DJ Omar Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $13.

Hypnotist Collectors, Love Dimension, Blank Tapes, These Hills of Gold Café Du Nord. 8:30pm, $10.

Michael Landau Group Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $18.

Pharoahe Monch 330 Ritch. 9pm, $15.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

Larry Carlton Rrazz Room. 8pm, $47.50.

Dave Parker Quartet Purple Onion, 140 Columbus, SF; (415) 956-1653. 8:30-11pm, free.

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

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

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

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Heather Combs, Steward Lewis, Pi Jacobs Hotel Utah. 8pm, $8.

Jesse Kotansky and friends Amnesia. 9pm.

“Twang! Honky Tonk” Fiddler’s Green, 1330 Columbus, SF; www.twanghonkytonk.com. 5pm.

DANCE CLUBS

Afrolicious Elbo Room. 9:30pm, $5. DJs Pleasuremaker and Señor Oz spin Afrobeat, Tropicália, electro, samba, and funk, with guests Dasu Mali Band playing live music.

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

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

Electric Feel Lookout, 2600 16th St, SF; www.fringesf.com. 9pm, $2. Indie music video dance party with DJ Mario Muse.

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

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

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

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

FRIDAY 3

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Album Leaf, Sister Crayon, Casino Independent. 9pm, $15.

Architecture in Helsinki, Hooray for Earth Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $21.

Blackfield Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $26.

Damon and Naomi, Amor De Días, Colossal Yes Bottom of the Hill. 9:30pm, $14.

Dead Westerns, Slow Trucks, Pony Village Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $7.

Petty Theft, Heather Combs Band Red Devil Lounge. 9pm, $12.

Sonny Rhodes Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

White Buffalo, Sonny Pete, Foolproof Four Café Du Nord. 9:30pm, $12.

Wombats, Wild Party, Tender Box, DJ Aaron Axelsen Rickshaw Stop. 9pm, $15.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

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

Larry Carlton Rrazz Room. 8pm, $47.50.

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

Vaughn Johnson Jack’s Club, 2545 24th St, SF; (415) 641-5371. 7-9pm.

Kronos Quartet and Wu Man Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater, 700 Howard, SF; www.ybca.org. 8pm, $25.

Steve Tyrell Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 8pm, $25-60.

DANCE CLUBS

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

Borgore, Roomate, Ritual Dubstep Crew DNA Lounge. 9pm, $20. Israeli dubstep and house.

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

Strangelove Cat Club. 9:30pm, $3-7. Goth and industrial with DJ Tomas Diablo, Joe Radio, Daniel Skellington, and Starr.

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

SATURDAY 4

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Bootsy Collins Fillmore. 9pm, $46.

Buds Riptide Tavern. 9:45pm, free.

Dale Earnhardt Jr. Jr., EMA, Burnt Ones Rickshaw Stop. 8:30pm, $12.

Delta Wires Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20.

Earth, Wind, and Fire Bill Graham Civic Auditorium, 99 Grove, SF; www.ticketmaster.com. 8pm, $49.50-99.50.

Illness, Disasteroid, Outshined El Rio. 9pm, $8.

Little Wings, Rad Cloud, Seth Petterson, Owens Valley, Dynamite Amnesia. 9pm, $10.

Mission Players, Crackerjack Highway, Bulk Red Devil Lounge. 9:30pm, $10.

Ken Mode, Deaf Heaven Elbo Room. 6-9pm, $8.

My Parade, Rinds Thee Parkside. 3pm, free.

Picture Atlantic, Rin Tin Tiger, Handshake, Lakes Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $10.

Planet Booty, Tigercat, Tres Lingerie Café Du Nord. 9:30pm, $12.

Quick and Easy Boys Grant and Green. 9pm.

Stornoway, Sea of Bees Independent. 9pm, $15.

VYGR, At Our Heels, Funeral Pyre, Viral Hemlock Tavern. 9:30pm, $8.

Walken, Aerial Ruin, Saturn Returns Thee Parkside. 10pm, $7.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

“Blue Note Rendezvous” 50 Mason Social House, 50 Mason, SF; www.50masonsocialhouse.com. 9pm, $5-10. With Damfino Players, Emperor Norton’s Jazz Band, and belly dancing.

Larry Carlton Rrazz Room. 7 and 9:30pm, $47.50.

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

Kronos Quartet and Wu Man Yerba Buena Center for the Arts Theater, 700 Howard, SF; www.ybca.org. 8pm, $25.

ROVA Saxophone Quartet with DJ Olive and DJ P-Love Swedish American Hall (upstairs from Café Du Nord). 8pm, $25.

