This week marks the opening of Ryan Coogler’s Fruitvale Station, a moving look at Oscar Grant’s final hours; it’s an especially important film for Bay Area residents, but will likely have nationwide impact. Check out my interview with rookie writer-director Ryan Coogler here.
And, as always, there’s more. SO MUCH MORE. Emily Savage writes about Peaches Christ‘s campy, vampy, celeb-filled tribute (Sat/13 at the Castro!) to 1996 cult classic The Crafthere.
PLUS! Pacific Rim‘s giant robot vs. giant monster smackdown, a 3D surfing doc, and all the rest, after the jump.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cFRC3sF3Md4
Grown Ups 2 Adam Sandler, Kevin James, Chris Rock, and David Spade reunite for another round of dad comedy. (1:42)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=THu4E99uvYw
How to Make Money Selling Drugs Want to see a deeply thought-provoking, well-made documentary (with commentary by The Wire‘s David Simon, among others) about America’s War on Drugs? Seek out last year’s The House I Live In, and give Matthew Cooke’s more superficial distillation of the same subject (does David Simon ever turn down a talking-head request?) a pass. That’s not to say How to Make Money Selling Drugs is a total fail, but its slick production values and gimmicky premise (complete with video game style “levels” tracing the rise through the drug trade) wear thin after awhile. However, Drugs does offer a lively viewing experience, with an array of colorful characters — former dealers and law enforcement officers, with some celebrities sprinkled in — holding forth on, and sometimes bragging about, how drug empires are built and dismantled. Speaking of celebrities, the film’s biggest coup is an eerie interview with Eminem, in which he candidly discusses the depths of his prescription-drug addiction. It’s a rare moment of killer honesty amid Drugs‘ short-attention-span flash. (1:34) Roxie. (Cheryl Eddy)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6CJ570hqy0c
One Track Heart: The Story of Krishna Das Born Jeffrey Kagel, “average neurotic Long Island kid,” the man now known as Grammy nominee Krishna Das underwent a spiritual transformation after trying acid, dropping out of college, meeting Be Here Now author Ram Dass, and becoming a follower of Hindu guru Neem Karoli Baba, a.k.a. Maharaj-ji. A rock ‘n’ roller who declined the chance to join the band that became Blue Oyster Cult, KD’s talents became entwined with his religion years after Maharaj-ji’s death — an emotionally devastating event that led to a brief but raging coke habit. He began performing kirtan, or call-and-response chants, at yoga studios, and (unwittingly or not) became part of a suddenly trendy movement to “make enlightenment accessible,” per the New York Times. Now he’s recorded multiple albums with Rick Rubin and tours the country, playing to rapt audiences at venues as big as the Warfield. Whether or not you can stomach New Age music or philosophy (or share the opinion that Krishna Das once overheard about himself: that he’s “an American burger with Indian ketchup”), Jeremy Frindel’s One Track Heart keeps its running time brief (just over an hour) and avoids deifying its subject — someone who clearly digs the spotlight, but who has also enough done soul-searching to keep his ego mostly in check and a higher power in mind. (1:12) (Cheryl Eddy)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5guMumPFBag
Pacific Rim The fine print insists this film’s title is actually Warner Bros. Pictures and Legendary Pictures Pacific Rim (no apostrophe, guys?), but that fussy studio demand flies in the face of Pacific Rim‘s pursuit of pure, dumb fun. One is tempted to picture director/co-writer Guillermo del Toro plotting out the battle scenes using action figures — Godzillas vs. Transformers is more or less what’s at play here, and play is the operative word. Sure, the end of the world seems certain, thanks to an invading race of giant “Kaiju” who’ve started to adapt to Earth’s decades-long countermeasures (giant robot suits, piloted by duos whose minds are psychically linked), but there’s far too much goofy glee here for any real panic to accumulate. Charlie Hunnam is agreeable as the wounded hunk who’s humankind’s best hope for salvation, partnered with a rookie (Rinko Kikuchi) who’s eager, for her own reasons, to kick monster butt. Unoriginal yet key supporting roles are filled by Idris Elba (solemn, ass-kicking commander); Charlie Day (goofy science type); and Ron Perlman (flashy-dressing, black-market-dealing Kaiju expert). Pacific Rim may not transcend action-movie clichés or break much new ground (drinking game idea: gulp every time there’s an obvious reference or homage, be it to Toho or Bruckheimer), but damn if it doesn’t pair perfectly with popcorn. (2:11) (Cheryl Eddy)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=n0FFV5yGXd4
Storm Surfers 3D With 3D being slapped indiscriminately on too many interchangeable Hollywood flicks these days, it’s easy to forget that there are some subjects that practically beg for the format. Incredibly, it seems no one thought to make a 3D film about surfing, the sport and spectacle to which stereoscopic cinema is ideally suited. Christopher Nelius and Justin McMillan’s movie (actually the third Storm Surfers entry so far) follows best-friend Australian surfing legends Ross Clarke-Jones and Tom Carroll as, guided by surf forecaster Ben Matson, they race off on short notice to various locations where huge storm-fed waves can be expected. This is risky business, and there’s human interest in the two riders’ different ways of struggling with aging (they’re both nearing 50), possibly mortal danger, and family responsibilities. These way heavily on Carroll; nothing does on Clarke-Jones, who is your basic “fuck it, let’s go” thrill junkie. Their genial personalities help spark what’s otherwise a solid if unremarkable surfing doc — albeit one that does indeed look great in 3D. (1:35) (Dennis Harvey)
FILM By now you’ve heard of Fruitvale Station, the debut feature from Oakland-born filmmaker Ryan Coogler. With a cast that includes Academy Award winner Octavia Spencer and rising star Michael B. Jordan (The Wire, Friday Night Lights), the film premiered at the 2013 Sundance Film Festival, winning both the Audience Award and the Grand Jury Prize en route to being scooped up for distribition by the Weinstein Company. A few months later, Coogler, a USC film school grad who just turned 27, won Best First Film at Cannes.
Accolades are nice, especially when paired with a massive PR push from a studio known for bringing home little gold men. But particularly in the Bay Area, the true story behind Fruitvale Station eclipses even the most glowing pre-release hype. The film opens with real footage captured by cell phones the night 22-year-old Oscar Grant was shot in the back by BART police, a tragedy that inspired multiple protests and grabbed national headlines. With its grim ending already revealed, Fruitvale Station backtracks to chart Oscar’s final hours, with a deeper flashback or two fleshing out the troubled past he was trying to overcome.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9yy1znso-fc
Mostly, though, Fruitvale Station is very much a day in the life, with Oscar (Jordan, in a nuanced performance) dropping off his girlfriend at work, picking up supplies for a birthday party, texting friends about New Year’s Eve plans, and deciding not to follow through on a drug sale. Inevitably, much of what transpires is weighted with extra meaning — Oscar’s mother (Spencer) advising him to “just take the train” to San Francisco that night; Oscar’s tender interactions with his young daughter; the death of a friendly stray dog, hit by a car as BART thunders overhead. It’s a powerful, stripped-down portrait that belies Coogler’s rookie-filmmaker status.
I spoke with Coogler the day after Fruitvale Station‘s emotional local premiere at Oakland’s Grand Lake Theater.
San Francisco Bay Guardian How was the screening at the Grand Lake?
Ryan Coogler It was intense! Pretty much everybody at the screening had a stake in the film and the story: being from the Bay Area, being there when [Grant’s death] happened, being a member of Oscar’s family, being an employee of BART or a law enforcement officer, being a member of my family, or being someone who opened up their home or business to our film. Everybody was there under one roof, you know? In many ways, we wanted our film to be something that brought people together — and that screening was a personification of that.
SFBG The film doesn’t make Oscar out to be a saint; rather, it shows that he was a real human who’d made some serious mistakes. Were you careful to portray him that way?
RC Absolutely. We set out to examine him through the lens of his relationships with the people who knew him best. I think that’s often what’s not looked at, in terms of tragedies that get politicized like this: people forget that this guy was a person who mattered to specific people — and he couldn’t make it home to those people. When you know somebody intimately, you know their good qualities and their faults. You know their flaws firsthand, and [their behavior] affects you firsthand. I think it would have been a mistake not to look at the things he was struggling with in his life.
SFBG You were born in 1986, the same year as Oscar, and you’re both from the East Bay. Were there other things that drew you to his story?
RC Those commonalities were a major factor. But young people like Oscar Grant’s lives are lost constantly over violence, and I was really interested in exploring why it happens, and why people shouldn’t be OK with it.
Oscar was the kind of person who is often marginalized, both in the media and in fiction films. I thought that giving his story this type of personal perspective could be eye-opening for people that wouldn’t get to know a character like him in their own lives. So that’s what really drew me to it — to add a perspective that might promote some healing and some growth.
SFBG What was the reaction when members of Oscar’s community found out you were making the film?
RC The Bay Area is culturally diverse, but it’s also diverse as far as opinions go. Obviously, there were people on both sides of the fence, since this was a complicated situation. Some people were glad the story was being told; others were like, “That story doesn’t deserve to be told.” There were also a lot of opinions between those two ends of the spectrum. But overwhelmingly, the community supported the film in many ways, especially when they found out the approach we were taking.
SFBG Did you ever consider making the BART cops full-fledged characters, or did you always plan to just focus on Oscar?
RC I decided from the beginning that Oscar would be the focal point of the story. That was the type of film that I wanted to make, and that was the one perspective that I felt wasn’t really heard — because he’s not around to speak anymore. In terms of filmmaking, it was really a creative choice. You have these types of films that follow one character around, and we really wanted to follow Oscar and see how other characters bump off of him. In the scope of his day, the cops were only involved for a very small amount of time.
SFBG BART itself is almost a character in the film. It’s something that non-locals might not pick up on, but Bay Area residents will be able to tell how carefully you chose your locations to include it in the background.
RC When I was researching the film, I noticed a lot of things that were always there, but that I hadn’t thought about before. In San Francisco, BART is underground. You don’t see or hear it when you’re walking around. In the East Bay, however, it’s always above you. Oscar’s from the East Bay, and I’m from the East Bay, so that’s how I know BART. It’s something that you can always hear in the distance — and it’s something that rushes over you.
FRUITVALE STATION opens Fri/12 in Bay Area theaters.
By now you’ve heard how much The Lone Ranger sucks (for more on that, my review here), so what else should you be spending your weekly movie-theater budget on? Well, the Roxie just opened a doc about Detroit band Death (Dennis Harvey breaks it down here), plus there’s a new Pedro Almodóvar joint, a coming-of-age summer flick starring Sam Rockwell and Steve Carell as cool and not-so-cool father figures, and (since one Carell movie ain’t enough) Despicable Me 2 — just the thing for the kidz who’ve already seen Monsters University.
Read on for our takes on these films, and more! http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=irSSZumpYS4
AugustineWhen a 19-year-old Parisian kitchen maid (single-named French musician Soko) has a dramatic seizure during dinner service, she makes for Salpêtrière Hospital, where she becomes the superstar patient of Dr. Charcot (Vincent Lindon) — a real-life 19th century professor and neurologist who later mentored Sigmund Freud. There’s no “talking cure” at work here, though; Augustine’s medical treatment consists mostly of naked poking and prodding, as well as hypnosis-induced episodes of her increasingly sexualized “ovarian hysteria.” The tension builds as Charcot struggles against popular disdain for his methods (read aloud to him from newspapers by his coolly elegant wife), as well as his forbidden attraction to Augustine. Occupying the same moody, sensual milieu as David Cronenberg’s too-talky A Dangerous Method (2011), first-time feature writer-director Alice Winocour approaches her tale of misunderstood madness from a point of view that’s more emotionally-driven, with some subtle feminist undercurrents. Points deducted, though, for some obvious symbolism — like costuming Augustine in a brand-new red dress right after she starts her period for the first time. (1:42) (Cheryl Eddy)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtVEj86Vmzo
Deceptive Practice: The Mysteries and Mentors of Ricky Jay David Mamet fans will recognize Ricky Jay from multiple appearances in the director’s work; he’s also been in films like Boogie Nights and Tomorrow Never Dies (both 1997). But Jay’s true passion is stage magic, specifically card and other sleight-of-hand tricks, performed with a skill so dazzling that it’s tempting to believe he really does have supernatural powers. He’s also a witty, self-deprecating, and sometimes “irascible” (to quote a word used in Molly Bernstein and Alan Edelstein’s doc) character — and has a vast, ever-expanding interest in magic history. Using first-hand interviews, TV and stage-show clips, and some wonderful vintage footage, Deceptive Practice traces Jay’s career (he was a child prodigy in the 1950s, thanks to his supportive grandfather), pausing along the way to pay tribute to the men who influenced him and, in many cases, taught him their top-secret techniques. Throughout, Jay is seen demonstrating his own mind-bending tricks — as “simple” as changing a card’s suit, as elaborate as making it sail across the room and plunge like a knife into a watermelon rind — although never, of course, revealing how he does it. (1:28) (Cheryl Eddy)
Despicable Me 2 The laughs come quick and sweet now that Gru (Steve Carell) has abandoned his super-villainy to become a dad and “legitimate businessman” — though he still applies world-class gravitas to everyday events. (His daughter’s overproduced birthday party is a riot of medieval festoonage.) But like all the best reformed baddies, the Feds, or in this case the Anti-Villain League, recruit him to uncover the next international arch-nemesis. Now a spy, he gets a goofy but highly competent partner (Kristen Wiig) and a cupcake shop at the mall to facilitate sniffing out the criminal. This sequel surpasses the original in charm, cleverness, and general lovability, and it’s not just because they upped the number of minion-related gags, or because Wiig joined the cast; she ultimately gets the short end of the stick as the latecomer love-interest (her spy gadgets are also just so-so). However, Carell kills it as Gru 2 — his faux-Russian accent and awkward timing are more lived-in. Maybe the jokes are about more familiar stuff (like the niggling disappointments of family life) but they’re also sharper and more surprising. And though the minions seemed like one-trick ponies in the first film, those gibberish-talking jellybeans outdo themselves in the sequel’s climax. (1:38) (Sara Maria Vizcarrondo)
I’m So ExcitedI’m So Excited may be to Pedro Almodóvar what Hairspray (1988) was for director John Waters: a kind of low-intensity, high-fluff gateway drug for a filmmaker who’s otherwise an “acquired taste.” (Note: unlike Hairspray, this is not a family movie.) Almodóvar’s previous pictures were far more explicit about their obsessive thinking: mothers suffered (1999’s All About My Mother); sex was deadly (1990’s Tie Me Up! Tie Me Down!) and men were dishonorable (all of them). But in this drug and booze-addled flame-fest, Almodóvar takes one of his lesser themes (the joy of confinement) and transforms a flight from Madrid to Mexico into the funniest soap opera to ever feature cabaret and S&M talk. Early in the flight we learn the landing gear is shot; this means the flight’s dueling pilots have to find a place to host an emergency landing while Europe is on holiday. They anesthetize all of coach (um…metaphor, anyone?), leaving the rich to bellyache over their lost children, lost happiness, and stubborn virginity. Business class is full of drama queens so the flamboyantly gay attendants spike a cocktail with ecstasy (to make everyone get along) and an orgy ensues, complete with a seemingly victimless rape and multiple change-overs from hetero to homo. Almodóvar does have a knack for make-believe, but his biggest gift for fantasy happens in his stress-free transitions; oh, that coming out could be so liberating — but living in a Catholic country lousy with sexual disorientations, maybe the only place that can happen is at 30,000 feet. (1:35) (Sara Maria Vizcarrondo)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=NX9gUw3Kwb4
Kevin Hart: Let Me Explain The comedian (2012’s Think Like a Man) performs in this concert film, shot at Madison Square Garden during his 2012 stand-up tour. (1:15)
ManiacAnd it came to pass that William Lustig’s trashy classic Maniac (1980) was remade, with Elijah Wood assuming the role of twisted killer Frank, a role closely associated with its originator, the late, great cult actor Joe Spinell. Lustig is credited with a producing credit on this otherwise largely French effort, directed by Franck Khalfoun and co-written by Alejandre Aja and Grégory Levasseur — who also worked together on the 2006 remake of The Hills Have Eyes. Though it’s set in contemporary Los Angeles (complete with dating websites and cell phones), Maniac is shot to mimic the original film’s late-1970s New York (cabs, deserted subways, grimy streetscapes), with a synth-heavy score enhancing the retro vibe. Frank is still obsessed with mannequins, scalps, and his dead mother, with shades of both Psycho (1960) and The Silence of the Lambs (1991) filtering through. When Frank meets Anna (Nora Arnezeder), a beautiful French photographer whose preferred subject is mannequins, he grows ever more confused — and more violent. The entire movie is shot from Frank’s POV (we see Wood’s face only in mirrors and photographs), an off-putting gimmick that fails to add much in the way of suspense or scares. As for the gore, there’s nothing amid the CG enhancements that matches the work of special effects genius Tom Savini, whose memorable exploding-head scene plays just as repulsively effective in 2013 as it did in 1980. If you really wanna be freaked out by a movie maniac, skip this so-so do-over and spend some quality time with Spinell instead. (1:29) Roxie. (Cheryl Eddy)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mK7AS_cITKI
The Way, Way Back Duncan (Liam James) is 14, and if you remember being that age you remember the awkwardness, the ambivalence, and the confusion that went along with it. Duncan’s mother (Toni Collette) takes him along for an “important summer” with her jerky boyfriend, Trent (Steve Carell) — and despite being the least important guy at the summer cottage, Duncan’s only marginally sympathetic. Most every actor surrounding him plays against type (Rob Corddry is an unfunny, whipped husband; Allison Janney is a drunk, desperate divorcee), and since the cast is a cattle call for anyone with indie cred, you’ll wonder why they’re grouped for such a dull movie. Writer-directors Nat Faxon and Jim Rash previously wrote the Oscar-winning screenplay for 2011’s The Descendants, but The Way, Way Back doesn’t match that film’s caliber of intelligent, dry wit. Cast members take turns resuscitating the movie, but only Sam Rockwell saves the day, at least during the scenes he’s in. Playing another lovable loser, Rockwell’s Owen dropped out of life and into a pattern of house painting and water-park management in the fashion of a conscientious objector. Owen is antithetical to Trent’s crappy example of manhood, and raises his water wing to let Duncan in. The short stint Duncan has working at Water Wizz is a blossoming that leads to a minor romance (with AnnaSophia Robb) and a major confrontation with Trent, some of which is affecting, but none of which will help you remember the movie after credits roll. (1:42) (Sara Maria Vizcarrondo)
FILM Pop-culture historians who study 2005’s top movies will remember Mr. & Mrs. Smith, the so-so action flick that birthed Brangelina; Batman Begins, which ushered in a moodier flavor of superhero; and Tim Burton’s shrill Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.
