"New Moon" sags and lags just like the first film, suffering from a senselessly overinflated running time, some oddball CGI special effects and uneven acting.

You know a film is in trouble when you and the people around you in the theater start looking at their watches halfway through the movie.

SHOULD THE WORLD kick it come 2012, let's hope it goes out in the crazy, grandiose fashion director Roland Emmerich imagines.

Disney's excessively hyped "A Christmas Carol" brings Dickensian details to such sumptuous life that you mostly forgive it for possessing a stop-motion soul.

Disney's excessively hyped "A Christmas Carol" brings Dickensian details to such sumptuous life that you mostly forgive it for possessing a stop-motion soul.

Every superhero has issues.

Batman clings to the murder of his parents. Superman is left flabbergasted by flighty Lois. The Hulk desperately needs a Dr. Phil intervention.

Yet the characters in the long-anticipated "Watchmen" film adaptation lug around damaged psyches not traditionally found lurking beneath superhero capes.

Once-studly Nite Owl (Patrick Wilson) struggles to get out of neutral in the bedroom. Pessimistic Rorschach (Jackie Earle Haley) is hellbent on eradicating child predators. The blue and quite nude Dr. Manhattan (Billy Crudup) discovers it's not easy playing God, especially when pesky reporters start digging into your past.

Sprung from the fertile imagination of Neil Gaiman, the king of hip fantasy and graphic lit, "Coraline" captivates with its rich Gothic atmosphere, eccentric characters and Alice in Wonderland storytelling roots.

Sprung from the fertile imagination of Neil Gaiman, the king of hip fantasy and graphic lit, "Coraline" captivates with its rich Gothic atmosphere, eccentric characters and Alice in Wonderland storytelling roots.

As we stepped into the foyer/bar of Papillon, I wondered how we had gone 31 years without reviewing this fine-dining French restaurant in the Niles area of Fremont.

Literally translated as "butterfly," Papillon had an instant appeal as a unique fine-dining restaurant: not too stuffy or pretentious yet still featuring white tablecloths and a tuxedo-clad wait staff.

Some of the sheen would fade upon closer inspection and a two-hour dining experience, but the food largely would make up for any shortcomings.

Sideboard doesn't fit neatly into the dining-experience package, but the moment you sample the food and specialty drinks, you're grateful owners Ford and Erin Andrews decided to gamble on different.

"Twilight," aka "I kissed an Abercrombie & Fitch bloodsucker and I liked it," should be slapped with a special parental warning: Drop the kid off at the cineplex, then flee like a vampire dreading daylight.

Should you stay with your tween for the laborious adaptation of Stephenie Meyer's best-selling novel, find comfort in the fact that you won't be suffering alone or in silence. Just be prepared to squirm at the overinflated running time (2 hours!), to jump in your seat at ear-piercing squeals whenever a pretty boy appears, and to giggle at the surround-sound sighs when the love-bitten Bella (Kristen Stewart) and the love-biter Edward (Robert Pattinson) first smooch.

t's one of those restaurants you could pass a million times and never know was there. 900 Grayson has been on Grayson and 7th Street in West Berkeley for two years, but the spot is a busy corridor that feeds onto Ashby Avenue near the entrance to I-80, and most traffic speeds right by.

But pull over your car and enter the little red building, and you'll discover an oasis of scrumptious breakfast and lunch fare. Currently, the restaurant is only open during the day and it's closed Sundays, but its owners, brothers Anthony and Chris Saulnier and Joshua Pearl, recently secured permission from the city to be open at night. They plan to begin offering dinner in 2009.

The well-appointed interior and excellent service almost made up for the run-down strip mall location of Mario's Steak & Chop House. Then the pricey entrees reminded us that sometimes first impressions are telling.

Almost 20 years later, the fictitious Miss Pearl has reemerged a little older and wiser. Like many restaurateurs, she's moved across the Bay, bringing her whimsical wares to Oakland's Jack London Square. Altman has returned as consulting chef, working with executive chef Robert Barker to create a New World/Caribbean menu with smatterings of Asian Rim, Creole and Cajun influences.

What owner Deepak Aggarwal has done with Mint Leaf is create an Indian restaurant with a stylish atmos

Cafe Esin, the family-run eatery with the tasty American-Mediterranean cuisine, decadent house-made desserts, and charming, if funky, location in a San Ramon strip mall has gone big-time

Corso, which means boulevard in Italian, has just arrived on Berkeley's main thoroughfare. There, you can experience all the excitement of a true Florentine trattoria. Ingredients you've eaten all your life taste entirely different, foods are regrouped and served in several courses (gone is the large entree), and inevitably you form a few taste memories, whether it be of the simple salty char of grilled fish or the complex, rich tones of a slow-cooked meat sugo.

Kinder's is one of very few places that offer ball tip, a finer grained neighbor of tri tip. When I Googled the ball tip sandwich, nearly all of the entries belonged to this small Bay Area chain

The restaurant design is the first hint that this is not generic Tex-Mex grub. Beyond a few cacti and cubicles of tequila, there's nothing that screams "ole." The dining room is bright and breezy, with big windows framing Mount Diablo.

The menu was both impressive and daunting. In addition to its vast pizza options, Melo's offers 29 pasta choices, including six signature dishes. No wonder this place boasts so many repeat customers; folks have to come back to try that "other" entree.

A green parakeet clutching a bottle of Corona greets you upon entering the strategically placed Tiki Tom's, a sports-bar-meets-family-restaurant that turns into a steamy dance party one night a week.

But more on that later. What's important to note early on in a discussion about the Walnut Creek watering hole is its location. Across the street from Free People, Urban Outfitters and Diva, a boutique where flip-flops can run you $200, the spot is a dangerous one for people who have a weakness for high-end shopping. Whether you blow the $200 before or after you drink is up to you.

Inside, bamboo walls and four bamboo pillars provide most of the tiki in Tiki Tom's. Tribal masks are scattered here and there, and a full menu offers a broad range of island-themed cuisine, from ahi poke to coconut prawns. Julie and I ordered the latter around 7 on a recent Thursday night. We took a seat at one of more than a dozen small tables for two and began studying the drink menu.

Qin's (pronounced Chin's) is the anchor of Antioch's Lone Tree Landing shopping center. With its neighbors peddling manicures, pretzels and check-cashing services, Qin's low-profile exterior belies the polished, city-esque setting inside.

Lately, restaurants such as Bronze Buddha Thai Fusion in Concord have gone upscale, borrowing creative concepts from California cuisine and adding a few dollars to the check. The problem — as with California cuisine's early days — is that pretty presentations won't, by themselves, equal delicious dining.

I stumbled onto something fabulous last weekend. First of all, I was in Old Oakland, the hub of fabulous. For those who haven't discovered its hip charms, Washington Street is covered in niche pubs and tapas restaurants. You can do brunch, buy a pair of designer jeans and cool off with a Belgian beer without leaving the block.

Recently, one of those acclaimed brunch spots, the Latin-inspired Cock-A-Doodle Cafe, decided to reopen its doors on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights through September. Chef-owner Blanca Arechiga figures the same customers who flock to the bright, art-filled eatery for her Ceviche Benedict or Oaxacan Slow-Roasted Pork Omelette will come back for inspired mojitos, Latin music and tapas under the stars.

She's right. Vicki, Joel and I stopped in on our way to a late movie screening and Cock-A-Doodle hit the spot in so many ways. First, the restaurant reminded us that it is summer. A wire rooster holding a pot of yellow flowers greets us upon arrival. Inside the high-ceilinged Victorian, bright colors abound. In the back, the heated garden patio is alive with salsa grooves. Bartender Jorge Colunga mans his mojito hut, which is trimmed with small colorful lanterns and topped with exotic mixers.

The appeal of this East Bay restaurant is that it almost always gets the basics right. More than a decade in, Kevin Weinberg has a space roomy enough to contain his oversized talent.

Since budget getaways are this summer's hot concept, I visited Garre Cafe, an unassuming restaurant (with outdoor patio) in Livermore. Polished Yountville dining it ain't, but Garre offers gorgeous vineyard views and an unaffected workaday character not unlike the Valley's wineries, whose number seems to increase faster than suburban squirrels.

"Evil Dead: the Musical" is one of the freshest, most energetic and darkly hilarious shows produced in these parts. Director Jon Tracy has assembled a remarkably talented cast with a knack for musicals and for untrammeled comedy.

The devil, and the laughs, are in the details.
That is proven time and again in "Tuna Does Vegas," the devilishly funny fourth edition of the "Greater Tuna" saga from Joe Sears (the big guy) and Jaston Williams (the little guy) which opened in San Francisco on Wednesday.

It's endearing how salads and noodle dishes are lovingly mixed tableside at the new Burmese restaurant Mingalaba in Burlingame. But the real joy is in the eating, be it a curry or one of the many meat and fish dishes.

Tucked away at the back of the Epicurious Garden food court — a Gourmet Ghetto location that's proved a tough sell for some businesses — there's a quirky vibe to this teashop and dim sum house that seems right at home in Berkeley. And though the place has the look of cafe and retail shop rather than restaurant, Imperial Tea Court's mostly northern-style steamer snacks and stir-fries are some of the most satisfying Chinese bites around.

At first the word, derivative, steps gingerly across your mind as the young man consults the friar about his love life — Shakespeare had done that with Romeo a few decades before John Ford's 1630s play.

And the Greeks, no doubt, did it centuries before.

But not long after, you realize the young lovers are brother and sister, and Mr. Derivative leaps back and forth across time — there's plenty of story line from times past in Ford's "'Tis Pity She's a Whore," but there are also legions of writers today who have lifted liberally from the show.

This, after all, is a bloody morality play, which opened Wednesday night in San Francisco's American Conservatory Theater, complete with incest, revenge, family honor at its most vicious, loyalty and even faith. It's a show that takes on God and everybody with a lot of the same stuff that still keeps us flocking to theaters and movie screens.

And, sadly, that may be the biggest problem with the unwieldy "'tis Pity;" you've seen these plot devices so often they range close to parody when they're trotted out here.

But director Carey Perloff and her cast play the pre-restoration melodrama for all its worth in this lavishly costumed show performed on a set that is a representational version of a 17th century Italian cathedral. The design, featuring towering vertical elements that look like giant organ pipes, jeweled curtains that change colors throughout the show, and staircases that
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stretch nearly to the top of the proscenium was created by Walt Spangler.

Like many of the old classics, "'tis Pity" spends much of the first act tying the story up in knots from the moment the incestuous affair between Annabella (Rene Augesen) and her brother, Giovanni (Michael Hayden) is revealed.

The twists and turns painstakingly taken during the opening act come unsprung in the second leading to enormous amounts of bloodshed and revenge and ends up painting everyone with the same bloody brush so nobody, including the Pope's nuncio ends up looking very good.

This is a show where those cast in smaller roles have scenes that are tiny gems, allowing them to shine brighter than the principals, who do much of the heavy lifting during the opening scenes. Jack Willis as the nuncio, James Carpenter as a supposed doctor, Sharon Lockwood at Putana and Anthony Fusco as Vasques are outstanding in their roles.

But, overall, "'Tis Pity" is a bit creaky and shows its age. It unfolds in an episodic manner, with long speeches and scenes that take considerable time to connect.

Still, it's a show with a hugely familiar title that few people have actually seen performed. So on that basis alone, the play deserves stage time.

Reach Pat Craig at 925-945-4736 or pcraig@bayareanewsgroup.com.
# THEATER REVIEW WHAT: "'Tis Pity She's a Whore," by John Ford
# WHERE: American Conservatory Theater, 415 Geary St., San Francisco
# WHEN: 8 p.m. Tuesdays-Saturdays, 2 p.m. Wednesdays, Saturdays and Sundays, 7 p.m. Sundays, through July 6
# RUNNING TIME: 2 hours, 40 minutes
# TICKETS: $17-$67 415-749-2228, www.tickets@act-sf.org

"Sex and the City" is a movie with some glaring flaws. It's way too long, for one, and, annoyingly, not much really happens. But diehard devotees of the saucy TV series will so relish being back in the warm company of the "girls" that they'll hardly notice.

Drenched in nostalgia and riddled with splendid stunts, it's the season's second-best popcorn movie. "Iron Man," a more complete film, remains the pick of the blockbuster

There are two kinds of Thai restaurants: those that go for fish sauce-and-hellfire vividness, and those content with neighborhood pastoral.

It's a rich cultural experience. The pastrami, thick hand-carved slices, rivals any found on my deli tour of New York City. The Belgian beer selection is also second to none. The 20 French wines by the glass cover tantalizing ground. There are Jewish classics — sparked by a chef's fresh imagination — such as chopped liver and chicken noodle soup. Alongside regional favorites such as cheesesteak sandwiches, you'll find European cheeses and charcuterie. You can order a Single with Cheese ($12) after your Sauteed Foie Gras ($16). Or have a Cobb Salad ($10) and a Creme Brulee ($6).

Attending Disney's "High School Musical" by yourself is a little like going to a church dinner without a covered dish or a Super Bowl party without a case of mid-level beer.

If you need a promise of sunshine and smiles that is much more dependable than the current weather, take yourself over to Walnut Creek's Lesher Center for Center Rep's wily, innovative and enormously appealing production of Shakespeare's "A Midsummer Night's Dream."

With its cool jazz and 6-foot-high lipstick-red banquettes, Movida seduces like a bachelor pad. There's really no point in resisting. Don't want to play? You should have never walked through that door.

Now in their 10th year, Curt Clingman and Mary Jo Thoresen don't tailor every menu item to the climate. Clingman's Steak aux Frites ($22.75) — Niman Ranch Flat Iron, crisp homemade fries, a melty plug of anchovy butter and a sprig of watercress — has been on Jojo's one-page menu since their doors opened. And for every Steak aux Frites (and we must be in the tens of thousands by now), Thoresen has surely sold a Chocolate Souffle Cake ($8.50), the one dessert she's offered since the start. "It's very particular," Thoresen says about the recipe: Baked too long, it's dry; not enough, it's wet. "I give that pan a little shake and see if it needs another minute or not."

In the sweet and sexy romance "Shelter," the chemistry between two surfer guys magnetically played by Brad Rowe ("Billy's Hollywood Screen Test") and newcomer Trevor Wright is so electric, so palatable that even the most ardent nitpickers won't break a sweat over the small stuff. They'll be too captivated to care.

Director Cary Perloff rummaged through her mental toy box for the motivation to create her fanciful, colorful production of Gogol's "The Government Inspector," which opened Wednesday at ACT.

The bar, hand-carved wood decorated with bull horns and vintage rodeo photography, is two-deep, as multiple generations of Lamorindans welcome the weekend with bartender Rocco Coppolo's stiff cocktails. Casa Orinda has been open for 75 years, so if you go there, it's possible that your father did, and so did his father.

Thousands of miles from Piggly Wiggly markets, Waffle Houses and discussions about side meat, Southern cooking shows up through one of two restaurant filters. First, as African American nostalgia food — plenty of home-cooked earnestness without much culinary finesse. And second, as exaggerated vernacular — a corny repertoire of oversized, y'all-come-back-now set pieces with cartoon names: hoppin' john, red-eye gravy, burgoo. An approach to the down-home table typical of Food Network chef Paula Deen, where canned fruit, enough sugar to trigger type 2 diabetes and marshmallow whip coalesce into monumentally scary dishes like Ambrosia.

The play is a wickedly funny satire of modern American life and the solace we seek in the ultimately meaningless words and rituals, delivered to us with a solemn intensity every day.

Even without the towering chef toques and sweet "bon soir" accents from the staff, Liaison has character. It's a certified green restaurant (that delicious salmon comes from Loch Duart, a sustainable farm in Scotland); the chef-owner, Todd Kniess, offers tours to France (he led a seven-day truffle hunt in January); and they offer 10 percent discounts to theatergoers and free corkage on Wednesdays.

To the left of the restaurant, beyond the red curtain, is the wine bar, a sort of library for wine geeks. Even the way bottles are presented, upright on opposing dark, wooden shelves, boasts their booklike status. Add to that the Trapper Keeper-esque 10-page wine menu, and there's nowhere I'd rather go back to school.

While a Chez Panisse pastiche of "sourcing the best product" is often showcased, these restaurants package and present themselves more as American (i.e., "honest") than Californian (i.e., "prissy"). You won't be confronted with "mizuna" or "chiffonade." Filets and fillets come unadorned, straight from the grill, with sides chosen by the diner. Appetizers focus on raw and chilled shellfish ("tartar or cocktail sauce?"), salads always include a wedge, and there, in the middle of the dessert menu, you'll spot "Bread Pudding" with a whiskey descriptor.

If Evelyn Waugh were alive today and worried about the dearth of good parts for older women, he might have penned a screenplay like "Miss Pettigrew Lives For a Day," an English wartime drama featuring 50-year-old Frances McDormand as a frumpy governess who not only straightens out the love lives of everyone around her but gets a shot at romance herself.

That's not to say it would have been Waugh's opus; "Miss Pettigrew," which was directed by Bharat Nalluri, is a fleet-footed pleasure but a fairly minor one. It sparkles mostly because of McDormand and her two main co-stars, Amy Adams and Shirley Henderson, a lesser-known actress from Scotland who just about steals the show.

When the story opens, Guinevere Pettigrew (Oscar-winner McDormand) has lost another in a long line of governess positions. Her high moral standards always seem to be out of whack with those of the various parents who employ her

Amelia is an avant-garde musician. She also happens to be 8 years old.

"I made up new chords," the guitarist explains. "And one is called 'negative 10.' It's really hard. It's not even on the fret board."

Palace is a 7-year-old musician. She seems very sweet, until she steps up to the microphone and begins spitting out lyrics in a crazed Johnny Rotten snarl.

Amelia and Palace are two of the four campers Bay Area-based directors Shane King and Arne Johnson follow for a week in their winning documentary "Girls Rock!" which opens today in San Francisco and Berkeley. The other two featured participants "" Laura, a 15-year-old death metal vocalist from Oklahoma, and Misty, who at 17 has already battled meth addiction and now finds her high from plucking the bass "" are also fascinating characters.

All U Can Eat never had such refined possibilities. Platters of pristine beef, lamb and pork are delivered by graceful waitresses in an arty Asian ambience. Bowls of edamame, trays of gyozo and baskets of shumai overflow from table to window sill "" with more on the way.

Zabu Zabu, a name that captures well this sleek, slightly esoteric Japanese restaurant, is a play on shabu shabu "" the hot-broth fondue that turns carpaccio-thin meats from red to ready in seconds.

I brought Mom, who is always looking for places to dine before or after a play at nearby Berkeley Rep. While her final judgement on Zabu Zabu was "weird," she ate her share. Spinach leaves the size of lily pads, bouquets of enoki mushrooms, hardy ribs of cabbage, they all went into the burbling broth.

Berkeley's Turkish Kitchen inherited more than the hangover smell of shawerma from the restaurant's last tenant, Truly Mediterranean. It also took over the vibrant murals splashed up and down the high walls, and spread across the ceiling.

But in a move that can't be seen as anything other than making their mark on the north Shattuck space, the owners of the new place pierced the enormous Greek-looking cafe scene painted on one wall with something even more irresistibly visual: a huge flat-screen TV, perennially tuned to Turkish cable.

Call it a metaphor for the food: In place of the former restaurant's garlicky dishes of nonspecific Eastern Mediterranean origin, chef/owner Mehmet Vural fleshes out a menu of authentic Turkish specialties with a satisfying level of detail.

This is a restaurant Berkeley seems sincerely predisposed to like. Lunch and dinner, its mural-lined dining room attracts a throng of students and others getting kebap sandwiches to go, gray-haired patrons poring over menus, and a smattering of Turkish expats, presumably showing up for a taste of home.

When a bar leaves me uninspired, I turn to that bastion of critical citizen journalism, Yelp.com. I plug in the establishment and pore over countless thoughtful reviews, looking for someone who can say it better than I can.

In this case, it is Cyrus A. of Lafayette.

Of Ben 'n Nick's in Rockridge, he writes on Feb. 15: "Bart friendly, beer friendly, and buddy friendly, this is a good meeting spot for those payday pitchers to split with friends on a Friday. Otherwise, expand your horizons."

Well done, Cyrus. A thoughtful, balanced perspective. But expand to where? Besides two sports pubs, a tiki bar and a handful of lovely restaurants, this neighborhood suffers from a lack of nightlife.

The food, by chef Maximilian DiMare, is at once refined and rustic, delivering bold flavors and hardy portions in a pretty package. The brutish-sounding Butcher Block, for instance, brings a delicate white plate bejeweled with bites of fine charcuterie.

Pleasanton's Agora Bistro, with its ship-sized wooden beams, yards of brick wall, slate floors and heavy black chandeliers, needs only a roaring fireplace to satisfy my dreamy image of a Greek taverna. The lack of flames is made up with fiery dance music from chef-owner Metin Demirci's home country of Turkey. His family ran a restaurant-bakery there for more than a century.

About 20 minutes into Carrie Fisher's "Wishful Drinking," a red hot, blue and wildly funny soul-baring reminiscence, you begin to wonder what actress/author chats about with friends at home.

When most of us say we "love" a pasta, a pot roast or even a person, our feelings rarely run too deep. But hearing Christopher Lee talk about food, one gets the sense that a meaningful relationship is at play. Take Lee's handmade Casareccia -- twisting tubes bonded in pairs; slippery noodles entwined like lovers -- served with a ragu of long-braised oxtail that Lee says "clings to all those grooves and niches." The gutsy ragu is redolent of sweet spice: whole juniper, cinnamon, cloves and orange zest. It's intense but not brash, not cloying.

"The Spiderwick Chronicles'' is a modern-day family film, using swords, magic potions and otherworldly CGI creatures to dispense with divorce demons and adolescent anger-management issues. Its message, communicated with enjoyable verve, is that 48 hours in a creepy old mansion filled with scary secrets just might be enough to put any family back on the right track.

Helen Grace (Mary-Louise Parker) has recently been dumped by her philandering husband. Because she's in a financial bind, she moves her three children, adolescent tough girl Mallory (Sarah Bolger from "In America") and twin boys Simon and Jared (both played by Freddie Highmore), into a rambling house upstate.

When it opened in 2004, Luka's Taproom hit Oakland like a triple shot of Patron. In a moldering former hofbrau -- for decades the place to board the Friday night hot-slot bus special to Reno -- owner Rick Mitchell rolled the dice on a neighborhood bar and DJ club with a fine-dining kitchen at its core. Anywhere else, Mitchell's high-low hybrid would go over like a 30-dollar artisan cheese plate at the Olive Garden. But here at Broadway and Grand, on the edge of Oakland's threadbare version of Midtown, Luka's quickly found itself a Venn diagram of radically divergent constituencies: Montclair homeowners, Uptown hipsters and West Oakland homeslices, all crowding in to suck down two-buck Pabst Blue Ribbons.
But here's what was really amazing: The 15-dollar grilled quail salads turned out to be almost as popular as the PBRs.

Watching the Cannes Film Festival Palme d'Or prize-winning "4 Months, 3 Weeks, 2 Days" is an absolute punishment, with rewards that come only later, upon reflection. Set in the 1980s, when Romania was under communist rule, the film is a raw, unflinching look at the process of ending a pregnancy in a country that has taken great pains to make abortion illegal.

According to the movies, including the sweet new Lebanese film "Caramel," beauty shops are where women go to be themselves, to let their real and metaphorical hair down for a good gossip, an over-share and, most important, an opportunity to feel supported and empowered by other women.

The dead-on-arrival romantic comedy "Over Her Dead Body" is, if nothing else, a conversation piece. Among the important discussion points it raises are, "What was Paul Rudd thinking?" and "Does Eva Longoria Parker think?"

After a killer work week, a French drama about how AIDS affects a fictional group of friends doesn't exactly induce fits of Fandangoing.
That's a shame, since "The Witnesses," although incredibly sad at times, is such a rewarding pleasure to behold. Given its topic, it will likely be regarded as the cinematic equivalent of brussel sprouts, something that's good for you but not as attractive as that ice cream sundae.

But for a film framed around the emergence of the fatal disease, "The Witnesses" is never morose nor maudlin. In fact, it vibrantly celebrates life, not that Hallmark-forced sentimental life none of us really attains, but that sloppy, complicated, frequently incredible, alternately depressing and far more realistic reality

"Do you really need another element on that plate?"
This is the disembodied voice that haunts today's chefs as they walk the wobbly tightrope between creativity and constraint.

The golden rule of California cuisine, after all, is to let the flavors shine. Clutter is sin.

I imagine Sophina Uong of Maritime East hears that voice all the time. And she replies "Yes! Now, shut up."

It still being January, I might be premature to call Uong's sturgeon ($25) "The Best Dish of the Year," but with each bite came a new revelation -- and the sort of exclamations usually reserved for movie adverts.

Daring!

Passionate!

Breathtaking!

In "27 Dresses," Katherine Heigl plays a kindly doormat named Jane. She adores her boss George (Ed Burns), a hotshot environmentalist, but instead of telling him how she feels, she leaves breakfast burritos on his desk. And she's such a loyal friend to so many that she's marched down the aisle as a bridesmaid 27 times without complaint.

"Mad Money," a genial remake of a British TV movie called "Hot Money," is surprising in that it's not nearly as heinous as its advertising campaign would suggest. Directed by Callie Khouri, best known as the writer of "Thelma & Louise," this comedy about a trio of women who rob the Federal Reserve has a hint (just a hint) of that film's female outlaw energy.
Its main intrigue is its topical take on the sad state of the American dream, downsized and in debt. Money might not buy us happiness, one of the thieves tells us, but it sure buys everything else.

Danville's Louka lasted only about six months in 2005, but one small plate I had there lives on in my memory. Chef Michael Miller braised whole breasts of veal, shredded and compressed the meat and cut out a perfect round of delicate meat before searing it to a crispy crust and serving it with a wobbly apple flan.
Not the kind of dish you'd do at home, the veal was one of those rare creations when sophisticated technique really pays off -- offering the soulful flavor and fork-tenderness of slow cooking with the caramelized crunch of saute.

The memory came back in full force during the third course of an $80 prix-fixe meal last week at Trevese in Los Gatos. Michael Miller was back in the kitchen, and braised and crispy meat was back on my plate.