Stompy Jones, Carl Sonny Leyland Verdi Club, 2424 Mariposa, SF; www.oldtimey.net. 9:30pm, $15.

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

“Cowpokes, Gunslingers, and Outlaw Country” Slim’s. 8:30pm, $13. With Earl Brothers, Hang Jones, Tiny Television, and Pops.

Misner and Smith, Gwyneth and Monko Plough and Stars. 9:30pm, $6-10.

“Saturday Night Salsa” Ramp, 855 Terry Francois, SF; www.facebook.com/TheRampSF. 5:30-8:30pm, $10.

DANCE CLUBS

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

Bootie SF DNA Lounge. 9pm, $6-12. Mash-ups.

Saturday Night Soul Party Elbo Room. 10pm, $5-10. Sixties soul with DJs Lucky, Phengren Oswald, and Paul Paul.

SUNDAY 5

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Anna Calvi, Cuckoo Chaos Café Du Nord. 9pm, $15.

Coffin Hunter Thee Parkside. 4pm, free.

“JAMband Family Festival” Park Chalet, 1000 Great Hwy, SF; www.jamjamjam.com. 11am, free. With Charity Kahn and the JAMband.

Harvey Mandel Biscuits and Blues. 8 and 10pm, $20. With Barry Goldberg and Nick Gravenites.

Winter’s Fall, Mike Sempert, Kissing Cousins, Mist Giants Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $10.

Woodsman, Tapedeck Mountain, Fatality Reality Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $7.

JAZZ/NEW MUSIC

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

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

Noertker’s Moxie Musicians’ Union Hall, 116 Ninth St, SF; www.noertker.com. 7:30pm, $10.

Lee Ritenour Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness, SF; www.sfjazz.org. 7pm, $25-60.

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

FOLK/WORLD/COUNTRY

Miguel Govea y Los Compas Erl Rio. 4pm, $8-10.

“Soultraditionlove” Palace of Fine Arts, 3301 Lyon, SF; www.zawaya.org. 3pm. Folkloric and classical Arab music from Palestine and beyond.

“Sunday Night Latin Sounds” Ramp, 855 Terry Francois, SF; www.facebook.com/TheRampSF. 5:30-8:30pm, $7.

A.J. Swearingen and Jonathan Beedle Slim’s. 7:30pm, $25. Performing Simon and Garfunkel songs.

DANCE CLUBS

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

Dub Mission Elbo Room. 9pm, $6. Dub, roots, and classic dancehall with DJ Sep, Ludachris, and guest DJ Wisdom.

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

MONDAY 6

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Father President, Bleached Palms, Symbolick Jews Elbo Room. 9pm, $6.

David Lowery Café Du Nord. 8pm, $24.

“Winter’s Bone: The Complete Musical Score of the Motion Picture Performed by the Original Composers” Great American Music Hall. 8pm, $20.

DANCE CLUBS

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

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

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

TUESDAY 7

ROCK/BLUES/HIP-HOP

Corpus Callosum, Eleanor Murray, Ben Henderson Hemlock Tavern. 9pm, $6.

Devil Whale, David Williams Amnesia. 9:30pm, $5.

Glasvegas, Gliss Great American Music Hall. 9pm, $20.

Sarah Jarosz, Crooked Jades, Megan Keely Slim’s. 8pm, $14.

Agnes Obel, Jhameel, Bird By Snow Rickshaw Stop. 8pm, $12.

Orange Goblin, Gates of Slumber, Naam, DJ Rob Metal Bottom of the Hill. 9pm, $14.

Sloan, Dearly Beloved Café Du Nord. 9:30pm, $15.

DANCE CLUBS

DJs Dion and Kwala Elbo Room. 9pm, $5. Capoeira Brasil fundraiser with Brazilian dance hits, samba, bossa nova, and more.

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

On the Cheap Listings

Maria Poblet

-

May 24, 2011

0

On the Cheap listings are compiled by Jackie Andrews. Submit items for the listings at listings@sfbg.com. For further information on how to submit items for the listings, see Picks.

WEDNESDAY 25

Diva Dare tour Books Inc., 2275 Market, SF; (415) 864-6777, www.thedivadoctrine.com. 7:30-9:30pm, free. Drag starlet Chlamydia Killroy joins author Patricia Davis – who challenges all women to channel their inner diva in her new book, The Diva Doctrine: 16 Universal Principles Every Woman Needs to Know – for a book signing and costume contest. Dress like a diva and enter to win a basket of goodies while you sip bubbly and nibble the food of the goddesses (a.k.a., strawberries and chocolates.)