That last title is of particular interest lately. Not only did Charlie provide grim confirmation that a post-Planet of the Apes (2001) Tim Burton had squandered whatever goodwill he’d built up a decade prior with films like Ed Wood (1994) and Edward Scissorhands (1990), it also telegraphed to the world that Johnny Depp — previously a highly intriguing actor, someone whose cool cred was never in question — was capable of sucking. Hard.
In the years since 2005, Depp hasn’t done much to stamp out those initial flickers of doubt. If anything, he’s fanned ’em into a bonfire. His involvement in the Pirates of the Caribbean franchise (which is plodding toward a fifth installment) has taken up most of his schedule, though he’s always willing to don a wacky wig whenever Burton needs him (2007’s Sweeney Todd; 2010’s Alice in Wonderland; 2012’s Dark Shadows). The rest of his post-2005 credits are a mixed bag, mostly best forgotten (ahem, 2010’s The Tourist), though one does stand out for positive reasons: 2011’s animated Rango, a cleverly-scripted tale that reunited Depp with Gore Verbinski, who helmed the first three Pirates movies.
The pair returns to Rango‘s Wild West milieu for The Lone Ranger; certainly there’ll be no Oscars handed out this time, though Razzies seem inevitable. The biggest strike against The Lone Ranger is one you’ll read about in every review: it’s just a teeny bit racist. The casting of the once and future Cap’n Sparrow — who apparently has a blank check at Disney to do any zany thing he wants — as a Native American given to “hey-ya” chants and dead-bird hats is very suspect. Some (white) people might be willing to give this a pass, because it’s always been part of Depp’s celebrity mythology that he’s part Indian. I mean, he totally has a Cherokee warrior inked on his bicep, just below “Wino Forever”!
Mmm-hmm. Let’s go to the source, shall we? Speaking of his heritage in a 2011 interview with Entertainment Weekly, Depp mustered the following: “I guess I have some Native American somewhere down the line. My great grandmother was quite a bit of Native American, she grew up Cherokee or maybe Creek Indian. Makes sense in terms of coming from Kentucky, which is rife with Cherokee and Creek.”
Sounds kinda sketchy, JD. The actor who played Tonto on TV may have been born Harold J. Smith (“Jay Silverheels” was his nom de screen), but he was also raised on Canada’s Six Nations reserve and was the son of a Mohawk tribal chief. So The Lone Ranger TV series, which ran from 1949 to 1957 — and had its share of racial-insensitivity and stereotype-perpetuating issues — was able to cast an actual indigenous person to play Tonto, but 2013’s The Lone Ranger, which elevates Tonto from sidekick to narrator and de facto main character, was not.
In fact, it’s not too far-fetched to assume that the casting of Depp (also credited as an executive producer) is the only reason this Lone Ranger exists. Clearly, he really wanted to play Tonto, and Depp has a way of making his performance the most important thing about whatever film he’s in. Were audiences really screaming out for The Lone Ranger, a rather literal big-screen take on a 1950s TV show with some heavily CG’d train chases added in? Could not $250 million, the film’s reported budget, have been better spent doing something … anything … else?
Obviously “redface” is nothing new in Hollywood. It was frequently deployed in the pre-PC era, as when a white actor played a heroic Native American figure — think Chuck Connors in 1962’s Geronimo. But shouldn’t we have transcended that by now? You’d never see blackface in a film unless it was being used to make a character look ridiculous (2008’s Tropic Thunder), or to make a satirical point, as with 2000’s Bamboozled. Somewhere, Kevin Costner is clutching his Oscars for 1990 post-Western Dances With Wolves — more or less cinema’s biggest mea culpa for all those “the only good Indian is a dead Indian” yarns of the John Wayne era — and weeping.
Tonto isn’t the only Native American character in The Lone Ranger. But the others (none of whom are given names, unless someone was called “set dressing” or “background actor” and I missed it) have a slightly sharper aura of authenticity than Depp, who spends the whole movie caked in either old-age make-up or campy face paint. They are mere plot devices, there to give contemporary audiences a reason to feel outraged when an evil railroad baron lays his tracks through their land and raids their silver mine. “Our time has passed,” an elderly Indian character tells the Lone Ranger (Armie Hammer, whose role literally consists of riding a horse and reacting to Depp’s scenery-chewing buffoonery). “We are already ghosts.”
But back up, kemo sabe. Racism may be The Lone Ranger‘s worst problem, but it’s not the film’s only problem. There’s also its bloated length (nearly three hours); its score, which dares to introduce an Ennio Morricone homage into a film Sergio Leone wouldn’t line his gatto‘s litter box with; its waste of some great character actors (Barry Pepper, William Fichtner); its assumption that having random characters ask the Lone Ranger “What’s with the mask?” over and over is the funniest joke ever; and its failure to follow through on its few inventive elements — that herd of Monty Python-inspired rabbits, for example.
And another thing: if the moral of The Lone Ranger — spelled out with all the delicate subtlety of a fiery train crash — is “greed is bad,” why did El Deppo sign onto this piece of crap in the first place? *
This week: two musicdocs, a buddy-cop movie starring Sandra Bullock and Melissa McCarthy, and America’s Sweetmeat Channing Tatum saves the White House and, ergo, the world. Plus, more! Read on for takes from our critics.
The Heat First things first: I hated Bridesmaids (2011). Even the BFF love fest between Maya Rudolph and Kristen Wiig couldn’t wash away the bad taste of another wolf pack in girl’s clothing. Dragging and dropping women into dude-ly storylines is at best wonky and at worst degrading, but The Heat finds an alternate route. Its women are unlikable; you don’t root for them, and you’re not hoping they become princesses because such horrifying awkwardness can only be redeemed by a prince. In Bridesmaids and Heat director Paul Feig’s universe, friendship saves the day. Sandra Bullock is Murtaugh to Melissa McCarthy’s Riggs, with tidy Bullock angling for a promotion and McCarthy driving a busted hoopty through Boston like she’s in Grand Theft Auto. Circumstances conspire to bring them together on a case, in one of many elements lifted from traditional buddy-cop storylines. But! The jokes are constant, pelting, and whiz by like so much gunfire. In one running gag, a low-rung villain’s worst insult is telling the women they look old — but neither character is bothered by it. It’s refreshing to see embarrassment humor, so beloved by chick flicks, get taken down a peg by female leads who don’t particularly care what anyone thinks of them. (1:57) (Sara Maria Vizcarrondo)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3HUwmDqi2kA
Hey Bartender Hey, have you heard of this trendy thing called craft cocktails? Be warned, sophisticated San Francisco drinkers: Douglas Tirola’s upbeat documentary mentions our fair city in passing only a handful of times; instead, it concentrates on New York City’s relatively recent “cocktail revolution,” interviewing movers and (literal) shakers on the scene while giving a brief history of cocktails in America (again, with an emphasis on NYC). Hey Bartender‘s focal points are well-chosen studies in contrast: ex-Marine Scott — tattooed and scrupulously mustached — who’s working his way up the ranks at hipster lounge Employees Only; and middle-aged Steve, who runs a struggling blue-collar bar just outside the city and is slowly coming around to the idea of adding fancier drinks to his menu. Though dive-bar denizens may roll their eyes at some of Hey Bartender‘s more pretentious trappings (the movie doesn’t mention it, but drinks at Employees Only are in the $15-16 range), it does make the case that today’s superstar “mixologists” deserve just as much recognition as superstar restaurateurs. And the film has a point: can a Top Chef spinoff for bartenders be that far off? (1:32) Roxie. (Cheryl Eddy)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rwDzRzqFaIE
Laurence Anyways Xavier Dolan’s latest is yet another gorgeously-designed love story; it fits perfectly alongside his extremely personal I Killed My Mother (2009) and the devastating Heartbeats (2010). Although some critics have suggested that this young director needs to hire an editor (Laurence Anyways clocks in at two hours and 48 minutes), I would argue that this epic, gender-bending love story needed to take its stylized time to achieve what most films never do: humanize a transgendered lead character. Melvil Poupaud (Raúl Ruiz’s favorite ingénue) is stunning as Laurence; as his longtime lover, Fred, Suzanne Clément performs with a guttural passion that should keep audiences glued to the screen. For those willing to accept a decade’s worth of hypnotic set and costume designs (the film spans 1989-1999); cryptic character development; a crew of campy castaways; and an electric, eclectic soundtrack (Depeche Mode, Celine Dion), Laurence Anyways is well worthy of its epic running time. Could this be the film that elevates Canada’s best-kept secret to being the leader of a post-gender film movement that’s just about to explode? (2:48) Metreon. (Jesse Hawthorne Ficks)
The Secret Disco RevolutionJamie Kaster’s Canadian documentary chronicles the rise and fall of the 70s booty shaking phenomenon — though what with the subsequent developments of house music, rave culture, et al., you might say disco never really went away. It’s got a goldmine of kitschy vintage clips, and plenty of enjoyable interviews with the scene’s erstwhile stars (Thelma Houston, “KC” Casey, etc.), producers, and observers. (The weirdest are scenes with the Village People, who today are staples on the corporate-party circuit and seem bizarrely eager to deny they were ever a subversively gay act.) Unfortunately, Kaster also burdens the film with sometimes overreaching arguments for disco’s sociopolitical radicalism, as mostly articulated by academic Alice Echols. And there’s a labored staged thread in which an arch narrator informs of us the behind-the-scenes mechanizations of three fictive “masterminds” (played by actors) who propagated disco to liberate gays, women and ethnic minorities. It’s a whimsical conceit that falls completely flat. As a result, there’s plenty of fun to be had here, but the conceptual missteps make this less than the definite disco doc it aims to be. (1:25) (Dennis Harvey)
20 Feet From StardomSinging the praises of those otherwise neglected backup vocalists who put the soul into that Wall of Sound, brought heft to “Young Americans,” and lent real fury to “Gimme Shelter,” 20 Feet From Stardom is doing the rock ‘n’ roll true believer’s good work. Director Morgan Neville follows a handful of mainly female, mostly African American backing vocal legends, charts their skewed career trajectories as they rake in major credits and keep working long after one-hit wonders are forgotten (the Waters family) but fail to make their name known to the public (Merry Clayton), grasp Grammy approval yet somehow fail to follow through (Lisa Fischer), and keep narrowly missing the prize (Judith Hill) as label recording budgets shrivel and the tastes, technology, and the industry shift. Neville gives these industry pros and soulful survivors in a rocked-out, sample-heavy, DIY world their due on many levels, covering the low-coverage minis, Concert for Bangladesh high points, gossipy rumors, and sheer love for the blend that those intertwined voices achieve. One wishes the director had done more than simply touch in the backup successes out there, like Luther Vandross, and dug deeper to break down the reasons Fischer succumbed to the sophomore slump. But one can’t deny the passion in the voices he’s chosen to follow — and the righteous belief the Neville clearly has in his subjects, especially when, like Hill, they are ready to pick themselves up and carry on after being told they’re not “the Voice.” (1:30) (Kimberly Chun)
Unfinished SongA grumpy widower (Terrence Stamp) learns to enjoy life again by joining an unconventional choir group. Vanessa Redgrave, Gemma Arterton, and Christopher Eccleston round out the cast. (1:36)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wa5aasz5VXg
White House Down Ah, the mid-1990s: a time when two big-budget movies on the same subject were regularly released within months of each other (1997’s Volcano and Dante’s Peak; 1998’s Armageddon and Deep Impact). When a director named Roland Emmerich ascended into the blockbuster pantheon with Independence Day (1996), a film that’s best-remembered for that iconic shot of the White House exploding under alien death rays. The intervening years have seen Emmerich plunge ever-deeper into various flavors of disaster, and White House Down — which reignites that ’90s copycat-rivalry thing by riding the fumes of March’s Olympus Has Fallen — finds its boogeyman in domestic terrorism. It beings on a triumphant day for President James Sawyer (Jamie Foxx), who has just ordered all US troops removed from the Middle East — angering some high-up men in his administration, as well as some ex-military goons with axes of their own to grind. When the White House is compromised, a wannabe Secret Service agent (Channing Tatum), at the Prez’s house for a tour with his precocious daughter, shoulders one-man-army duties. Rockets are launched; there’s a high-speed limo chase across the White House lawn; we learn the truth about Marilyn and JFK; and thanks to evil genius Skip Tyler (Jimmi Simpson), “the greatest hack the world has ever seen” is about to unleash World War III. Yep, that’s right: 17 years after ID4‘s Jeff Goldblum broke into the alien mainframe, thereby saving the White House-less planet, Emmerich has decided that hackers are actually bad guys. It goes with White House Down‘s warning that the enemy is no longer an external threat, but something lurking right under your nose. Better start working out, America — and working on your one-liners. (2:17) (Cheryl Eddy)
FILM/LIT A few weeks before our scheduled interview, Laura Albert mails me copies of 2000’s Sarah and 2001’s The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things. Inscribed on Heart‘s title page is a note: “Thanks for being available to revelation.” The volumes are signed “Yours, LA and JT” — the latter, of course, referring to JT LeRoy, the identity under which Albert penned both books.