Danny Hoch is an artist who paints political pictures with a blow torch - searing portraits from all sides of an issue where everyone gets burned.
His latest solo piece, "Taking Over" premiered Wednesday night at Berkeley Rep. It took on gentrification, the notion of an old, established, poor and often run-down neighborhood, receiving a fresh infusion of redevelopment and cash, displacing old tenants, and bringing in new ones, all willing to spend incredible amounts of money.

Watching Hoch's show is like leafing through a sketchbook and enjoying his vividly drawn and colorfully flawed characters. The characters sketches are so well drawn, in fact, each really belongs in an elegant frame, surrounding it with equal portions of rage, irony, humor and clarity.

Directed by Berkeley Rep's artistic director Tony Taccone, who helped Hoch shape the piece, Wednesday's opener ran 10 or 15 minutes longer than the announced hour and 25-minute running time. It seemed the show didn't quite know when or how to end. That was small potatoes, actually, since the stunning, revelatory material that came near the final conclusion added a touching autobiographical scene from the author and an encore visit with Robert, a three-generation resident of the melting-pot Brooklyn neighborhood.

What happens when you plant wine drinkers in a Belgian beer bar? A whole lot of sniffing.
On Sunday night, Jenny, Marke and I hit the Trappist, an homage to all that is good and true and serious about artisan brewing. Of the world's Trappist monasteries, half a dozen or so (mostly in Belgium) produce beer, and they are revered among beer drinkers around the world.

The tiny pub is another notch in Old Oakland's big hipster belt; a promise that it won't be long before the neighborhood is the East Bay's answer to urban chic. I already buy raw-milk brie and designer denim there. What's left?

Like the recent crop of specialty wine bars, the Trappist is one of three Belgian beer bars in the news of late. LaTrappe recently opened in North Beach, and the Monk's Kettle is hopping it up in the Mission District. Those who long associated Belgian beer with fries and curried ketchup at Hayes Valley's Frjtz have much to learn. Good thing the Trappist delivers.

We walked into the narrow, brick-walled bar and immediately felt the vibe owners Aaron Porter and Chuck Stilphen are going for. Housed in an 1870s Victorian building, the space reminds me of the tiny pubs I've stumbled upon in European cities. Clean and masculine, rare beer posters and framed black-and-white Prohibition-era photos cover the walls. It's about as far from a Cali beer bar as Brussels itself.

There isn't a restaurant more inviting on a chilly night than the facade of Mr. Lucky's, which took over the space left tired and vacant after a decade as Yvonne T's Golden Oak Cafe in Pleasant Hill. Now it's dressed in black, brand-spanking-new, with a bar cheerier than "Cheers."

"We built it from scratch," says Randy Slabaugh.

The menu, however, predates California Cuisine -- Calamari Steak Dore ($14.95), Pasta Primavera ($15.95) and Carrot Cake with Cream Cheese Frosting ($4.95). Mr. Lucky's 15 sandwiches -- that doesn't include burgers -- are inspired by the original Mr. Lucky's in Walnut Creek (which serves lunch and is a bar only at night).

Our dinner started predictably: a not-so-crisp salad with hard pink tomatoes and a (surprisingly satisfying) soup filled out with chunks of leftover baked potatoes.

A big filet mignon ($27.95) was the highlight -- cooked rare and served with buttery sliced mushrooms and a gutsy sauce with the pleasant sweetness of port. Mealy frozen fries and a dull tumble of veggies, however, popped any gourmet aspirations.

Grilled Salmon ($22.95) was as scrawny as the steak was ample and, cut crosswise from a thin fillet, the fish's underside was mostly strong-tasting blood meat. A butter sauce that lacked any lemony tang didn't help matters much. The rice was crusty. I think I'll order a sandwich next time.

But the service here, from the hostess to the young waitress to Slabaugh himself, who held forth in an oversized aloha shirt, was warm and perfectly efficient. The menu is vast, so while you might be wary of the fresh seafood, there should be a dish or two to call your own. I can imagine making a regular escape for a cocktail and Lucky Burger (with bacon and cheese, $10.95) or a Chinese Chicken Salad ($8.95).

Two new restaurants offer a window on suburbia's love for life's simple comforts. Firehouse, opened in Livermore by two young mothers with advanced degrees in literature, is also a bookstore -- "The Audacity of Hope," indeed. Mr. Lucky's, opened in Pleasant Hill by a bar manager of 20 years, boasts six flat-screen TVs and "Sides!" that include Cottage Cheese ($2.50) and a Basket of Onion Rings ($3.50).
Both restaurants are in the business of preserving culture, although one man's culture is another man's cheese. Firehouse, in a historic firehouse across from Livermore's new Performing Arts Center, celebrates time-honored human pursuits: "We love books, people gathering around," says co-owner Sandi Gutierrez. "Back to the basics."

Mr. Lucky's returns to a time of faux-leather booths, $5 martinis and entrees that include soup or salad. "We're old-fashioned guys," says co-owner Randy Slabaugh.

Opened by first-time restaurateurs, neither place shows much polish, but they're both endearing in their own way.

If nothing else, watching a David Mamet play can make you feel good about yourself. No matter how much of a rat you may be, the crowd of damaged and vile humanity Mamet parades across the stage is worse.
And that's a good thing, particularly in a well-crafted Mamet production, like the production of "Speed-the-Plow" now running at the American Conservatory Theater. This is Mamet's take on the deal making, soul-breaking side of Hollywood.

Unlike much of Mamet's material, such as "American Buffalo" and "Glengarry Glen Ross," in this 1988 play, the author has created rapscallions and bottom-dealers on both sides of the gender divide.

In "The Bucket List," Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman play terminally ill cancer patients who team up to fulfill their fantasies together before they "kick the bucket." It is an awful movie but an astonishing spectacle: two of our greatest actors, caught in the act of committing schmaltz worthy of the Hallmark Hall of Fame.
Nicholson is Edward Cole, one of those classic cinematic captains of industry, the heartless blowhards who long ago scared off any and all family members and whose closest relationships are with their long-suffering assistant (played rather capably by Sean Hayes). Edward owns a chain of for-profit hospitals, which means the audience never has to actually feel sorry for him; anything bad that happens to him healthwise is a lesson in how the real world works.

In the animated film "Persepolis," Iran's Islamic Revolution is observed by Marjane Satrapi, whose youthful passions included Bruce Lee, the Swedish rock band ABBA and Che Guevara. For Westerners, there couldn't be a more user-friendly interpreter of 1970s and '80s Iranian history than Satrapi, who speaks a language of self we can easily relate to.
At the beginning of the story, she's a spunky, clever 9-year-old, wide-eyed and trying to grasp the complexities of Iran's relationship with its Shah. The offspring of a progressive father (Simon Abkarian) and mother (Catherine Deneuve), she evolves into a moody teenager (voiced by Chiara Mastroianni, Deneuve's daughter) with a strong sense of right and wrong and yet many foolish, romantic yearnings.

The film's final Satrapi is an acid-tongued but appealingly vulnerable young woman who can no longer live in her native land; she and it have grown too far apart in politics and cultural sensibility. She moves to France, where Satrapi lives today (the movie is in French, with English subtitles).

I think Alameda might be my new favorite hangout. If you are a wine, food, beer or other such snob, you know what I mean. You others, listen. Might learn something.
Start your day at either Rosenblum Cellars or the St. George distillery. Then, when you're good and ready, head to either Park Street or Lincoln Boulevard, where a number of fabulous eateries -- Havana, Tomatina, Pappo and my current obsession, Bagan -- await you.

Did I mention you won't drop $50 for a few bites off small plates and you'll have no trouble parking? The latter is particularly key, as some of my parking searches in Berkeley and San Francisco have ruined my appetite. Then I have to go and slam a few martinis to get it back.

Anyway, after you've savored the delicacies, head to the West end of town and through the mysterious red door that takes you to the East Bay's latest lounge life addition.

There are three important things to note about Paul Thomas Anderson's bold new film, "There Will Be Blood." First, there will be no other film like it this year or next, nothing that sounds like it or looks like it or feels like it. The second is that Daniel Day-Lewis is insanely good in it. Finally, you may have to be slightly unhinged to appreciate it, because it is a wild, unsettling experience.
Day-Lewis plays Daniel Plainview, an oil prospector we first meet in 1898 as he's setting off dynamite in a mine. This solo venture lands him flat on his back, bruised and bloody at the bottom of the mine. In keeping with what we quickly realize is a combination of Plainview's indomitable spirit and his constant greed, he nonetheless manages

Have you heard? Oakland is the new San Francisco. Traditionally sketchy areas such as Uptown are furiously buffing away their patinas of blight to reveal glittering new possibilities: denim boutiques, wine bars and especially restaurants -- scores and scores of ultra-hip eateries set to crank the East Bay dining scene into world-class.
That's the current narrative's hype, anyway. In reality, urban pioneers in places like Old Oakland and Uptown are taking a chance that high-end restaurants can help effect an Oaktown revival that'd draw the city's diverse mix to newly restored nightlife zones.

Enter Flora, the latest opening in Uptown, the area stretched along Broadway and Telegraph, as on tension wires, between downtown and Auto Row. The bar and restaurant took the name of its rehabbed corner storefronts -- the 1932 Oakland floral depot, mostly, a two-story facade with glazed indigo tiles and a kind of silvery architectural tiara along the roofline. The Hopper-era gem looks out onto a double whammy of neighborhood reinvention. At one end, the Egyptian Deco splendors of the Fox Theatre, still a year away from completion of its own extreme rehabbing. At the other, the sprawling Uptown condo complex in the latter stages of construction.

Just about every woman who finds out she's pregnant or about to receive a long-awaited infant through adoption immediately buys herself a copy of "What to Expect When You're Expecting." It's a handy book, but here's an off-the-wall suggestion for preparing yourself for motherhood psychologically: Watch "The Orphanage" ("El Orfanato"), the new horror thriller from Spain.
It's a devastating testimony to the limitless bounds of maternal love, wrapped in a smart, spooky film that had me cringing and hiding my eyes, even on a second viewing, when I already knew all of director Juan Antonio Bayona's tricks.

Gerard Butler's character dies in the first 10 minutes of "P.S. I Love You." His name was Gerry Kennedy, and he was a loving husband to Holly (Hilary Swank), until a brain tumor cut short the young urbanites' fun nights out on the town, their tensions over not having either money or babies and -- saddest of all -- their awkward-looking make-up sex.
Given that the film's target audience is women, killing off Butler seems a foolhardy choice by director Richard LaGravenese, who helped adapt the screenplay, based on Cecelia Ahern's novel. Surely, most women would opt to watch the "300" star bringing on the hotness over Swank moping. And no offense to Harry Connick Jr., but when he shows up as a new romantic interest ogling the widow Kennedy

There's a moment early in "The Diving Bell and the Butterfly" where the picture suddenly goes blurry. We've been watching the action from the viewpoint of a Frenchman named Jean-Dominique Bauby, a recent stroke victim who is completely paralyzed. Our first assumption, natural enough, is that he is falling asleep or passing out. Then there's a series of rapid blinks and the awful realization that he's crying.
To feel literally inside another person's tears is hardly an everyday occurrence, but then, director Julian Schnabel's adaptation of Bauby's best-selling memoir is a special film. It rivals the Bob Dylan biopic "I'm Not There" for the title of Most Creatively Constructed Cinema of 2007, but unlike that Bob Dylan film, it's complete:

In "The Savages," Tamara Jenkins' family drama about a pair of siblings putting their demented dad in a nursing home, Jon Savage (Philip Seymour Hoffman), the older brother, is fond of reminding his sister Wendy (Laura Linney) of what a drama queen she is.
"This isn't a Sam Shephard play," he says when Wendy calls, in a dither, to tell him their dad Lenny (the very fine Philip Bosco), living in a retirement community in Arizona, has been writing on the walls with his feces. Jon is of the theory that this is only a "stage yellow" alert. Later, when Wendy probes into Jon's feelings, he cuts her off curtly with, "This isn't therapy."

If Broadway box office receipts are any indication, scads of people would happily spend an evening watching a morose barber cut his customers' throats while his enterprising landlady serves up pies made from the trimmings of the trade.
My own overactive gag reflex caused me to decline all past invitations to see any version of "Sweeney Todd" with about as much regret as I've passed on offers of sauteed sweetbreads, which is to say, none at all. But if anyone could interest me in the "Demon Barber of Fleet Street," it would be Tim Burton and his muse Johnny Depp, who jointly can make the macabre and grotesque ("Ed Wood") seem like the best thing on the menu.

Like Santana's "Oye Como Va," Maria Maria's Mexican menu is a cranked-up version of an already catchy tune. The beans here aren't refried, but the sauces are. Pouring a cooked puree into hot olive oil -- craack! -- caramelizes the sugars, injecting richness and deflating tiny bubbles. It's the final touch to the alchemist's wizardry -- turning dried chiles, charred produce and grassy herbs into a chocolatey smooth sauce.
The mellow-dramatic, wick-lit quasi-hallucinogenic dining room doesn't scream "Carlos Santana," who inspired the restaurant. Unlike DSE's other restaurants -- McCovey's, Bing Crosby's, DiMaggio's -- the celebrity stays in the background, as befits the spiritual style of Santana, who resides in Marin. Even the music isn't Santana's -- it's from a 10,000-song hard-drive the musician compiled from his strongest influences. At Maria Maria, Muddy Waters has as much sway as Alice Waters.

Partner Roberto Santibanez implemented the menu and continues to consult with DSE corporate chef Frank Palmer. Native to Mexico City and trained in Paris, Santibanez has been the culinary director of Rosa Mexicano restaurants in New York City for the past five years. He brings a bold complexity to the East Bay scene, unmatched save for a few Latin restaurants such as Fonda and Dona Tomas.

Weekends at Petar's in Lafayette are an institution, and it's largely due to you, Dave Hosley, and your mastery of Fergie and Frank Sinatra tunes. Yes, in that order.

It may be harder to get seated at the French Laundry, but the dearth of available tables at the new Cheesecake Factory in Pleasanton's Stoneridge Mall probably causes more anguish. Last Thursday evening my friend and I were met with a 60- to 90-minute wait for an inside table.
I could have used that time -- all that time -- reading the immense menu posted outside the building, but we opted for immediate seating on the chilly patio.

The heat lamps warmed our faces, but our food went cool faster than you can say Hungarian Goulash (egg noodles and 50-degree weather don't mix). And our shivering waitress didn't help the cozy factor.

Forgetting about the bland balls of fried macaroni and cheese, the two of us had a reasonably good meal for $100. Kitchen protocols ensured crisp broccoli, fresh moist fish and tasty dipping sauces. And yes, the portions were big -- probably 50 percent bigger than your average restaurant plate.

Lots of choices, lots of food, lots of tables. I think I can see the attraction.

There's something reflexive for me, however, about rooting for chef-owned or family-run restaurants. Like independent bookstores, they seem worth supporting even when cost and convenience might not be in their favor.

It may be harder to get seated at the French Laundry, but the dearth of available tables at the new Cheesecake Factory in Pleasanton's Stoneridge Mall probably causes more anguish. Last Thursday evening my friend and I were met with a 60- to 90-minute wait for an inside table.
I could have used that time -- all that time -- reading the immense menu posted outside the building, but we opted for immediate seating on the chilly patio.

The heat lamps warmed our faces, but our food went cool faster than you can say Hungarian Goulash (egg noodles and 50-degree weather don't mix). And our shivering waitress didn't help the cozy factor.

Forgetting about the bland balls of fried macaroni and cheese, the two of us had a reasonably good meal for $100. Kitchen protocols ensured crisp broccoli, fresh moist fish and tasty dipping sauces. And yes, the portions were big -- probably 50 percent bigger than your average restaurant plate.

Lots of choices, lots of food, lots of tables. I think I can see the attraction.

There's something reflexive for me, however, about rooting for chef-owned or family-run restaurants. Like independent bookstores, they seem worth supporting even when cost and convenience might not be in their favor

You'd have to be a loon to open a restaurant with no experience. But if you happen to make a go of it, you deserve recognition. A Looney Award.
Only someone such as Ken Looney, who spent eight years on a nuclear submarine, would risk serving barbecue a stone's throw from UC Berkeley's falafel-fueled campus.

When an acquaintance called the engineer a visionary for opening an 18-hour-a-day, seven-day-a-week drop-off day care business, Looney embraced his creative side. By the time he found himself hungry for country gravy in California, far from his Texas roots, he set up shop.

"I decided to do something about it," says Looney, who describes himself as "one of those ADD guys who doesn't sleep very much."

It seems to have worked out. Looney says only a couple of customers have asked if his chickens are free-range, or his beef grass-fed. "You'd be surprised," he says, "at how many people come in and say, 'Finally! Meat!'"

Moments into a screening of writer/director Guy Ritchie's "Revolver," the man next to me put his head back and went to sleep. As the incomprehensible, ultraviolent, overstylized mess unspooled, he continued to snore softly while I, prohibited from joining him by a critic's ethical standards, felt envy of biblical proportions. His only mistake was waking up for the end.

The best strategy for anyone interested in enjoying "Juno" for what it is -- an exceedingly clever, offbeat comedy about a pregnant teenager -- is to stop reading anything about the movie, especially anything that refers to it as "offbeat."
Wait, you're still here? Man, no one ever listens to me. Here's my logic: This is one of those cases where hype is threatening to overwhelm a lovely movie. You get your expectations up, and then if it isn't exactly as promised, the next "Napoleon Dynamite" or "Citizen Kane" or what-have-you, you'e mad at the movie, which isn't fair.

In the quietly engaging "Starting Out in the Evening," Frank Langella plays Leonard Schiller, a writer in his twilight years who finds himself under literary siege by a graduate student who intends to relaunch his career while vaulting herself onto the literary scene.
In Leonard's courtly, looming presence, Heather (Lauren Ambrose of "Six Feet Under") looks as eager and innocently thrilled as a 5-year-old girl at her first "Nutcracker." But her ambitions are naked. She wants Leonard to explain himself for her thesis, revealing all weaknesses as well as any and every shred of biography embedded into his fiction.

Hard work, contrary to the American ideal, can only get you so far. Even a healthy dose of charm won't make up for that rarest of qualities -- talent. La Rose Bistro had plenty of talent when it first opened. Chef Vanessa Dang put the modest restaurant on the map. But with talent often comes ego, and Dang's drive drove her and La Rose's owners apart.

For two years, Hai and Quynh Nguyen kept their restaurant running with their own sweat and tears. But three months ago the couple, who met and fell in love while working at Le Cheval in Oakland, found a new chef, and are once again attracting notice.

William Saito isn't exactly a new chef. He briefly ran La Rose's kitchen in 2005 after Dang left. But he was restless, and after showing the Nguyens the ropes, headed to Europe. Now that he's back, the couple, who have two small children, are hoping to keep their bistro's 55 seats warm. They recently opened on Mondays and are waiting to be rediscovered
From the outset, La Rose looks like a jewel. A short walk from Berkeley's downtown theaters, the bistro resides on the quiet side of Shattuck where the street splits in two before merging into bustling University Avenue. Evocative of a Parisian cafe, La Rose is just the place to duck into on a chilly evening. The long, two-tiered dining room offers plenty of niches for romantic dining without forcing coziness upon the less googly-eyed.

As anyone who has ever scrambled a few eggs for a friend knows, cooking is an act of kindness. That's why this era of celebrity chefdom reeks of insincerity. And it's why places like Digs Bistro in Berkeley restores one's faith in cooking as an honorable endeavor.
Digs started out as the ultimate cooks-just-wanna-have-fun venture. For 21/2 years it was an underground "restaurant" where friends could gather on the occasional weekend to eat good food and indulge in the local music and arts.

Five-course dinners for 20 were plated by Heidi DiPippo and Justin Sconce, both of whom held serious chef jobs at the time (Rivoli and Lark Creek Inn, respectively). While the pair cooked, Jesse Kupers -- whose Oakland apartment doubled as the dining room -- kept wine and good times flowing up front.

The trio had considered opening a real restaurant ever since Digs -- having become too popular for its own good -- was given a cease-and-desist order two years ago.

But the food gods were smiling on them when Olivia, a smart, successful little Berkeley cafe, closed unexpectedly. DiPippo says she wasn't committed to reviving the Digs name until coming under Olivia's spell. The tiny structure has all the modesty of a tidy fairy-tale cottage -- if you didn't know it was there, you'd drive right by, thinking it just another home on this neighborly block of Dwight Way.

Although Ian McEwan's World War II-era novel "Atonement" is a powerful read, it's one of those literary works that doesn't seem intended to be translated to the screen. Not only is it dominated by minuscule dramas of perception and interpretation, but the narrator is an unlikable child whose ambitious, fanciful mind wreaks havoc on many lives.
Against those odds, screenwriter Christopher Hampton and director Joe Wright have turned McEwan's best novel into a fluid, sumptuous and thoroughly engaging drama.

The posters for the movie, with Keira Knightley and James McAvoy's beautiful faces gazing wistfully out of the frame, suggest that this is purely a romance. But while Knightley's Cecilia Tallis, a girl to the manner born; and McAvoy's

On a recent Saturday night, I left a lively dinner party in the Marina to check out Danville's relatively new Blend, a club housed in the space that used to be 680 Lounge. Yes, at 10 p.m., I left four bottles of wine and trays of pumpkin pie martinis untouched, said "late" to dozens of friends, walked to my secret spot in Fort Mason, started my car and drove to Danville.
Correction: I drove to my place in Berkeley, changed, then drove to Danville. That's dedication.

The club, open since August and tucked behind Marcello's restaurant on San Ramon Valley Boulevard, is a difficult space. For some reason, it seemed more spacious as 680 Lounge, but it's possible I frequented that club on less-populated, more lounge-y weeknights.

Not the case with Blend. I arrived at peak clubbing hours, and it was shoulder-to-shoulder at the bar, on the dance floor and near the VIP booths. The problem is there's no separation between these areas. It's one small-ish room with relatively low ceilings, so if you're getting your groove on, you're most likely bumping and grinding someone who's just trying to get a drink at the bar. I don't recommend it for serious dancers. Or claustrophobics, for that matter.

Weird: Even in the culturally fluid East Bay, our taco-burrito consumption may be as segregated, in a de facto sense, as our neighborhoods.
Take a good look around, say, Picante some Saturday just past noon. The West Berkeley burrito cafeteria draws throngs of post-soccer kids and their harried-looking parents, but the only native Spanish speakers in the crowded place are probably the cooks and bussers. Likewise, drift into Oakland's Fruitvale District temple of Jalisco-style home cooking, El Centenario, on the same Saturday. Here, too, you'll find kids in soccer gear jammed into booths (on banquettes that look suspiciously like the bench seats of minivans), but the kids' gibberjabber is likely to be mostly Spanish, as their parents slurp goat-meat birria rather than burying their faces in the kind of foil-wrapped super burritos that pack 'em in at Picante.

Sure, there's crossover, thanks in part to the culinary hipsters who graze International Boulevard's taco trucks or vie for tables at Otaez, Fruitvale's popular and easily approached Mexi-diner. The rest of us keep to our comfort zones of La Salsa and Cactus Taqueria, even though those places are mostly about accessibility, not comida with a plausible twang of authenticity.

Imagine the fortitude of Ridley Scott, facing off against the money men at Warner Bros. They must have questioned the wisdom of labeling the 25th anniversary edition of "Blade Runner" something as thunderingly definitive as "The Final Cut." Wasn't there wheedling? At least a casual "How about 'Penultimate Cut,' Ridley?"
I, for one, intend to hold all of them to the promise inherent in the title. The version arriving in theaters today is the third to get a commercial release, the fourth to be seen by any audiences, and, at the same time, one that apparently existed only in Scott's head until now. Finality is in order.

This "new" "Blade Runner" is still a science fiction classic, set in a seamy, danger-filled Los Angeles in 2019.

What a marvelous holiday Thanksgiving would be if that bird quacked instead of gobbled. Proof can be found every (other) Thursday at Bay Wolf in Oakland, where duck has been king for 32 years.
The liver is whipped with eggs, cream and Marsala and gently baked -- like creme brulee -- into the most luscious spread ever put on toast. The breast is brined for days in thyme and juniper, smoked in the backyard, and served over a tangy sweet reduction of pomegranate juice. Then there's the duck confit, wondrously tender leg meat, tucked into bite-sized puffs scented with gruyere.

And that's just an appetizer ($13.50). It's an explosion of California-French flavors -- expertly executed but without the austerity of a Chez Panisse plate. Any empty space on the platter is packed with arugula and a shower of shaved Romano, and a few sweet thin rounds of perfectly ripe persimmon -- a very duck-friendly fruit.

Chef Louis LeGassic has been part of the Bay Wolf family for 10 years. While honoring the restaurant's traditions and bowing to founding owner Michael Wild's culinary whims, LeGassic mixes it up enough to keep himself, his cooks and his menus energized.

His creative juices are the lubrication for a kitchen dedicated to doing the small things with painstaking deliberation. The couscous for the duck entree (more on that later), for instance, is steamed and fluffed three, five, maybe seven times before service -- whatever it takes to get the

No one should head to "I'm Not There," writer/director Todd Haynes' new film, which he describes as "inspired by the music and many lives of Bob Dylan," expecting to learn how Dylan came up with "Like a Rollin' Stone," or what the real deal was with him and Edie Sedgwick. That's not there.
What is there is an experimental film -- or maybe conservatively experimental is more appropriate, since this one doesn't take a Ph.D. in Film Theory to follow -- that will delight, amuse and intrigue any Dylan lover. But it holds its audience, even those most intent on "getting it," at a distance. While this not an un-Dylan-like approach, it makes it hard to lose yourself in the film.

Writer/director Noah Baumbach is an entertaining storyteller, but his main gift as a filmmaker may be to provide succor for anyone whose family inclines toward the dysfunctional. No matter how awful you might think your parents or siblings, Baumbach can write a character that makes them look like angels.