Slow Sex premier Minna Street Gallery, 111 Minna, SF; (415) 974-1719, www.111minnagallery.com. 7-10pm, free. Join OneTaste founder Nicole Daedone for a soiree celebrating the publication of her new book, Slow sex: The Art and Craft of the Female Orgasm, with a burlesque show, cocktails, and beats by DJ Gray. Of course their will be readings from the book and a chance to go home with an autographed copy, as well as sexy surprises that you won’t want to miss.

THURSDAY 26

“Retelling Stories” Artists’ Television Access, 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. 7pm, $6. Enjoy A night of not-totally-depressing film storytelling in conjunction with the current window installation “Necrocapital: AIDS in the Age of Surplus Value” – a chandelier made of hundreds of pill bottles created in response to Governor Jerry Brown’s cuts to AIDS patient funding. The films are intended to be a lighter, more tongue-in-cheek route to addressing an intense issue, like a re-scripted biography of the closeted Liberace as a young AIDS activist in the short film LIBERACEÓN.

FRIDAY 27

Cultural encounters de Young Museum, 50 Hagiwara Tea Garden Drive, Golden Gate Park, SF; (415) 750-3600, www.deyoungmuseum.org, 6-8:45pm, free. Save your Anthropology tuition and attend this special presentation of the “two spirits” tradition – a modern term for ancient gender-bending that describes Native Americans who express both masculine and feminine qualities. Performers and artists from a variety or tribes will provide an evening of cultural immersion for the whole family with poetry and dance performances, discussions, percussive instrument-making, and more.

Smart night out Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, 701 Mission, SF; (415) 321-1383, www.ybca.org. 7-11:30pm, free with RSVP. Explore the concept of quiet as it relates to contemporary art and performance with a silent dance party that interacts with the gallery artwork and architecture, ambient sound art, workshops led by the artists of the “Daily Lives” exhibit, and more. Later on in the evening, Kid Kameleon and the Hard French DJs will pump up the volume for a more traditional and less conceptual dance floor affair.

SATURDAY 28

“Chop Shop” Plug and Play, 1353 Bush St., SF; bourgeoisgirl@gmail.com, Facebook: Chop Shop. 3:30-7pm, $5. Realize your dreams of becoming a rock star at this open audition for musicians – a one-stop chop shop for mingling and meeting your future band-mates. Here’s how it works: you bring your guitars, drumsticks, and vocal chords (they provide all the big stuff) and get yourself video-recorded and uploaded on to the event’s YouTube channel. All auditions will be available for viewing for a month. Even if you can’t make it to the event, you can still upload a video of your own, or simply peruse the auditions on the YouTube channel. Smart!

SUNDAY 29

Trash Mash-Up at Carnaval Mission and 17th St., SF; (415) 752-5537, www.trashmashup.org. 9:30am, free. The Mission District celebrates Carnaval with music, food, dance, crafts, and a parade featuring lavish floats, costumed dancers, international musicians, and colorful paraders. Follow the spectacle from Bryant and 24th Street to Mission and 17th Street. The parade will flow into a festival area featuring the Trash Mash-Up community art project where participants can make their own splendid costumes out of – you guessed it – trash!

A Clockwork Orange party The Edinburgh Castle, 950 Geary St., SF; (415) 885-4074, www.castlenews.com. 2pm, $7. Get a group of your favorite droogs together and brush up on your Nadsat slang – This month marks the 40th anniversary of Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of Anthony Burgess’ A Clockwork Orange, a film that Steven Spielberg once called “the most dangerous film” and Burgess himself claimed was misinterpreted, yet brilliant. You can surely expect Moloko Milkbar-themed cocktails, viddys on the screen, raffle prizes, readings, and spooky selections from the intense soundtrack.

Rep Clock

Maria Poblet

-

May 17, 2011

0

Schedules are for Wed/18–Tues/24 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double features are marked with a •. All times are p.m. unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $6-7. “Other Cinema:” “Graham Connah Combo’s Travelogue Tone Poems,” Sat, 8:30.

BALBOA 3620 Balboa, SF; www.balboamovies.com. $20. “Opera, Ballet, and Shakespeare in Cinema:” Don Quixote, Wed, 7:30. Performed by the Bolshoi Ballet.

CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. Regular programming $7.50-10. The Women (Cukor, 1939), Wed, 2:30, 5:15, 8. •Raising Arizona (Coen, 1987), Thurs, 7, and The Big Lebowski (Coen, 1998), Thurs, 8:50. Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides (Marshall, 2011), May 20-26. This film, $10-12.

CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.50-15. Potiche (Ozon, 2010), call for dates and times. The Princess of Montpensier (Tavernier, 2010), call for dates and times. Queen to Play (Bottaro, 2009), call for dates and times. The Double Hour (Capotondi, 2010), call for dates and times. 13 Assassins (Miike, 2010), May 20-26, call for times. My Brother Mike (Sheridan), Thurs, 7:15. This event, $15; benefit for Bukelew Programs. “Shorts in Brief: A Family Film Festival,” Sun, 2. The Power of the Powerless (Taylor, 2009), Sun, 7.

CITY COLLEGE OF SAN FRANCISCO Diego Rivera Theater, 50 Phelan, SF; www.cityshorts.tumblr.com. Free. “City College of San Francisco’s Cinema Department Presents: City Shorts Film Festival,” Thurs, 7.

FOUR STAR 2200 Clement, SF; www.lntsf.com. $10. “Asian Movie Madness:” •Tempation Summary (Ho, 1990), and Dirty Doll, Thurs, call for times.

MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; (415) 393-0100, rsvp@milibrary.org. $10. “CinemaLit Film Series: Elizabeth Taylor, Tribute to a Star:” Who’s Afraid of Virginia Woolf? (Nichols, 1966), Fri, 6.

111 MINNA 111 Minna, SF; www.sfcinema.org. $25-45. “SF Cinematheque: Cinematheque at 50,” screening and benefit party, Thurs, 8.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. Programming resumes June 10.

PARAMOUNT 2025 Broadway, Oakl; 1-800-745-3000, www.ticketmaster.com. $5. A Streetcar Named Desire (Kazan, 1951), Fri, 8.

RED VIC 1727 Haight, SF; (415) 668-3994; www.redvicmoviehouse.com. $6-10. Dead Man (Jarmusch, 1996), Wed, 2, 7, 9:25. Big in Bollywood (Meehan and Bowles, 2011), Thurs, 7:15, 9:15. Paul (Mottola, 2011), Fri-Sat, 7:15, 9:30 (also Sat, 2, 4:15). Corner Store (Bruens, 2010), Sun-Tues, 9:15 (also Sun, 2, 4:15; Mon, 7:15). The Annual (Gillane, 2011), Tues, 7:15. Tuesday screenings benefit the Red Vic.

ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $5-9.75. “I Wake Up Dreaming 2011: The Legendary and the Lost!:” •Whispering City (Otsep, 1947), Wed, 6:10, 9:55, and Ruthless (Ulmer, 1948), Wed, 8; •Smooth as Silk (Barton, 1947), Thurs, 6:40, 9:30, and Customs Agent (Friedman, 1950), Thurs, 8; •Café Hostess (Salkow, 1940), Fri, 6:40, 9:40, and Dangerous Blondes (Jason, 1943), Fri, 8; •I Love Trouble (Simon, 1948), Sat, 2, 5:45, 9:30, and Ride the Pink Horse (Montgomery, 1947), Sat, 3:45, 7:30; •The Web (Gordon, 1947), Sun, 2, 5:45, 9:30, and 711 Ocean Drive (Newman, 1950), Sun, 3:45, 7:30; •Dance Hall Racket (Tucker, 1953), Mon, 6:40, 9:20, and The Violent Years (Morgan, 1956), Mon, 8; •Chain Gang (Friedman, 1950), Tues, 6:30, 9:30, and Cell 2455, Death Row (Sears, 1955), Tues, 8. “Sex Worker Movies,” Sat, 2-midnight. This event, $8-10; for programming info, visit www.sexworkerfest.com.

VICTORIA 2961 16th St, SF; www.countercorp.org. Visit website for ticket info. “Tipping Man 6: Anti-Corporate Film Festival,” Thurs-Sat.

VIZ CINEMA New People, 1746 Post, SF; www.newpeopleworld.com. $10-25. Eatrip (Nomura, 2009), Sat, 3, 5, 7.

VORTEX ROOM 1082 Howard, SF; www.myspace.com/thevortexroom. $5 donation. •Blow-Up (Antonioni, 1966), Thurs, 9, and Baba Yaga (Farina, 1973), Thurs, 11. YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; (415) 978-2787, www.ybca.org. $6-8. “Three-Way: A Trilogy of Vintage Erotica:” Camille 2000 (Metzger, 1969), Thurs and Sat, 7:30; A Labor of Love (Flaxman and Goldman, 1976), Fri, 7:30 and Sun, 2; The Wild Pussycat (Dadiras, 1969), May 26, 7:30.