That secret’s been out since late 2005, and has been dissected over and over. It even inspired a Law and Order episode. LeRoy, and his fantastically tragic back story (just out of his teens, he’d survived drugs, homelessness, and prostitution en route to becoming the lit world’s hottest wunderkind), were Albert’s creations. She was the true author behind the best-sellers listed above, plus 2004’s Harold’s End, dozens of magazine articles, an early script for Gus Van Sant’s Elephant (2003), and numerous other works. (Meanwhile, the androgynous “JT” that had been appearing in public was actually the half-sister of Albert’s then-partner; she wrote her own tell-all in 2008.) On Albert’s website, there are tabs marked “Who is Laura Albert?” and “Who is JT LeRoy?” Both link to Albert’s biography.
Years have passed since l’affaire LeRoy, and Albert has moved through the experience in her own way. (Her business card lists her as “literary outlaw.”) Later this summer, Sarah will be reissued as an ebook, with a fairy tale-inspired cover by artist Matt Pipes. Albert also is working on her memoirs (though she doesn’t like to use the word “memoirs”), and tells me there’s a documentary forthcoming from Jeff Feuerzeig, who made 2005’s critically-acclaimed The Devil and Daniel Johnston. This weekend, Asia Argento’s 2004 adaptation of The Heart is Deceitful Above All Things screens as part of the Clay Theatre’s midnight-movie series, with Albert and producer Chris Hanley in person, plus Argento via Skype.
Sitting in her San Francisco kitchen, Albert eyes my tape recorder and admits she’d rather focus on the film, not JT — though it’s a topic that inevitably arises. Argento, Albert says, encountered Heart the way many LeRoy readers did, via word-of-mouth recommendation.
“She read the book and she didn’t know anything about JT. At the same time, a small publisher was putting out the book [in Italy], and they wanted to bring JT over,” Albert recalls. “It was a weird coincidence. They were putting on an event, and they wanted to get someone to read. They had contacted Asia, and she already knew about the book, and she wanted not only to do this event, but to make the movie. It’s funny because I thought Sarah would be the first [to become a film], because it was already optioned by Gus [Van Sant]. But Asia moved really fast. We went over to meet her, and I had turned down a lot of people. My feeling was, it’s my baby and I’m giving it up for adoption, and I saw that this was someone I could give my baby to.”
Argento, the daughter of famed Italian horror director Dario Argento, is best-known stateside as an actor; previous to Heart, her directing experience was limited to short films and 2000’s flamboyant Scarlet Diva. Once she decided to helm the movie, her decision to star as the free-spirited, needy, sometimes-cruel single mother of the story’s young protagonist was an obvious choice.
“I had concerns about that, how much she would take on the role, how much it would become her. It’s ironic, because I had given myself over completely to Jeremy, to JT, to Jeremiah,” Albert says. She pauses. “Did you see that French film, about the guy who assumes different characters?”
“Holy Motors?”
“Yeah! It really was transformative to me. There’s a scene where someone asks [the main character], ‘Why are you still doing this?’, and he makes reference to the act of giving yourself over completely. And that was it. I gave myself over completely. I did not break character. You know how, in that movie, he’ll do anything? He’ll kill someone! He’s in it. Most people don’t know what that’s like. And that was it. I will never apologize,” she says, firmly. “We’re talking about art. Nobody was harmed in this, really. I didn’t really scribble that far outside the lines. Everything was labeled ‘fiction.'”
At her mention of an apology, I have to ask: does she feel like people demanded one?
“People like to give themselves a lot of credit for how vanguard they are. I can’t tell you how many people I’ve had tell me, ‘Warhol would have loved it!’ — including people who were close with Warhol,” she says. “I think it revealed more about other people and what they could accommodate, and what they put on the work, than it does about me. If you have a personal relationship with JT, then that’s a conversation between you and me. I put my email [in the books], and I really did have a connection with the fans because I grew up in the punk scene, and I wasn’t into hero worship. The problem was — psychologically — I wasn’t able to do that. It wasn’t like [adopts goofy voice], ‘Gee, how do I burst forth onto the literary scene? I know! I’ll create a little boy!’ No. It wasn’t like that.”
As we talk, Albert makes references to her own troubled youth: surviving abuse, living in a group home, being institutionalized. Amid the tumult of her teenage life, she would “call hotlines — I don’t know what I would talk about, but it was the only time I could feel. I would give myself over to another being, and it was always a boy. So when I hear people say, ‘I’m gonna do what you did,’ it’s like, good luck. For me it was created the way an oyster creates a pearl: out of irritation and suffering. It was an attempt to try to heal something. And it actually worked, and it did so for a lot of other people. The amazing thing is, now I can be available to people.”
We’re delving more into her work (“I didn’t do anything new — writers have always been using combinations of pseudonyms and identities,” she points out) when the doorbell rings; it’s a Comcast technician here to see about Albert’s Internet connection. We move to her office, which features a wall collaged with photos and several filing cabinets full of archives — material she’s letting Feuerzeig use in his documentary.
But it’s not a room completely given over to the past. It’s also where Albert works on her new projects (besides her memoirs, she’s writing screenplays — building off her experiences working on Deadwood with David Milch), and stashes new mementos, including a program from a recent Brazilian rock opera entitled JT, A Punk Rock Fairy Tale.
Before I leave, she gives me a copy of a New York Times article from 2010 entitled “Life, In the Way of Art;” its subjects include Joaquin Phoenix, still smarting from the backlash after his faux breakdown in I’m Still Here. The director of that film, Casey Affleck, cites a line from a Picasso quote that Albert emails to me in full the day after we speak: “We all know that art is not truth. Art is a lie that makes us realize truth, at least the truth that is given us to understand. The artist must know the manner whereby to convince others of the truthfulness of his lies.”
She’s just as frank over email as she is in person. “It’s OK with me if someone doesn’t like my writing. But they shouldn’t try to tell me how I’m obliged to present my work,” she writes. “When I talk about my personal background, I’m not attempting to somehow bestow legitimacy to what I’ve written — anyone should be able to do what I did. My life history doesn’t matter and isn’t being offered as any kind of excuse.”
I think back to something she said in her kitchen — a simple, powerful summation of a story that will never not be complicated. “JT was my lifeboat. You loved him? Well, I loved him more.”
FILM Ah, the mid-1990s: a time when two big-budget movies on the same subject were regularly released within months of each other (1997’s Volcano and Dante’s Peak; 1998’s Armageddon and Deep Impact). When a director named Roland Emmerich ascended into the blockbuster pantheon with Independence Day (1996), a film that’s best-remembered for transforming Will Smith into an action star — and for that iconic shot of the White House exploding under alien death rays.
The intervening years have seen Emmerich plunge ever-deeper into various flavors of disaster: giant lizard (1998’s Godzilla); Mel Gibson (2000’s The Patriot); global warming (2004’s The Day After Tomorrow); the apocalypse (2009’s 2012). White House Down — which reignites that ’90s copycat-rivalry thing by riding the fumes of March’s Olympus Has Fallen — finds its boogeyman in terrorism. Specifically, domestic terrorism, with another 1996 classic, Michael Bay’s The Rock, offering certain inspiration in the villain department. Ex-military goons with axes to grind storming a national landmark? Right this way, please.
It’s a triumphant day for President James Sawyer (Jamie Foxx), who has just ordered all US troops removed from the Middle East. While ID4‘s President Bill Pullman was a Gulf War veteran, Sawyer is portrayed as more of an anti-violence, increase-the-peace type. But wait! Who are those shifty-eyed fellows skulking around the White House theater room, tinkering with the First Lady’s prized surround-sound system? They don’t look ready to make nice.
Into this mix must enter an Everyman. Beefy nugget Channing Tatum plays John Cale, wannabe Secret Service agent. Trouble is, his former college classmate (and fling? It’s never certain, but every woman Cale interacts with seems to have slept with him), high-ranking Agent Finnerty (Maggie Gyllenhaal), doesn’t think he has what it takes. According to the deep truths of his personnel file, Cale — a Capitol policeman tasked with guarding the Speaker of the House (Richard Jenkins) — “has a problem with authority,” despite his seemingly sincere desire to become an astronaut … er, wait, that was Will Smith’s cocky pilot in ID4.
At any rate, there is (as always) a family to impress; in Cale’s case, it’s a plucky daughter (Joey King), always on the lookout for new fodder for her YouTube channel. What better way to win over a kid who blurts out “Wikileaks” with as much excitement as other 11-year-olds say “One Direction” than to take her on a tour of the White House?
That’s the set-up. The remainder of the film encompasses Cale’s sweaty, sardonic one-man-army maneuverings (in John McClane’s undershirt, no less), to keep both Sawyer — a POTUS so cool he pauses mid-ambush to change into Air Jordans — and Li’l Miss Citizen Journalist safe. Meanwhile, rockets are launched; there’s a high-speed limo chase across the White House lawn; we learn the truth about Marilyn and JFK; The Wire‘s Lance Reddick shows up to turn his McNulty-honed glare onto Gyllenhaal; some high-ranking government dudes reveal their sinister true colors; and thanks to evil genius Skip Tyler (Jimmi Simpson), “the greatest hack the world has ever seen” is about to unleash World War III.
Yep, that’s right: 17 years after Independence Day‘s Jeff Goldblum broke into the alien mainframe, thereby saving the White House-less planet, Emmerich has decided that hackers are actually bad guys. It goes with White House Down‘s warning that the enemy is no longer an external threat, but something lurking right under your nose. Better start working out, America — and working on your one-liners.
WHITE HOUSE DOWN opens Fri/28 in Bay Area theaters.
Don’t panic, art-house fans: you can still get your subtitle fix at Landmark‘s other San Francisco theaters (the Clay, the Opera Plaza) or at any of the chain’s East Bay outposts (the Shattuck has the most screens, and it shows mainstream Hollywood stuff, too).
The 18-year-old Embarcadero is one of Landmark’s busiest and most-profitable theaters, according to the chain. It will close starting June 28, with a targeted return of “early November” — so it’ll be dark during much of the summer movie craze, but ready to receive any and all Oscar-type movies in the fall.
Here’s what the improvements will entail, per a press release sent out by Senior Regional Publicist Steve Indig:
“Each of the theater’s five auditoriums will undergo a total makeover, including plush seating, new flooring, paint, and wall coverings. The lobby will also undergo a transformation, complete with a new wine bar and lounge, as well as a remodeled concierge desk and concession stand. The stand will now feature digital signage with large LED screens showcasing the new menu with a broad array of food and beverage options. Print-at-home ticketing and mobile ticketing will be available at the theatre when it re-opens this fall.”
Once more with feeling: WINE BAR. See you at the movies this fall, Embarcadero!
Frameline37 is underway! Check out our coverage of the country’s biggest, oldest LGBT film festival: Dennis Harvey’s rundown of five docs about great gay men (including Gore Vidal and Divine); my interview with A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge star/”scream queen” Mark Patton; and a host of short takes by Harvey and Lynn Rapoport.