Enchanted" is about a princess who gets unceremoniously shoved out of her animated world and into modern-day Manhattan. There are the usual fairy tale trappings: a wicked witch, a couple of princes, poison apples and talkative woodland creatures.
But the only thing about the film of any lasting significance is Amy Adams, the bewitchingly good actress who plays the princess. This is one of those star-making turns on the level of Julia Roberts in "Pretty Woman" or, looking further back, Judy Holliday in "Born Yesterday."

At the beginning of the movie, Giselle is a classic animated figure, frolicking in her tree house, singing inane songs and naively dreaming of kissing her Prince Charming ("Lips are the only things that touch," she

If you think reading the epic poem "Beowulf'' in high school or college was a misery, try sitting through Robert Zemeckis' digitally animated version on an IMAX screen in 3-D. It's a full-fledged cinematic assault, as if a black velvet painting of Norse gods had sprung to life and begun heaving spears, arrows and geysers of blood directly at your forehead.
The setting is Denmark, circa A.D. 507, in the kingdom of Hrothgar, a computer concoction who bears a resemblance to Anthony Hopkins and is in terrible straits at the time of our introduction.

First, he's drunk and baring his flabby old chest, which is embarrassing. His contemptuous young wife, Wealthow (Robin Wright Penn), actually spits on him. And he's got major security concerns; a skinless monster named Grendel (Crispin Glover) regularly storms the local mead hall, picking through his subjects as if they were an assortment of See's nuts and chews.

Along comes the wandering hero Beowulf, who aims to slay Grendel, a civic duty he believes is best conducted in the nude. Beowulf has the arms, pecs and trunklike thighs of Brad Pitt in peak "Troy'' form, but facially he vaguely resembles the English character actor Ray Winstone, who provides Beowulf's voice. This will be a disconcerting combination for anyone who remembers Winstone from "Sexy Beast," in which he most definitely was not the title character.

The whole naked-Beowulf-in-battle sequence, which involves strategic placements of pitchers of mead, spears

From digitalized temperature control on the beer coolers to remote-operated spotlights, there is plenty that's high-tech about Cirque du Soleil's "Kooza." But beneath the Grand Chapiteau and under the lights, it's strictly back-to-the-basics for the Montreal-based super circus.

The company's breathtaking new production that opened Friday night in the parking lot at San Francisco's AT&T Park is a far cry from the smoke and mirrors and bells and whistles of other Cirque shows touring the world or captivating the Las Vegas Strip with everything from Beatles music to doin' what comes naturally.

In "Kooza" the primary focus is on sheer talent and creativity and the uncanny ability of some extraordinary human beings to make people laugh or to thrill with a well-crafted gag or the talent of contorting the body into shapes a pretzel would be hard-pressed to emulate.

"Joe Strummer: The Future Is Unwritten" is a film for fans -- really big fans. More-casual admirers, perhaps those whose only Strummer CD is the Clash's "London Calling," should probably stay away.
You'd probably have to own (and enjoy) every cut of the vocalist's post-Clash catalog -- including all of the Mescaleros discs and his film soundtrack work -- for this exhaustively comprehensive documentary to hold your attention for the full duration. For everyone else, "The Future Is Unwritten" amounts to the cinematic equivalent of a two-hour-plus wait in the dentist's office.

The film comes courtesy of director Julien Temple, who is arguably the busiest man working in music documentaries. In the past, he's been at the helm of docs about Mick Jagger (1985's "Running Out of Luck"), the Sex Pistols (1979's "The Great Rock and Roll Swindle" and 1999's "The Filth and the Fury") and the famed British music festival Glastonbury (2006's "Glastonbury").

In the realm of Christmas movies, there are the wickedly dark satires like "Bad Santa," and there are the inoffensive, cleverly cute family films such as "Elf." The misguided "Fred Claus" proves, definitively, that attempts to marry these two comic genres represents a dreadful lapse in creative judgment. Kind of like buying your mother a sex toy for Christmas.
Vince Vaughn plays Fred Claus, elder brother to Santa (Paul Giamatti). Fred the character suffers from a toxic case of sibling rivalry, while Vaughn the actor looks bored, puffy and anxious to exit the set.

Fred is forced to work at the North Pole as a result of ... wait, do we care? We all know we're here to watch this jerk grow a heart, by whatever half-baked contrivances screenwriter Dan Fogelman and Jessie Nelson (credited with the story) cook up. Their unfortunate attempts to create drama -- the North Pole is in danger of being shut down by an efficiency expert -- are almost as shabby as their senses of humor.

Inside Santa's workshop, Fred befriends a bunch of elves, some of whom are little people, others full-sized actors whose heads have been digitally reduced and pasted onto the bodies of actual dwarfs. You have not seen tasteless until you've seen the shrunken head of rapper-turned-actor Ludacris atop a little person wrestling with Vince Vaughn.

onfidence to open a film with such pure, unfussy material. But it also gives extraordinary confidence; McCarthy fans will be able to tell, from those few frames, that the words they love are about to be born on screen.
The story is as dark and brutal in its way as "Blood Simple," the 1984 film that made the Coen brothers' reputation, but more poetic and far sadder. A man named Llewelyn Moss (Josh Brolin) comes across evidence of a drug deal gone terribly bad while he's out hunting antelope in the desert.

Moss deduces, from the hideous carnage (a half-dozen bodies) and a trail of blood leading away from it that the last man standing walked off, wounded, with the money. When he comes across that man's fresh corpse and the satchel of money beside it, it would seem that this laconic welder has hit the easiest payday of his life.

But naturally, various interested parties want to separate Moss from the satchel; and with deft hands, the Coens, who also share a screenwriting credit, knit together the suspenseful threads of McCarthy's book. The main collection agent is Anton Chigurh (Javier Bardem) and he is evil incarnate, a heartless killer who lets nothing and no one interfere with his work. "You could even say that he has principles," says Carson Wells

It was Marcel Proust (wasn't it?) who said that of all memories, the sense memories of taste and smell linger longest, like ghosts, despite their elusive nature.
And so it is that I can picture the roasted crab and chewy garlicky noodles from Thanh Long that I cracked, licked and slurped some 30 years ago. This mental image, it seems, is merely the manifestation, a vivid reconstruction, of a deeper and more sublime memory -- a memory of taste and scent that resides in the very cells of my life stuff.

Once a month my roommate and I would wend our way through the chilly ocean end of Golden Gate Park into the Sunset District, drawn to the warmth promised in Thanh Long's buzzing dining room. It was one of San Francisco's first Vietnamese restaurants and my oily initiation to this mysteriously good cuisine.

Twenty years later while going to school in San Jose, I stumbled across banh mi -- a sandwich with all the comfort found in turkey, white bread and mayonnaise, but with the thrust and register of a lover's slap: jalapeno, mint and crispy crunchy carrot. Here was Vietnamese cuisine again, startling and satisfying, thin slices of moist pork and vibrant veggies stuffed in a crackly rice-flour roll -- all for a buck or two. It seemed impossible. Otherworldly.

Plenty of actors do well at playing men in love; John Cusack excels at playing unending devotion. Whether it be Lloyd Dobler in "Say Anything" or Rob Gordon in "High Fidelity," his characters can be counted on, once they find their true loves, to be steadfast and true.

"Before the Devil Knows You're Dead," the expertly acted story of two brothers and a con gone very wrong, is full of clever little tricks. We make assumptions about its outcome based on other smart, ironic films we've seen about cons, and what we think we know of human nature. None of those assumptions turns out to be right, giving the film the kind of edgy allure that's likely to make it an indie hit this fall.
The two brothers are Andy (Philip Seymour Hoffman) and Hank (Ethan Hawke). Andy is successful in real estate, has a great apartment and a beautiful wife, Gina (Marisa Tomei). He has the look of a fat cat. Hank, meanwhile, is divorced, behind on his child support payments and is such an obvious loser that we know disaster is looming when his older brother convinces him to commit a crime.

Andy proposes that they rob their own parents' suburban jewelry store. They know the place inside and out, no one will get hurt, and Mom (Rosemary Harris) and Dad's (the wonderful Albert Finney) insurance will cover the theft. It's easy money, and Hank can't say no. He's just like the little boy sent to light the bag of poop on the neighbor's doorstep while his big brother sniggers in the bushes, not caring if little brother gets caught.

Hoffman (who won the Oscar for 2005's "Capote") nails this amoral part, as we'd expect, but Hawke gives such a rich characterization of an idiot that it's equally hard to take your eyes off him. Naturally, something does go wrong, and the movie

Even a power broker like director Ridley Scott had to have felt blessed when both Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe signed on for his Vietnam War-era drama "American Gangster." Combine a meaty plot set in the seamy world of drug importing and police corruption with actors of their caliber, and the sky's the limit: Scott could end up with "Serpico" meets "Heat."
But as this lengthy film unfolds, one starts to wonder if such an expectations-raising pairing isn't also something of a curse. Crowe and Washington uphold their usual high standards while bringing a fascinating (and true) story to life, and "American Gangster" never bores. But it seems like a movie we've seen before, just dressed up with very special stars, and there's something disappointing about that.

Washington plays Frank Lucas, who starts out as right-hand man to a Harlem crime boss (an unbilled Clarence Williams III) and blossoms into a kingpin by figuring out a way to smuggle pure Thai heroin into the States, courtesy of U.S. troops in Southeast Asia. As he sets up a multimillion-dollar business from scratch almost overnight, it's easy to admire his business acumen and efficiency (and cool; this is Denzel Washington after all). Technically though, he is the bad guy.

Representing more righteous ambitions is Richie Roberts (Crowe), a slobby, sincere New Jersey detective who is going to law school at night. Personally, Richie's life is a mess. His wife (Carla Gugino) left him, his little boy barely

If you live in Lamorinda and subscribe to a no-nonsense drinking motto, you've probably done some time at the Roundup Saloon. At 72 years, it's not only the oldest business in Lafayette, but it's the only bar in all of Lamorinda, if you consider a bar an establishment that lacks a blender and is proud of it. Most of the regulars do.
I'm not going to wax on about this watering hole like no one's been there before, tell you about its decor and specialty cocktails. There aren't any. Of either (unless you count dead animal heads as decor). Instead, I defer to Times alums who've written so accurately and lovingly in the past about this floor-to-ceiling wood-paneled fixture.

Take Mike Zampa's column of April 2004, the year the bar changed ownership after 27 years under Bill McCabe. You could practically taste the wood chips in your whiskey:

"Much like a Britney Spears song, there's no theme to the Roundup," Zampa wrote. "It has two TV sets, but doesn't try to be a sports bar. The nearest fern is in Humboldt County. If you ordered a flavored martini, they'd probably tell you to take it home and add ketchup -- or worse."

I'm no Zampa. The year I lived in Walnut Creek, I frequented the Roundup twice, both times on my way to Petar's. Since moving to Berkeley two years ago, I haven't set foot in the bar. Until last weekend.

I had four bucks in my wallet and was craving a stiff gin and tonic. Plus, I recalled the big stink over the change of ownership.

A steak on a plate is like a cup of joe. One taste is all it takes.
My first bite, hot on the tongue, passed every test. My last, in Fleming's posh bar, was scraped from the bone.

Finishing a 22-ounce New York steak ($37.95) is not, thank goodness, part of my daily routine. I might not have achieved it here, either, if I had ordered anything other than a side of sauteed spinach ($7).

I recommend you do the same. Rather than fill up on Baked Brie ($9.95), try waiting -- hungrily -- for the meat to arrive. It ultimately adds to your pleasure.

On my next visit, it was 10:15 p.m., after multiple appetizers and a thumb-twiddling lag ("Your dinners will be up in one minute," said our waitress at 10:05) before a relatively diminutive 14-ounce veal chop ($34.95) was set before me. I got a rush from my first bite of chop, but the thrill, as B.B. King might belt, was soon gone. Doggy bags couldn't come quick enough.

Time moves slower in the back dining room, especially as the night winds down, when abandoned white tablecloths turn the area into a ghost town. When making a reservation, ask for the main room -- a dimly lit valley set between bar and bustling kitchen. Fleming's front section has the gravitas required of a steakhouse, though its newness, its luster, gives the wood an almost plasticky perfection. The glow from great hanging lamps -- as pumpkiny as pie -- lends a warm, classy and almost mysterious aura to the space.

Back in coach, we had ordered too much

Don't think I mean it in a pervy, upload-snapshots-of-yourself-to-the-Internet way when I say it: French is a fetish. Mind you, I'm talking about the American culinary imagination, our apparently inexhaustible jones for steak frites and clafoutis, or pot de creme and cassoulet, even if most of us aren't even sure what a cassoulet is.
Still, we love the sound of it -- ca-sooo-lay -- the way the middle syllable makes you stick out your rounded lips in a gesture that just makes you feel French. Or like the thought of a lazy Sunday spent trying to perfect a cassoulet has the power to, I don't know, class up a life crammed with Costco runs for toilet paper, nuked Lean Cuisines, and ferrying 7-year-olds between play dates in the Sienna.

French is a promise that another, swag-festooned world is possible. If things ever get really, really scary, you tell yourself, you could always ditch the Sienna, cash out the 401(k) and find that ochre-colored farmhouse in Provence (the one with wall stencils and an irascible old caretaker), where lovable, crusty neighbors arrive unannounced with rabbit terrine and rose and make hilarious gaffes in endearingly imperfect English.

A new book by Anne Willan catalogs the depth of our craving for this Euro-primal world of village bakers and ruddy-faced fromage merchants. At more than 375 large-format pages, "The Country Cooking of France" is heavy enough to flatten a poussin or your foot. Its endpapers are the steely blue of old Le Creuset

Peter Hedges' new film "Dan in Real Life" is set during a family reunion on an autumn weekend in New England. The family is so big we're never sure how many siblings, in-laws and offspring it actually contains. They move as an indistinguishable pack, following as closely on each other's heels as the Marx brothers. This clan, like this movie, is overeager for slapstick and sentiment.
They play touch football and charades. They hold a family talent show. They even do aerobics together. They do not fight or overimbibe or engage in disputes over prized family possessions. No one burps, sneaks a cigarette, takes too long in the bathroom or speculates on the activities of whoever took too long in the bathroom. In short, the family of advice columnist Dan Burns (Steve Carell) is not a real family at all, but, rather, a group of props bundled in cozy cardigans.

The sole source of controversy and concern in this household is Dan himself, a widower raising three daughters. The teenagers are mildly resentful Jane (Alison Pill) and surly Cara (Brittany Robertson), who believes herself more than ready to date (her sweatpants spell out "YOU WISH" on her bottom) and Lilly (Marlene Lawston), a fourth-grader who is still consistently nice to her father. Dan hasn't dated since his wife died four years ago, and everyone thinks it's time.

His mother (Dianne Wiest) pushes him out the door the reunion's first morning, and at a bookstore he meets a beautiful, sympathetic French woman

It's that season when Hollywood would like our spirits to fall along with the foliage. The industry's intentions aren't cruel; it's just that their hopes for the awards season tend to soar in direct correlation to how much audiences weep. This week alone presents audiences with multiple bleak-fests involving dead or missing children ("Gone Baby Gone" and "Reservation Road") and dead or missing spouses ("Rendition" and "Things We Lost in the Fire").
For those of us who appreciate an autumnal yank at the heartstrings, Danish director Susanne Bier's "Things We Lost in the Fire" certainly sounds like a winner. A mother of two, Audrey (Halle Berry) unexpectedly finds herself a widow. In her grief, she forges a complicated bond with Jerry (Benicio Del Toro), a drug addict who was her dead husband's best friend.

Audrey has long been jealous of the time and energy her husband, Brian (David Duchovny), expended on Jerry. But out of her desire to know her lost spouse better, she impulsively invites Jerry to move into her garage. Our anticipation is that he will help her recover as she helps him recover and that Oscar nominations will be deserved all around.

Bier, renowned for intimate dramas such as "Brothers" and "After the Wedding," makes her English-language debut here, and her usual unerring sense of emotional truth has been inexplicably lost in translation. With the exception of Del Toro, who is both authentic and magnetic, the movie leaves the impression of surfaces, of houses too beautiful to be lived in, a marriage too perfect to be believed and a grief so glamorous it alienates rather than endears.

The narrative is fractured between life with Brian and without him. Since in loss we are always cast back into memories, reliving moments we had together, this device for illustrating the nature of grief makes perfect sense. So, too, does the notion that both best friend and wife would glorify him in his absence.

But the view we get of Brian is too limited. He's so decent that we start to think he's truly too good for this Earth. He's a great provider who has long since paid off the mortgage on their airy Northwestern home (oh, the tasteful modernity of this place!) and a tender father to 10-year-old Harper (the adorable Alexis Llewellyn) and 6-year-old Dory (Micah Berry, even cuter). He goes jogging every morning with the otherwise friendless neighbor (the scene-stealing John Carroll Lynch).

As for how he is as a husband, it's clear from the way he slips his hand down Audrey's jeans that he knows how to treat his woman. And he's selfless, tearing himself away to check on Jerry in his seedy squat on the wrong side of the tracks. Brian treats Jerry with respect, doesn't judge and leaves behind bags of groceries. We start to want this paragon gone so that we can get back to the more titillating prospect of a relationship between Audrey and Jerry.

Unfortunately, we're stymied there as well, mostly by Berry's performance. Bier's camera constantly, distractingly, zooms into those exquisite eyes of hers, but we never feel admitted to Audrey's heart. Berry is best at being hostile -- "It should have been you," she tells Jerry -- but the net result is, we start to think Audrey is not only small as a person but rather mean.

Her character never seems to have done any thinking off-camera. When Jerry enters her kitchen to talk, she's just sitting at her table, cup of coffee in front of her, looking as though her primary function is to wait for the scene to begin. There's a predictable staginess to the performance; we know exactly when and where Audrey will have the kind of breakdown that involves throwing things.

That's not to say she's awful. But winning an Oscar (for "Monster's Ball") tends to shed a very bright light on future performances, and this one feels too studied to be true. That might not be the case if Berry weren't up against Del Toro, a naturalistic actor who goes beyond the parameters of a character as written and creates a being of his own. When Berry is on camera, you admire how she looks in the surroundings. When Del Toro's on camera, you're aware of him, not the space around him.

Reach Mary F. Pols at 925-945-4741 or mpols@bayareanewsgroup.com.

'THINGS WE LOST IN THE FIRE"

B-

Starring: Halle Berry, Benicio Del Toro, David Duchovny

Director: Susanne Bier

Rated: R for drug content and language

Opens today: Bay Area theaters

Running time: 1 hour, 59 minutes

When I mentioned to a friend that I'd just seen "Rendition," a sobering, star-studded new drama about the U.S. practice of whisking suspected terrorists off to other countries where harsher interrogation techniques are allowed, she was surprised. "They've already made a movie about that?" she asked.
In some ways, the existence of this earnestly ambitious and steadily engaging movie really is surprising. While "extraordinary rendition" -- or as some might put it, outsourced torture -- has seen plenty of press in recent years, it doesn't necessarily follow that it so swiftly would have become the topic of a vehicle for all-American actors like Reese Witherspoon and Jake Gyllenhaal.

For one thing, pornography excluded, moviemaking usually takes time, particularly when the subject is controversial and likely to send American audiences home feeling thoroughly chagrined about the state of the Union. But if "Rendition" tells us anything, it is that, with the Bush administration heading into its final 14 months, not only has Hollywood's much-ballyhooed liberal elite taken the gloves off, they've gone mainstream to do so.

Consider the calculated casting: Witherspoon plays Izzy (Isabella), the wife of the movie's extraordinarily rendered subject, an Egyptian-born NYU graduate named Anwar El-Ibrahimi (Omar Metwally). The couple live in the Chicago suburbs, where the vastly pregnant Izzy kicks the soccer ball around with their young son while Anwar, a chemical engineer, brings home $200,000 a year.

He's attending a conference in Cape Town when a suicide bomb goes off somewhere in North Africa (screenwriter Kelley Sane leaves the location deliberately vague, implying it could be anywhere "over there"), killing a CIA station chief. Because of some suspicious cell phone activity, Anwar is detained by the agency right before he enters customs in Washington, D.C. He passes a lie detector test, but no matter. "Polygraph doesn't mean diddly," says CIA muckety-muck Corrine Whitman (Meryl Streep), blithely dispatching Anwar to a nasty dungeon in that unnamed North African city.

Having America's sweetheart forlornly waiting at an airport terminal to pick up her beloved husband -- who happens to be nude, shackled and subjected to water torture while the CIA "observes" -- is an extraordinarily clever way to win hearts and minds. And this is Witherspoon at her most tempered: quietly fierce and full of truth. Her blue eyes never have looked clearer or more certain than when Izzy is defending her husband.

"Rendition" is really a best-case scenario for, or rather, against rendition. If Izzy can't fight it, who can? Not only is she white, prosperous and weeks away from giving birth to a future voter, she has friends in high places, or at least one of them. Her college classmate Alan (Peter Sarsgaard) works as an aide to a powerful senator (Alan Arkin), and even though there's residual resentment -- Izzy dumped Alan for Anwar -- they piece together her husband's disappearance.

Meanwhile, there's a lot going on in North Africa, maybe one subplot too many. We know the "Romeo and Juliet"-style romance between two students, Khalid (Moa Khouas) and Fatima (Zineb Oukach), will connect to the central subplot somehow, because Fatima is the estranged daughter of Abasi (Yigal Naor), the local torture-master. But for this viewer, who has spent too much time stuck in "Traffic"-inspired plots, this reminder of the cyclical effect of torture ultimately proved moving, but was too self-consciously neat in the telling.

As Douglas Freeman, the self-proclaimed pen pusher for the CIA who gets pulled into what he drolly calls "my first torture," Jake Gyllenhaal maintains a stone face throughout. Presumably, this is to keep us guessing as to Douglas' intentions, although at times Gyllenhaal appears less mysterious than somnolent.

Sarsgaard does such a fine job with the smaller, essential character of Alan -- a stand-in for the average American -- that it's tempting to imagine him as Douglas instead. But then we'd have to sacrifice the pleasure of Alan and Corrine toe-to-toe at a stately D.C. party, she a vision in ice blue, he just squirrelly enough to make us unsure of his heroism.

Not surprisingly, the only other scene that rivals this one involves Streep as well, as she finally catches a glimpse of rendition's fallout in the person of Izzy. She wipes her face of its initial, pleasant welcome and retreats as quickly as a hermit crab, back into a rock-hard shell. Streep's skill is, as always, breathtaking.

Reach Mary F. Pols at 925-945-4741 or mpols@bayareanewsgroup.com.

'rendition'

B

Starring: Omar Metwally, Reese Witherspoon, Jake Gyllenhaal, Yigal Naor, Peter Sarsgaard, Meryl Streep

Director: Gavin Hood

Rated: R for torture/violence and language

Opens today: Bay Area theaters

Running time: 2 hours

There's nothing romantic about the bloodsuckers with one-track minds in the horrifingly erratic "30 Days of Night."
They rip out the throats of little girls without any morning-after regret. They speak/spit in a spastic alien language that requires laughable subtitles. And they adopt the same hygienic principles of a backwoods hillbilly, with horrid dental work and dirty talons for fingernails.

These creatures of the "Night" are of the hard-core savage breed, all but driving a nail through the designer coffins of whiny pretty boy vampires that have staked a claim in the romance novel of late.

And while the evil Noseferatu/"Salem's Lot" hybrids introduced here make a welcome presence on screen, they sadly wind up flapping wings for naught.

The surefire premise -- vampires swarm the northernmost town of Barrow, Alaska, where 30 days of darkness descends annually -- was pulled off to chillier effect in the graphic novel by comic wunderkinds Steve Niles and Ben Templesmith. "30 Days" the movie conjures the ominous atmosphere that haunted the graphic novel, but squanders much of the rest.

Director David Slade, whose first feature was the uncomfortable revenge flick "Hard Candy," shows equal bursts of inspiration and ineptitude. An overhead shot of the genocidal-like slaughter of townsfolk will go down as one of the most blood-curdling scenes I've witnessed in a horror film. Shortly thereafter, Slade ruins the mood with another one of his lightning-edited, jittery action sequences a la Michael Bay. These disorienting sequences murder any suspense -- and all thrills.

Other signs of anemia pop up in performances and the meager screenplay, co-written by Niles. Josh Hartnett blandly plays the sheriff, an awkward quasi-hero who tries to save townsfolk from becoming vampire bait. Hartnett is easy on the eyes, but chiseled features only go so far in a horror flick.

Without any interesting character in the buffet lineup, I soon found myself rooting for the undead to wipe out the whole sorry lot, and doing it ahead of schedule, maybe 10 days into the night. There's no need for this movie to clock in at nearly two hours.

The final third of "30 Days" seals the lid, with an abrupt, poorly staged showdown with the lord of the vampires (Danny Huston in the film's most fun, fearless performance). Then, just when you're ready to write off "30 Days of Night" as a major horror bummer, Slade once again delivers the goods, with a surprisingly moving finish that is satisfying. If only the rest of the film had the same bite.

Reach Randy Myers at rmyers@bayareanewsgroup.com.

"30 DAYS OF NIGHT"

C

Starring: Josh Hartnett, Melissa George, Danny Huston, Ben Foster, Mark Boone Junior

Director: David Slade

Rated: R for strong horror violence and language

Opens today: Bay Area theaters

Running time: 1 hour, 53 minutes

With her regal bearing, pale beauty and air of wicked intelligence, Cate Blanchett is divinely right as Queen Elizabeth I in director Shekhar Kapur's "Elizabeth: The Golden Age," just as she was in his very fine "Elizabeth: The Virgin Queen" in 1998. But this sequel, a choppy melodrama that charges through history like a steed bound for the stable, squanders her shamefully.
The film veers between a saga of love and lust and a story of religious warfare, neither of them fulfilling, although let it be said that watching Clive Owen stride about in britches and tights is a lot more fun than watching papists being tortured.

Owen plays Sir Walter Raleigh, who introduces himself to the queen by tossing his cloak on a puddle so she doesn't get her dainty feet wet. This is one of those historical tidbits that no self-respecting splashy blockbuster is going to pass up, no matter how disputed it might be. Elizabeth is amused. "Puddle," she says to herself as she walks on, her Mona Lisa smile suggesting she wouldn't mind playing a game of Strip the Sailor with Sir Walter.