This weekend, Hollywood would ask you to choose between zombies vs. Brad Pitt, and spoiled teens who live by the mantra “I wanna rob!” (also, if you have younger kids, there’s a new Pixar joint, too). Reviews for all after the jump, with special shout-outs to the very cool, very strange Berberian Sound Studio (essential viewing for fans of 1970s Italian horror films), and the tense Danish thriller A Hijacking.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GlNCiGVQsd0
Berberian Sound Studio It’s the 1970s, and frumpy British sound designer Gilderoy (a flawless Toby Jones) has, somewhat inexplicably, been hired by a flamboyant Italian filmmaker to work on his latest lurid genre piece, The Equestrian Vortex — about a girl who realizes her riding academy is haunted by witches. Any resemblance to 1977’s Suspiria is entirely intentional, as writer-director Peter Strickland crafts a meta-horror film that’s both tribute to Argento and co. and a freaky number all its own, as Gilderoy begins to realize that the “vortex” he’s dealing with isn’t merely confined to the screen. Fans of vintage Euro horror will appreciate the behind-the-scenes peek at the era’s filmmaking process, as well as Strickland’s obvious affection for one of cinema’s most oddly addictive genres. Bonus points for the Goblin reference. (1:28)Roxie. (Cheryl Eddy)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=r4c6hmrwba0
The Bling Ring When it was revealed that high schoolers were behind a series of robberies targeting the lavish homes of Hollywood’s famous-for-being-famous types — most notably Paris Hilton — the fallout became fodder for gossip websites like TMZ.com, plus a memorable Vanity Fair article. The latter (recently expanded into a book by author Nancy Jo Sales) is the basis for Sofia Coppola’s new film, a fictionalized take on the crimes. Bored by upper-middle-class lives that leave them with lots of free time and habitually absent parents, a posse of SoCal teens (newcomers Katie Chang and Israel Broussard, and Harry Potter‘s all-grown-up Emma Watson, lead the charge) begin creepy-crawling the homes of Hilton and others, dovetailing their celebrity obsessions with a raging hunger for expensive shit. (Was ever a crime so victimless, one wonders, than a heist perpetrated at the expense of a starlet’s handbag collection, so vast she won’t even notice a few missing Birkins?) Flashing their ill-gotten new clothes, jewelry, and wads of cash in Facebook selfies, the burglars miss the most valuable lesson of all: that the friendships they share are fleeting and meaningless — kind of like fame, kind of like blowing (stolen) money on designer clothes that will soon be out of style. Ironically, with The Bling Ring, Coppola has delivered her least-vapid film since 1999’s The Virgin Suicides; it’s both candy-colored and canny, a cautionary tale that lingers just long enough on its scenes of youthful excess to let you know it’s in on the joke. (1:27) (Cheryl Eddy)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pvcLfcDZ_gU
“From the Archive: Treasures of Eastern European and Soviet Cinema: A Tribute to George Gund III” One rich guy who really, really loved art — not just as an investment or public charity platform — recently deceased Bay Area resident George Gund III was a burly entrepreneur and athlete who grew fascinated with Soviet-bloc cinema early on. He spread that passion as a longtime board member for the San Francisco Film Society, and as a donor of prints to Berkeley’s Pacific Film Archive. A selection from the latter collection is being showcased in a month-long PFA tribute that starts this week. Spanning from Hungary to Czechoslovakia to former USSR territories over a richly creative cinematic era (1960s to 1970s), it offers numerous seldom-revived gems including Juraj Herz’s macabre 1968 Czech black comedy The Cremator, Georgian master Otar Iosseliani’s 1975 Pastorale, and decorous kitsch-classic Valerie and Her Week of Wonders (1970) director Jaromil Jiles’ contrastingly stark 1972 follow-up And Give My Love to the Swallows, which depicts the fate of a young woman sentenced to death for supporting the resistance under Nazi occupation. Pacific Film Archive. (Dennis Harvey)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IyMegiVnYwM
A HijackingDanish director Tobias Lindholm’s thriller is not based on a specific incident, but its story feels ripped-from-the-headlines familiar, and it’s part of a larger trend of films — including the upcoming Captain Phillips, directed by Paul Greengrass and starring Tom Hanks — about Somali pirates. Coincidentally, A Hijacking is reminiscent of Greengrass’ style, shot almost like a documentary with great attention to realism. At sea, we follow good-natured cargo-ship cook Mikkel (Pilou Asbæk) as he deals with the sudden invasion of machine-gun toting thugs (who speak neither Danish nor English, and aren’t given subtitles to translate their own language), and is drawn into drama with the one member of their team he can communicate with: capricious go-between Omar (Abdihakin Asgar), who’s armed with power instead of weapons. Meanwhile, in Copenhagen, reserved shipping-company CEO Peter (Søren Malling) steps into the delicate role of negotiator when the ransom demands start rolling in. A Hijacking is tense and tightly constructed, as when an exhausted, frustrated Peter removes his shirt and tie and reveals he’s wearing the same type of undershirt as the grimy, terrified Mikkel. And if the film tends to view the hijackers as an indistinguishable mob of trigger-happy villains, at least there’s the Omar character — and one briefly uplifting scene where the whole group fishes off the boat to replenish their dwindling food supply — to humanize them somewhat. (1:39) (Cheryl Eddy)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ODePHkWSg-U
Monsters UniversitySeven-year-old Mike Wazowski is even more adorable than grown-up, Billy-Crystal-voiced Mike Wazowski. It’s a pity, then, that one of the big lessons Monsters University teaches is that the essence of monster-identity is how scary one is. What Mike loses in frightfulness he forcefully recovers in spunk, and after a trip to the scare floor that briskly reminds us the premise of 2001’s Monsters, Inc., mini-Mike becomes the first ever career-driven Pixar character. (For this, I love him.) We all know he eventually becomes a superstar in this scare-powered retro-verse, but first he has to overcome frat boy-inflicted embarrassment and flunk out of school. The most noteworthy thing about Pixar’s first prequel is how very massively its characters fail — it’s a lovely tilt that suggest the greatness of tomorrow begins when you overcome the failures of today. The administrators of Monsters University (in particular Helen Mirren’s dragon-lady Dean) require formal perfection in the scares they grade, but in the world of actual scarers, oddness and difference actually become advantages. It’s all theory but no rulebook. And doesn’t that sound like a good lesson from the studio that once proudly said “story is king,” yet now scrambles to meet Disney’s once-a-year feature demands? Such rigidity comes at a price. (1:50) (Sara Maria Vizcarrondo)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O4zeyuk8hL8
Somm First-time filmmaker Jason Wise follows four wine-obsessed men (including three from the Bay Area) on their quest to become Master Sommeliers. Their genial rivalry — the stuffiest member of the quartet is nicknamed “Dad” — somewhat offsets the immense pressure they’re under, though every guy turns into Rain Man when he starts ID-ing each unmarked glass, detecting subtle yet highly specific aromas like “sage, truffle, wet forest floor, decaying dried red rose petals,” “a freshly opened can of tennis balls,” and (in the weirdest example) “grandma’s closet.” It’s an insular, elite world, but Wise’s camera gets right to the front lines as the candidates prep for the grueling, multi-day test, interviewing the long-suffering spouses of the candidates (one of whom ruminates on the grossness of “spit buckets” left behind after late-night tasting marathons). As the day of reckoning looms, the tension mounts along with the piles of flash cards — but the friendships and good humor remain, even after the results are revealed. (1:33) (Cheryl Eddy)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HcwTxRuq-uk
World War Z Or, Brad Pitt saves the world from undead beings with rotted brains but super-sharp hearing. Somehow, Max Brooks’ innovative multi-character book — written in the form of interviews with survivors of a recent zombie outbreak — becomes by-the-numbers action horror in the hands of director Marc Forster (2008’s Quantum of Solace, a.k.a. that Bond movie nobody remembers), complete with credit sequence filled with real news reports of environmental disasters, global unrest, and even a little shout-out to that guy who ate another guy’s face off last year in Florida. No bath-salt jokes here, though; instead, we have Pitt playing a verrrry serious former UN investigator — former, because he quit to spend more time with his family, a promise he actually considers keeping even when the survival of the world hinges, apparently, on his very specific expertise. He jets around the world (South Korea! Israel! Wales?) in search of a cure, but it’s obvious from the beginning — when he escapes immediate death in the initial rampage with his picture-perfect wife (Mireille Enos) and two daughters — that he’ll eventually suss out a planet-saving solution. (Sorry, but if that’s a spoiler you’ve never seen a movie before.) A few nifty setpieces can’t save World War Z from more or less embodying the descriptor “meh,” with its undynamic 3D, uninspiring CG, and cobbled-together script, complete with reassuring final voice-over. And one more thing: for the love of flesh-ripping gore, can we please make this the last PG-13 zombie movie? (1:56) (Cheryl Eddy)
FRAMELINE FILM FEST In 1985, a new family moved into Nancy Thompson’s house on Elm Street. Though the stairs no longer had the consistency of sloppy oatmeal, the window bars remained — and a certain razor-fingered fellow still lurked in the shadows. Teen hunk Jesse soon encountered Freddy Krueger in, where else, a nightmare — though this time, the murderous Freddy had a high-concept scheme: “You’ve got the body, and I’ve got the brains!”
Released just a year after 1984’s A Nightmare on Elm Street, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge vexed fans (and Nightmare creator Wes Craven) with a storyline that enabled its formerly dream-bound villain to kill in the real world. But Nightmare 2 eventually earned a cult following, largely due to readings of the film that identified its gay subtext: a leather-daddy gym coach; the fact that Jesse had a hotter relationship with his best friend than his girlfriend; Jesse’s butt-bumping dance moves and effeminate screams; and lines like “Something is trying to get inside my body!” Plus, that campy scene involving an exploding parakeet.
Is it any wonder that Midnight Mass hostess Peaches Christ chose Nightmare 2 for Frameline’s late-night spotlight, with star Mark Patton in attendance? These days, the erstwhile Jesse lives in Puerto Vallarta, Mexico, where he runs a thriving gallery and boutique business with his husband, Hector.
“I left show business really consciously, shortly after Elm Street. There really was no way to get ahold of me, so my sister-in-law was my interlocutor when people would call. At the beginning, many people did, and I would turn them down. As time went by, she just collected royalties for me and that type of thing,” he says. “But then these guys from a documentary called Never Sleep Again [2010] — which is about Nightmare on Elm Street and 20th century pop culture — called. They said, ‘We have Johnny Depp, Patricia Arquette — literally everybody [who was in the series], except for you. And we’d really like to talk to you, since yours is one of the more interesting Elm Street films.’ I agreed, and almost overnight the publicity was pretty overwhelming. It turned out I was called ‘The Greta Garbo of Horror,’ and everybody wanted my autograph. It had become very valuable over the course of time!”
Patton has since met Nightmare 2 fans from all over the world, including queer folks who grew up inspired by his performance. “When I did Never Sleep Again, they put up a Facebook page for me and I had 5,000 people within maybe a week or two. At this point, I have a couple of different Facebooks, a website — around 30,000 people altogether. It seems like a lot of boys wanted to follow Jesse home from school,” he laughs.
As an openly gay man, Patton embraces the film’s legacy, though he doesn’t regret leaving Hollywood behind. “My [Nightmare film] is called ‘the Homo Nightmare on Elm Street.’ Basically, I played a girl’s part; it caused controversy at the time, and it still does. Out Magazine just named it the gayest horror film of all time, and I was the number one scream queen in the world, according to Out and the Advocate,” he says. He has fond memories of making the film, but “what I really wanted to do was have a conversation about it. The people who wrote the movie always swore that they had no intention of writing a gay movie, so a lot of [the fallout] was sort of put on my back at the time. It damaged my career in a lot of ways, but it wasn’t something that I couldn’t overcome.”
Still, “I got tired of the BS in show business. I’d been in it a long time, and I’d been successful enough to know what that felt like,” he says. “I wanted a certain kind of life, and I found another way to do it that was just as lucrative and entertaining and creative to me. I would rather be embraced for my homosexuality than stay in the closet my whole life.”
After a few years spent touring with the documentary and making stops on the horror-convention circuit, Patton — who donates most of the money he earns from appearances, and the t-shirts he created “based on things people had said about me on the internet, like ‘Jesse’s A Homo’,” to the Trevor Project — is ready to settle back into his life in Mexico.
“I sort of reclaimed a part of myself, which was really cool. And I got to travel and taste a little bit, at my age, of what it was like to be a movie star again,” he says. “It’s been a lot of fun, but I’m coming to the end of my journey with this. San Francisco is going to be one of the last events that I do. In my heart, now’s the time to step away from it again because it’s not my life. I like my life here, and being with my family.”
With a chuckle, he adds, “Although I’m vain enough that, this event that’s coming up in San Francisco? I’m gonna love it. Fourteen hundred screaming drag queens and gay guys at the Castro Theatre — it really doesn’t get any better than that for someone like me!”
You just gotta watch it, and you’ll agree: November 15 can’t come soon enough. Can Scorsese do what Soderbergh couldn’t and get Matthew McConaughey an Oscar nom? Plus: smarmy Jonah Hill in a polo shirt, a DeLorean (?), decadent yacht parties, DiCaprio cradling a chimp (and not uttering the words “Old Sport”)…
Already in theaters, Seth Rogen and his bro posse take on doomsday in This Is the End. I got the chance to talk with Mr. Rogen, his co-director and co-writer Evan Goldberg, and co-star Craig Robinson when they visited San Francisco a few days back. (Fun fact: Rogen really does laugh like that in real life.) Check the interview here!
In rep news, this weekend at the Castro Theatre heralds the San Francisco Silent Film Festival‘s “Hitchcock 9” event, spotlighting nine silent films by the guy who would later claim the title “Master of Suspense,” direct some of the greatest thrillers of all time, etc. You can’t go wrong with any of the films, but just for kicks, here’s my take on the series here. And at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Austrian director Ulrich Seidl’s dark Paradise Trilogy continues its bummer-summer run this weekend; Dennis Harvey breaks ’em down here.
Plus! That Superman movie you’ve been hearing a thing or two about, and the rest of the week’s new offerings, after the jump.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Sq6ffF8QLsQ
Becoming Traviata Philippe Béziat’s backstage doc offers an absorbing look at a particularly innovative production of Verdi’s La Traviata, directed by Jean-François Sivadier and starring the luminous Natalie Dessay (currently appearing in SF Opera‘s production of Tales of Hoffman). Béziat eschews narration or interviews; instead, his camera simply tracks artists at work, moving from rehearsal room to stage as Sivadier and Dessay (along with her co-stars) block scenes, make suggestions, practice gestures, and engage in the hit-and-miss experimentation that defines the creative process. The film is edited so that La Traviata progresses chronologically, with the earliest scenes unfolding on a spartan set (Dessay’s practice attire: yoga clothes), and the tragic climax taking place onstage, with an orchestra in the pit and sparkly make-up in full effect. Dessay will appear in person at San Francisco screenings Sat/15 at 7pm and Sun/16 at 2pm. (1:53) (Cheryl Eddy)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CWnrk35qYMs
Dirty Wars Subtitled “the world is a battlefield,” this doc follows author and Nation magazine writer Jeremy Scahill as he probes the disturbing underbelly of America’s ongoing counterterrorism campaign. After he gets wind of a deadly nighttime raid on a home in rural Afghanistan, Scahill does his best to investigate what really happened, though what he hears from eyewitnesses doesn’t line up with the military explanation — and nobody from the official side of things cares to discuss it any further, thank you very much. With its talk of cover-ups and covert military units, and interviewees who appear in silhouette with their voices disguised, Dirty Wars plays like a thriller until Osama bin Laden’s death shifts certain (but not all) elements of the story Scahill’s chasing into the mainstream-news spotlight. The journalist makes valid points about how an utter lack of accountability or regard for consequences (that will reverberate for generations to come) means the “war on terror” will never end, but Dirty Wars suffers a bit from too much voice-over. Even the film’s gorgeous cinematography — director Rick Rowley won a prize for it at Sundance earlier this year — can’t alleviate the sensation that Dirty Wars is mostly an illustrated-lecture version of Scahill’s source-material book. Still, it’s a compelling lecture. (1:26) (Cheryl Eddy)
The Guillotines Why yes, that is Jimmy Wang Yu, director and star of 1976 cult classic Master of the Flying Guillotine, in a small but pivotal role commanding a team of assassins who specialize in dispatching heads with airborne versions of you-know-which weapon. Unfortunately, this latest from Andrew Lau (best-known stateside for 2002’s Infernal Affairs, remade into Martin Scorsese’s 2006 Oscar-winner The Departed) doesn’t have nearly as much fun as it should; dudes be chopping heads off in a flurry of CG’d-up steampunky whirlygigs, but The Guillotines‘ tone is possibly even more deadly, as in deadly serious. When a rebellious prophet-folk hero known as Wolf (Xiaoming Huang) runs afoul of the Emperor’s top-secret Guillotine brotherhood, led in the field by Leng (Ethan Juan), the squad travels in disguise to a rural, smallpox-afflicted village to track him down. Along for the journey is the Emperor’s top operative, ruthless Agent Du (Shawn Yue), a boyhood friend of Leng’s. Leng and Du share a dark secret: the Guillotines have been deemed expendable — yep, in the Stallone sense — and the Emperor has decided to kill them off and replace them with armies toting guns and cannons in the name of progress. Lau is no stranger to tales of men grappling with betrayals, misplaced loyalties, and hidden personal agendas — and as historical martial-arts fantasies go, The Guillotines has higher production values than most, with sweeping, luscious photography. Too bad all the action scenes are punctuated by episodes of moody brooding — replete with slo-mo gazing off into the distance, dramatically falling tears, solemn heart-to-hearts, swelling strings, and the occasional howl of anguish. (1:53) (Cheryl Eddy)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=T6DJcgm3wNY
Man of Steel As beloved as he is, Superman is a tough superhero to crack — or otherwise bend into anything resembling a modern character. Director Zack Snyder and writer David S. Goyer, working with producer Christopher Nolan on the initial story, do their best to nuance this reboot, which focuses primarily on Supe’s alien origins and takes its zoom-happy space battles from Battlestar Galactica. The story begins with Kal-El’s birth on a Krypton that’s rapidly going into the shitter: the exploited planet is about to explode and wayward General Zod (Michael Shannon) is staging a coup, killing Kal-El’s father, Jor-El (Russell Crowe), the Kryptonians’ lead scientist, and being conveniently put on ice in order to battle yet another day. That day comes as Kal-El, now a 20-something earthling named Clark Kent (Henry Cavill) — resigned to his status as an outsider, a role dreamed up by his protective adoptive dad (Kevin Costner) — has turned into a bit of a (dharma) bum, looking like a buff Jack Kerouac, working Deadliest Catch-style rigs, and rescuing people along the way to finding himself. Spunky Lois Lane (Amy Adams) is the key to his, erm, coming-out party, necessitated by a certain special someone looking to reboot the Kryptonian race on earth. The greatest danger here lies in the fact that all the leached-of-color quasi-sepia tone action can turn into a bit of a Kryptonian-US Army demolition derby, making for a mess of rubble and tricky-to-parse fight sequences that, of course, will satisfy the fanboys and -girls, but will likely glaze the eyes of many others. Nevertheless, the effort Snyder and crew pack into this lengthy artifact — with its chronology-scrambling flashbacks and multiple platforms for Shannon, Diane Lane, Christopher Meloni, Laurence Fishburne, and the like — pays off on the level of sheer scale, adding up to what feels like the best Superman on film or TV to date — though that bar seems pretty easy to leap over in a single bound. (2:23) (Kimberly Chun)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4V1E2IgXeuI
Pandora’s Promise Filmmaker Robert Stone has traveled far from his first film, 1988’s Oscar-nominated anti-nuke Radio Bikini, to today, with the release of Pandora’s Promise, a detailed and guaranteed-to-be-controversial examination of nuclear power and the environmentalists who have transitioned from fervently anti- to pro-nuclear. Interviewing activists and authors like Stewart Brand, Gwyneth Cravens, Mark Lynas, and Michael Shellenberger, among others, Stone eloquently visualizes all angles of their discussion with media, industrial, and newly shot footage, starting with a visit to the largest nuclear disaster of recent years, Fukushima, which he visits with the hazmat-suited environmental activist and journalist Lynas and continuing to Chernobyl and its current denizens. Couching the debate in cultural and political context going back to World War II, Stone builds a case for nuclear energy as a viable method to provide clean, safe power for planet in the throes of climate change that will nonetheless need double or triple the current amount of energy by 2050, as billions in the developing world emerge from poverty. In a practical sense, as The Death of Environmentalism author Shellenberger asserts, “The idea that we’re going to replace oil and coal with solar and wind and nothing else is a hallucinatory delusion.” Stone and his subjects put together an enticing argument to turn to nuclear as a way forward from coal, made compelling by the idea that designs for safer alternative reactors that produce less waste are out there. (1:27) (Kimberly Chun)
FILM After a banner 2012 and early 2013 — in which his 1958 Vertigo was named the best film of all time by Sight and Sound magazine; a critically-panned but still entertaining-enough biopic hit theaters; and a months-long career retrospective, “The Shape of Suspense,” played the Pacific Film Archive — Alfred Hitchcock’s revival continues. Next up is “The Hitchcock 9,” a San Francisco Silent Film Festival showcase of nine silent films — nearly his entire 1920s output, all made before he turned 30.
His best-known films continue to inspire pop culture (see: A&E’s hit Bates Motel), but Hitchcock’s earliest work isn’t widely circulated. That may change thanks to the British Film Institute’s restoration efforts, the fruits of which are unspooling stateside on a multi-city tour (along with the Silent fest, co-presenters include the Brooklyn Academy of Music and the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences) launching at the Castro Theatre. Live music by acclaimed musicians will enhance each screening, including the five-piece Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, Bay Area pianist-composer Judy Rosenberg, and British silent-film specialist Stephen Horne.
In movie-crazed San Francisco, where Silent fest screenings regularly sell out (this year’s event is July 18-21; start your engines, Louise Brooks fans), the only dilemma will be deciding which of the Hitchcock 9 to see. Opening night offers a tempting option in 1929’s Blackmail, which Hitchcock — always adventurous with filmmaking technology — shot as a silent/sound hybrid.
Her blonde hair hinting at what would become a Hitchcock trademark, saucer-eyed beauty Alice (Anny Ondra) steps out on her inattentive boyfriend, a Scotland Yard detective, with an artist whose intentions prove shockingly lascivious. Alice has no choice but to stab her attacker (and rip one of his creepy clown paintings) and skulk off into the night, leaving the murder scene for her cop beau to find. What happens next is given away by the film’s title, but no matter — Blackmail is suspenseful to the end.
Another fair-haired lass encounters menace in closing-night film The Lodger (1926), a thriller that takes its stylistic cues from German Expressionist films, particularly 1920’s The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari. Sassy model Daisy (June Tripp, credited as “Miss June”) declares “No more peroxide for yours truly!” when London’s headlines begin shrieking about a serial killer, “The Avenger,” who exclusively targets blondes. Enter a gloomy-yet-dreamy stranger (Ivor Novello), who takes a room at the boarding house run by Daisy’s parents; it doesn’t take long before he makes the landlady uneasy (he does wear a cape, after all), though Daisy finds him intriguing. Naturally, her boyfriend — another cop — becomes highly jealous, not to mention suspicious.
Blackmail and The Lodger are stuffed with elements that would later be easily identifiable as “Hitchcockian” (witness Blackmail‘s high-climbing climax — it ain’t Mount Rushmore, but you see where the idea’s heading). But The Ring, about a love triangle between two boxers and the (dark-haired) temptress that motivates their brawls, is Hitch’s only original script penned without collaborators, and it’s hardly chockablock with psychological terrors. It is, however, a charming sports romance with some nifty technical touches, including an early example of a drunken scene being shot in blurry “booze-o-vision.”
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=F2T4ZrBel6A
The rest of the Hitchcock 9: 1928’s daffy-heiress tale Champagne; 1927’s Downhill, which also stars The Lodger‘s Novello; 1927’s Isle of Man-set The Manxman; 1928 comedy The Farmer’s Wife, with The Ring‘s Hall-Davis; 1927 Noel Coward adaptation Easy Virtue; and Hitchcock’s feature debut, 1926’s The Pleasure Garden.
FILM It’s a typical day in Los Angeles for Seth Rogen as This Is the End begins. Playing a version of himself, the comedian picks up longtime pal and frequent co-star Jay Baruchel at the airport. Since Jay hates LA, Seth welcomes him with weed and candy, but all good vibes fizzle when Rogen suggests hitting up a party at James Franco’s new mansion. Wait, ugh, Franco? And Jonah Hill will be there? Nooo!
Jay ain’t happy, but the revelry — chockablock with every Judd Apatow-blessed star in Hollywood, plus a few random inclusions (Rihanna?) — is great fun for the audience. And likewise for the actors: world, meet Michael Cera, naughty coke fiend.
But stranger things are afoot in This Is the End. First, there’s a giant earthquake and a strange blue light that sucks passers-by into the sky. Then a fiery pit yawns in front of Casa Franco, gobbling up just about everyone in the cast who isn’t on the poster. Dudes! Is this the worst party ever — or the apocalypse?
I chatted with Rogen, his co-director and co-writer Evan Goldberg, and co-star Craig Robinson (The Office) when they hit town a few weeks back; their Bay Area visit included stops at multiple social-media HQs (Rogen’s take: “I thought there’d be more Segways.”) Rogen and Goldberg’s often-overlapping, guffaw-laden answers speak to their lifelong friendship — at 13, the Vancouver classmates wrote the first version of what would become the 2007 hit Superbad.
Also in 2007, they made Jay and Seth vs. The Apocalypse, a short film starring Rogen and Baruchel as “two guys arguing in a room, basically,” Rogen says. “The world is ending, but our main problem is that we have to deal with each other, and our histories, and our friendship issues.” The idea expanded and became This Is the End, which marks Rogen and Goldberg’s feature directorial debut. An apocalypse comedy? Well, why not?
“There’s always been apocalyptic movies. It’s the biggest idea you can have: the end of everything. But are there any other funny ones?” Goldberg wonders. “I found moments of Volcano (1997) pretty funny. I suppose Armageddon (1998) would be classified as an apocalypse comedy, by accident.”
It’s important to note that This Is the End relies not on natural disasters, asteroids, aliens, or zombies to signal doomsday. “The whole concept was, full Christian apocalypse,” Rogen says.
“Catholic. Christian. Apocalypse. Book of Revelations. It’s the biggest book ever made,” Goldberg adds. “It’s the most popular version of it, so we might as well ride that gravy train.”
Cult-movie connoisseurs will be familiar with unintentionally hilarious depictions of the Rapture, most famously in “scare films” like 1972’s A Thief in the Night. Rogen’s research was slightly more modern. “Along with two of our producers, I watched all of Kirk Cameron’s Left Behind movies,” he admits. “They are fucking insane. It was one of those things where we were like, “Let’s look at it for five minutes. It’ll be funny!” and we ended up watching the whole trilogy. It was unbelievable.”
Neither Rogen nor Goldberg happens to be Christian, which is part of the joke. “A lot of people think we’re gonna be stuck here as hell comes to earth ’cause we’re Jewish,” Goldberg points out.
“It’s true!” Rogen laughs. “That idea fascinated us. Most people in North America were raised Christian; whether or not they actually believe in it, they’re ingrained from a very young age with the general idea that hell is gonna come to earth one day, and the good people will get sucked up to heaven and the bad people will be laid to waste, basically. Which to us was a fuckin’ disturbing concept, especially since it was implied that we would be the ones left behind. I think that’s really where [the film] came from.”
Goldberg elaborates. “In 11th grade, I had a conversation with a Christian friend, where I asked, ‘Let’s say I save a bus full of children who are falling off a bridge. But there’s this serial killer who believes in the stuff that gets you into heaven, and I don’t. Does he still go to heaven, and I go to hell?’ And she was like, ‘Yeah. Sorry, dude.’ Most Christians don’t really think we’re going to hell. But they all know the story.”
Of course, This Is the End has a lot more to it than religious commentary; there’s also copious drug use, masturbation gags, urine-drinking, bromance, insult comedy, and all of the uber-meta in-jokes fans of its stars will appreciate. (When asked if this is the most self-referential movie ever made, Goldberg cracks, “Maybe … unless, is somebody making a movie about the making of this movie?”)
“You’ve seen people play themselves in a movie before, but not to this level,” Robinson notes. “Though there’s two versions, you know — there’s me, singing ‘Take Your Panties Off,’ which I do in real life, and the me who has killed a man, which is not real. Hopefully the audience will able to differentiate.”
With a large ensemble of funny guys (Rogen, Robinson, Baruchel, Franco, Hill, and Danny McBride), plus a raft of cameos, the filmmakers were careful to split the laughs as evenly as possible.
“For the six main guys, we tried to write the best script we possibly could. But sometimes, the actors won [with their improv], because they’re funnier,” Goldberg laughs. “When it came to the party with all the different deaths and stuff, we had a bunch of ideas and we kind of hashed it out with each actor. We tried to make sure we gave everyone one good bit, and I think we mostly pulled it off.”
THIS IS THE END opens Wed/12 in Bay Area theaters.
Schedules are for Wed/12-Tue/18 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double features marked with a •. All times pm unless otherwise specified.
ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $6-10. "Her Tail Was Cut in Two," live performance and short films with Cyrus Yoshi Tabar and Janel Leppin, Fri, 8.
BRAVA THEATER CENTER 2789 24th St, SF; www.qwocmap.org. Free. Queer Women of Color Film Festival, Fri-Sun. The 2013 focus is "Bridge to Truth," with an emphasis on queer communities in Southwest Asia, North Africa, the Middle East, and South Asia.
CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $8.50-13. The Place Beyond the Pines (Cianfrance, 2012), Wed, 2, 5, 8. •Knife in the Water (Polanski, 1962), Thu, 7, and Belle de Jour (Buñuel, 1967), Thu, 8:50. "San Francisco Silent Film Festival presents the Hitchcock 9:" Blackmail (1929), Fri, 8; Champagne (1928), Sat, 1; Downhill (1927), Sat, 4; The Ring (1927), Sat, 7; The Manxman (1927), Sat, 9:30; The Farmer’s Wife (1928), Sun, noon; Easy Virtue (1927), Sun, 2:30; The Pleasure Garden (1926), Sun, 5; The Lodger (1926), Sun, 7:30. With accompaniment by the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra, Judith Rosenberg, Stephen Horne, and others; more info at www.silentfilm.org. •The Doors (Stone, 1991), Tue, 2, 7, and Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas (Gilliam, 1998), Tue, 4:35, 9:35.
CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.75-$10.25. Elemental (Roshan and Vaughan-Lee, 2012), call for dates and times. Fill the Void (Burshtein, 2012), call for dates and times. Frances Ha (Baumbach, 2012), call for dates and times. Midnight’s Children (Mehta, 2012), call for dates and times. Rebels With a Cause (Kelly, 2012), call for dates and times. Stories We Tell (Polley, 2012), call for dates and times. Becoming Traviata (Béziat, 2012), June 14-20, call for times.
"FILM NIGHT IN THE PARK" This week: Dolores Park, SF; www.filmnight.org. Free (donations appreciated). Raiders of the Lost Ark (Spielberg, 1981), Sat, 8.
JACK LONDON SQUARE Market lawn, Harrison at Water, Oakl; www.jacklondonsquare.com. Free. The Dark Knight Rises (Nolan, 2012), Thu, sundown.
MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; (415) 393-0100, milibrary.org/events. $10 (reservations required as seating is limited). "CinemaLit Film Series: On the Road:" Two for the Road (Donen, 1967), Fri, 6.
NEW PARKWAY 474 24th St, Oakl; www.thenewparkway.com. $6-10. "New Parkway Family Classics:" Honey I Shrunk the Kids (Johnston, 1989), Fri, 4; Sat, 12:30. "Thrillville Theater:" The Brain That Wouldn’t Die (Green, 1962), Sun, 6.
OHLONE COLLEGE Smith Center Outdoor Amphitheater, 43600 Mission, Fremont; www.smithcenter.com. $10 (parking, $2). Vertigo (Hitchcock, 1958), Fri, 8:30.
PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. "Dancing with Light: The Cinematography of Agnès Godard:" "Behind the Scenes: Agnès Godard on Cinematography:" Home (Meier, 2008), Thu, 7; Sister (Meier, 2012), Fri, 7; Beau travail (Denis, 1999), Sat, 6:30; Trouble Every Day (Denis, 2001), Sat, 9; The Dreamlife of Angels (Zonca, 1998), Sun, 7. With Godard in person. "Castles in the Sky: Masterful Anime from Studio Ghibli:" Castle in the Sky (Miyazaki, 1986), Sun, 4:30.
ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $6.50-11. DocFest: 12th SF Documentary Film Festival, through June 20. For complete schedule and ticket info, visit www.sfindie.com.
SAN MATEO PUBLIC LIBRARY Oak Room, 55 W. Third Ave, San Mateo; facebook.com/earthbeamfoods. Free. Genetic Roulette (Smith, 2012), Wed, 5:30. With a Q&A with David Hinckle, owenr of Earthbeam Natural Foods.
VORTEX ROOM 1082 Howard, SF; Facebook: The Vortex Room. $10. "The Vortex Phenomena:" •The Dunwich Horror (Haller, 1970), Thu, 9, and Satan’s Triangle (Roley, 1975), Thu, 11.
YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. $8-10. "Ulrich Seidl’s Paradise Trilogy:" Paradise: Love (2012), Thu and Sat, 7:30; Sun, 2.
The 12th San Francisco Documentary Film Festival kicked off last night with a screening of Spark: A Burning Man Story (even if you missed the opening event, you can check out Steven T. Jones’ story about the film and changes underway at the Burning Man organization here). It continues through June 23 at venues in San Francisco (mostly the Roxie), Palo Alto, and Oakland; check out my article on the fest here and DocFest’s official website for a full slate of films and ticket information.
Also in this week’s paper: Dennis Harvey’s round-up of “The Vortex Phenomena,” the SOMA venue‘s monthlong series of conspiracy-theory films of the 1970s (Bermuda Triangle! Fog monsters! Yeti!)