We can't blame her for being easily turned on. Being the Virgin Queen is a truly dreary prospect, and if Kapur's movie is to be believed, poor Elizabeth is reminded of her celibacy every time she turns around. Sir Walter announces he's named a new colony Virginia in her honor. "When I marry, will you change the name to Conjugia?" she retorts. Blanchett gives every one of her lines in these early scenes a

Can an actor be too good for a movie? Based on Casey Affleck's work in "The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford," the answer is yes.
It's 1881, late in the game for the infamous James gang. Its ranks have been diminished by the constant pursuit of the authorities. Frank (Sam Shepard) and his younger brother Jesse (Brad Pitt) have taken to contracting out dirty work for a train robbery. The story begins with the old gang and newcomers getting to know each other in the woods. Nineteen-year-old Robert Ford (Affleck), better known as Bob, is already in, but he's still acting like an eager job applicant, angling for a better position.

Bob sidles up to Frank, tries to endear himself to the old pro through a toxic mix of sycophantic chatter and boastfulness, fails miserably, pretends otherwise with Jesse, is caught in the lie and still doesn't slink away. So the title tells us Bob is a coward -- and that he killed Jesse James -- while Affleck tells us, with great economy of movement and speech, in the first few minutes of the film, that he's also a cunning little creep with delusions of grandeur.

Not only do we want the charismatic Jesse to run, we'd like to follow. But writer/director Andrew Dominik, who based his screenplay on Ron Hansen's novel of the same unwieldy name, is in no rush to bring their relationship to its obvious climax. What follows is an agonizing, two-hour pas de deux between Jesse and Bob, shot in a highly stylized, evocative manner that includes fish-eye lenses, sepia tints and many lonely wintry landscapes.

With the exception of a coda to the Bob Ford saga, the film moves at a leisurely pace. Given the lack of dramatic tension, it's too long, even though, undeniably, Dominik's intentions are noble. He wants to explore more than just Bob's motivations; he wants us to understand how a feral cat like Jesse would ever let his guard down. The origins and discomforts of Jesse's celebrity are as essential to the story as Bob's longing to achieve his own fame.

Pitt has, of course, the sexier part. But he's also got the better written, more engaging one. Bob has the one-dimensionality of callow youth (me, me and more me!) while Pitt's Jesse unfolds in multiple directions before our eyes. We don't know exactly how he's going to be in any given scene -- beyond cool, that is -- and so we don't tire of him.

Nor is Jesse easy to understand: At one point, he kills someone too dopey to be a real threat, maybe just because the hunted needed, at that moment, to feel like a hunter and taste blood. Then, after a later scene in which his brutality is truly out of control, he weeps. It could be in regret, or in frustration with his own situation.

We're not sure because Pitt keeps his cards close enough to his chest to maintain the allure of the legend while making suggestions about what lies behind it. That ambiguity is alluring. Pitt may be an insanely glamorous movie star, but his Jesse James is the work of an assured, mature actor.

There have been so many tellings of the James gang legend, from the 1939 Tyrone Power-Henry Fonda version to Walter Hill's "The Long Riders," that yet another may seem unnecessary, especially one as imperfect as this. But "Assassination" offers enough in the way of performance (Sam Rockwell and Paul Schneider are particularly good in supporting roles) and mood to earn itself a place in the ranks of Jesse James stories.

Reach Mary F. Pols at 925-945-4741 or mpols@bayareanewsgroup.com.

"THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD"

B-

Starring: Brad Pitt, Casey Affleck, Sam Shepard, Mary-Louise Parker, Paul Schneider, Jeremy Renner, Zooey Deschanel, Sam Rockwell

Director: Andrew Dominik

Rated: R for strong violence and brief sexual references

Opens today: Century 14, Walnut Creek; AMC Bay Street, Emeryville; Bridge,S.F.

Running time: 2 hours, 40 minutes

With "The Darjeeling Limited," writer/director Wes Anderson completes his tragic arc from wistful new talent with a deadpan wit and a brilliant eye to auteur of the insufferable. He has hoisted himself on his own cutesy, quirky petard.
As with "The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou," a seafaring tale that provided strong evidence that his career was sinking, Anderson sets his story on a moving conveyance. Three spoiled American brothers, Francis (Owen Wilson), Peter (Adrien Brody) and Jack (Jason Schwartzman), board the Darjeeling Limited, an Indian train bound for nowhere in particular, although from the film's first carefully staged frames, it seems likely stops will include Portent Town, Conflictville and the City of Brotherly Love.

The brothers have not spoken since the year before, when their father died. Francis, having recently survived a near-death experience that has left him bruised and swathed in bandages, is seeking not just a reunion but a shared spiritual journey. He also hopes to broker a visit with their mother (Anjelica Huston), who retreated to the Himalayas and became a nun after her husband's death.

The movie is almost absurdly beautiful, beginning with the train itself, 10 coaches and an engine that Anderson took possession of for three months. His fetish for turning sets into designer dollhouses, apparent from his third feature, "The Royal Tenenbaums," finds its ultimate realization here: a real live choo-choo that can be tugged or pushed as his heart desires. It's the ultimate plaything for someone with a case of arrested development.

He and his production designer, Mark Friedberg, turned the train into a work of, if not art, exquisite taste. The lettering on the outside is the same rich saffron color as Jack's robe, to-die-for mosaics fill every wall, and every long shot down a corridor or out a window is a visual gift.

Anderson seems convinced that anything that looks this amazing has to produce profundity. Problematically, the script, which Anderson wrote with buddies Roman Coppola and Schwartzman (who explains why Jack gets to be a Lothario), is absent any deep thinking. The brothers bicker over possessions and family secrets, look mournful and share pain medications.

When they run out of things to say, Anderson cues the hipster music and sends them into slow motion. There are many scenes that pay homage to "A Hard Day's Night," but the comparison only serves to make "Darjeeling" seem more vacant.

What's offensive is the way Anderson has used an entire country and its people as set dressing. Poverty and reality don't enter into the picture. Even when the brothers board a crowded bus, there's no sign of sweat or dirt; all those people jumbled together just look quaint, like part of the ornate infrastructure. Even a funeral looks like something picturesque you'd like to visit.

Anderson has colonized India in his mind, seemingly without embarrassment. Repeatedly, he sends visual clues that these tedious, rich white brothers are all that matters. And, of course, their ludicrous luggage, designed by Marc Jacobs for Louis Vuitton. This enormous, ostentatious, safari-themed set belonged to their dead father. The Indians they meet are kind enough to carry the dozen or so pieces without ever once suggesting these boys have too much baggage.

Wait, you might ask, by the end of the story, will they be ready to shed their emotional baggage? Look, there is nothing wrong with such an elementary theme. But when a director lards it up with portent, he invites our desire for a more significant payoff.

Mirroring this larger tease is one involving a short story Jack, a fiction writer, has just written. (Its origins can be found in Anderson's "Hotel Chevalier," a 13-minute short that will proceed "Darjeeling" in some theaters, and features Natalie Portman naked but for socks. Yet, remarkably, it manages to be utterly torpid.)

Jack's story is on two pages of undersized hotel stationary. Suspiciously thin, right? And, perhaps, lacking in substance. But both Peter and Francis read the story (to themselves) and assure Jack (and us) that it's good. Only in the end do we realize that it is as empty as the movie itself. The joke is on us for hoping for more.

Reach Mary F. Pols at 925-945-4741 or mpols@bayareanewsgroup.com.

'THE DARJEELING LIMITED'

D

Starring: Owen Wilson, Adrien Brody, Jason Schwartzman, Anjelica Huston, Amara Karan, Irrfan Khan

Director: Wes Anderson

Rated: R for language

Opens today: Embarcadero, SF

Running time: 1 hour, 31 minutes

Oscar-winning director Ang Lee's new film, "Lust, Caution," is such a challenging, defiant film that you leave it feeling slapped around, but at the same time exhilarated by Lee's boldness. Less than two years after being anointed with Hollywood's highest honor, he's gone off and made a film likely to confound American expectations.
"Lust, Caution" is NC-17 rated, almost entirely subtitled and, in terms of subject matter, unabashedly foreign. The only thing about it that speaks to Hollywood is its mood, a glorious homage to the classic films of the 1940s, particularly espionage thrillers like Hitchcock's "Notorious." Hitchcock played erotic chess matches with his characters. Lee does the same, but strips them naked for the game.

Our heroine, college student Wang Chia Chi (Tang Wei) is a fan of those films, and in her darkest hours is likely to go lose herself in the cinema (we see her weeping through the film that made Ingrid Bergman a star, "Intermezzo"). She's an actress herself, perhaps too talented for her own good, because as a young Chinese woman living under Japanese occupation during World War II, the only role available to her is that of professional seductress.

She stumbles into the role, really, having met up with a group of politically inclined drama students at her college in Hong Kong. They're led by Kuang (Wang Leehom), who is passionate about his cause and handsome enough to melt Chia Chi's heart, although her attraction is unspoken. They're all fairly innocent, but they want to fight back against the Japanese, so they devise a drama of their own, to be played entirely off the stage, with Chia Chi assuming an undercover identity.

Their target is a married man named Mr. Yee (Tony Leung), a Chinese collaborator with the Japanese, whose main function for the collaborationist regime seems to be suppressing the resistance movement. To that end, he's an expert torturer and interrogator. He's also an admirer of women, and in direct contrast to the students, whose bumbling is comical, he is self-assured and commanding. For Chia Chi, there's something undeniably alluring about being a pawn in his hands, even as she is charged with leading him toward checkmate.

That's a distilling of the first half of the movie, which was adapted from Eileen Chang's much-admired short story, "Lust, Caution." The film is deliberately chilly, and it's unlikely to make you weep the way Chia Chi cries over "Intermezzo." To mimic the war experience, it's also intentionally disorienting, beginning in Shanghai in 1942, then flashing back at length to 1938. Keeping up will require some patience, especially for audiences better versed in the American and European perspectives on World War II.

Eventually, all politics but the sexual ones are clear. Ang Lee shows us every detail of Chia Chi and Yee's affair, from their first, brutal, sadomasochist encounter to their explicit, NC-17-deserving lovemaking as the affair goes on. (It turns out there can be such a thing as too much sex in a film.) These scenes are like jigsaw puzzles, and honestly, not just baffling in their gymnastics but in the effect they have on Chia Chi.

The attraction makes her angry, but she loves the passion and responds. She's a young woman, and this is the only outlet for passion that she's offered by her country, her culture, and even by her closest allies. She's such a good actress she convinces herself of her role, but because she also knows herself to be a good actress -- from the first time we see her on stage she becomes confident of her talent and stays that way -- she has to continue to question any seeming conviction.

In popular culture, we'd call this by a term that begins with "mind" and ends with a dirty word. More politely, this is a woman used by war, turned into a prostitute, really, and unable to separate truth from fiction, not just in her mind, but in her heart.

Tony Leung ("In the Mood for Love," "Infernal Affairs" is almost disturbingly convincing as Yee, but this is Tang Wei's movie. It's her first film role, but she slips into the dual parts with the same kind of slippery grace we saw in Naomi Watts in "Mulholland Drive." It's a jaw-droppingly good debut.

Reach Mary F. Pols at 925-945-4741 or mpols@bayareanewsgroup.com.

"LUST, CAUTION"

B+

Starring: Tony Leung, Tang Wei, Joan Chen, Wang Leehom

Director: Ang Lee

Rated: NC-17 for some explicit sexuality; In Mandarin with English subtitles

Opens today: Embarcadero, S.F.; more theaters on Oct. 12

Running time: 2 hours, 38 minutes

It has all the primal satisfaction of an oozing quesadilla, but Bolani Gandana ($2.95) is half the price with a fraction of the fat. Cut into wedges, the flat, crispy pie is every bit as golden as that Mexican classic, but the bright-green treat inside is leeks, not avocado, and the thick cream on top is yogurt.
America's involvement in Afghanistan may eventually popularize this country's healthful cuisine, but don't wait for a military solution before seeking it out. The sooner "Afghanistan" evokes comforting dishes such as Ashak or Mantoo, the faster heroin and the Taliban will lose its icy grip in our group consciousness.

Discovering cheap, delicious food is an even better reason to head to Amoo.

Salahuddin Ahmadzai -- call him Sal -- opened Amoo in July after a two-year stint working for the American military in Afghanistan, his home country. As part of the millions of refugees of the Soviet-Afghanistan war, his family arrived in America more than two decades ago. Since then, the smooth-scalped Sal has lived around Concord and worked mostly as an auto mechanic.

The transition from cars to cuisine came slowly. In 1984 he opened Chopan Kabob, a Concord restaurant offering little more than soup and grilled, skewered meats. At Amoo, his focus remains on kabobs, while his wife Mary and sister-in-law Shaima alternate between watching the families' six kids and working in the restaurant, where they wait tables and assist with the menu's more delicate dishes.

Every meal begins with Sal's homey vegetable soup. Sprinkled with sumac, the broth takes on a puckery sweetness, leaving you wanting another slurp as soon as you set down the spoon. I've had this soup four times now, and all but once it has been a bowl of comfort, studded with fresh vegetables, chickpeas and crunchy water chestnuts. Sal says he makes it fresh every day, so I'm not sure why it was thin with tired veggies and broken noodles one night -- just boiled too long when reheated, I imagine.

Honesty in preparation and presentation gives Amoo's food integrity. With a little spice and no silly garnishes, dishes composed of hamburger, garlic and long-cooked produce soar beyond their peasant station.

Bonjaan Borani ($3.95) is nothing more than fried eggplant and tomato sauce, but its depth of flavor is astonishing. The sprinkling of ground beef acts like an exotic spice, bringing out the eggplant's meaty richness. Ribbons of garlicky yogurt mimic a stroganoff's lushness. It's a dish you just fall into.

More contemplative are the House Specials of Mantoo and Ashak (both $10.95). Ashak are leek dumplings -- wrapped to order when slow -- in pasta sheets, boiled and smothered in beef, yogurt and dried mint. Mantoo are also dumplings, onion dumplings bound with a little ground beef, steamed and topped with yogurt sauce and a scattering of mixed frozen vegetables (every Afghan restaurant I've been to offers Mantoo topped with frozen vegetables).

Most of the dishes here, however, have a vivid freshness. Much of the produce is purchased weekly from Brentwood farms (Shaima lives in Antioch), with holes filled at farmers markets or trips to Oakland wholesalers. The chopped salads served with our kabobs came with impressively ripe tomatoes, bright cilantro and lots of sweet red onions.

And the Vegetarian Combo ($10.95) is a brilliant expression of early fall, with to-die-for roasted spiced pumpkin and that addictive fried eggplant. It eats well with sheets of Afghan flatbread and comes with generous piles of garlicky (frozen) spinach and basmati rice. (Vegetarians: The Ashak is also offered in a meatless variation, but beware the soup -- it's made with chicken stock.)

The kabobs were all over the board -- if you want to play it safe, order the Chicken Kabob ($8.95), all breast meat flecked with sumac. Condiments of homemade mint and chile chutneys are on the table, but I recommend asking for a side of hot yogurt sauce for dipping. I loved the Chopan Kabob ($12.95), simply grilled garlicky lamb -- but I'm one who enjoys gnawing on bones and wrestling with gristle. The Keema Kabob ($7.95) was practically inedible, however, the problem being a too-long marinade in onion and garlic juices. The enzymes had a tingly, dissolving effect on the meat, which was completely overcooked.

But even this disaster didn't lower my regard for Amoo; when our uneaten Keema was eventually discovered, we were warmly and sincerely encouraged to order something to replace it. Shaima's service is truly heartfelt and her presence reassuring in what turned out to be a mostly empty dining room. I swallowed hard the first time I walked into Amoo. No customers at 1 p.m. on a Thursday might be a fluke, but it didn't portend well for the freshness of the food. Several similar visits proved that concern to be misplaced.

Once Ramadan ends next week, business should naturally pick up. Once it does, perhaps even the grilled tilapia ($10.95) will be fresh, rather than defrosted a few orders at a time. Sal's preparation was great -- nicely spiced and not overcooked -- but the dry flesh was a dead giveaway.

The meats are all fresh, and halal (a kosher-like designation), but Sal knows his gas grill lacks the oomph that a wood charcoal fire could add. You might be able to taste the difference yourself, as Sal plans to set up a barbecue booth at the Concord farmers market next year.

Amoo, named after a river on the Afghan border, replaces Afghan Kabob Cuisine, a restaurant that had been long neglected. With fresh drapes, carpet, tiles and paint, Amoo now has a clean, welcoming look, but it's still off the beaten path, and next to a sometimes rowdy bar.

When I asked Sal if he liked cooking better than carburetors, he wasn't so sure. But I bet if we start plunking down complements -- as sincere as those by American soldiers in Afghanistan, where Sal would cook an occasional meal -- he'll stick around.

Reach Times Food editor Nicholas Boer at 925-943-8254 or nboer@bayareanewsgroup.com.

AMOO

**1/2

FOOD: **1/2

AMBIENCE: **

SERVICE: **1/2

WHERE: 1909 Salvio St., Concord.

CONTACT: 925-969-0991.

HOURS: 11 a.m.-9 p.m. Sundays-Thursdays, until 10 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays.

CUISINE: Afghan.

PRICES: $. Entrees $5.95-$10.95.

VEGETARIAN: Stellar pumpkin, eggplant and Ashak -- leek dumplings.

BEVERAGES: Yogurt drinks and soft drinks. You can bring your own beer or wine, no charge.

RESERVATIONS: Only necessary for large parties.

NOISE LEVEL: Quiet unless the bar next store gets revved up.

PARKING: Nearby street parking is usually adequate.

KIDS: The environment is relaxed. Kids should like the chicken kabobs especially.

PLUSES: Great soulful food; warm service; low prices. Don't miss the Bolani Gandana.

MINUSES: Kabobs, especially the Keema Kabob, can be ordinary.

DATE OPENED: July 2007.
policy

The Times does not let restaurants know that we are coming in to do a review, and we strive to remain anonymous. If we feel we have been recognized or are given special treatment, we will tell you. We pay for our meal, just as you would.

Star key

* Fair

** Good

*** Great

**** Extraordinary

Price code

$ Typical entree under $10

$$ Typical entree under $20

$$$ Typical entree under $30

$$$$ Typical entree under $40

I'm not one for hanging out in chain restaurants. Call me a snob, but I crave something called ambience when I go out, and chains usually lack this or any type of atmosphere.
Take P.F. Chang's. The restaurant revived my relationship with iceberg lettuce when it invented the now-common lettuce wrap appetizer way back when. And even though I continue to be a spring mix girl, I do have a pulse and know a party when I see one.

A few years ago, the P.F. Chang's in Walnut Creek was known as Grand Central for cougars -- older women preying on men my age. Curious to know if it's held this title or lost it to neighboring heavyweight Bing Crosby's Restaurant & Piano Bar or the newly opened Fleming's Prime Steakhouse & Wine Bar, I decided to pop in last week while working on a story about the modern relevance of pick-up lines. Convenient.

A guy named Ken grabbed the door for me when I walked in and asked if I was alone. I answered yes. He asked my name. I said it. He said, "Cool. I have a friend named Jessica. Come meet her." And so it goes. Not five seconds in the door and I had something to write for both stories.

I hung out with Jessica, Ken, Mario and Sabrina -- they'd all met five minutes before and were quite chummy -- before walking around the narrow bar, the main attraction of the rock-walled Chinese restaurant, with its orange saucer lights and thumping '80s tunage. I won't bother describing the place because it looks like the ones you've visited in Fresno, Newport Beach or San Diego.

I will say that the design of the bar in Walnut Creek makes it a tough place to take pictures, per my photographer's laments. It's also a tough place to walk through and mingle if there's more than one person standing in the aisle.

But mingle I did, with a lot of thirtysomething single women, the glowy, confident type who dress to impress each other, not men. Fatima and Staci were top-notch. I picked their brains on pick-up lines ("be genuine" is their motto) and everything else I foresee writing about in the coming months (right-hand rings, body image among minority women) before striking it up with three European fellows in their mid-40s.

Raj, Pierre and Jean-Marc were visiting on business, and we chatted about pick-up lines -- let the woman come to you, they say -- while they sipped a plethora of P.F. Chang's specialty drinks, from the Asian Pear Mojito to the Ginger Collins. Somewhere between Pierre's excellent story about French Bond girl Carole Bouquet (his buddy was married to her for six years) and Raj's repeated use of the verb "fancy," I realized the bar was thinning out. What's more, there wasn't a cougar in sight. Not one.

A hostess caught my wandering glance and reassured me that the place was hoppin' around 8, and that the folks who trickled out would be back. But it was 10:30 p.m., and the restaurant was closing in half an hour. So I gathered my pick-up lines and headed out, eager to whip up a midnight snack of Trader Joe's chicken lettuce wraps.

Night Writer Jessica Yadegaran profiles bars, clubs and similar hangouts in the Bay Area every other week in Friday TimeOut. Call her at 925-943-8155 with comments or suggestions.

Bar at P.F. Chang's China Bistro

WHERE: 1205 Broadway Plaza, Walnut Creek.

HOURS: 11 a.m. to midnight Fridays-Saturdays; 11 a.m. to 11 p.m. Thursdays; 11 a.m. to 10 p.m. Sundays-Wednesdays.

CONTACT: 925-979-9070; http://www.pfchangs.com.

PARKING: Search along Broadway Plaza, or in the nearby parking structures.

ATMOSPHERE: Not much.

CROWD: Cougars, nastoids and international men of mystery.

BARBIES: Of course; it's the Dub C.

NASTOIDS: Of course; it's the Dub C.

In January 2004, a piece by a writer named Peter Landesman ran in the New York Times Magazine. Called "The Girls Next Door," it exposed a horrific underworld of sexual slavery in the United States and included chilling CIA statistics estimating that 18,000 to 20,000 people, many of them very young, are brought here each year to serve, against their wills as prostitutes.
It was the kind of story you hoped was not true; it was that awful. "Trade" is based on Landesman's reporting, and it's equally involving yet hard to take. Landing in the middle of the fall season, when movies with a social conscience tend to arrive in theaters, it's going to face stiff competition to draw audiences, but it's deserving.

Landesman himself helped distill his reporting into the basic outline of the story, then Oscar-nominated screenwriter Jose Rivera ("The Motorcycle Diaries") took over. It begins in Mexico City with the abduction of a 13-year-old named Adriana (Paulina Gaitan), who is grabbed from the streets by Russian mobsters while riding her bike. She's held in a grubby house, awaiting export along with Veronica (Alicja Bachleda), a single mother who left Poland thinking she was being recruited for legitimate work.

Adriana's older brother Jorge (Cesar Ramos), whom we've seen only as a happy-go-lucky hoodlum, spots his sister being put into a truck and follows her. Near the border he meets up with a Texas cop (Kevin Kline, stiff and too obviously the character meant to make white audiences feel comfortable and connected), who is on his own mission to look for a lost girl. Rather improbably, they join forces, and the movie becomes a tense race against time to save Adriana.

As compelling as her story is, I was focused on Veronica, perhaps because Bachleda is such a luminous actress and because her story arc seemed, unfortunately, more representative of reality. In her strength -- and grace -- Veronica reminded me of the young heroine in "Maria Full of Grace."

There are many details drawn straight from Landesman's reporting: the way the girls are drugged and dressed for the marketplace; the Internet sites that advertise this disgusting commodity; and the isolated parking lots where perverts take young girls and boys into the bushes.

I avoid other reviews like the plague before I write about a film; they can taint how one feels about a movie. With "Trade," I went online looking for Landesman's original story, which I wanted to reread, and happened upon some very negative reviews of "Trade." I was so surprised I couldn't stop myself from reading a few, many of which described "Trade" as exploitative. I think that's a better word to apply to sexual slavery than to this film.

And that label might be wishful thinking, perhaps by people who weren't familiar with the original reporting. What the movie is guilty of is a sort of audience wish fulfillment. You're grateful for the outcome on a purely emotional level -- because this movie is work -- but it feels like cold comfort.

Reach Mary F. Pols at 925-945-4741 or mpols@bayareanewsgroup.com.

'TRADE'

B

Starring: Kevin Kline, Cesar Ramos, Alicja Bachleda, Paulina Gaitan

Director: Marco Kreuzpaintner

Rated: R for disturbing sexual material involving minors, violence including a rape, language and some drug content

Opens today: In Bay Area theaters

Running time: 1 hour, 53 minutes

The tragically early demise of Christopher McCandless, a fervently idealistic 24-year-old who walked into the Alaskan wilderness in the spring of 1992 and died of starvation about four months later, was expertly documented by Jon Krakauer in his best seller "Into the Wild." Now, in a fine movie of the same name, writer/director Sean Penn focuses more on how McCandless lived.
For two years after he graduated from Emory University in Atlanta, McCandless (played by the endearing Emile Hirsch) roamed the West going by the name Alex Supertramp, which he chose after abandoning his worldly possessions and his family. Though he occasionally picked up an odd job, he mostly lived off the land or the kindness of strangers.

He might have been a drifter, but he made many friends and affected a lot of lives in those two years, not least of those the parents he was trying to escape. Billie (Marcia Gay Harden) and Walt McCandless (William Hurt) were a highly success-driven couple, but by the time their son had been gone from them a year, they were defeated, changed people.

It would be tempting to describe him as an innocent -- McCandless comes across as a guileless, sexless, Thoreau-quoting young man who did, after all, venture into the wilderness without so much as a topographic map. But he had endured some serious childhood trauma, including frequent and violent fighting between his parents and the discovery, as a teenager, that his uptight father was a bigamist. So he was hardly innocent.

Of the people McCandless met on the road, several urged him to reach out to his family, including Jan (Catherine Keener), a kindly, maternal hippie who traveled the West by RV, and a lonely old man named Ron (Hal Holbrook), who eventually asked if he could adopt McCandless.

He reclaimed his given name in his last days, but apparently never contacted his mother, father or sister Carine (Jena Malone). For those in the audience who are parents, this is likely to be the saddest aspect of a movie that is already soaked in sadness.

But Penn does what he can to keep his audience from being hopelessly depressed by weaving back and forth between the Alaskan experience and McCandless' earlier adventures. The story is a patchwork of beautiful locations and vibrant characters, some so colorful that you'd think Penn had made them up. But while he may have idealized some (particularly Ron), all are based on real encounters.