And of course, we got all your first-run intel right here. This week’s feast includes the reteaming of tight bros from way back Owen Wilson and Vince Vaughn, playing Google noobs in The Internship; Joss Whedon’s detour from superheroes to Shakespeare, Much Ado About Nothing; and Wish You Were Here, an Aussie thriller about a vacation gone awry starring a very good (and very freaked-out) Joel Edgerton. Plus more, all after the jump.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LJaeMEHVbYE
The East In Zal Batmanglij and Brit Marling’s powerful second film collaboration (Batmanglij directs, and the pair co-wrote the screenplay, as in 2011’s Sound of My Voice), Marling plays Sarah, an intelligence agent working for a private firm whose client list consists mainly of havoc-wreaking multinationals. Sarah, presented as quietly ambitious and conservative, is tasked by the firm’s director (Patricia Clarkson) with infiltrating the East, an off-the-grid activist collective whose members, including Benji (Alexander Skarsgård), Izzy (Ellen Page), and Doc (Toby Kebbell), bring an eye-for-an-eye sensibility to their YouTube-publicized “jams.” Targeting an oil company responsible for a BP-style catastrophe, they engineer their own spill in the gated-community habitat of the company’s CEO, posting a video that juxtaposes grisly images of oil-coated shorebirds and the unsettling sight of gallons of crude seeping through the air-conditioning vents of a tidy McMansion. A newspaper headline offers a facile framework for understanding their activities, posing the alternatives as “Pranksters or Eco-Terrorists?” But as Sarah examines the gut-wrenching consequences of so-called white-collar crime and immerses herself in the day-to-day practices of the group, drawn in particular to the charismatic Benji, the film raises more complex questions. Much of its rhetorical force flows from Izzy, whom Page invests with a raw, anguished outrage, drawing our sympathies toward the group and its mission of laying bare what should be unbearable. (1:56) (Lynn Rapoport)
Fill the Void Respectfully rendered and beautifully shot in warm hues, Fill the Void admirably fills the absence on many screens of stories from what might be considered a closed world: the Orthodox Hasidic community in Israel, where a complex web of family ties, duty, and obligation entangles pretty, accordion-playing Shira (Hada Yaron). An obedient daughter, she’s about to agree to an arranged marriage to a young suitor when her much-loved sister (Renana Raz) dies in childbirth. When Shira’s mother (Irit Sheleg) learns the widower Yochay (Yiftach Klein) might marry a woman abroad and take her only grandchild far away, she starts to make noises about fixing Shira up with her son-in-law. The journey the two must take, in possibly going from in-laws to newlyweds, is one that’s simultaneously infuriating, understandable, and touching, made all the more intimate given director Rama Burshtein’s preference for searching close-ups. Her affinity for the Orthodox world is obvious with each loving shot, ultimately infusing her debut feature with a beating heart of humanity. (1:30) (Kimberly Chun)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bVIipDZCPCU
The Internship The dirty little secret of the new economy continues to be the gerbil cycle of free/cheap labor labeled “internships” that propels so many companies — be they corporate or indie, digital or print media. But gee, who’s going to see an intern comedy titled The Exploitation, besides me and my local union rep? Instead, spinning off a Vince Vaughn story idea and a co-writing credit, The Internship looks at that now-mandatory time-suck for so many college students through the filter of two older, not-quite-wiser salesmen Billy (Vaughn) and Nick (Owen Wilson) hoping to make that working guy’s quantum leap from watch sales to Google’s Mountain View campus, which director Shawn Levy casts as a bright and shiny workers wonderland with its free spring rolls and lattes, bikes, and napping pods. Departing from reality: the debugging/coding/game-playing/app-making competition that forces Billy and Nick to bond with their team of castoffs (Dylan O’Brien, Tiya Sircar, Tobit Raphael), led by noob manager Lyle (Josh Brener), in order to win a full-time job. Part of the key, naturally, turns out to be a Swingers-like visit to a strip club, to release those deeply repressed nerd sexualities — nothing like a little retrograde sexism to bring a group together. Still, the moment is offset by the generally genial, upbeat attitude brought to The Internship by its lead actors: Nick and Billy may be flubs at physics and clueless when it comes to geek culture, but most working stiffs who have suffered the slings and arrows of layoffs and dream of stable employment can probably get behind the all-American ideals of self-reinvention and optimism about the future peddled in The Internship, which easily slips in alongside The Great Gatsby among this year’s Great Recession narratives. Blink too fast and you might miss the microcameo by Google co-founder Sergey Brin. (1:59) (Kimberly Chun)
The Kings of Summer Ah, the easy-to-pluck, easy-to-love low-hanging fruit of summer — and a coming of age. Who can blame director Jordan Vogt-Roberts and writer Chris Galletta, both TV vets, for thinking that a juicy, molasses-thick application of hee-hee-larious TV comedy actors to a Stand by Me-like boyish bildungsroman could only make matters that much more fun? When it comes to this wannabe-feral Frankenteen love child of Terrence Malick and Parks and Recreation, you certainly don’t want to fault them for original thinking, though you can understand why they keep lurching back to familiar, reliably entertaining turf, especially when it comes in the form of Nick Offerman of the aforementioned P&R, who gets to twist his Victorian doll features into new frustrated shapes alongside real-life spouse Megan Mullally. Joe (Nick Robinson) is tired of his single dad (Offerman) stepping on his emerging game, so he runs off with neurotic wrestling pal Patrick (Gabriel Basso) and stereotypically “weirdo foreign” kid Biaggio (Moises Arias) to a patch of woods. There, from scrap, they build a cool-looking house that resembles a Carmel boho shack and attempt to live off the land, which means mostly buying chicken from a Boston Market across a freeway. Pipes are pummeled, swimming holes are swum, a pathetically wispy mustachio is cultivated — read: real burly stuff, until the rising tide of testosterone threatens to poison the woodland well. Vogt-Roberts certainly captures the humid sensuality and ripe potential of a Midwestern summer — though some of the details, like the supposedly wild rabbit that looks like it came straight from Petco, look a bit canned — and who can gripe when, say, Portlandia’s Kumail Nanjiani materializes to deliver monster wontons? You just accept it, though the effect of bouncing back and forth between the somewhat serious world of young men and the surprisingly playful world of adults, both equally unreal, grows jarring. The Kings of Summer isn’t quite the stuff of genius that marketing would have you believe, but it might give the “weirdo foreign” art house crowd and TV comedy addicts something they can both stand by. (1:33) (Kimberly Chun)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jk5kkLNPg8g
Much Ado About Nothing Joss Whedon (last year’s The Avengers) shifts focus for a minute to stage an adaptation of the Shakespeare comedy, drawing his players from 15 years’ worth of awesome fantasy/horror/sci-fi TV and film projects. When the Spanish prince Don Pedro (Reed Diamond) pays a post-battle visit to the home of Leonato (Clark Gregg) with his officers Claudio (Fran Kranz) and Benedick (Alexis Denisof), Claudio falls for Leonato’s daughter, Hero (Jillian Morgese), while Benedick falls to verbal blows with Hero’s cousin Beatrice (Amy Acker). Preserving the original language of the play while setting his production in the age of the iPhone and the random hookup, Whedon makes clever, inventive use of the juxtaposition, teasing out fresh sources of visual comedy as well as bringing forward the play’s oddities and darker elements. These shadows fall on Beatrice and Benedick, whose sparring — before they succumb to a playfully devious setup at the hands of their friends — has an ugly, resentful heat to it, as well as on Hero and Claudio, whose filmy romance is unsettlingly easy for their enemies, the malevolent Don John (Sean Maher) and his cohorts, to sabotage. Some of Acker and Denisof’s broader clowning doesn’t offer enough comic payoff for the hammy energy expenditure, but Nathan Fillion, heading up local law enforcement as the constable Dogberry, delivers a gleeful depiction of blundering idiocy, and the film as a whole has a warm, approachable humor while lightly exposing “all’s well that ends well”’s wacky, dysfunctional side. (1:49) (Lynn Rapoport)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZUyg78gSZ_A
1 Mile Above When his brother dies suddenly, sheltered Taiwanese student Shuhao takes possession of the older boy’s “riding diaries,” determined to complete his sibling’s dream of biking to the highest point in Tibet. It’d be a perilous journey even for an experienced cyclist — but Shuhao’s got gutsy determination that (almost) makes up for his wobbly wheels. Fortunately, nearly everyone he meets en route to Lhasa is a kind-hearted soul, including a food-obsessed fellow traveler who doles out advice on how to avoid government checkpoints, prevent “crotch trouble” (from all that riding), and woo women, among other topics. (The cruel weather, steep inclines, and hostile wild dogs he faces, however, aren’t as welcoming.) Jiayi Du’s based-on-true-events drama doesn’t innovate much on similar adventure tales — spoiler alert: it’s the journey, not the destination, that counts — but it admirably avoids melodrama for the most part, and the gorgeous location photography is something to behold. (1:29) Metreon. (Cheryl Eddy)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2bVeqhzuSs
The Purge Writer-director James DeMonaco founds his dystopian-near-future tale on the possibly suspect premise that the United States could achieve one percent unemployment, heavily reduced crime rates, and a virtually carb-free society if only it were to sanction an annual night of national mayhem unconstrained by statutory law — up to and including those discouraging the act of homicide. Set in 2022, The Purge visits the household of home security salesman James Sandin (Ethan Hawke), wife Mary (Lena Headey), and their children, Charlie (Max Burkholder) and Zoey (Adelaide Kane), as the annual festivities are about to begin, and the film keeps us trapped in the house with them for the next 12 hours of bloodletting sans emergency services. While they show zero interest in adding to the carnage, James and Mary seem to be largely on board with what a news commentator describes as “a lawful outlet for American rage,” not giving too much credence to detractors’ observations that the purge is a de facto culling of the underclass. Clearly, though, the whole family is about to learn a valuable lesson. It comes when Charlie, in an act of baseline humanity, draws the ire of a gang of purgers running around in bathrobes, prep school jackets, and creepy masks, led by a gleaming-eyed alpha-sociopath whom DeMonaco (whose other screenplay credits include 2005’s Assault on Precinct 13 remake) tasks with wielding the film’s blunt-object message alongside his semi-automatic weaponry. (1:25) Shattuck. (Lynn Rapoport)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JMsH4kLoWCg
Shadow Dancer Watching the emotions flicker across the exquisitely smooth, pale plane of Andrea Riseborough’s face is one of the central pleasures of Shadow Dancer. Likely the surest step Madonna made in making 2011’s W.E. was choosing the actress as her Wallis Simpson — her features fall together with the sweet symmetry of a, well, Madonna, and even when words, or the script, fail her, the play of thoughts and feelings rippling across her brow can fill out a movie’s, or a character’s, failings admirably. The otherwise graceful, good-looking Shadow Dancer fumbles over a few in the course of resurrecting the Troubles tearing apart Belfast in the 1990s. After feeling responsible for the death of a younger brother who got caught in the crossfire, Collette (Riseborough) finds herself a single mom in league with the IRA. Caught after a scuttled bombing, the petite would-be terrorist is turned by Mac (Clive Owen) to become an informant for the MI5, though after getting quickly dragged into an attempted assassination, Collette appears to be way over her head and must be pulled out — something Mac’s boss (Gillian Anderson) won’t allow. Director James Marsh (2008’s Man on Wire) brings a keen attention to the machinations and tested loyalties among both the MI5 and IRA, an interest evident in his Red Riding: In the Year of Our Lord 1980 (2009), and even imbues otherwise blanked-out, non-picturesque sites like hotel suites and gray coastal walks with a stark beauty. Unfortunately the funereal pacing and gaps in plotting, however eased by the focus on Riseborough’s responses, send the mind into the shadows. (1:44) (Kimberly Chun)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0zdQ_UL5vwg
Violet and Daisy The 1990s revival has already infiltrated fashion and music; Violet and Daisy, the directorial debut of Oscar-winning Precious (2009) screenwriter Geoffrey Fletcher, suggests that cinema may be next. Unfortunately, not enough time has passed since the first wave of Pulp Fiction (1994) knockoffs to make the genre feel particularly interesting again. And yet here comes a pair of assassins dressed as nuns, cracking long-winded jokes before unloading on their targets with guns they’ve concealed in pizza boxes … as an AM radio hit (“Angel of the Morning”) swells in the background, and Danny Trejo stops by for a cameo. At least this Tarantino-lite exploration of crime and daddy issues has an appealing cast; besides Trejo, Alexis Bledel (sporting Mia Wallace bangs) and Saoirse Ronan play the jailbait titular killers, and James Gandolfini pops in as a sad-sack who manages to evade their bullets because, like, he’s nice and stuff. Despite their efforts, the over-stylized Violet and Daisy comes off like a plate of leftovers reheated too long after the fact. (1:28) (Cheryl Eddy)
Wish You Were Here One of few bright spots in The Great Gatsby, Joel Edgerton returns in this Aussie import that doesn’t need to set off 3D glitter bombs to win over its audience — that’s the power of a well-acted, well-written thriller. Under the opening credits we witness married Sydney couple Dave and Alice (Edgerton and Felicity Price, who co-wrote the script with her husband, director Kieran Darcy-Smith), along with Alice’s sister Steph (Warm Bodies’ Teresa Palmer) and new beau Jeremy (Antony Starr), having a blast on their Southeast Asian escape: sampling exotic food, dancing all night, spotting an elephant wandering the streets … oh, and guzzling drinks and gobbling drugs. Next scene: Dave and Alice returning home to their two young children, tension in the air, vacation bliss completely erased. It seems Jeremy is missing, somewhere in remote Cambodia — and that’s not the only lingering fallout from this journey gone terribly awry. Flashbacks mix with present-day scenes, including the police inquiry into Jeremy’s disappearance, to flesh out what happened; the end result is a suspenseful, surprising, precisely-assembled tale that only reveals what it needs to as the minutes tick by. (1:33) (Cheryl Eddy)
Not even sure if “amazing” is a strong enough word, but the Castro Theatre is screening a pair of cool-ass movies on 35mm tonight. Frankly, I don’t think you have anything better to do, because there isn’t anything better than a WARREN OATES movie except maybe a WARREN OATES DOUBLE FEATURE.
Kicking things off at 7pm, it’s Sam Peckinpah’s Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (1974). Oates plays a perpetually rumpled bartender whose determination to collect a huge bounty (the prize: see title) leads him into some mighty surreal adventures in Mexico’s sinister outback. Co-stars include Kris Kristofferson (in particularly kreepy mode).
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HPaUPU9xdgM
Next up, at 9:05pm, is the greatest road movie ever made, Monte Hellman’s Two-Lane Blacktop (1971). Oates plays G.T.O., which is what I’ll be naming my hypothetical third child. (My first kid, of course, would be called Warren Oates; the second would be Harry Dean Stanton. Obvi.) The Red Vic (RIP) used to show Two-Lane Blacktop all the time, so head out tonight, first to see a wonderful movie, but also to thank the Castro for filling the two-lane void.
The San Francisco Marathon is a mere 11 days away, but today is National Running Day. So everyone gearing up for 26.2 is now trotting through shorter runs leading up to the big enchilada on June 16. What’s a marathoner in mid-taper (or a couch ‘tater needing motivation) to do? The sport of running, which tends to grab attention only during the Olympics or when there’s a national tragedy or (natural disaster), has garnered a fair amount of cinematic interest over the years; long-distance runners, in particular, give great drama. Double-tie your laces and read on for flicks suitable for watching while you’re foam-rolling and dreaming of medals.
The originalSpirit of the Marathon (2007), a doc centered on the Chicago marathon, has fueled running dreams for years. Now there’s a sequel, focusing on runners prepping for the race in Rome. Spirit of the Marathon II screens June 12 in theaters (purrrfect timing for SF Marathon runners); check out the website for more info.
Who doesn’t admire Steve Prefontaine, the Oregon-bred golden god of running whose tragic early death amplified his mystique to rock-star status? Was a time when Hollywood cared enough to produce two competing biopics. Without Limits (1998) was the better one*; it was directed by Oscar-winning screenwriter Robert Towne, was actually filmed in Eugene, and starred Billy Crudup as the track legend. (*I might be biased since I was an extra in it, being a UO student at the time. Go Ducks!)
Um, duh. Oscar loved this 1981 classic, and the cheesy Vangelis score still resonates.
Another British classic, starring dreamy Tom Courtenay…
But included here mostly so I can also include this:
FILMFirst things first: yeah, you did just attend the 11th San Francisco Documentary Film Festival in November. The schedule shift for the 2013 fest — it’s now sandwiched between the well-established San Francisco International Film Festival (which ended May 9) and Frameline (starts June 20) seasons — is a gamble. Will Bay Area film fans (who probably also attended the DocFest-affiliated SF IndieFest in February) suffer festival fatigue, or will DocFest’s programming (Burning Man! Bettie Page! Pint-sized magicians!) lure ’em in anyway?
Let’s hope it’s the latter, since the 12th annual fest boasts a well-curated mix of films that loosely fall into two categories: those with provocative subject matter and those that are crowd-pleasers, with crossover potential therein. Opening-night selection Spark: A Burning Man Story melds both traits. Suitable for both longtime Burners and folks who don’t know much about that colorful desert carnival — but have marveled at the scope of its cultural influence, for better and worse — this film by locals Steve Brown and Jessie Deeter offers an insider’s look at variously chaotic, despairing, and triumphant preparations for the 2012 festival.