Penn has always nabbed great actors for his movies, and this is no exception. Keener, Harden and Hurt are first-rate, Holbrook is a likely Oscar nominee, and even funnyman Vince Vaughn has some lovely moments as a wheat farmer McCandless works for in South Dakota. One of the movie's nicest performances is from a complete novice, Brian Dierker, a newcomer who has the presence of Jeff Bridges.

There are some who think Penn is a better director than an actor, although there's insufficient evidence to make that assessment; he's only got three other features on his director's resume, "The Indian Runner" (1991), "The Crossing Guard" (1995) and "The Pledge"(2001), versus his more than 30 acting roles in films. I'd say he's more naturally gifted as an actor -- that talent of his is huge -- and though he is hard-working, he's perhaps less sure-footed as a director.

There are several instances where he uses split screen and slow motion in "Into the Wild," and they serve only to disrupt the flow of the film. The beauty of the landscapes must have intoxicated him (and accounts for the film's length). But if I'm lost in the story of a man living in the wilderness, it's because when he washes his hair in a waterfall, it doesn't look like some shampoo commercial shot in slow motion.

Where Penn shines most is in his level of commitment. To show us where McCandless really was, he shot in at least 30 locations all over the country -- and in an industry that regularly uses day for night (and Canada as a stand-in for everything from New York to the Wild West), that's remarkable.

His earlier films are all stark dramas, structured around tragedies and family strife, and they tend to be fairly somber. "Into the Wild" is simply more joyful. There's a glory to McCandless' life as a tramp. If only he were still out there, tramping around, having adventures and maybe, just maybe, occasionally sending letters home. Coming away from Penn's version, you never wish McCandless hadn't gone off on this crazy adventure, but only that he'd been able to do it for longer.

Reach Mary F. Pols at 925-945-4741 or mpols@bayareanewsgroup.com.

"INTO THE WILD"

B+

Starring: Emile Hirsch, Marcia Gay Harden, William Hurt, Jena Malone, Catherine Keener, Brian Dierker, Kristen Stewart, Hal Holbrook, Vince Vaughn

Director: Sean Penn

Rated: R for language and some nudity

Opens today: Bay Area theaters

Running time: 2 hours, 33 minutes

Lobster, foie gras and truffles may seduce or intimidate those who can make out the tiny print on Levende East's six-level menu ("a good start"/"the next step"/et al.). Oh, and don't neglect the separate "Chef's Fresh List" -- selections from the raw seafood bar.
Beginning to sweat? Put those menus down and pick up the sheet of specialty cocktails, where you can find -- the print is much larger -- "the effen cherry bomb" or "the boogieman."

Seeing is easier than hearing, however, as I discovered when our lovely waitress crouched down to share the evening's specials. The DJ's hypnotic beat already had carried me off to a glittering strip club and a Havana disco. But through the bass, I hear the words "tomato soup" and "grilled cheese sandwich."

"Yes, please."

Finding a way in to Levende East's liquidy atmosphere can be challenging, but the options are as myriad as the Vegas strip. Hanging on the historic building's most solid feature -- an exposed brick wall -- are two surreal paintings (by Oakland artist Peter Gronquist), as eerie as animated dolls on "Night Gallery." Have some wine, stare into their eyes and let the music dissolve you.

Chef Arren Caccamo uses butter and herbs as freely as hoisin and sesame. French technique, expressed in stock-based sauces and stylized presentations, is matched by a fondness for richness, sweetness and surprise. Fried cheese! Guava! Jalapeno! I can almost see Caccamo's brain pulsing as he conceives an entree, even if his Cerebellum Cuisine doesn't always translate on the plate.

The menu's first level, "cheeses & charcuteries ...," encourages grazing, while riffs on cakes and sliders -- trios of lamb or tuna mini-burgers ($9) -- are ample enough to validate the Two Appetizer Theory of dining.

The Grilled Lobster Tail ($29) brings a split tail with a flavor as wondrous as Wonka chewing gum. A firm bite tastes metallic and charred before softening into vanilla and lemon grass. Shellfish has a direct line to corn, but the three ears' worth of "candied" nuggets Caccamo offers up with the lobster makes the tail look tiny.

Corn, in turn, must have inspired jalapeno muffins, a cute idea, but while the flavors work as a concept, such rustic elements are hard to eat in harmony. It can be especially frustrating digging out the lobster if you don't know how to strip meat from shell in a single swoop.

Breast of pheasant ($22) was more all of a piece. A crispy, salty crust locks in a moist flesh that's remarkably mild -- a note down from duck, yet far lovelier than chicken -- and gamy enough to nestle into a buttery blackberry sauce. In candlelight, I couldn't make out any pink in the breast -- ordered medium-rare -- but the attached wing joint bordered on raw, so it was expertly cooked. (I might critique Caccamo's choices, but the kitchen's technique was solid throughout.)

Hot and just-crisp glazed baby carrots were fine, but the green beans were startling, as if they had just been sprinkled with sugar. Tying the sweet and savory together was fried porcini aroncini -- a perfumey ball of fried risotto.

Filet Mignon ($27), like the lobster, was a small portion -- it must have been under 5 ounces -- but it looked impressive split on the bias and splayed in a shimmering pool of highly reduced demiglace. The sticky sauce was a little overkill, like hot fudge on a brownie, but every bite proved memorable. And I loved each of the 20-plus layers in the potato gratin, its silky texture reminiscent of artichoke and the smoky gouda crust a perfect play against the beef. The out-of-season asparagus (also available as a $9 side) was nicely grilled, but more woody and grassy than sweet. It undermines the menu's note: "We strive to use the very finest local and organic ingredients ..."

If there were one piece of advice I could give Caccamo, it would be to turn on to acid. Before my rich-on-rich filet, I had eaten the roasted beet salad ($12), with its two golf balls of warm, pecan-crusted goat cheese. I finished every bite -- and I would never suggest cutting back on goat cheese -- but if the toss of mizuna and tender haricots vertes had been dressed more assertively, or if the beets had been marinated in a little Champagne vinegar, the salad wouldn't have been so cloying.

There is reduced balsamic in good measure with a thick round of truffled foie gras ($19). Between the vinegar and fig jam, the torchon -- a term for the cylinder of pate appearing on menus everywhere -- the liver went down easy.

You'll certainly appreciate a lighter touch with the savory courses if you end up finishing with the Peanut Butter and Chocolate Pie ($7). The Oreo crust was so thick and clunky, I couldn't appreciate its Reese's-inspired synergy.

But I'd order it a dozen times before risking another duo of ricotta salata and figs ($6), offered on Levende's starter and dessert menus. I'm a big fan of both, and if the figs had been sticky ripe, it probably would have worked. As it was, the dry cheese only highlighted the pale fruit's astringency. Because the figs had no depth, the suggested pairing of a raisiny 1971 Pedro Ximenez Sherry ($8) was way off base (but I was thankful to have something, anything, to replenish the moisture on my tongue).

Despite these nit-picks, my way in to Levende East is the innovative cuisine. It's difficult to find cooking as complex as Caccamo's in the Bay Area -- and in Oakland/Berkeley in particular, where a Chez Panisse purity dominates. (The original Levende, where Caccamo is also the executive chef, is in San Francisco.)

For others, the way in to Levende is the cocktails, the music, the sophisticated lunch sandwiches, the slick and lofty atmosphere, or just the great people-watching. To have a nighttime hangout in downtown Oakland is a big draw in itself. With B restaurant across the street, and Tamarindo around the corner, this area is finally blossoming.

Caccamo may not do comfort food. You have to pay for your bread, and even my rich, pulpy tomato soup ($10) came drizzled with truffle oil. (And, by the way, Mom's grilled cheese is better.) But the self-affirming package, pulsing with life, that is Levende East is comforting in its own way.

Reach Times Food editor Nicholas Boer at 925-943-8254 or nboer@bayareanewsgroup.com.

Levende east

***

FOOD: ***

AMBIENCE: ***1/2

SERVICE: **1/2

WHERE: 827 Washington St., Oakland (also in San Francisco).

CONTACT: 510-835-5585; http://www.levendeeast.com.

HOURS: 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Mondays-Fridays; 5-11 p.m. Mondays-Saturdays (bar open until 2 a.m.).

CUISINE: Asian-spiked California-French.

PRICES: $$$. Dinner entrees $18-$29.

VEGETARIAN: Eggplant lasagna, soups, salads and sides.

BEVERAGES: Comprehensive wine list with some reasonably priced options. Spicy, rich yet light-bodied Spanish Tempranillo ($37) is a great value. Start with a glass of Spanish Albarino ($7).

RESERVATIONS: Can be made online.

NOISE LEVEL: Loud, especially on weekends when a DJ spins throbbing beats.

PARKING: Lots of street parking at night. Nearby lot.

KIDS: There are burgers and fries and an adult mac & cheese, but the menu and restaurant are not really kid-friendly.

PLUSES: Hip, slick and cool atmosphere. Complex cooking.

MINUSES: Rich food, loud music (if conversing is your goal).

DATE OPENED: June 2007.
policy

The Times does not let restaurants know that we are coming in to do a review, and we strive to remain anonymous. If we feel we have been recognized or are given special treatment, we will tell you. We pay for our meal, just as you would.

Star key

* Fair

** Good

*** Great

**** Extraordinary

Price code

$ Typical entree under $10

$$ Typical entree under $20

$$$ Typical entree under $30

$$$$ Typical entree under $40

Sometimes a finished movie sits on the shelf for an ominous length of time -- years even -- because it is lousy. But the holdup could also just as easily be that the film is "difficult," that is, challenging to market.
"Fierce People," which had a festival premiere in April 2005 and is just now having an American theatrical release, represents the depressing confluence of these pitfalls.

It has a bafflingly ill-conceived structure, beginning as the self-indulgent tale of a precocious boy who befriends some allegedly charming eccentrics (they're actually unbearable). Then it steps into something so dark and nasty you have the urge to check the bottom of your shoes on the way out of the theater.

Finn Earl (Anton Yelchin) gets caught buying cocaine for his mother Liz (Diane Lane), a semi-professional masseuse with flexible ethics and a long-term drug addiction.

The trauma is enough to make her briskly, and unbelievably, kick the habit and lifestyle. She takes Finn, 15, to spend the summer at the 10-square-mile New Jersey country estate of one of her many male clients and admirers, Ogden C. Osborne (Donald Sutherland), who is badly in need of a comely physical therapist.

Because Finn's absent, much longed-for biological father is an anthropologist who studies the Amazonian natives, Finn decides to spend his summer conducting his own anthropological survey of America's seventh wealthiest family. This self-conscious device was last seen a mere four weeks ago in the slightly less awful "Nanny Diaries."

Ogden's offspring include a daughter (Elizabeth Perkins of "Weeds") and two grandchildren, Maya (Kristen Stewart) and Bryce (Chris Evans, who plays the jerky member of the "Fantastic Four"). They're all lazy and spoiled and prone to big, pointless gestures, like having hot air balloon races across the estate. Finn has the poor taste to fall under their spell, and they, at least seemingly, under his, because you know, being rich is sucha bore. It's like "Running With Solid Gold Scissors."

Griffin Dunne ("Practical Magic") directed the film from an adaptation by Dirk Wittenborn of his novel of the same name. Both men grew up in and around wealth (Griffin's father is writer Dominick Dunne), and it seems clear they find obscene amounts of money to be -- drum roll for the profundity -- extremely corrupting. In order to demonstrate that, the plot takes a very unsavory and unexpected turn involving an act of violence against Finn.

It's a desperate, manipulative plea for us to get involved emotionally but it's really too late for us to start caring about Finn (it doesn't help that Yelchin delivers his lines with the insistence of a dirty old man repeating bad jokes no one wants to hear). We'd focus our attentions on Lane, but she's working with such disastrously uneven material that we never get a solid grip on her Liz, either. Elizabeth Perkins looks like she'd run for the exits if she could, and even an old pro like Sutherland can't save his weirdly scripted scenes. The actors probably wish the movie had stayed on the shelf.

Reach Mary F. Pols at mpols@bayareanewsgroup.com or 925-945-4741.

"FIERCE PEOPLE"

D

Starring: Diane Lane, Anton Yelchin, Donald Sutherland, Kristen Stewart, Elizabeth Perkins, Pax de la Huerta and Chris Evans

Director: Griffin Dunne

Rated: R for language, drug use, sexuality/nudity and some violence

Opens today: Shattuck, Berkeley; UA Emery Bay; Kabuki, S.F.

Running time: 1 hour, 47 minutes

Of all the hundreds of films released in 2007, it would be easy to make the argument that "In the Shadow of the Moon" is the only one we actually needed. This joyful, philosophical documentary about mankind's voyages to the moon makes us feel both powerful and fragile. And in reminding us what it meant to be united as a world, it refutes, at least for a few inspired hours, the cynicism of our age.
Directed by former BBC producer David Sington, the film's main narrative is framed around that first, triumphant moon landing of Apollo 11 in July 1969. It features interviews with 10 men who made journeys to the moon on various manned Apollo voyages between 1968 and 1972. These retired astronauts are a beautiful bunch of men, weathered and worn and seemingly touched with a special wisdom.

This is really an oral history of what it felt like to be on the moon -- or even, just orbiting it. One of the most compelling storytellers in the film is Mike Collins, who was the dubbed "the loneliest man in the universe," because he stayed in Apollo 11's command module while Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin took those tremendous first steps on the moon. You could see why they called him that. Earth was visible, but so far away, and his colleagues were exploring the moon together. But he says there was no desolation in his solitude.

"I didn't feel it as loneliness," he remembers. "It was almost a feeling of exaltation."

Exaltation is a word we hear repeatedly from these astronauts as they recall their voyages, and Sington brings that emotion alive for us by showing us mission footage never before seen publicly (NASA has kept it in cold storage, under liquid nitrogen). Possessing a surreal beauty, these images are enough to trump any special effect Hollywood has ever come up with.

But even just to listen what these men have to say about the vibrant beauty of the moon and what they learned about Earth in contrast to it would be enough to make us feel blessed. They describe Earth variously as the Garden of Eden, a jewel and an oasis. Collins in particular marvels about landing in the ocean after Apollo 11's successful reentry.

"It was this violet color," Collins muses. "I thought, 'Nice ocean you've got here, Planet Earth.'"

Having been, however briefly, truly outside Earth, these men remain just that -- men -- but they are different from the rest of us. Our terrestrial squabbles seem less significant, Collins says. Alan Bean, lunar module pilot for Apollo 12, says he has never, not once, complained about the weather -- or traffic -- since he returned to Earth. And as much as they seem more equipped to truly appreciate day to day life, they also have equally valuable perspective on the future.

"We ought to be looking out for kids and grandkids," John Young, commander of Apollo 16 and the command module pilot for Apollo 10, says near the end of the film. "And what are we worried about? The price of a gallon of gasoline."

If "An Inconvenient Truth" was the hard lesson about what we've fouled up on Earth, "In the Shadow of the Moon" is the gentle reminder of what we're capable of achieving and what truly matters.

Nearly 40 years later, the magnificent achievement of traveling to the moon is taken for granted. Also, sadly mostly forgotten is the sense of celebration the world shared, regardless of religion, politics or race, after Armstrong's first steps.

As Collins tells us, when the Apollo 11 astronauts went on their world tour after their mission, people kept saying to them: "We finally did it," meaning humankind and not just "You Americans." There was a true sense of world fellowship. "I thought that was a wonderful thing," Collins says. "Ephemeral, but wonderful." This movie makes you long for that to happen again.

Reach Mary F. Pols at mpols@bayareanewsgroup.com or 925-945-4741.

"IN THE SHADOW OF THE MOON"

A

Starring: Buzz Aldrin, Alan Bean, Gene Cernan, Mike Collins, Charlie Duke, Jim Lovell, Edgar Mitchell, Harrison Schmitt, Dave Scott, John Young

Director: David Sington

Rated: PG for mild language, brief violent images and incidental smoking

Opens today: Shattuck, Berkeley; Embarcadero, S.F.; Kabuki, S.F.

Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes

There's got to be some explanation why Dane Cook is a movie star, although his new romantic comedy, "Good Luck Chuck," provides scant evidence of the usual reasons, such as exceptional comedic or dramatic talent.
The movie does suggest he'd make a fine porn star. He's clearly completely at home with fake breasts, has no problem with bad dialogue and never misses an opportunity to strip down to his undies and show off his only indisputable assets.

To be fair, the plot does call for a lot of nudity. Cook plays Charlie, a dentist who suffers from a curse placed upon him by a Goth girl he spurned in junior high. Everyone he sleeps with meets the man she's going to marry as soon as she and Charlie call it quits. He's the steppingstone to wedded bliss.

He becomes an urban legend, and soon there's a line out the door of women wanting for his services, because as screenwriter Josh Stolberg apparently believes, all women are desperate to get married. He obliges, and the movie digresses into a well-illustrated Kama Sutra for frat boys. It's astonishing how unsexy director Mark Helfrich makes sex look.

The only woman Charlie wants is Cam (Jessica Alba), a comely penguin specialist who works at the local aquarium. (Wait, wasn't Adam Sandler just there in "50 First Dates"?) The very prospect that he could lose this girl to another man turns Charlie into a spastic fool, and as he flaps his lips and limbs in a poor imitation of Jim Carrey, any good will we had for Cook evaporates.

Cam is beautiful, sexy and nice, so the rules of romantic comedy call for her to be unusually clumsy. It's hardly even worth noting how tired this convention is. But honestly, I could live with "Good Luck Chuck's" determination to humiliate a cutie pie such as Alba and its ongoing cruelty toward obese women -- it can't be worse than "Norbit," right? - and even the way it treats most women as mere appendages standing behind giant, surgically enhanced mammaries.

What makes the movie truly unbearable is Charlie's sidekick Stu, a plastic surgeon specializing in boob jobs and grotesquely crude statements. It's not rational to hate Dan Folger ("Balls of Fury"), the actor who plays Stu, but there's bound to be some seepage in ill will, because his Stu is so vile he actually made me angry. To quote one of his more printable statements: "I (pleasure myself) to her mammograms." He's George Costanza gone nuclear, and each time he pops up on the screen, it's like having toxic waste thrown in our faces. Why would we ever care about a guy like Charlie when we see the company he keeps?

Reach Mary F. Pols at mpols@bayareanewsgroup.com or 925-945-4741.

'GOOD LUCK CHUCK'

D-

Starring: Dane Cook, Dan Folger, Jessica Alba

Director: Mark Helfrich

Rated: R for sequences of strong sexual content including crude dialogue, nudity, language and some drug use

Opens today: Bay Area theaters

Running time: 1 hour, 36 minutes

In the frisky, quite fun "The Hunting Party," a pair of former war correspondents team up to hunt down a Serbian doctor responsible for some of the worst atrocities in the Bosnian war.
Simon (Richard Gere) was once a dashing and important journalist, but thanks to drink and an infamous on-camera meltdown years earlier, he's fallen off the radar. Most people, including his former cameraman Duck (Terrence Howard), now a network star with a comfy desk job, just assume he's dead. In truth, he went "freelance," which when you're talking about war correspondents, is sort of like going off the deep end.

The two old friends meet up in Sarajevo, where the United Nations is holding a ceremony commemorating the fifth anniversary of the end of the war. Duck came partly out of a sense of nostalgia for the good old days when he dodged bullets and mortar fire, but really, the trip is just a stop on his way to a Greek vacation.

Simon cajoles Duck into the adventure, mainly by teasing him about how soft his underbelly has become. But there's also some pity involved here on Duck's part. He liked and respected Simon, and it's hard to see him living on the fringe (Simon peddles videotape from the frontlines of civil conflicts to television stations in Third World countries).

If this story sounds like the kind of smart, politically astute frolic one might find in the pages of the better men's magazine, that is because it is based on a first-person account written by journalist Scott Anderson in 2001 for Esquire.

Anderson was in Sarajevo in early 2001 on vacation with "Perfect Storm" author Sebastian Junger and three other journalist buddies when they decided, on a drunken lark, to go looking for Radovan Karadzic, a notorious fugitive who had supposedly been spotted recently in the mountains near Montenegro. They get closer than they expected, and the article makes the point that even though the bounty on Karadzic and others of his kind's heads suggest that the United Nations and NATO want to catch these war criminals, in reality, the agencies, and the United States are content to let sleeping dogs lie.

Writer/director Richard Shepard ("The Matador") has sexed their story up a bit, including changing one of their informants from a man to a beautiful woman (Diane Kruger). The back story he gives Simon is a tad embarrassing -- it's obviously a grasp for emotional weight -- but that's really his only mistake.

One of his best additions to Anderson's story is a pipsqueak named Benjamin (Jesse Eisenberg from "Roger Dodger"), a glorified news intern Duck has brought with him to help cover the fifth anniversary of the end of the Bosnian war. "You must be the son of someone important," Simon observes (correctly) as he shakes Benjamin's hand.

It's easy to get lost in the movie's zingy blend of the serious and the ironic. Like Simon and Duck, it's got a good heart and sense of fun, and the acting is consistently strong. Howard hasn't been this at ease in a role since his career exploded with 2005's "Hustle & Flow." And although it's hard to swallow the idea of Gere as ever truly being washed up -- he is a guy who makes gray hair and crow's feet look like an Armani suit -- he brings the same kind of conviction to Simon as he did to last year's "The Hoax." This American gigolo has really evolved.

Reach Mary F. Pols at mpols@bayareanewsgroup.com or 925-945-4741.

'THE HUNTING PARTY'

B+

Starring: Richard Gere, Terrence Howard, Jesse Eisenberg, James Brolin

Director: Richard Shepard

Rated: R for strong language and some violent content

Opens today: In Bay Area theaters

Running time: 1 hour, 36 minutes

In the smart, surprisingly touching new satire "Delirious," Steve Buscemi plays a paparazzo named Les Galantine. The name is fitting enough -- Les couldn't be less gallant -- but the character is so much like the four-legged creature Buscemi portrayed brilliantly in last year's "Charlotte's Web" that it is tempting to think of him as Templeton 2.
Like the rat, Les is greedy, secretive and lives in a dirty nest filled with castoffs, although Les makes his home in New York City rather than on a farm in Maine. He's also a bottom feeder, although not a particularly successful one. His claim to fame in the paparazzi world is that he once snapped a photograph of Elvis Costello without his hat on.

He and his brethren are staking out a restaurant where a pop star named K'Harma Leeds (Alison Lohman) is lunching, when a homeless young man named Toby Grace (Michael Pitt) wanders by and offers to bring him coffee.

Down on his luck and chilled to the bone, Toby wants a free cup of coffee, but he's not looking to scam Les. Actually, Toby's soon practicing his sales pitch; he'd like to be the paparazzo's assistant. For free.

The two men begin an awkward friendship, motivated in Les' case by loneliness and his pleasure in feeling important for once. Toby's motivations are less obvious. Naturally, he'd like a warm place to sleep. But he's also got ambition; he wants to be an actor. Les' proximity to fame, however grasping and peripheral, is intriguing to a naive boy who previously resided in a dumpster.

"Delirious" was written and directed by Tom DiCillio, a filmmaker whose career seemed poised to take off after his well-received 1995 Hollywood spoof "Living in Oblivion" (also starring Buscemi), but it never quite found its wings. His career path -- only three movies since "Oblivion" -- may not have been glorious, but it has given him a razor-sharp eye for the business of celebrity.

Navel-gazing on this topic tends to be fairly hollow (Buscemi's recent directorial effort, "Interview," comes to mind). And as the gap narrows between the traditional "star" system and the simply infamous, even a good satire runs the risk of being mistaken for reality programming.

But DiCillo actually does have something new to offer on the topic of fame. He's exploring that increasingly nebulous territory between our disgust with and curiosity about celebrity. The very concept of celebrity enrages Les; he lives to bring them down. Yet, he's dazzled. When Toby, whose star rises as randomly as that of, say, "The Hill's" Lauren Conrad, invites him to a party K'Harma is throwing, Les is absolutely paralyzed with excitement.

Meanwhile, Toby is innocent and pure at heart enough to be able to see K'Harma as the real girl that she is. She may look like a Britney Spears type, strutting around in just a bra, but she's a nice girl, a romantic who is willing to date a homeless boy.

Pitt got his start, improbably, on TV's "Dawson's Creek," then took off his clothes for Bertolucci's "The Dreamers" and later channeled Kurt Cobain in Gus Van Sant's "Last Days." He tends to captivate through an unsettling weirdness; you never really figure out who or what he is, but you can't stop trying.

As Toby, he emits a glow that seems almost divine. This boy has to become a star. In making us root for Toby and his fairy-tale ending, DiCillo succeeds in reminding us of what true star power is. Ultimately, he's far more gentle on celestial beings than we might expect from such a clever satirist, and I found myself torn over whether the ending was a cop-out or an affirmation. But the movie is a provocative little pleasure, and the gleefully vile Buscemi and dreamy-eyed Pitt make a fine 21st-century odd couple.

Reach Mary Pols at mpols@bayareanewspapers.com.

'delirious'

B+

Starring: Steve Buscemi, Michael Pitt, Alison Lohman, Gina Gershon

Director: Tom DiCillo

Rated: NR

Opens today: Shattuck, Berkeley; Lumiere, S.F.

Running time: 1 hour, 40 minutes

In "Eastern Promises," Viggo Mortensen adopts a Russian accent and has quite a lengthy nude scene of the full frontal, full back-tail variety. Let me add -- before this bulletin causes a stampede at the multiplex -- that he shares this scene with a pair of knife-wielding, black-clad thugs fresh from the mountains of Chechnya. And no one appears to be having any fun at all.
Disappointing as this may be, "Eastern Promises" is still a treat. It's just the kind of movie we've come to expect from the teaming of Mortensen and his "A History of Violence" director, David Cronenberg, dark, suspenseful and filled with blood, not just the kind that gets spilled, but the kind that pulses through the body. The two movies are both about violence getting in the way of the desire for the essentials of a life -- love, family -- in a sense, foul passions interfering with pure passions.

The movie was written by Steve Knight, whose first screenplay was the equally riveting "Dirty Pretty Things." There are many echoes of that story in this one, which also features immigrants upholding a first-world metropolis (London again) as a place of golden dreams, and then discovering it to be a seamy, miserable place.

In this case, the immigrants are Russian, some good, some very bad. Mortensen plays Nikolai, who works for a powerful family associated with a criminal brotherhood called the Vory V Zakone. Nikolai doubles as chauffeur and "undertaker" for the family, and Cronenberg gives us a chilling close-up of his handiwork with a corpse. His duties also include depositing the family's drunken scion Kirill (Vincent Cassel) safely home on what seems to be a nightly basis.

The patriarch is Semyon (the brilliant Armin Mueller-Stahl), who runs the Russian restaurant that serves as the front for nefarious activities. Semyon divides his time between making the borscht and importing heroin, all the while clad in a grandfatherly cardigan. He's that much more terrifying because it seems he could just as easily launch into a bedtime story about the old country as a death order.

The story revolves around an innocent who strays into this den of wolves. Anna (Naomi Watts) is a midwife hoping to solve the mystery of a young girl who died giving birth on Anna's shift. The baby survived, and Anna wants to save it from going into the foster system. A clue in the girl's diary leads her to the restaurant. Cronenberg directs these scenes like the darkest of fairy tales, with Anna as Goldilocks (we even see her stretching in bed in a girlish white-lace nightie a couple of times). She samples Semyon's borscht, swooning over how much it reminds her of her own Russian-born -- now dead -- father, and then settles into the opulent, velvet-lined interior to ask precisely the kinds of questions one should not ask a guy like Semyon.

But of course, she's not an idiot. Cronenberg isn't interested in idiotic heroines. Like Maria Bello, who played Mortensen's wife in "History," Anna is a quick study. She and Nikolai have several standoffs, she righteous and indignant, he silky and insinuating. They keep coming to a draw and the ever-increasing sexual charge between them makes us want more. That's a theme with the movie, which ends, as "History" did, with a beginning that both says it all and leaves room for a whole new story.

Cronenberg really knows how to pace his tales. "Eastern Promises" isn't particularly long, but it feels full -- full of tension and excitement and beautifully staged scenes. (To be a fly on the wall while Nikolai is being tattooed is like stepping into some surreal Pieta). The criminal-underbelly angle isn't new by any means, but Knight's story is strong, and we care very much about the fate of Tatiana's baby girl.

The real selling point, however, is the acting. A Cronenberg film is a good destination for actors who want to do Oscar-worthy character work (Mueller-Stahl and Cassel would have to duke it out for a nomination, but the edge goes to Mueller-Stahl). Watts shines as usual, even at portraying humility. But Mortensen should not be overlooked. Nikolai has to keep us guessing, and he plays that game so adeptly I gave up, declared the movie the winner and just enjoyed the performance for what it is -- lush, ambiguous and alive with possibilities. This is an actor who loves his work and is at the top of his game.

Reach Mary F. Pols at 925-945-4741 or mpols@bayareanewsgroup.com.

'eastern promises'

A-

Starring: Viggo Mortensen, Naomi Watts, Vincent Cassel, Armin Mueller-Stahl, Sinead Cusack, Jerzy Skolimowski

Director: David Cronenberg

Rated: R for strong brutal and bloody violence, some graphic sexuality, language and nudity

Opens today: Metreon, S.F.; expands on Sept. 21

Running time: 1 hour, 36 minutes

My first bite might as well have been a sultry, salty kiss.
The chef had already warmed virgin olive oil over a bare flame for hours, steeping it with resinous rosemary. Our waitress put a pinch of salt in a ramekin, topped it with the oil, and brought it to our table with fresh slices of chewy Acme Rustic Baguette. The surprise effect of those flavorful crystals was as simple and powerful as a teenage smooch. I was dumbstruck.

Massimiliano Boldrini's Riva Cucina opened in April, but East Bay chefs, it seems, have been imitating him for years. Where others talk a good game, Boldrini delivers -- a stunning piece of fish, of cheese, of tomato, a little salt, a little olive oil --accentuating natural goodness.

There are others who execute this simple but devilishly difficult philosophy -- Oliveto and Chez Panisse come to mind -- but none that is directed so completely by one person. With only 32 seats inside (another 44 on the patio) and a location you'd never stumble across, Riva's pace never gets out of Boldrini's hands.

It's fortunate, in a way, that Riva is off the beaten track. Boldrini likes to be in control, and an initial rush of customers could have thrown him off his game.

"I'm a conservative person," the 33-year-old Boldrini says. "I start everything slow."

He grew up in Emilia-Romagna in Northern Italy, the son of a chef who used lots of butter. But while Massimiliano's cooking is sweet -- from ripe produce and careful caramelization -- it's not overly rich.

"The first word that comes up for me is honest," Boldrini says. "Honest food, honest cuisine."

My first course was Burrata ($10), the creamy mozzarella currently in fashion. This was not salad with cheese, it was cheese with salad. A quivering flan-sized round atop a scatter of baby, wild arugula. A drizzle. A grind. A sprinkle. A lovely late-summer dish.

A sweet scallop appetizer is a little more complex. Bodrini pulverizes saffron and salt in a spice grinder and whisks the dust into lemony olive oil. That's the sauce. The virgin half-dollar scallops -- a bargain at $11.50 -- are seared on one side and plated with a soft pile of baked eggplant and squash. The veggies' sugars come to the fore, garlic and thyme fading to the rear.

Our lunch only gets better. My Panino con Agnello ($10.50), the most decadent dish I tried and a chef's favorite, slathers caramelized onions in a sweet roll with warm slices of roasted lamb. To make it, Boldrini debones and flattens the whole leg, smears it with roasted garlic, sage, rosemary and thyme, rolls it tight and cooks it pink. Bites of the sandwich reveal cloves of sticky-soft garlic, peppery arugula and a spike of Dijon.

Boldrini wows you with carefully considered textures. When I interviewed him Tuesday, he had just created a bruschetta served on a puree of tuna confit and aioli. He talked excitedly about how the creamy fish would hit the tongue while the palate encountered slick tomato -- followed by a toothsome crunch of toast.

The 6-foot-2-inch Boldrini is remarkably steady, yet young enough to get enthused by such innovations. He arrives each day at 8 a.m. and gets feedback from customers who linger with lattes and delicate pastries.

"I'm making a lot of friends," he says describing the jolt of energy he gets from the interactions. "It's like I'm drinking coffee every 30 minutes." He's like that until his head hits the pillow after putting in a fish order at 2 a.m.

Boldrini's American wife, Jennifer, like the other wait staff, dresses in jeans and a long-sleeve brown Riva shirt. In addition to her long red hair and immense smile, she distinguishes herself by checking in with diners to see how they're doing.

I returned for dinner on my own and had no problem getting a table without a reservation on Friday. My waiter told me it's usually a busy night, but on this Friday, the dining room was less than half full. Breakfast service paraphernalia -- chalkboard with coffee drinks and a pastry case -- gives the restaurant a casual feel, especially with no host at the entrance. Potted table plants, buttery walls and upright hutches make it even more homey.

Outside the brick building are planters filled with herbs that Boldrini planted with the preschool kids across the street. The patio chairs and tables are fashionable wood, set out on a sprawling concrete walkway.

My meal was lovely. The aroma from a cup of whole lentil soup ($4) evoked the pot on grandma's stove, although nonna never used prosciutto rind to infuse her broth with porky goodness.

A beet salad ($9.50), cubes of chiogga marinated in Champagne vinegar, was more light than earth: brilliant greens and a flutter of ricotta salata. The shaved ricotta -- pressed of all its liquid and gently cured -- had a magical effect, with a rich and elusive mouth-feel like good Champagne.

Seared tuna ($18.50) is, for better or worse, unlike any other. As with his scallops, Boldrini crusts one side over super-high heat, turns off the flame, turns over the fish, and lets it sit for a minute in its own juices. Letting it "marinate" and leaving just a sliver of raw in the middle produces a meaty taste with a chew that's leathery on top, tender underneath. A thick pulse of garbanzo mashed with vegetable broth added to the dish's weight.

Boldrini spent a recent week of afternoons tasting wines with his staff, and the result is a solid but small predominately Italian list It was refreshing to have a waiter who had tasted all the wines and recommended a red on the low end.

It would be remiss of me to not mention Riva's pastas, a big part of the menu and a big part of what keeps it affordable. Boldrini makes "90 percent" of his pastas now, and will soon make them all. He's slowly moving towards an all-scratch menu, in fact. He just bought sausage-making equipment this week.

At lunch, we tried his triangular ravioli ($13.50) stuffed with sausage. The meat, like the crimini mushrooms served with the ravioli, is braised in red wine with shallots, garlic and thyme. Another honest dish that will only taste more true as fall's wild mushroom crop kicks in.

Reach Nicholas Boer at 925-943-8254 or nboer@bayareanewsgroup.com.

RIVA CUCINA

***/2

FOOD: ***1/2

AMBIENCE: **1/2

SERVICE: ***

WHERE: 800 Heinz Ave. (at 7th Street), Berkeley

CONTACT: 510-841-7482, http://www.rivacucina.com

HOURS: 8 a.m.-11:30 a.m. (pastries and coffee), 11:30-3:30 and 5:30-9 p.m. daily. 4-6 p.m. Thursday and Friday is Aperitivi, an Italian happy hour with free appetizers to customers ordering wine.

CUISINE: Northern Italian.

PRICES: $$. Dinner entrees $13-$19.

VEGETARIAN: Riva gets lots of vegetarians, and there are always vegan salad, pasta and entree options.

BEVERAGES: Limited but well-selected wines by the glass. Reasonable markup; most bottles are $30-$50. The 2004 Valle Reale Montepulciano D'Abruzzo ($40) is an excellent choice.

RESERVATIONS: Recommended, but often not necessary.

NOISE LEVEL: Concrete ceiling and floor can make the dining room loud.

PARKING: No problem.

KIDS: Special, sophisticated kids' menu.

PLUSES: Clean, honest Italian cuisine at affordable prices. Lamb sandwich, scallops and burrata are exceptional.

MINUSES: Closed weekends.

DATE OPENED: April 30, 2007.
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The Times does not let restaurants know that we are coming in to do a review, and we strive to remain anonymous. If we feel we have been recognized or are given special treatment, we will tell you. We pay for our meal, just as you would.

Star key

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** Good

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Price code

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$$ Typical entree under $20

$$$ Typical entree under $30

$$$$ Typical entree under $40

As vigilantes go, Erica Bane, the one Jodie Foster plays in "The Brave One," is a peach. Erica is sympathetic and so inherently rational that she's never convinced that she's doing the right thing, even though plugging bad guys with a 9mm gun obviously feels, on some level, very satisfying to her. She's got a moral compass; it's just been banged up.

A basket of gnarly heirloom tomatoes graced Gigi's antique wood bar heading into the busy Labor Day weekend. By Tuesday, the symbolic end of summer, the local display had turned into buttery, russet-splotched, dry-farmed Bartlett pears from Alhambra Valley Farms in Martinez.
The opening menu -- Gigi is just 7 weeks old -- is beginning to shift, reflecting the first blush of autumn. Those pears recently took the place of peaches in Gigi's popular salad of almonds and ricotta salata. But the pace of change is as slow as the season.

Jeff Amber left his job as executive chef of the Chow chain (two in S.F. and one in Lafayette) to open little Gigi, named after his daughter. Fewer seats not only allows for hotter, crispier fries; it creates room for sophistication and flexibility.

But despite wanting to ease into this creative new environment, Amber's restaurant opened hot out of the gate -- rarely has a Contra Costa eatery generated such interest. They're already doing 150 lunches out of a tiny kitchen -- prepping as fast as they cook.

So Amber's focus has been on keeping the ship steady, and making sure his young staff can pronounce and knows the difference between a coulis and a tuile. "At this point," Amber says, "I just want to make sure people are well-versed on where we're coming from."

Amber, whose background before Chow ranged from "fine dining to extreme fine dining," is now making food with the spirit of a market-inspired weeknight meal. His dishes don't blow you away so much as nourish you. Like Chez Panisse, it's the kind of menu that needs to change in order to stay vital. And not only for novelty's sake, but, in the long run, to keep the staff energized.

With the help of Amber's longtime friend and general manager Roxanne Logan, who has overseen all the Chow restaurants, the staff was quickly able to establish a rhythm -- despite the early crush of customers. For a restaurant that operated for 33 years as Kaffee Barbara, having a relaxed, cohesive staff (a third of which came from Chow) is reassuring to old customers.

Lunching on the sprawling, brick patio in this fair weather is a delight, but you do miss out on the contemporary feel captured in, of all places, an 85-year-old cottage. Natural light, redwood beams and a giant communal table of black walnut create an inviting, energetic entrance, while the unadorned walls put the focus on Amber's plates, where it belongs.

Crispy Local Cod ($16 at lunch, $18 at dinner) starts with a pair of silky tomato purees, as rich in tone as flavor. A pile of caramelized corn, basil leaves and bittersweet pattypan squash prop up the muscular chunks of seared cod. A more supple fish might work better, but the dish sings of summer.

The globe squash stuffed with shrimp ($10) has such vivid color, it appears to be raw. But it slices beautifully, providing a meaty background for sweet shellfish splashed with a creamy tarragon broth fortified with corn stock.

Amber has a way with seafood. The most impressive was the ubiquitous seared tuna ($20), which appears to have been "cooked" from a 2-second dip in hot water. The supple pink flesh is presented in isosceles triangles over warm Israeli couscous -- chewy BB-sized grains slick with olive oil. Particularly stunning was a bite of herb salad, unleashing a minty blast of shiso leaf.

Our rib-eye steak ($26) was nearly as raw -- not surprising, as it was served as a block, like those top-sirloin baseball cuts of yore. The quality was excellent, but if cooked a little more, the steak would have a texture much better suited to the cool heirloom tomatoes and chunks of blue cheese.

The pork tenderloin ($19) had a taste that put me in mind, not unpleasantly, of an In-N-Out burger -- the flavor you get from searing on hot, ungreased surfaces. The meat was a bit dry, too, despite a pink center.

Even the G-Burger ($10) wasn't as juicy as I had hoped for, though the bun and garnishes were first-rate, and the tangle of fries, fresh from the fryer, were killer.

I shared the burger with a friend at lunch out on the patio. We started with a gigantic bowl of warm olives ($5) and, like every meal at Gigi, finished with a free piece of fudge wrapped in parchment, like toffee. Our other entree, a Parmesan Omelet ($10), was golden and buttery, but neither as soft nor as redolent of cheese as I would have hoped.

Service on all my visits has been attentive and eager (one waiter practically insisted that we get the side of fries rather than salad). But it hasn't been particularly polished or well-informed. When I asked where the "local" tuna was from -- all the fish are listed as local -- one waiter said a company in San Francisco, and another told me Monterey Fish Company, a great purveyor to be sure. But the tuna, it turns out, is ahi from Hawaii.

It's a compelling dinner menu, with items innovative and familiar. One night we started with Lobster Carbonara ($13) and Crispy Chicken Livers ($10), both of which were tasty, but heavier than I imagined. The lukewarm pasta was such a mass of parmesan, bacon and egg that the lobster, served in chunks, couldn't find a way in. And the musky livers overpowered the delicate fruit.

The food here is way above average, with careful presentations and a wholesome appeal. But its power comes more from fine ingredients than refined technique or a coy interplay of flavors.

The desserts ($7) were a success. A modern Peach Melba puts a scoop of gelato in the center of a poached, skinless peach half; a thick vanilla Panna Cotta is spiked with dark cherries; and the pile of fried squiggles in the Funnel Cake comes with a side of thick and sticky caramel sauce.

It's doubtful Gigi will have a 30-year run like its predecessor, but it could if Amber wished it so. He got more business than he bargained for when he opened up what he imagined would be a calm, neighborhood restaurant.

In order to satisfy the demand, Amber plans to install an awning over the patio before the rain and wind become too menacing. But with the kitchen already going full tilt from 9 a.m. to 1 p.m., he doesn't have any plans to open for breakfast, as much as Kaffee Barbara fans urge him on.

It's enough of a challenge to get back to the business of tweaking the menu to fit the season.

Reach Times Food editor Nicholas Boer at 925-943-8254 or nboer@bayareanewsgroup.com.

GIGI

*** out of ****

FOOD: ***

AMBIENCE: **1/2

SERVICE: **1/2

WHERE: 1005 Brown Ave., Lafayette.

CONTACT: 925-962-0882.

HOURS: 11 a.m.-2:30 p.m. and 5-10 p.m. Tuesdays-Sundays (closes at 9 p.m. on Sundays).

CUISINE: California.

PRICES: $$. Dinner entrees $10-$22.

VEGETARIAN: Entrees by request. Stuffed globe squash spiked with herbs and served with tomato coulis is an example.

BEVERAGES: International, affordable wine list with many selections from smaller wineries.

RESERVATIONS: Suggested, especially for larger parties (rarely can they accommodate tables of more than eight). Communal table and bar area are great for singles and drop-ins.

NOISE LEVEL: Despite deep carpets, the small space inevitably gets loud when busy, making conversation difficult. But music is turned down low or off at night.

PARKING: Small lot behind restaurant fills quickly, especially at lunch. Mt. Diablo Boulevard is sometimes your best bet.

KIDS: No printed menu, but peanut butter and jelly, pasta, burgers, grilled cheese, ham and cheese and chicken breasts are typically on hand.

PLUSES: Sophisticated, ingredient-driven cuisine; cozy neighborhood restaurant.

MINUSES: Noise and parking are the only real issues.

DATE OPENED: July 20, 2007.
policy

The Times does not let restaurants know that we are coming in to do a review, and we strive to remain anonymous. If we feel we have been recognized or are given special treatment, we will tell you. We pay for our meal, just as you would.

Star key

* Fair

** Good

*** Great

**** Extraordinary

Price code

$ Typical entree under $10

$$ Typical entree under $20

$$$ Typical entree under $30

$$$$ Typical entree under $40

No gooey nachos. No quesadillas. And best of all, no cheesy waiters.
Playa Azul reopened this month in Pleasant Hill with a renewed commitment to its original source, its well of inspiration, the Gulf of Mexico. A shark-infested mural promises seafood and adventure -- delivered by an attractive and sincerely sensitive crew.

The black-shirted, tie-clad staff reflects a menu that eschews under-$10 entrees. The cooks, like trawlers, have a rough-and-tumble style, but when you're chasing broiled lobster with a Cadillac Margarita, a devil-may-care attitude is just the point.

Pescado Entero Sarandeado ($16.50), a bony, blister-headed whole snapper, hides snowy flesh swathed in warm mayonnaise. Teeming with potato wedges, lime wedges and thick, toothsome carrots, the deep-fried-then-baked fish looks like an underwater fantasy -- if only my "plantain leaf" wrapper hadn't turned into aluminum foil.

The Filete Relleno ($15.95) is so crisp its edges point up like a witch's toe. The snapper fillet, topped with a layer of gratineed crab and tender shrimp, looks like garlic bread, and offers the same rich center and crusty chew.

Langosta Al Horno ($25.50), with its darkly scarred finish, could have come from a furnace. But the spiny lobster tail remains succulent -- ivory meat resting between russet shell and broiled top. It's a classic preparation that would make any high-end steakhouse proud (a filet mignon surf and turf can be had for another $7).

One manhandled dish that didn't survive was Caldo Siete Mares ($16.50), a cioppino-like stew with seven kinds of seafood, all overcooked. The tomatoey broth had a clean, bracing flavor, but the shellfish, particularly the crab legs and baby octopus, emerged chewy and dry.

Playa Azul, styled after the 14-year-old original on San Francisco's Mission Street, opened in November and came into its own only after a short closure, brush off, and remodel.

The wide-open dining room is still funky, a kind of Latin-lodge hybrid, but it sports a seriously fun bar with 150 tequilas (and counting). Paper-topped white tablecloths and metal-back chairs are contrasted with colorful fiesta plates and candleholders with the flavor of a Tijuana gift shop. It gives one permission to be silly or serious.

General manager Jacinto Castillo has found a powerfully effective balance between the two. His style is relaxed but his staff never rests, cleaning when they could be leaning, and thinking before intruding. One busboy gently asked if I needed some hot sauce for my clam chowder and our waitress checked in before happy hour closed -- you feel cared for, not smothered. And they kept the 9- and 11-year-olds in our party happy without dumbing down the service.

The Monday after our feast, I returned for a solo lunch and found Castillo manning the bar. He had plenty of optimism and pride -- but no airs. Having attended California Culinary Academy, he oversees both the front and back of the house. With such a background, he should do something about the sides (entrees come with a choice of two). Veggies look impressive, but are mostly a woody mix, the lard-stoked refried beans are watery, and the coleslaw bland and ragged. Their shortcomings are highlighted by platter-sized plates garnished with arty sprinkles of spice and 8-inch stalks of fresh rosemary.

Desserts, especially the overcooked, eggy flan, aren't worth serving.

Playa Azul has huge potential, it reminds me a bit of Guaymas in Tiburon, with its snappy, almost tropical mood and lively innovative menu. The service here already surpasses Guaymas; a focus on freshness could really make it a destination.

Prices here might be higher than at your favorite Mexican restaurant, but the plates are full and the sides are worthwhile if you order fries, a green salad or dangerously rich clam chowder. You won't get chips and salsa, but wedges of toasted soft white bread and a creamy faux-crab dip spiked with olives and pimentos is on the house. Warm tortillas come with all entrees.

Still undercover, I asked Castillo to recommend a dish and he went straight for one of the three whole snapper dishes. When I demurred, he pointed to Camarones a la Diabla ($13.25).

I wasn't disappointed. There must have been 10 large shrimp -- with enough chipotle-tomato sauce for 30. Extra spicy and loaded with wilted threads of sweet onion, the dish might have been sensational if the shrimp had been cooked a minute less.

We started with a prawn party platter, Botana Dos ($29.50), on our original visit. Wrapped in bacon, stuffed in hot chiles, and simply breaded and fried, the dozen-plus shrimp were well-done -- in both senses. They came on a bed of shredded ceviche -- a tender and flavorful hash of lime-marinated shrimp and octopus. Enjoying this and a pitcher of margaritas with friends is highly recommend.

If you are stymied by the lack of "traditional" Mexican dishes -- tacos, enchiladas, etc. -- and aren't a big fan of seafood, there are several steak and chicken dishes, including Carne Asada ($10.75) and New York Steak ($14.95).

We tried Pechuga Flameada ($11.75) -- grilled chicken breast with chorizo and cheese -- which wasn't quite as gutsy as it sounded. When you can get a whole fish "eyeballs and all" as Castillo likes to say, for another $5, you might as well test your boundaries.

And that's the point of Playa Azul a restaurant that wants to stretch your idea of what Mexican food means. Castillo wants you to get off the burrito train. Even if you're a little squeamish about eyeballs, the stiff margaritas and smiling staff will erase any regrets.

Reach Nicholas Boer at 925-943-8254 or nboer@bayareanewsgroup.com.

PLAYA AZUL

**1/2

FOOD: **

AMBIENCE: ***

SERVICE: ***1/2

WHERE: 1428 Contra Costa Blvd., Pleasant Hill. Also in San Francisco.

CONTACT: 925-676-0600.

HOURS: 10 a.m.-10 p.m. every day.

CUISINE: Coastal Mexican.

PRICES: $$. $10.75-$25.50.

VEGETARIAN: Not much on the menu, but salads can be reconfigured and mixed vegetables are available in chipotle sauce or garlic butter. Just ask your waiter.

BEVERAGES: Full bar with great Cadillac Margaritas are particularly good.

RESERVATIONS: Welcomed on the weekends. Call ahead for large parties (up to 50 can be accommodated).

NOISE LEVEL: Dining room is huge and wide open, so it's quiet when slow, loud when busy.

PARKING: Small lot and street parking.

KIDS: No special menu, but check with your waiter for breaded-to-order fish sticks or chicken strips. French fries are on the menu. Quesadillas, smaller portions of regular dinner items, or even burgers are possible if you ask.

PLUSES: Smart service, intriguing seafood menu.

MINUSES: Kitchen is a little rough. Desserts and sides need work.

DATE OPENED: First opened in November; renovated and reopened Aug. 17.
POLICY

The Times does not let restaurants know that we are coming in to do a review, and we strive to remain anonymous. If we feel we have been recognized or are given special treatment, we will tell you. We pay for our meal, just as you would.

Star key

* Fair

** Good

*** Geat

**** Extraordinary

Price code

$ Typical entree under $10

$$ Typical entree under $20

$$$ Typical entree under $30

$$$$ Typical entree under $40

I often daydream, as most overworked single women do, that I'm lounging on a chaise in an exotic locale while someone who resembles Eric Bana is fanning me with one of those chic bamboo numbers.
The location, be it a resort or cabana, would have a South Asian flavor. Like the lodge of a plush ski resort, this would be the chill spot for those of us who eschewed the safari for cold drinks, coconut shrimp and pampering.

Elephant Bar, in its own way, offers all three.

Let me explain: Cold fruity drinks are their specialty. Coconut shrimp is on their Pacific Rim-inspired menu. And the service, at least in the East Bay, is so attentive, it's near pampering.

The chain is opening its third East Bay restaurant in Dublin this December, so I figured a little nightlife-worthy contest between the older-and-wiser Concord location (going on eight years) and the newer Emeryville spot was in order.

I'd long associated Elephant Bar Restaurant and its over-the-top tusks and trunks with senior dinners and the high school swim team crowd. But in fact, each restaurant has a sizable circular bar with cozy booths, flat-screen televisions and a full appetizer and cocktail menu. So, I got to work.

Jenny and I hit the Emeryville site last Thursday following a screening of "Superbad." Perhaps we were feeling boisterous because of the movie's hilariously crude content, or I was expecting a sea of hot nerds given its proximity to Pixar and LeapFrog, but we were surprised at how quiet both the restaurant and the bar were.

After all, stores were shutting down, movies were wrapping up, and if you gorged on popcorn to make that 7 p.m. flick and hold yourself over, chances are you'd be ready for some nice appetizers and a drink. We were. And Alonzo, a new bartender, was ever pleased to help us. He made drink recommendations and checked on us repeatedly.