Spark captures Burning Man’s inner-circle organizers amid a tumultuous period, as they confront concerns both practical (including a stressful ticket-sale snafu) and philosophical (why are they selling tickets in the first place?) that have exploded along with the event’s ever-growing popularity. The film doesn’t shy away from showing the less-graceful aspects of this transformation, but at its core it’s a fairly starry-eyed celebration of Burning Man’s allure, depicting the event as a magnet for artists and free spirits — and Spark‘s striking cinematography suggests that Brown, Deeter, and crew also found inspiration there.
“For some people, Burning Man ignites a passion or creativity that might have been buried or beaten out of them through their adult life,” says Brown, a first-time filmmaker with a background in tech start-ups. “That was the theme of the film: what does it look like, maybe for the first time, to act on a dream? It takes a lot of courage and tenacity to make that happen — and inevitably, dreams collide with reality and become difficult and challenging, and you have to make compromises. I saw a lot of stories like that coming out of Burning Man, and it was kind of my story, too.” (For more on Spark, check out Steven T. Jones’ article in this issue of the Bay Guardian.)
Bearing a far less hopeful message is DocFest’s closing-night film, Terms and Conditions May Apply, about internet privacy (or rather, the increasing lack thereof). Director Cullen Hoback turns to animation, talking-head interviews, and pop-culture snippets — like Parks and Recreation‘s lovable lout Ron Swanson learning about “cookies” — to liven up what could’ve been a movie comprised mostly of computer screenshots.
Though a late-act attempt to ambush-interview Mark Zuckerberg feels a little gratuitous, the concerns Hoback raises are completely legit, and backed up with real-life examples; thanks to government initiatives like the Patriot Act and corporate sneakiness (you don’t really read those lengthy “Terms and Conditions” agreements before you click through, do you? Does anyone?), one’s online profile can be laid bare with ease. This explains why those random ads on Amazon seem to know an awful lot about your interests — and, more alarmingly, why a SWAT team paid an urgent visit to a guy whose Fight Club-inspired Facebook status was misinterpreted as a terrorist call to action.
Another film that’ll drive you into your fear-the-future bunker is Vivienne Roumani’s Out of Print, which packs a lot of information into its 55-minute running time. There’s the expected discussion of how self-publishing online has upended the traditional publishing world, but also thoughtful investigations of the importance of libraries, of fair-use access versus copyright laws, and of how reading short snippets online is actually changing the way our brains learn. Chillingly, the film sits down with a group of teenagers repulsed by the idea of library research. Like, who has time to read an entire book on a single subject? “I’d rather just Google it,” one kid shrugs. (That sound you hear is the concept of critical thinking dying a slow, agonizing death.) And it’s not just kids: the film cites a statistic that one out of every four American adults did not read a book in any format in 2012.
Thank goodness for Magic Camp, Judd Ehrlich’s gentle study of a summer camp for proudly nerdy budding magicians. “I like the elegance of magic,” one tween rhapsodizes, and it’s heartwarming to see attitudes like that embraced, even if some of the counselors deploy tough-love to help their charges improve. All of the campers Ehrlich profiles face obstacles in their normal lives (Tourette’s syndrome, dyslexia, parents struggling with long-term unemployment), and the kids clearly view their week-long escape as more than just a chance to refine their card tricks. For some of them, it’s their only crack at a safe space where uniqueness is not just encouraged, but actually celebrated.
Similar uplift — but with much darker undertones — comes courtesy of Running for Jim, about cross-country coach Jim Tracy, who’s led the girls’ team at San Francisco’s University High to multiple state championships. KGO-TV’s Dan Noyes co-directs this profile of a respected (if cantankerous) leader who lives in his car on occasion (a stark contrast, one suspects, to the home lives of the student athletes who attend the private school). When Tracy, a lifelong runner himself, develops Lou Gehrig’s disease, the kids rally to support him — and his sarcastic sense of humor remains intact, even as his body falters. Another local film about courage in the face of a devastating illness can be found in The Sum Total of Our Memory, Barbara Klutinis’ sensitive, surprisingly optimistic look at married couples grappling with Alzheimer’s disease. The 30-minute film, which draws on both interviews and experimental-film techniques, is a high point in the festival’s shorts program devoted to Bay Area filmmakers.
One of the hotter DocFest tickets is sure to be Mark Mori’s affectionate Bettie Page Reveals All, narrated in the form of a rambling, chuckle-punctuated interview with the late pin-up icon herself. (We never actually see her except in archival film and images.) Even die-hards who already know the story behind the legend — a rough childhood, several unsuccessful marriages, mental-health issues — will likely learn some new tidbits. (A friend recalls watching 2005’s unauthorized biopic The Notorious Bettie Page with its subject, who hollered her opinion — “Lies! Lies!” — throughout.) Associates like Hugh Hefner and Dita Von Teese drop by to praise Page’s talents and legacy, but there’s no greater proof of lasting glamour than Page’s famous photographs, which she clearly loved posing for, and never regretted, even after embracing Christianity later in life.
Elsewhere in the fest, animal lovers should take note of Life with Alex, Emily Wiok’s profile of “real-life Dr. Doolittle” Irene Pepperberg, a scientist who spent decades working with an African Gray Parrot named Alex — who, despite his “walnut-sized brain,” developed a large vocabulary and the ability to identify certain colors and shapes. To its credit, the film also includes points of view that are skeptical of Dr. Pepperberg’s research (see: “Clever Hans”), though its cloying piano score grates long before the hour-long film reaches its conclusion.
Also worth mentioning, and filed under “straight from Sundance,” are Mike Lerner and Maxim Pozdorovkin’s Pussy Riot: A Punk Prayer, about the young, outspoken, and unfairly imprisoned Russian feminists; and Nick Ryan’s The Summit, set atop the world’s second-highest peak. The latter uses riveting re-enactments (à la 2003’s Touching the Void) and eyewitness interviews to piece together a disastrous chain of events that ended in 11 deaths in a 48-hour period — setting a grim new record for the sport of mountaineering. *
Schedules are for Wed/5-Tue/11 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features marked with a •. All times pm unless otherwise specified.
ARTISTS’ TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $5-10. "OpenScreening," Thu, 8. For participation info, contact programming@atasite.org. "Bollywood Trannies: Queering Desi Cinema," short films, Sat, 7.
CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $8.50-13. •Elmer Gantry (Brooks, 1960), Wed, 2:30, 7, and Atlantic City (Malle, 1980), Wed, 4:55, 9:30. •Bring Me the Head of Alfredo Garcia (Peckinpach, 1974), Thu, 7, and Two-Lane Blacktop (Hellman, 1971), Thu, 9:05. "Midnites for Maniacs: Johnny Depp’s 50th Birthday Triple Feature:" •Benny and Joon (Chechik, 1993), Fri, 7; What’s Eating Gilbert Grape (Hallström, 1993), Fri, 9:30, and Cry Baby (Waters, 1990), Fri, 11:59. One or all three films, $13. •Romeo + Juliet (Luhrmann, 1996), Sat, 2:45, 7, and Strictly Ballroom (Luhrmann, 1992), Sat, 1, 5:05, 9:20. •Journey to Italy (Rossellini, 1954), Sun, 3:05, 7, and Stromboli (Rossellini, 1949), Sun, 1, 4:50, 8:40. "Inforum presents: An Evening Affair with Dan Savage and Daniel Handler," Tue, 7. For tickets ($15-80) and info, visit dansavage.eventbrite.com.
CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.75-$10.25. Elemental (Roshan and Vaughan-Lee, 2012), call for dates and times. Frances Ha (Baumbach, 2012), call for dates and times. Midnight’s Children (Mehta, 2012), call for dates and times. Renoir (Bourdos, 2012), call for dates and times. Stories We Tell (Polley, 2012), call for dates and times. China Blue (Peled, 2005), Wed, 7. Fill the Void (Burshtein, 2012), June 7-13, call for times. Rebels With a Cause (Kelly, 2012), June 7-13, call for times. Store Wars: When Wal-Mart Comes to Town (Peled, 2001), Sun, 4. Bitter Seeds (Peled, 2011), Sun, 7.
CINEMARK CENTURY 14 1201 Locust, Walnut Creek; www.wcsff.com. $12-25. "Walnut Creek International Short Film Festival," Fri-Sun.
"FILM NIGHT IN THE PARK" This week: Contratti Park, Central Field, Fairfax; www.filmnight.org. Free (donations appreciated). Chasing Ice (Orlowski, 2012), Fri, 8.
MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; (415) 393-0100, milibrary.org/events. $10 (reservations required as seating is limited). "CinemaLit Film Series: On the Road:" Paper Moon (Bogdanovich, 1973), Fri, 6.
NEW PARKWAY 474 24th St, Oakl; www.thenewparkway.com. $6-10. "New Parkway Family Classics:" Ghostbusters (Reitman, 1984), Fri, 4; Sat, 12:30. "Thrillville:" Queen of Outer Space (Bernds, 1958), Sun, 6.
PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. PFA closed through June 12.
ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $6.50-11. Rebels With a Cause (Kelly, 2012), Wed-Thu, 7, 9. In the House (Ozon, 2012), Thu, 9:15. "Not Just a Day Job: Shorts Program," Wed, 7. "The Trash Treasures of Jon Moritsugu:" Pig Death Machine (2013), Wed, 9:30. DocFest: 12th SF Documentary Film Festival, June 6-20. For complete schedule and ticket info, visit www.sfindie.com.
SAN FRANCISCO STATE UNIVERSITY Coppola Theater, 1600 Holloway, SF; (415) 338-2467, creativestate.sfsu.edu. $12. "Legacy Film Festival on Aging," films about older adulthood, Fri, 5:30; Sat-Sun, 10:30am-5:30pm.
VORTEX ROOM 1082 Howard, SF; Facebook: The Vortex Room. $10. "The Vortex Phenomena:" •Eyes Behind the Stars (Gariazzo, 1978), Thu, 9, and The Kirlian Witness (Sarno, 1979), Thu, 11.
YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. $8-10. "New Filipino Cinema:" Himala (Bernal, 1982), Wed, 7:30; The Reckoning (Mangansakan II, 2012), Thu, 5:30; Harana (Bautista, 2012), Thu, 7:30; Tondo, Beloved: To What Are the Poor Born? (Maranan, 2012), Fri, 7; Colossal (Alcazaren, 2012), Fri, 5:30; Aparisyon (Sandoval, 2012), Fri, 7:30; Big Boy (Seno, 2012), Sat, 2; Diablo (de Guzman, 2012), Sat, 4; Why Isn’t There (Jamora, 2012), Sat, 7:30; Tiktik: The Aswang Chronicles (Matti, 2012), Sat, 10; "Four Filipina Shorts," Sun, 1; "Panel Discussion: What is New Filipino Cinema?", Sun, 3 (free admission); Kalayaan (Alix, 2012), Sun, 4:30; The Journey of Stars into the Dark Night (Mardoquio, 2012), Sun, 7.
After Earth In around a century, we’ll board penitentiary-style ships and evacuate Earth for a sexier planet. Let’s call it a middle-aged migration — we all saw this coming. It’ll be dour, and we’ll feel temporary guilt for all the trees we leveled, bombs we dropped, and oil refineries we taped for 1960s industrial films. Like any body post-divorce, our planet will develop defenses against its ex — us humans — so when Will Smith and son Jaden crash land on the crater it’s toxic to them, full of glorious beasts and free as the Amazon (because it was partly filmed there). Critically wounded General Raige (Will) has to direct physically incredible Kitai (Jaden) through the future’s most dangerous Ironman triathalon. It’s more than a Hollywood king guiding his prince through a life-or-death career obstacle course, it’s a too-aggressive metaphor for adolescence — something real-world Jaden may forfeit to work with dad. Call that the tragedy beneath After Earth: it makes you wonder why the family didn’t make a movie more like 1994’s The Lion King — they had to know that was an option. Director M. Night Shyamalan again courts the Last Airbender (2010) crowd with crazy CG fights and affecting father-son dynamics, but for once, Shyamalan is basically a hired gun here. The story comes straight from Papa Smith, and one gets the feeling the movie exists primarily to elevate Jaden’s rising star. (1:40) (Sara Maria Vizcarrondo)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MHDYZJWLXA
Now You See Me Magicians rob banks in this ensemble caper starring Jesse Eisenberg, Mark Ruffalo, Morgan Freeman, and Woody Harrelson. (1:56)
Rebels with a Cause The huge string of parklands that have made Marin County a jewel of preserved California coastline might easily have become wall-to-wall development — just like the Peninsula — if not for the stubborn conservationists whose efforts are profiled in Nancy Kelly’s documentary. From Congressman Clem Miller — who died in a plane crash just after his Point Reyes National Seashore bill became a reality — to housewife Amy Meyer, who began championing the Golden Gate National Recreation Area because she “needed a project” to keep busy once her kids entered school, they’re testaments to the ability of citizen activism to arrest the seemingly unstoppable forces of money, power and political influence. Theirs is a hidden history of the Bay Area, and of what didn’t come to pass — numerous marinas, subdivisions, and other developments that would have made San Francisco and its surrounds into another Los Angeles. (1:12) Roxie. (Dennis Harvey)
Venus and Serena How do you compress the remarkable life and stunning career of one Williams sister into a doc that’s a shade over 90 minutes, much less fit both of their stories in there? Venus and Serena can’t do much more than offer an overview of the sports phenoms, shadowing both during what proved to be an unfortunately injury-plagued 2011 season. It also flashes back to chart the sisters’ rise from Compton-raised prodigies to Grand Slam-dominating forces of nature, and features glamorously-lit interviews with the women, a handful of their relatives, and famous admirers (with Anna Wintour stopping by to purr that they are “fashion gladiators and tennis gladiators”). Though directors Maiken Baird and Michelle Major don’t leave out the more controversial bits — the sisters’ feelings about their domineering father (their former coach); their on-court tantrums; their frank talk about religion, race, dealing with stress, etc. — the straightforward Venus and Serena lacks any stylistic flair, a shame considering how important style is to the sisters. It does offer a few unexpected off-the-cuff moments, however, as when a karaoke-obsessed Serena launches into “Hole Hearted,” by 1990s hair rockers Extreme, after a disappointing day at Wimbledon. (1:39) (Cheryl Eddy)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SdezJrNaL70
We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks Call it the unenviable yet altogether fascinating task of the smartest moviemaker in the room: capturing the evasive, mercurial and fallible free-speech crusader Julian Assange and his younger church-going, trans-curious cohort Bradley Manning, all sans interviews with the paranoid former who’s in hiding and the guileless latter who was incarcerated without charges for a year by the military. Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room (2005) documentary maker Alex Gibney seems to be just the guy to take on this project, pulling back the curtain on the transparency-first site, navigating the labyrinthine contradictions of a classic Internet-age antihero, and telling the previously untold story of the young man who tied himself to WikiLeaks’s, and Assange’s, fortunes. It starts out innocently (or not) enough, with Assange and his minuscule band of volunteers uploading and unleashing the still-shocking video footage of a Reuters news crew and their rescuers, mistaken for insurgents, being mowed down in a hailstorm of friendly fire by US forces in Iraq.
Assange’s notoriety and undoing comes with the arrival of a mass of easily shared government intelligence uploaded then passed along to him by computer wiz Private Manning in the biggest leak of state secrets in US history; the lonely analyst’s unexpected friendship with Sacramento hacker Adrian Lamo, who ultimately turns him in; and the rape charges that finally ensnare Assange in a web of lies, ironically, of his own making. Seemingly on the side of Assange, Net anarchists, and the free flow of information at the start of the saga, Gibney uses extensive interviews with (Bush-era) intelligence experts, Lamo, an Assange sexual-assault accuser, WikiLeaks supporters, and reporters; animation; and footage culled from journalists and likely anyone with a cellphone camera in shooting distance of Assange to tell this riveting story of good intentions and ego run amok, sidestepping the WikiLeaks poobah’s approval in a comprehensive, impassioned warts-and-all way that he even might appreciate. (2:10) (Kimberly Chun)
Schedules are for Wed/29-Tue/4 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features marked with a •. All times pm unless otherwise specified.