Jenny got the Jungle Colada, a swirled, spiked smoothie of dark rum and pineapple, coconut, mango and passion raspberry juices and cream. It was scrumptious, and would cost way more than Elephant Bar's $6 at any independent tiki bar. I got the 'Olu Passion Mai Tai: light rum, three juices, Curacao and grenadine topped with dark rum. Equally yummers.

The bar was pretty quiet, so we nibbled on our appetizers and caught up on work and boys. Our Wok-Fired Chicken and Lettuce Wraps ($7.50) were almost too salty to eat, but the Vietnamese Shrimp Spring Rolls ($6.95) were good, albeit deflated compared to the brimming ones you can get for a buck at pho houses in the area.

No matter. We were happy taking in the decor: gleaming, golden giraffes, glass blown overhead lights, animal print carpet and those bamboo fans in automated electric form. No automated Bana, unfortunately.

The next day, I met Julie for happy hour at the Concord location. It was loud and hopping. Perhaps because it was a Friday at 6 p.m.? I don't know, but I was both shocked and pleased to be wrong. I'd assumed Emeryville would be the more happening spot. Not so. If the Zagat folks are reading this, I still don't think it absolves you from listing Elephant Bar and Left Bank in your 2007-08 San Francisco Nightlife guide as the only after-dark spots east of Berkeley. Shame on you.

Anyway, there was one table open in the bar and we grabbed it. The scene: girls-and-boys-night types and the after-work crowd, about 40 and under. There was even a group of teenagers that arrived via limo and headed to the dining room for dinner.

I liked this round of appetizers a lot more. We got the Quick-Fried Soy-Ginger Calamari ($6.95) and the E-Bar Famous Artichoke Dip ($7.50). Both were delicious but not particularly warm, Jules pointed out. Still, given the hour, they were half off, and a nice complement to our margaritas.

And again, our server, Melissa, was over-the-top nice, letting us know when happy hour was about to end in case we wanted to fill 'er up. The deep and almost disturbing contrast to Melissa's sunshine-sparkly personality was the table of guys to our left.

Happy hour must've started super-early for them -- noon, perhaps -- because their discussion of sexual exploits and cross-analysis of preferred positions was so loud and so crude, it made the previous night's "Superbad" super-benign.

Night Writer Jessica Yadegaran profiles bars, clubs and similar hangouts in the Bay Area every other week in Friday TimeOut. Call her at 925-943-8155 with comments or suggestions.

Elephant Bar

WHERE: 1225 Willow Pass Road, Concord; 5601 Bay St., Emeryville.

HOURS: 11 a.m.-10:30 p.m. Sundays-Thursdays; 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays.

CONTACT: 925-671-0119; 510-601-1001; http://www.elephantbar.com.

PARKING: Concord has its own; Emeryville has the parking garage at Bay Street.

ATMOSPHERE: Safari chill meets fruity drinks and Pacific Rim munchies.

CROWD: The "post" people: post-work, post-movies, post-shopping, post-swim practice.

BARBIES: Not particularly.

NASTOIDS: Beware, ladies of Concord.

The low-budget indie film "Right at Your Door" features a major disaster -- the explosion of dirty bombs in downtown Los Angeles at LAX airport -- but it's not exactly a doomsday movie. As was true on 9/11, a major city isn't destroyed. It's just altered forever. Repercussions are coming, but no one knows quite what they'll be.
Writer/director Chris Gorak focuses his story on a lone married couple. Unemployed musician Brad (Rory Cochrane) gets up one hazy Los Angeles morning, makes a perfect espresso for his wife, Lexi (Mary McCormack), and then waves her off to work.

His plans for an idle day of doing errands and hanging out are quickly shattered by the news of multiple explosions downtown, where Lexi works. Everyone is ordered to stay home, seal their windows and doors and wait out the crisis.

Brad would like to be the powerful rescuer, but he believes what he hears from the radio and the cops he encounters in their neighborhood. Instead of pushing his way into the epicenter of the crisis, Bruce Willis-style, he does what he's told. He goes home and seals himself inside the house. Then Lexi arrives, vomiting, bruised, her clothes tattered, and asks him to open the door.

From what Brad has picked up from the radio, he shouldn't. She's contaminated. If he lets her in, he'll be contaminated too. Talk about a scene from a marriage.

Gorak has given us a few early clues into Brad and Lexi's life together, so we know they love each other. But there seems to be some resentment on both sides about the fact that Lexi is the breadwinner. He'd like her to praise his cooking more (Cochrane, who played the ultimate stoner in "Dazed and Confused," expertly conveys Brad's whiny insecurity). Lexi doesn't feel like building up his ego. And so on.

The film impresses through its sheer economy. Imagine yourself in writer-director Gorak's shoes. He's a former production designer and art director who's worked on slick movies like "Minority Report" and "Fight Club," and now he's making his first feature film. He has no budget to speak of, but he's thinking big, trying to create an event so big the radio and television would be nattering 24/7 about it.

Radio is easy to fake, right? But TV images would involve expensive special effects. So Gorak has his story begin two weeks after Lexi and Brad have moved into a new house. Since the cable guy hasn't come yet, they have no TV reception. Gorak's solution isn't just a budget saver, it's an improvement to the film. Being cut off from images of the outside world makes the whole thing that much more spooky and tense.

Then all he needs are easy effects: billowing clouds of beige and brown smoke over the Los Angeles' downtown district, a helicopter in its midst and then, finally, the ash falling from the sky like filthy snow. The Michael Bays of the world should take note: While minimal, these simple images are absolutely effective. We do believe Lexi and Brad's world has fallen apart.

Because their story is told in relative isolation, we don't need to know what happens to everyone in Los Angeles, although our hunch is that none of it will be good. But we do want to know what happens to the couple. No spoiler, but suffice it to say, Gorak gives his last chapter a twist. His intent to send us home still mulling is good and right, but the means with which he arrives at it is somewhat suspect, and it's ultimately too neat, too easy.

That's not to take away from all he's done up until then. The exploration of the impact of paranoia on Brad and Lexi's life is interesting enough. But Gorak succeeds in raising larger issues about societal paranoia, and the dangers of being too obedient and trusting of the powers that be. One of the film's saddest sights is that of Brad, frantically dialing 911, even though it's patently clear there is no point whatsoever.

Reach Mary F. Pols at mpols@bayareanewsgroup.com or 925-945-4741.

"RIGHT AT YOUR DOOR"

B+

Starring: Mary McCormack, Rory Cochrane

Director: Chris Gorak

Rated: R for pervasive language and some disturbing violent content

Opens today: Shattuck, Berkeley; Kabuki, SF

Running time: 1 hour, 33 minutes

By Mary F. Pols
STAFF WRITER
Contra Costa Times

"Two Days in Paris," a comedy about a French woman (Julie Delpy) who makes a brief stopover to see friends and family in her native Paris with her American boyfriend (Adam Goldberg), is a crazy quilt of uncomfortable moments.
Some, like the one where her mom (Marie Pillet, Delpy's real mother) walks in on the couple in bed, or her dad (Albert Delpy, the actress' father) teases Jack at the dinner table, are standard meet-the-parents sequences. But others are so out of left field that the jaw drops.

The most sublime takes place in a cafe, where Marion and Jack have gone for lunch. They haven't been getting along particularly well on their vacation, either in Venice, where Jack acted like too much of a tourist for Marion's taste, or in Paris, where he's been privy to a wave of information about her past relationships and subsequently becomes jealous and insecure. Now it seems likely they'll have one of those difficult, state of the relationship conversations over their salad nicoise.

Instead, Marion picks a fight with a man sitting at a nearby table. Within seconds, she's spitting mad. Jack stares at her as if she's lost her mind, but she's oblivious. The fight, it turns out, is an old one, from many years ago, but she resumes it as if it were still of utmost importance. The guy did something vile, involving pedophilia and possibly prostitutes, and Marion won't let him off the hook.

The scene is inventive, brave and it says a lot about Julie Delpy, who not only stars in this movie, but produced, wrote and directed it (she also gets a fifth and sixth credit for composing the music and editing, but who's counting?). Delpy has frequently been the intellectually inclined man's dream girl in film -- most famously in Richard Linklater's "Before Sunrise" and "Before Sunset," which she co-wrote -- but here, she presents herself as an unabashedly difficult woman.

This kind of fearlessness will freak out a lot of men, including many who've held a quiet torch for Delpy. Because it's not Jack and his comfort level that are Marion's focus. What matters to Marion is that she vent her anger and say her piece. This kind of pigheaded, non-accommodating behavior is way out of bounds for the female lead in a movie. A sidekick could get away with it and not be considered dangerous, sure. And so, of course, could a man. But not The Girl.

Which brings us to Woody Allen. "2 Days in Paris" resembles nothing so much as an early Allen film, particularly "Annie Hall." It's incessantly talky, and the rambling plot involves little more than Marion and Jack going to parties and walking around Paris while picking apart their relationship. As Allen made New York seem like a real, lived-in place, Delpy gives us that same easy proximity to Paris. But Delpy hasn't written herself as Annie Hall. Certainly she's got an eclectic fashion sense and a slightly gawky and natural beauty (her hair always seems frizzy). But Marion is more Alvy than Annie, and that's where Delpy shows her willingness to subvert the norm.

Her Marion puts herself out there, flaws and all -- passionate, secretive, often irascible, particularly when cab drivers are involved -- and Jack and the audience can either love her or not. I found her very lovable and Jack's endless chatter fairly entertaining, although I didn't care much about whether the two of them "made it."

Presumably, that disregard for a happy outcome doesn't say much for how the film stands as a representative of romantic comedy, but then again, that whole tired genre has room for improvement.

Reach Mary F. Pols at mpols@bayareanewsgroup.com or 925-945-4741

"2 DAYS IN PARIS"

B

Starring: Julie Delpy, Adam Goldberg, Marie Pillet, Albert Delpy

Written and directed by: Julie Delpy

Rated: R for sexual content, some nudity and language

Opens today: CineArts, Pleasant Hill; Albany Twin; Embarcadero, S.F.

Running time: 1 hour, 36 minutes

Adapted from the best-selling novel by Emma McLaughlin and Nicola Kraus, "The Nanny Diaries" tells the story of a young college graduate named Annie (Scarlett Johansson) who chooses, in the absence of more inspiring career opportunities, to become a nanny for an Upper East Side family.
Needless to say, this is not what her mother Judy (Donna Murphy) had in mind when she bought Annie's graduation present, a badly cut business suit of indeterminate color -- green in some lights, gray in others -- and consistently gloomy. A salt of the earth nurse, Judy envisioned that suit taking Annie right to the top of mysterious world of Wall Street, far out of reach of all the chores and indignities of caretaking, with which she herself is so familiar.

As movie mothers go, Judy is particularly clueless, pressuring her only child relentlessly. But by the end of "The Nanny Diaries," I'd come to empathize with her only-the-best-for-my-kid point of view. Writing/directing team members Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini are not my children, but after their last movie, the triumphantly weird "American Splendor," I only wanted the best for them as well. And somehow, they ended up with "The Nanny Diaries," a horror film awkwardly disguised in the nondescript gray-green suit of a chick flick.

Annie's charge is a 4-year-old whose name is Grayer (Nicholas Reese Art), which may be the movie's best, or at least its easiest joke. Her boss is referred to only as Mrs. X (Laura Linney). Presumably the idea is, as it was with Mr. Big on "Sex and the City," that the gag makes it more fun to speculate as to who the "real" person was who inspired McLaughlin and Kraus, both former New York nannies, to turn into novelists.

Mrs. X is self-centered, insecure and perpetually exhausted by shopping, charity work and lunching. She's a cold and emotionally uninvolved mother, whose deepest concern about Grayer seems to be that he get into the right private schools. She abuses Annie's good nature at every turn, even going so far as to ignore the girl's emergency phone calls while she's away at spa. Linney embraces Mrs. X's awfulness with the same kind of glee Meryl Streep brought to "The Devil Wears Prada," playing her as a sort of Wicked Witch of the East Side.

Early in the movie, we hear Mr. X (Paul Giamatti, who starred in "American Splendor") but don't see him -- he's got his head turned, or something obscures him -- and there's the expectation that the filmmakers may keep his face a secret. That could have worked, because the voice Giamatti uses for the performance is so effective. It's very soft, butter on the verge of a complete melt, and yet utterly menacing. He philanders, he disappears and he even gives Grayer a puppy and then takes it away. He's the Voldermort of the Upper East Side. With a kid.

Therein lies the problem. When Streep's character in "The Devil Wears Prada" was mean to her minions, we could laugh because they were all there by choice and in some sense, aspiring to be her. As a minion, Annie is fairly limp and surprisingly malleable (we keep hoping she'll stand up for the right for even a Sunday off).

But freckle-faced, often glum little Grayer is not a minion. He's a most unfortunate child, trapped in a luxury apartment with parents who are convincingly unredeemable. By the time he tells Annie he loves her "the most," "The Nanny Diaries" has become a tragedy.

Springer Berman and Pulcini keep trying to convince us otherwise, positioning the movie as a "Working Girl" or "Prada" style-tale of an evil female boss serving as an aimless career girl's role model for what not to be. Annie also has romantic potential in the boy who lives next door, aka the Harvard Hottie (Chris Evans), but it's hard to work up any interest in that plot line when you're wondering how she can ever leave the little boy who needs her.

With "American Splendor," a movie about the dour real-life cartoonist and character Harvey Pekar, Springer Berman and Pulcini played with the third wall to interesting effect, interrupting dramatic scenes to bring in documentary style footage of the real Pekar. There are shreds of that sort of playfulness in "The Nanny Diaries," which occasionally presents characters in frozen tableaus, meant to mimic dioramas in the Museum of Natural History.

The filmmakers must have been drawn to "The Nanny Diaries" because of its potential for social satire (think of what Todd Solondz would have done with the Xs). But presumably, there was pressure on them from the studio to make it a straightforward chick flick. The resulting marriage of what they tried to do, coupled with what they had to do, is as doomed as the union of Mr. and Mrs. X.

Mary F. Pols is the Times movie critic. Reach her at 925-945-4741 or mpols@bayareanewsgroup.com.

"THE NANNY DIARIES"

C+

Starring: Scarlett Johansson, Laura Linney, Paul Giamatti, Nicholas Reese Art, Donna Murphy, Alicia Keys, Chris Evans

Written and directed by: Shari Springer Berman and Robert Pulcini

Rated: PG-13 for language

Opens today: Bay Area theaters

Running time: 1 hour, 45 minutes

In the earnest, thoughtful "Resurrecting the Champ," Josh Hartnett plays Erik Kernan, a sportswriter whose questionable reporting methods and ethics live up --or rather down -- to most of the country's negative assumptions about journalism. He lies to his boss, does shoddy research and chooses to ignore his own doubts in favor of the chance for self-aggrandizement.
At the beginning of the story, opinion on Erik's copy is mixed at best. His editor (Alan Alda) at the Denver Times (an invented paper) has said his boxing coverage lacks personality. Instead of working harder, Erik tries to circumvent the system by getting a job at the paper's Sunday magazine. That editor (David Paymer) dismisses a handful of his ideas for lack of originality. In a desperate move, Erik suggests a story he hasn't researched at all: the rumor that former heavyweight champion Bob Satterfield, believed to be dead, is now homeless and living on the streets of Denver.

Turns out the Champ (Samuel L. Jackson), as the man likes to call himself, is an amiable sort, and he's happy to share tales of both his glory days and his downfall with Erik. The two men wander Denver's deserted streets at night, the Champ pulling a shopping cart behind him while dispensing wistful "Tuesdays with Morrie" style thoughts on sports, family and life.

The two men become bonded on some father-son level. The Champ tells Erik he deserted his only son. Erik's father, a revered radio sports announcer, left Erik as a child. Now Erik is a father himself, to a 6-year-old son whom he tells white lies to on a regular basis. He's separated from his wife, Joyce (Kathryn Morris, who also co-starred in Lurie's underrated movie "The Contender"). Joyce is a journalist as well, but one we're led to believe has higher standards than Erik.

Jackson adopts a high, breathy voice to play the Champ and it gives him that vulnerability he needs to get away from his own bigger than life tough-guy persona. He continually edges toward the territory of campy sentimentality, but then manages to reel himself back in. This is one of those compassion-heavy roles seemingly tailor made to elicit an Oscar nomination, but it's not of that caliber. The fault lies with the script, which demands that the Champ be more of a noble construct than a real man.

Movies about journalists are subject to intense criticism because so many movie reviewers consider themselves journalists first and critics second. I still haven't gotten over the fact that Drew Barrymore went from copy editor to undercover investigative journalist in about three minutes in "Never Been Kissed." It's not a reasonable career arc, but the movie wasn't exactly serious-minded in the first place, so why should I care?

This is worth bringing up because it means that it's nearly impossible for me to approach "Resurrecting the Champ" the way I would a movie about say, investment banking, which I know nothing about. From my perspective, it is obvious there are gaping holes in Champ's story and that Erik is a callow jerk.

As a result, 10 minutes into the story, I was ready for him to be punished. How could the movie seem anything but too long from that perspective?

Revealing more professional secrets, I can tell you that no reporter was ever as handsome as Josh Hartnett. If reporters were that good looking, they'd be movie stars, not underpaid ink-stained wretches. But given that Erik is someone whose vanity often gets the best of him, we can almost overlook the miscasting.

The "Pearl Harbor" star certainly gets points for being willing to play someone less than likeable. Indeed, as Erik slithered around his newsroom, dodging the truth and running his hands through his hair self- consciously, as if he were auditioning for "All the President's Men Part II," I kept being reminded of the fabulist Stephen Glass. Glass was the New Republic reporter who invented many of his sources and storylines; his redemption-free story was depicted in the less mainstream but fascinating "Shattered Glass."

The irony is that Erik Kernan and the whole "Champ" saga is based on real events that happened to former Los Angeles Times reporter J.R. Moehringer, who was a Pulitzer Prize finalist for a story he wrote in 1997 about a homeless man he'd befriended who claimed to be Bob Satterfield. In real life, Google images reveal Moehringer to be handsome, although not movie star material. Moreover, he has an unsullied reputation as a journalist and, in fact, won the Pulitzer a couple of years later. So Hollywood has made him better looking but less talented. At least he can take solace in the check he got for the movie rights.

Reach Mary F. Pols at mpols@bayareanewsgroup.com or 925-945-4741.

"RESURRECTING THE CHAMP"

B

Starring: Josh Hartnett, Samuel L. Jackson, Kathryn Morris, Alan Alda, Teri Hatcher, Peter Coyote, David Paymer

Director: Rod Lurie

Rated: PG-13 for some violence and brief language

Opens today: Bay Area theaters

Running time: 1 hour, 51 minutes

The starch, bird and sauce in Kopitiam's Chicken Rice would -- like the restaurant's partners -- be common in isolation. As a team, however, they impress.
Thian Boon Leong, the quiet, hardworking chef whose seven restaurants in Singapore showcased Chicken Rice, is surely the "starch" -- holding the whole operation together.

"If he goes, I close shop," says Edward Soon, the restaurant's "sauce." You're likely to get a kick out of Soon as soon as you enter Kopitiam -- a warm greeting at 40 feet. "Hello! Welcome!" he shouted from the back of the restaurant the first time I arrived.

If not for Yshel Lok -- the grounding presence -- Soon might trip over his uncontained energy. Lok is like the mother hen, able to put others at ease by merely being present.

It's fortunate this team forms a sturdy triangle, because there's not much money in the bank right now for an extra pair of legs. Leong and Soon, who came to Lafayette from Singapore last year, have been paying rent at home and in this space -- formerly a Togo's -- since November. It took them until July to navigate through all the codes and inspections.

It's still very much a work in progress -- more like a baby with an unfolding personality. "Kopitiam" translates to neighborhood coffee shop, and the round, marble-topped cafe tables seem designed to hold a couple of espresso cups and maybe an egg or two (an old black-and-white photo of a kopitiam in Singapore captures the same-style tables and rickety chairs).

But breakfast hasn't caught on here the way lunch has, and you're likely to squirm in those small seats waiting for your food when the midday crowd keeps Lok, Leong and Soon scrambling to keep up.

As if Singaporean cuisine isn't intimidating enough, the prettily but poorly designed menu all but ensures your first visit will be confusing. A loosely attached leaflet comes tucked inside a tiny, laminated cover made to resemble a Malaysian doorway. The first six pages list hot and cold beverages, another three of Roti (breads), a flurry of All Time Favorites and Lunch Favorites and a final page of breakfast specials (Ah! There they are).

And there on Page 12, under a profile of Chef Thian Boon Leong, is the famous Chicken Rice ($8.95; $9.95 for to-go orders until 6 p.m.). For Costco members, who are used to getting a plump, crispy bird for a couple of bucks less, it may not wow, but this is serious comfort food, Singapore-style.

Leong simmers the chicken in a garlicky, gingery broth, chops it into toothsome chunks and serves it over fragrant jasmine rice, steamed with grassy pandan leaves. The rice is splashed with sweet shoyu so viscous, it stains random grains black -- like chocolate chunks. Sides of ginger mash and hot chile sauce add as much spark as you can handle.

Many of the dishes here have a comfort quality, and after a visit or two, you're likely to find one to call your own. The Silken Cloud ($6.25) -- a block of steamed tofu as delicate as panna cotta -- is as seductive as the name sounds. Underneath the cloud is a playful sweet-and-sour sauce, and on top are crunchy vegetables and peanuts.

Also soothing is Mee Goreng ($6.95, $7.50 with shrimp), thick noodles stained and spiced by sambal paste, its slick texture relieved by crispy bites of smashed tofu.

Comfort food doesn't have to be familiar -- my first bite of ice cream went down pretty well -- but it does help to have taste and texture that tickles a memory. That might be why my initiation to Singaporean Sensually Soft Boiled Eggs ($2.50) was troubling. From the flowery menu description, you'd think it would be as intoxicating as a back rub: "Golden, runny rivers of yolk pulsing out of their white refuge, with a dash of pepper and soy sauce, its richness melts unto your tongue, slowly supplying a silken sensation. It's a taste like no other -- the closest you will ever get to tasting sunlight!"

The eggs, which are slowly cooked to order (12 minutes for soft-boiled!) in what look like kiddy gum ball machines, arrive suspended in a milky fluid -- which turns out to be the barely set whites. My first bite, more of a slurp, really, took me back to the morning Big Sister helpfully informed me that my yolk was an unrealized baby chicken.

But my second bite, after injecting a jolt of inky soy sauce, was delicious. Provocative. Lovely. Unfortunately, having lived a life with eggs that chew, I couldn't relax into the soupy texture. A table neighbor suggested I try it on Roti Prata ($4.25) -- a wonderful bread I fell in love with at Singapore Old Town Cafe, which opened in Dublin earlier this year.

The Roti Prata here is pancakey, much more dense (and pricey) than the flaky, almost puff-pastry-like bread at Old Town Cafe. But both are good, especially when dipped in the coconutty-curry sauce that comes on the side.

I tried two more roti on my breakfast journey: wheat toast stuffed with wildly chunky homemade peanut butter, and a bun spread with a lightly sweet, floral coconut jam (both $3.95). Both breads were ordinary and too-rich from a thick spread of butter, but they were still genuine comfort food -- reminding me of Dad's deadly cinnamon toast on lightning nights.

Kopitiam makes much of its coffee, which is offered with sugar, evaporated milk or sweetened condensed milk ($1.95). I had it black, and it was good and strong. The tiny cups are cute, but I was never offered a refill, despite an empty dining room (my water, however, served in awkward green Coke glasses, was dutifully replenished).

If service picks up a notch -- it's often hard to even make eye contact -- I can imagine stopping by Kopitiam for a quick cookie and coffee, or perhaps a pick-me-up of Popiah ($3.95) -- wonderfully flaky rolls stuffed with a smidge of cabbage. If it doesn't pick up, I might just settle for Chicken Rice to go.

Kopitiam's facade is bold, and the fluorescent-green wall bolder still, but the food is surprisingly tame for such an exotic cuisine. Hidden Treasure ($4.25), a pork ball within a fish ball, was the only dish besides the soft, soft-boiled eggs that I found challenging.

Old Town Cafe, by contrast, serves a cuisine both dark and mysterious, using loads of toasted spice, ground dried shrimp and sambal paste. I'm a much bigger fan of the assertive, confident food at Old Town, but Kopitiam's neighborhood feel, Soon's energetic personality and the soothing dishes make it infectious.

Reach Times Food editor Nicholas Boer at 925-943-8254 or nboer@bayareanewsgroup.com.

Kopitiam

**1/2

FOOD: **1/2

AMBIENCE: **1/2

SERVICE: *1/2

WHERE: 3647 Mt. Diablo Blvd. (in the Trader Joe's parking lot), Lafayette.

CONTACT: 925-299-1653.

HOURS: 8 a.m.-4 p.m. Tuesdays-Sundays. To-go food available until 6 p.m.

CUISINE: Singaporean comfort food.

PRICES: $. Entrees $6.95-$8.95.

VEGETARIAN: Lots of tofu, vegetable and bread choices.

BEVERAGES: Special coffees, teas and exotic juices.

RESERVATIONS: Accepted for six or more people.

NOISE LEVEL: Conversation was easy on our visits.

PARKING: Can be challenging in the tight lot.

KIDS: Relaxed enough for little kids. Breads, spring rolls, chicken dishes on menu.

PLUSES: Relaxed, friendly environment. Inexpensive and sometimes very good.

MINUSES: Long waits for food.

DATE OPENED: July 2, 2007.
policy

The Times does not let restaurants know that we are coming in to do a review, and we strive to remain anonymous. If we feel we have been recognized or are given special treatment, we will tell you. We pay for our meal, just as you would.

Star key

* Fair

** Good

*** Great

**** Extraordinary

Price code

$ Typical entree under $10

$$ Typical entree under $20

$$$ Typical entree under $30

$$$$ Typical entree under $40

"El Cantante," the new biopic about salsa legend Hector Lavoe, gets right in your face. It's loud, atmospheric and full of bravado. But even while it's barking wildly at us, the film's only skimming the surface, leaving the barest impression of a man who loved drugs, music and his wife in apparently equal measure.
None of this can be blamed on musician Marc Anthony's performance as the ill-fated Lavoe, who died at 46 after contracting HIV from chronic drug use. Anthony, with his skeletal frame and warm, vibrant voice, was born to play a salsa star with a habit. His angular features, which always seem spookily unhealthy in still photos, translate so well to film that it's hard to tear your eyes away from him, even with the luminous Jennifer Lopez co-starring as his wife Puchi.