CASTRO 429 Castro, SF; (415) 621-6120, www.castrotheatre.com. $8.50-13. •Spring Breakers (Korine, 2012), Wed, 7, and Enter the Void (Noé, 2009), Wed, 8:45. "Inforum Presents: A #Nofilter Conversation with the Founders of Instagram," Thu, 7. This event, $15-65; advance tickets at instagraminforum.eventbrite.com. "Agents of Chaos," "unauthorized" book release event for Tales of the San Francisco Cacophony Society, Fri, 7:30. This event, $20-50; advance tickets at agentsofchaos.eventbrite.com. Grease (Kleiser, 1978), presented sing-along style, Sun-Mon, 2:30, 8. This event, $10-15; advance tickets at www.ticketweb.com.
CHRISTOPHER B. SMITH RAFAEL FILM CENTER 1118 Fourth St, San Rafael; (415) 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $6.75-$10.25. Frances Ha (Baumbach, 2012), call for dates and times. In the House (Ozon, 2012), call for dates and times. Midnight’s Children (Mehta, 2012), call for dates and times. Renoir (Bourdos, 2012), call for dates and times. Stories We Tell (Polley, 2012), call for dates and times. Elemental (Roshan and Vaughan-Lee, 2012), May 31-June 6, call for times. Bitter Seeds (Peled, 2011), Sun and June 9, 7.
DELANCEY STREET SCREENING ROOM 600 Embarcadero, SF; www.everydaygandhis.org. Free (reserve a ticket by emailing amy@everydaygandhis.org). The Fight to Forgive: From Child Soldiers to Peacebuilders (Travis, 2013), Fri, 9. With film subject and former child soldier Lassana Kanneh in person.
GOFORALOOP GALLERY AND STUDIOS 1458 San Bruno, SF; www.goforaloop.com. Donations welcome. "The Long and the Short of It:" Hard Eight (Anderson, 1996), plus shorts by local filmmakers, Thu, 7:30.
MECHANICS’ INSTITUTE 57 Post, SF; (415) 393-0100, milibrary.org/events. $10 (reservations required as seating is limited). "CinemaLit Film Series: Paddy Chayefsky: Scenes from American Lives:" The Hospital (Hiller, 1971), Fri, 6.
NEW PARKWAY 474 24th St, Oakl; www.thenewparkway.com. $6-10. "New Parkway Classics:" Pink Flamingos (Waters, 1972), Thu, 9. "Thrillville:" The Sadist (Landis, 1963), Sun, 6.
NEW VALENCIA HALL 747 Polk, SF; (415) 864-1278. $5-10 (dinner at 6:30pm, $8 donation). GOFORALOOP GALLERY AND STUDIOS 1458 San Bruno, SF; www.goforaloop.com. Donations welcome. "The Long and the Short of It:" The Sugarland Express (Spielberg, 1974), plus shorts by local filmmakers, Thu, 7:30. Harvest of Empire: The Untold Story of Latinos in America (González, 2012), Sat, 7:30.
PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE 2575 Bancroft, Berk; (510) 642-5249, bampfa.berkeley.edu. $5.50-9.50. PFA closed through June 5.
ROXIE 3117 and 3125 16th St, SF; (415) 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $6.50-11. In the House (Ozon, 2012), Wed-Thu, 9:15. Something in the Air (Assayas, 2012), Wed-Thu, 6:45. Trance (Boyle, 2013), Wed-Thu, 7. Upstream Color (Carruth, 2013), Wed-Thu, 9. Rebels With a Cause (Kelly, 2012), May 31-June 6, call for times.
"SAN FRANCISCO GREEN FILM FESTIVAL" Various venues, SF and Berk; www.sfgreenfilmfest.org. $12 per film (passes, $100-200). Over 20 international, environmentally-focused feature films, May 30-June 5.
YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS 701 Mission, SF; www.ybca.org. $8-10. Post Tenebras Lux (Reygadas, 2012), Thu-Sat, 7:30; Sun, 2 and 4:30.
FILM From the wonderfully cracked mind of British director Ben Wheatley — whose 2011 Kill List infused the played-out hitman genre with gory verve and folkloric terrors — comes, at last, Sightseers. If you missed it earlier this year at SF IndieFest, here’s your chance to experience Wheatley’s latest mash-up, a black-comedy road movie that follows a pair of infatuated misfits as they visit some of England’s more prosaic tourist attractions. Long before they reach the Keswick Pencil Museum, however, it becomes clear that one of them is a serial killer.
But it doesn’t take frenzied bloodshed to indicate that something’s a little off with both Tina (Alice Lowe) and Chris (Steve Oram; both actors co-wrote with Amy Jump, Wheatley’s wife and frequent collaborator). Tina’s a sheltered, frumpy 34-year-old who still lives at home with her controlling mother (Eileen Davies); their relationship revolves around baby talk and emotional manipulation, as well as a shared sense of grief over losing their much-worshipped dog, Poppy, in a freak knitting-needle accident.
Bitter Mum blames Tina, a compulsive knitter, for Poppy’s demise. “Murderer!” she hisses, as Chris whisks a giddy Tina away (“Show me your world, Chris!”) with his beloved Abbey Oxford Caravan in tow, the upbeat-tempo-meets-cautionary-lyrics of “Tainted Love” blasting on the soundtrack. After these bits of foreshadowing, it’s not a complete surprise when Chris reacts oddly to a man who carelessly discards an ice-cream wrapper amid the sacred environs of Crich Tramway Village. The first death is perceived as accidental, by Tina, the police, the victim’s family — but we saw Chris peep the offender in his rearview mirror before mowing him down, and we also saw the delighted smile creep across his face in the chaotic aftermath.
As Tina and Chris’ holiday continues, their relationship settles into a comfortable groove: Chris calls the shots, while Tina — delighted to be dubbed the budding author’s “muse” — follows his lead, spending her downtime decking out the trailer with tacky tchotchkes. The litterbug’s death fades quickly, but it’s not long before things get weird again, when the couple encounters two smugsters who are more or less upgraded versions of themselves: more attractive, more tasteful, more successful, and possessed of both a nicer trailer and a dog who’s a dead ringer for Poppy. Once again, the molecules in the crisp English-countryside air rearrange themselves, and the façade of a peaceful vaycay crumbles. The tone shift is heralded by a slo-mo montage set to Vanilla Fudge’s “Season of the Witch,” a cover so acid-soaked it makes an already-spooky song even more appropriately nightmarish.
Thus zooms forth Sightseers, with two protagonists so snapped from reality that happy, goofy moments continue to shine through the darkness. Though Tina disapproves of Chris’ habits (or does she?), her main concern is making sure the trip continues apace — and that Chris continues to treat her like a muse, even if she’s serving as muse for a creative endeavor that hardly resembles writing a book. The film’s most literary moment comes when a booming voice-over, not heard before or after, chimes in to narrate a key moment with William Blake’s “Jerusalem” (cutting off right after the word “Satanic”).
Not immediately familiar with that poem? Well, the musical version of “Jerusalem” is so popular in Britain that it was incorporated into the opening ceremonies at the 2012 London Olympics. If there’s a downside to Sightseers, it’s that some of its Brit-specific quirks might be lost on American viewers. It’s funny enough even if you don’t have an ear for regional accents (or the ability to sort out the posh ones), an appreciation for Daily Mail jokes, or the slightest knowledge of caravan culture. But the humor in Sightseers, probably more than Kill List and definitely more than exec producer Edgar Wright’s Shaun of the Dead (2004), is aimed more at the hometown crowd.
Still, any Yank with a wicked streak will appreciate Sightseers‘ deliciously deviant, decidedly deadpan point of view, and its take on class wars is obvious enough to translate into haughty vs. tacky. If the pairing of Tina and Chris is a disaster waiting to happen, Lowe and Oram — both British TV stars who developed their characters over a period of years — create comedy gold, with some of the more luridly awkward sex scenes in recent memory. Though Oram got the funniest of Sightseers‘ four promotional posters (tag line: “Death has a ginger beard”) Lowe, in particular, makes the most of Tina’s little-girl-lost shtick, eager to please her man but most certainly not to be fucked with.
This week’s must-see is Noah Baumbach and Greta Gerwig’s very cute, very charming, very French New Wave-y but also-kinda-Girls-y Frances Ha; check out my interview with N + G 4-eva here.
Elemental Even those suffering from environmental-doc fatigue (a very real condition, particularly in the eco-obsessed Bay Area) will find much to praise about Elemental, co-directed by Gayatri Roshan and NorCal native Emmanuel Vaughan-Lee (who also co-composed the film’s score). This elegantly shot and edited film approaches the issues via three “eco-warriors,” who despite working on different causes on various corners of the planet encounter similar roadblocks, and display like-minded determination, along the way: Rajendra Singh, on a mission to heal India’s heavily polluted Ganges River; Jay Harman, whose ingenious inventions are based on “nature’s blueprints”; and Eriel Deranger, who fights for her indigenous Canadian community in the face of Big Oil. Deranger cuts a particularly inspiring figure: a young, tattooed mother who juggles protests, her moody tween (while prepping for a new baby), and the more bureaucratic aspects of being a professional activist — from defending her grassroots methods when questioned by her skeptical employer, to deflecting a drunk, patronizing Robert F. Kennedy Jr. at a big-ticket fundraiser — with a calm, steely sense of purpose. (1:33) (Cheryl Eddy)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=9tD5itOMWqg
EpicAnimated fantasy about a teenager who finds herself drawn into a conflict between warring forest creatures. Features the voices of Amanda Seyfried, Colin Farrell, Beyoncé, and Christoph Waltz. (1:42)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PP7pH4pqC5A
Fast and Furious 6 Forget the “fast” (that’s understood by now, anyway) — part six in this popcorny series is heavy on the “furious,” with constant near-death stunts that zoom past irrational and slam into batshit crazy. Agent Hobbs (Dwayne Johnson) lures the gang out of sunny retirement to bust a fast driver with a knack for strategy and an eye on world domination. Sure, Ludacris jokes their London locale doesn’t mean they’re in a Bond movie, but give cold-blooded Luke Evans some time and he’ll work his way up to antagonizing 007. Shaw (Evans) is smaller than our hero Toretto (Vin Diesel), but he’s convincing, throwing his King’s English at a man whose murky dialect is always delivered with a devilish baritone. If Shaw’s code is all business, Toretto’s is all family: that’s what holds together this cast, cobbled from five Fast and Furious installments shot all over the world. Hottie Gal Gadot (playing Sung Kang’s love interest) reassures Han (Kang) mid-crisis: “This is what we are.” It’s not for nothing the gang’s main weapon is a harpoon gun that, once shot, leaves an umbilicus from the shooter to whatever’s in the crosshairs. That’s Torreto for you. Meanwhile, the villain’s weapon is a car with a spatula-like front end, that flips cars like pancakes. The climactic battle on a cargo plane has to give a face time to every member of the eight-person team, so naturally they shot it on the world’s longest runway. Of course the parade features less car porn than previous editions but it’s got a wider reach now — it’s officially international intrigue, not just fun for gearheads. For my money, it’s some of the best action in theaters today. Stick around for the inevitable sequel-suggesting coda during the credits. (2:10) (Sara Maria Vizcarrondo)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=96TelFMZwHc
The Hangover Part IIIEven the friendliest little blackout bacchanal can get tiresome the third time around. The poster depicting Bradley Cooper, Ed Helms, and Zach Galifianakis — stern in suits and ties — says it all: it’s grim men’s business, the care and maintenance of this Hangover franchise, this orgy of good times gone bad. Once a bad-taste love letter to male-bonding, Hangover Part III is ready for a chance, primed to sever some of those misbegotten ties. This time around, the unlikely troika — with the always dispensable normal-dude figurehead Doug (Justin Bartha) in tow — are captured by random sketchy figure Marshall (John Goodman, whose every utterance of the offensive “Chinaman” should bring back Big Lebowski warm-and-fuzzies). He holds Doug hostage in exchange for the amoral, cockfighting, coke-wallowing, whore-hiring, leather-wearing Leslie Chow (Ken Jeong), who stole his gold, and it turns out Alan (Galifianakis) might be his only chum. Jeong, who continues to bring the hammy glee, is still the best thing here, even as the conscience-free instigator; he’s the dark counterpart to tweaked man-child Alan, who meets cute with mean-ass pawn-star soulmate Cassie (Melissa McCarthy). Meanwhile, Cooper and Helms look on, puzzled, no doubt pondering the prestige projects on their plate and wondering what they’re still doing here. (1:40) (Kimberly Chun)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=s5Vtk9jhfmw
The Painting Veteran animator Jean-François Laguionie’s French-Belgian feature is a charming and imaginative fable whose characters live in the worlds of an elusive artist’s canvases. It begins in one particular picture, a fanciful landscape in which society is strictly stratified in terms of how “finished” the figures in it are. At the top of the heap are the Alldunns, elitist castle-dwelling snobs who look down on the semi-completed Halfies. Everybody shuns the Sketchies, pencil preliminaries come to life. When members of each group get chased into the Forbidden Forest, they discover they can actually exit the frame entirely and visit other paintings in the artist’s studio. As a parable of prejudice and tolerance it’s not exactly sophisticated, and the story doesn’t quite sustain its early momentum. But it’s a visual treat throughout, nodding to various early 20th-century modern art styles and incorporating some different animation techniques (plus, briefly, live action). Note: the last screenings of each day will be in the film’s original French language, with English subtitles; all others offer the English-dubbed version. (1:18) (Dennis Harvey)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3zLTWIXj_QA
A Wedding InvitationAlready a hit in China, this romantic drama directed by Korea’s Oh Ki-hwan follows a young couple (Eddie Peng, Bai Baihe) as they break up to pursue careers in Beijing and Shanghai, making a pact that they’ll reunite in five years if they’re both still single. (1:45)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UrGzb1nBBl4
What Maisie Knew In Scott McGehee and David Siegel’s adaptation of the 1897 Henry James novel, the story of a little girl caught between warring, self-involved parents is transported forward to modern-day New York City, with Julianne Moore and Steve Coogan as the ill-suited pair responsible, in theory, for the care and upbringing of the title character, played by Onata Aprile. Moore’s Susanna is a rock singer making a slow, halting descent from some apex of stardom, as we gather from the snide comments of her partner in dysfunctionality, Beale (Coogan). As their relationship implodes and they move on to custody battle tactics, each takes on a new, inappropriate companion — Beale marrying in haste Maisie’s pretty young nanny, Margo (Joanna Vanderham), and Susanna just as precipitously latching on to a handsome bartender named Lincoln (True Blood’s Alexander Skarsgård). The film mostly tracks the chaotic action — Susanna’s strung-out tantrums, both parents’ impulsive entrances and exits, Margo and Lincoln’s ambivalent acceptance of responsibility — from Maisie’s silent vantage, as details large and small convey, at least to us, the deficits of her caretakers, who shield her from none of the emotional shrapnel flying through the air and rarely bother to present an appropriate, comprehensible explanation. Yet Maisie understands plenty — though longtime writing-and-directing team McGehee and Siegel (2001’s The Deep End, 2005’s Bee Season, 2008’s Uncertainty) have taken pains in their script and their casting to present Maisie as a lovely, watchful child, not the precocious creep often favored in the picture shows. So we watch too, with a grinding anxiety, as she’s passed from hand to hand, forced to draw her own unvoiced conclusions. (1:38) (Lynn Rapoport)