It's not just physical. Anthony has a natural delivery, and he brings a grace to Lavoe, particularly when he's conveying his sense of humor. Just out of a stint in a psychiatric ward -- at least a decade into his addictions -- he waves his hand at the collection of prescriptions at his bedside, saying, "Looks like my grandfather's night table." The line gets a laugh, as do many of Anthony's. His Lavoe is a charmer.

But he never seems particularly interesting, which is, admittedly, a bizarre statement to make about a groundbreaking musician with a tumultuous personal life (Puchi was pregnant with their son, Tito, at the same time another woman was pregnant with his child). He shoots up, he sings, he and Puchi fight, he shoots up again. Director/co-writer Leon Ichaso ("Pinero") seems more focused on making a spectacular montage of Lavoe's life than showing us how he actually lived it.

To that end, Ichaso sends album covers spinning up and out of the screen and translates Lavoe's lyrics with pulsing subtitles (suggesting that the passion of the music won't be obvious to non-Spanish speakers, which it absolutely is).

The cinematography is a schizophrenic mess, with the camera dodging all around, the color saturations changing on a whim, and slow motion filling in for any scenes that are meant to be emotionally deep. All this pretension is deeply frustrating. There's got to be a good story in there, but we get just impressionistic scraps, a problem that also haunted "Pinero."

What of Lavoe's father, who refuses to communicate with his son once he leaves Puerto Rico for New York? Would it have killed Ichaso to share some details about how that came to pass, since he suggests it is the root of Lavoe's problems? Other characters, including Lavoe's sister (Andrea Navado), blame Puchi for Lavoe's downfall. Certainly, they seemed to have shared a love of cocaine -- in one memorable scene Puchi spills it on Lavoe's jacket, then snorts it off his lapels -- but the way Lopez portrays Puchi, her tongue lashings are frequently the only thing holding him together. She's a shrew, but a funny, loving one. Maybe there was something to these accusations, and Lopez balked at coming across as unlikable.

This was a passion project for the real-life couple, which, as Ben Affleck, Lopez's former lover and "Gigli" co-star knows, can be the kiss of death. That's not that case with "El Cantante."

It's true that having Lopez age at least 30 years without ever looking anything less than sensational suggests some vanity issues. But put Anthony on a stage as Lavoe, shaking those hips, eyes hidden behind sunglasses, the joy of the music he's making emerging even he's wasted out of his mind, and it is undeniable that this movie has something.

If only it could have been sent to someone like Scorsese for rehab.

Reach Mary F. Pols at 925-945-4741 or mpols@cctimes.com.

"EL CANTANTE"

C+

Starring: Marc Anthony, Jennifer Lopez, Christopher Becerra

Director: Leon Ichaso

Rated: R for drug use, pervasive language and some sexuality

Opens today: Bay Area theaters

Running time: 1 hour, 46 minutes

Director Paul Greengrass' "The Bourne Ultimatum" has immediate urgency, the kind that takes us over before we've even figured out whether the cup holder on the left or the right is ours. We're drawn to Jason Bourne's side like bird dogs called to heel, and he couldn't shake us off if he tried. This is what action movies are supposed to be.
It's been three years since we've seen Bourne (Matt Damon), but don't expect much by way of greeting. While we've been off doing our thing, he's been right where we left him at the end of 2004's "The Bourne Supremacy," dodging bullets, fending off Moscow's finest and fielding incoming memories of his unpleasant past as an undercover CIA assassin.

Because this picks up where "Supremacy," also directed by Greengrass, left off, even someone with a sharp memory might have trouble figuring out where "Supremacy" ended and "Ultimatum" begins. One might wonder, for instance, whether an English newspaper reporter named Simon Ross (Paddy Considine), author of a series in the London Guardian titled "Who is Jason Bourne?" is a new character or someone we were introduced to before.

Ross turns out to be a new character, with a secret CIA source who has been feeding him information on the Treadstone project and its new incarnation, "Blackfriar." It's a credit to the seamlessness of these movies that he seems so familiar. Watching "Ultimatum," one becomes very conscious that this is the final act of a trilogy, not just another sequel. These films can stand alone, but they belong together.

Once again, the action skips from one cool location to another -- Berlin, London, Madrid, Tangier -- and within each city, the story unfolds almost in real time. What gives the movie an added boost of energy is the fact that almost everything we see is simultaneously being observed and/or controlled by a CIA team in New York.

That team is led by a supercilious gentleman named Noah Vosen (David Strathairn), who is determined to stop the leaks by whatever means possible -- Simon, watch your back and tell your editor everything -- and bring in Bourne. In the movie's first perfectly executed action sequence, Bourne arranges a meeting with Simon in the Waterloo train station. The whole cat-and-mouse game plays out from seemingly hundreds of angles, including surveillance cameras sending pictures back to New York.

Needless to say, Bourne is an elusive fellow, so London isn't the end of the road. As the CIA director (Scott Glenn) sends in one of "Supremacy's" great characters, Pam Landy (Joan Allen), to help, the search for Bourne moves onto more exotic locations before finally arriving back in New York for the kind of car chase that has become the series' trademark. And while the ability of Bourne and his nemesis Paz (Edgar Ramirez) to survive various stunts unscathed does seem remarkable, the film's credibility stretches but doesn't snap.

In the foe department, Strathairn is a pleasure to hate. But his Vosen is not quite smart enough to fulfill the role of real bad guy, the kind Chris Cooper and Brian Cox played in the previous films. This time, Albert Finney swaggers through Bourne's flashbacks, looking enough like Cox to give us pause. And even though Finney's a delightful villain, it is slightly deflating to realize that our Big Bad is yet another jowly, gruff former mentor turned enemy. Still, Greengrass ("United 93") is in his element.

In "The Bourne Supremacy," he went so wild with the hand-held camera that the whole movie seemed to shake from side to side. This time, the action is no less brisk, but it moves forward more directly, and in its sublime speed induces not queasiness but involuntary yelps of astonishment. We've seen Bourne do hand-to-hand combat with a lot of foes now, yet these vicious ballets still impress.

So does Damon. His Bourne is no James Bond; his attachments last more than 90 minutes. He is still tormented by the loss of his girlfriend Marie -- met in "The Bourne Identity," killed in "The Bourne Supremacy." But he hasn't gone mushy on us. And we can count on him to be smarter and more capable than everyone else in the room. At the same time, if he lords that over someone, say, Vosen, it's not motivated by arrogance but rather a dislike of arrogance.

Very quietly, Damon has made us care about the well-being of a trained assassin who has done despicable things. As he bids farewell -- supposedly -- to a lucrative franchise, Damon pulls off another considerable feat, leaving an audience, which has raced with him through three adrenaline-charged films, feeling as though it wouldn't mind a Bourne Addendum.

Reach Mary F. Pols at 925-945-4741 or mpols@cctimes.com.

'THE BOURNE ULTIMATUM'

A-

Starring: Matt Damon, Julia Stiles, Joan Allen, David Strathairn, Scott Glenn, Paddy Considine, Edgar Ramirez, Albert Finney

Director: Paul Greengrass

Rated: PG-13 for violence and intense action sequences

Opens today: Bay Area theaters

Running time: 1 hour, 51 minutes

had been looking forward to dinner at Levende East. It opened in June, was getting good buzz and -- at Ninth and Washington streets -- was in the heart of Old Oakland. But after racing from the airport, almost making our 9:30 reservation, ordering a dozen oysters ($22), a bottle of Verdicchio ($34), and putting down the menu for a minute, I caught Levende East -- through king-size windows -- across the street.
Ahh, that's why there was no foie gras torchon on the menu. We were in restaurant B -- B Restaurant, to be exact.

That one can walk into the wrong place on the right corner at quarter to 10 on a Saturday night and still have a great meal is a testament to how far downtown has come.

"Oakland is a city in transition," says B chef Saman Javid when I talked to him on the phone late Tuesday night. "There's a great vibe that's sparking up. People are beginning to trust Oakland as a place to be entertained, whether it's for a cocktail or dinner out."

The action at our intersection, unfolding behind that gorgeous glass, certainly kept us entertained Saturday night. An underground nightclub -- marked only by a few balloons and a strutting bouncer in suit and black derby -- filled the one corner not occupied by an eating establishment. Midway through our appetizers, the roar of motorcycles punctuated the dining room's easy hum.

Javid, who's Persian and just 29, has devised a menu of gutsy choices. Appetizers: Bone marrow or sweetbreads? Pizzas: Baked with chorizo or raw egg? Entrees: Short ribs or skate wing?

It's "food with soul; things I want to eat myself," says Javid, who has cooked all over San Francisco and Marin, but has lived in Oakland -- just a few minutes away -- since he was 21. "I wanted to cook for the space." For a menu that's executed with just six burners and a pizza oven, he's done well.

Those sweetbreads ($14), morsels rarely offered on modern menus, are devilishly good, tossed with fried sage, toasted walnuts and cippolini mushrooms -- an aromatic, crunchy, sweet combination. For the sauce, Javid reduces gallons of chicken broth, drawn from whole birds, into a base with none of the stick of concentrated veal stock. He then simmers the base with roasted fowl bones and shallots and spikes it with Madeira. The result is a light jus with great body.

If thymus glands and chick essence isn't your cup of tea, B is a vegetarian's playground. More than half the starters are meat-free, with two hot dishes being little more than farm produce thrown in the pizza oven with olive oil and salt. I found both the Roasted Beans ($8) and the Brentwood Broccoli Rabe & Cauliflower ($8) deflated -- not smoky or caramelized from the hot almond wood. While too ordinary for a carnivore's appetizer, they would make an alluring side dish.

But the entrees we tried were already full of beans, delicious beans. The beans on the Coca-Cola Braised Short Ribs (at $24, the only entree over $19) were particularly delicious, studded with tiny, crisp croutons. The ribs themselves were even more spectacular, fork-tender but not soft, with a richness derived from a long, fatty braise -- not a buttery sauce.

Javid and co-owner Kevin Best, who found the location and put together the fun, eclectic decor (fiberglass tables; an antler chandelier), are big believers in tasting what they offer. It paid off when, finding myself torn between two reds, I asked a staff member for help. The Oregon pinot (Domaine Serene, $68) he suggested was both elegant and assertive, a super choice with the short ribs. He got so keyed up when we asked him to taste it for us, I can only imagine how a swirl of the list's 1993 Domain De La Romanee-Conti La Tache ($1,700) might have pleased him.

The Summer Pie ($15) evolved by having corn, Sweet 100 tomatoes and hungry cooks hanging around the kitchen. "I encourage guys to eat what we're cooking, not burgers across the street," Javid says. At some point, someone cracked an egg before popping the pizza in the oven, topped it with frisee -- a barrier to keep wisps of delicate prosciutto from the crust's heat -- and the Summer Pie was born. Its crispy, melt-in-your-mouth crust, slathered with olive oil, makes it a masterpiece. "When I walked in there, the first thing I worked on was the crust," Javid says.

As confident as B seems, it's still a work in progress. The 3-week-old Brunch (we stopped in before heading to Cal Shakes for a Sunday matinee) can be a Comedy of Errors. Time and again, plates, including our own, were delivered to the wrong table. When we received an incomplete salad, the waitress returned with a yummy one, but not with my fork. And the Flank Steak Hash ($13) we ordered when they ran out of the Pulled Pork ($14) was impossibly chewy and overwhelmed by herbes de Provence. Thanks to great weather, a pair of Dr. Bloody Marys ($8) and a luscious, lightly sauced eggs Benedict ($12 -- Niman Ranch bacon subbing for prosciutto), we enjoyed the meal nonetheless.

Dinner's Oven Roasted Bone Marrow ($13) -- the first item to catch my eye -- was a dud. Our waiter -- who welcomed us in 15 minutes before closing and was cheerful throughout -- had given us some hints on how to approach the croutons, dabs of whole grain mustard, a tiny forkful of sea salt, and a brilliant salad of perky flat-leaf salad, capers and fried shallots, but ultimately says we can eat it however we want. But instead of a finger of creamy veal, our leg bones were filled with only fatty juices. When I told Javid this over the phone, he was crushed, explaining that some bones are bare, but beating himself up for not catching ours.

"It's a dish I really hold close to my heart."

As the evening wound down, Best -- who years ago was G.M. at MC2 when Javid was a line cook -- had dinner with a couple of friends at a table right behind us. I watched, only a little greedily, when he pulled some quivering white marrow from his bones (for the record, he ate it off the crouton with mustard only). Javid joined them later, and the two talked over all the dishes -- an exercise that should be playing out in every restaurant worth its salt.

When I first tried to talk to Javid, he was sniffing tomatoes at Happy Boys Farm in Freedom, leaving B to 25-year-old sous chef Danny Rojo. When I did catch him, he had just finished dinner at another hot new Oakland restaurant, Wood Tavern. More evidence that the city is "coming up," as Javid puts it. To that end, he's hired a pastry chef from New York, set to start next week, and hopes to turn the 2-year-old B -- and century-old building -- into a draw for young suburban diners, even if it's just for "a pint and a pizza before the Paramount."

"I push that little kitchen as much as I can."

Reach Times Food editor Nicholas Boer at 925-943-8254 or nboer@cctimes.com.

B RESTAURANT & BAR

*** out of ****

FOOD: ***

AMBIENCE: ***

SERVICE: ***

WHERE: 499 Ninth St. at Washington, Oakland (a second B restaurant opened in San Francisco in November).

CONTACT: 510-251-8770; http://www.boakland.com.

HOURS: 11:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Mondays-Fridays; 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Sunday brunch; 5:30-9 p.m. Tuesdays-Thursdays; 5:30-10 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays.

CUISINE: Bold California-American.

PRICES: $$. Dinner entrees $10-$24.

VEGETARIAN: If the many choices on the menu don't excite, the chef will prepare something special.

BEVERAGES: Full bar with hip cocktails; great wine list with lots of European choices, including high-end French Burgundies.

RESERVATIONS: Encouraged.

NOISE LEVEL: Challenging conversation on our visit. Outside tables are quieter.

PARKING: Nearby street parking is easy to find. Parking lot close by.

KIDS: "Roll up a stroller and pull up a high chair," says the chef. "I bring them a plate of fruit; if they want cheese pizza with red sauce, we'll make it."

PLUSES: Gutsy food; friendly, informed staff; beautiful location.

MINUSES: Brunch service was terrible; veggie appetizers bland.

DATE OPENED: 2005; new chef Jan. 1, 2007.
policy

The Times does not let restaurants know that we are coming in to do a review, and we strive to remain anonymous. If we feel we have been recognized or are given special treatment, we will tell you. We pay for our meal, just as you would.

Star key

* Fair

** Good

*** Great

**** Extraordinary

Price code

$ Typical entree under $10

$$ Typical entree under $20

$$$ Typical entree under $30

$$$$ Typical entree under $40

In the limp French farce "My Best Friend," a successful antiques dealer named Francois (Daniel Auteuil) goes out to dinner with his closest friends. In apparently typical behavior, he's late and inattentive. One by one, except for the woman who seems to be his de facto girlfriend, the friends reveal that they don't actually like him.
What is it with the French and farces stemming from dinner parties? In "The Dinner Game," a group of snobs deliberately invited "idiots" to dinner for entertainment value. In last year's "La Moustache," a man's supposed best friends spend an evening of food and wine oblivious to the disappearance of the moustache he's had for most of his life.

For Francois, the end result of his dinner without friends is a bet. His partner at the antiques gallery, Catherine (Julie Gayet), dares him to produce his best friend within the next few weeks. If he can't, he has to hand over his latest impulse purchase, a very expensive Greek vase celebrating -- what else? -- friendship.

Auteuil is a huge star in France and a versatile actor, having starred in imports ranging from "Jean de Florette" to the more recent "Cache." But neither he nor the script convinces us that Francois is all that detestable. He's terse with people such as Bruno (Dany Boon), a chatty taxi driver with a taste for trivia, but in general he seems more innocuous than obnoxious.

As soon as Francois enlists Bruno as his friendship coach, we know exactly what to expect. The lack of dramatic tension, coupled with the mildness of Francois' malady, gives the movie a real "who cares" feeling.

The setting might be glamorous and Francois more erudite, but "My Best Friend" doesn't feel any deeper than your average Adam Sandler-style buddy comedy.

Mary F. Pols is the Times movie critic. Reach her at 925-945-4741 or mpols@cctimes.com.

'MY BEST FRIEND'

Grade: C

Starring: Daniel Auteuil, Dany Boon, Julie Gayet

Director: Patrice Leconte

Rated: PG-13 for language; in French with subtitles

Opens today: Shattuck, Berkeley; Embarcadero, S.F.

Running time: 1 hour, 30 minutes

When they succeed, romantic comedies leave us hungry for love, even when we've adjusted our expectations of companionship downward from telegenic movie stars. The satisfying culinary romance "No Reservations," featuring Catherine Zeta-Jones and Aaron Eckhart, divides and conquers by making us crave the utterly attainable -- spaghetti with fresh basil -- as intensely as we do either of its unattainable leads.
Zeta-Jones plays Kate, the talented chef at a Manhattan restaurant called 22 Bleeker. A single thirtysomething, she is more fixated on finding the perfect balance of ingredients than a mate. Through some not very subtle clues -- she never smiles, does crossword puzzles and enjoys spending time in the walk-in freezer -- we learn Kate needs a good defrosting.

The movie, a remake of the German film "Mostly Martha," gets right down to business by sending in a kid (Abigail Breslin) and a clown (Eckhart) to do the job.

The kid is Kate's niece Zoe, who comes to live with her aunt in the wake of a tragedy, a drama brought to screen movingly yet with dignity by director Scott Hicks ("Shine").

Eckhart plays Nick, the new sous chef at 22 Bleeker. He wooed "Erin Brockovich" and Gwyneth Paltrow in "Possession," but Eckhart has never before played such an absurdly perfect dreamboat. Granted, Nick wears orange Crocs in the kitchen, but he transcends them. We just want to run our hands through his tousled strawberry blond hair while he sings Italian opera and makes us pizza. Predictably, Kate's specialty is fussy French cuisine, Nick's the more obviously sensual Italian.

Introverted Kate shoots daggers at this extrovert, but Nick doesn't mind. He watches her as attentively as a dog waiting for his mistress to take him for a walk. But he's not just some slobbering sweet Lab, more like one of those smart sheepherding dogs in "Babe." He persuades Zoe to break the hunger strike she's been on since entering Kate's house -- "Little Miss Sunshine" was not a fluke, Breslin can act -- and then starts pressing plates of pasta on her auntie.

Zeta-Jones, meanwhile, has to convince us she deserves Nick's attention, a formidable task given that practically every mature woman in the audience is busily rearranging her wish list of stars to get Eckhart in the top three. Since the character is so chilly -- she doesn't hug Zoe until we're more than an hour in -- it wouldn't be a surprise if she failed to pull it off. But Zeta-Jones is a good actress, and the slow melt of her character ultimately feels plausible. At the same time, Kate stays an abrasive perfectionist. Hardworking career women everywhere ought to appreciate that she's not forced into radical reform.

Nonetheless, apparently no romantic comedy, even "No Reservations," which has a higher IQ than most, would be complete without trademark cliches. There is not one but three montage sequences intended to show us the magic of love.

I'd jettison the one set to "The Lion King" theme, and from the awkward way Zeta-Jones scampers about while it plays, I bet she'd agree with me.

Then there's the tiramisu scene. How many times have we seen a woman in a romantic comedy who gets whipped cream in the corner of her mouth in front of her love interest? And how many times have we seen that love interest then gaze upon her as if she were the cutest thing since "E.T." and remove it with a tender kiss or delicate finger? And when that happens, how many of us are thinking what real men would say: "You have goop on your face." (The first reader to e-mail me with five recent examples of Whipped Cream Tenderness in a Hollywood movie -- not porn, people! -- can come to a screening with me.)

In last month's "Ratatouille," the emphasis was on the creation and enjoyment of food, from the bubbling pots to that first forkful. The focus in "No Reservations" is more on food as object. Kate seems to devote whole sessions with her shrink (Bob Balaban, giving credence to awful lines like "it's OK to let people in sometimes") to talking about melding flavors, but when we see her in action she's usually fussing over arranging a completed dish, rather than building one from scratch.

"Ratatouille" made me want to cook. "No Reservations" made me want to eat. Perhaps there is still a difference between art and commerce.

Mary F. Pols is the Times movie critic. Reach her at 925-945-4741 or mpols@cctimes.com.

'NO RESERVATIONS'

Grade: B

Starring: Catherine Zeta-Jones, Aaron Eckhart, Abigail Breslin, Patricia Clarkson, Bob Balaban

Director: Scott Hicks

Rated: PG for some sensuality and language

Opens today: Bay Area theaters

Running time: 1 hour, 55 minutes

Even if "The Simpsons" weren't at the top of its game after 18 seasons as television's most intelligent, culturally aware comedy, "The Simpsons Movie" would have to be a disaster of "Ishtar"-like proportions to shake off die-hard fans.
It isn't. It lives up to its own fine standards -- but it doesn't exceed them.

The plot takes the whole family out of Springfield and into the wilds of Alaska, in the grand tradition of, say, the Brady Bunch's trip to Hawaii. But the Simpsons aren't on vacation. Environmental disaster has struck Springfield, yet another result of Homer's (Dan Castellaneta) ongoing intelligence deficit. Toxic "waste" from his new pet pig that he blithely dumped into Lake Springfield was the tipping point in the crisis. With the EPA -- headed by Russ Cargill (Albert Brooks) -- hot on their trail, the Simpsons are driven out of town.

Homer's idiocy may remain the same, but there are differences between the small-screen and big-screen Simpsons. Not only is the running time triple the usual half-hour show, the scale is bigger and the scenes more complex. The animation looks gussied up, the colors richer. It's as if the camera has been pulled back on something we're used to seeing only close up.

While they could have used the relative freedom of cinema to go R rated, director David Silverman and his fleet of legendary writers (Matt Groening, James L. Brooks, George Meyer and so on) keep the dialogue clean enough for network television. We do get a brief glimpse of Bart's standard little boy privates, but that's about as racy as it gets.

And while you might expect a fleet of cameos, we get only Tom Hanks as himself (and kind of a sour-pussed Hanks at that). Instead, the filmmakers stay loyal to series regulars such as Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Hank Azaria, Harry Shearer. In the closing credits, we get to see just how multitalented these actors are when their names appear above boxed drawings of the various characters they give voice to.

With "The Simpsons," the real joy is often in the details. For the first half-hour or so of the film, the small jokes come so quickly they threaten to jam the synapses. Lisa has made a documentary about Lake Springfield called "An Irritating Truth." Bart's chalkboard-writing assignment is, "I will not illegally download this movie." Green Day executes a neat jibe at "Titanic's" sentimentality. You can almost hear the Fox executives whispering, Smithers-like, "All the better to make you come twice."

Yet an ambivalence about the series making this leap to the big screen haunts the movie, both inwardly and outwardly. On the way into the critics preview, the word "Why?" whizzed around in my head. This was not the kind of "Why" you might feel while contemplating the origins of, say, "I Now Pronounce You Chuck & Larry." It had to do with bulk. We already have so many fine episodes of Homer's making mischief -- 400 and counting -- that it seems greedy to add a feature-length version just so we can shift from couch to multiplex.

The filmmakers are far too clever not to acknowledge this ambivalence right up front. In the first five minutes of the film, Homer gets to his feet during a movie version of "The Itchy & Scratchy" show and says, "I can't believe we're paying for something we could get at home for free." The self-referential jokes add up, from a witty crawl to the black screen saying "to be continued immediately" halfway through.

All this meta stuff is funny, but there's also a slight air of apology to it, suggesting that the filmmakers not only shared that ambivalence -- they've admitted that this is why it took so long to do a "Simpsons" movie version -- but that it never quite went away and for good reason. The fact that the film has to rely on the stuff of action movies just to reach its conclusion suggests this was hard, even for a bunch of comic geniuses.

On the face of it, the question of whether the world needed a Simpsons movie doesn't have to be a huge philosophical debate. We don't need any more rags-to-riches stories of boxers either, but we'll get them. At least we get a solid laugh out of "The Simpsons Movie." But maybe because the blessed brain trust that brought us Homer et al. in the first place is such a philosophical and deeply honest crew, their doubts do show.

Mary F. Pols is the Times movie critic. Reach her at 925-945-4741 or mpols@cctimes.com.

THE SIMPSONS MOVIE

B

Starring: Voices of Dan Castellaneta, Julie Kavner, Nancy Cartwright, Yeardley Smith, Hank Azaria, Harry Shearer, Pamela Hayden, Albert Brooks, Tress MacNeille

Rated: PG-13 for irreverent humor throughout

Opens Friday: Bay Area theaters

Running time: 1 hour, 26 minutes

WHEN I WAS a wee college graduate living in San Diego, I interviewed a cool cat named Chuck Perrin. The goateed musician had recently opened a jazz space in a dim 1913 warehouse in the city's developing east downtown.
He dubbed it Dizzy's, an ode to Gillespie and a promise to fans of live music: Nothing but the concrete floors, brick walls and a few flickering candles would ever distract from a performance. It was a clubhouse for musicians, Perrin would say, that happened to be open to the public.

I think that's what Roy Jeans is trying to do with Armando's, his jazz club in downtown Martinez. But there's slightly more visual stimuli at Armando's: half a dozen curtains with pie-shop flavor, bright, paint-splattered chairs, band posters and a small disco ball in an oddly-placed corner. The space reminds me of a high school boy's room. Ironically, for me, the decor detracted from the music.

That said, to drive home Perrin's point, those who frequent Armando's probably care little what it looks like, how comfortable the chairs are, or even what there is to drink. They pay the $10 cover to see musicians like percussionist Derek Rolando and his Latin jazz group, which produces a shimmy-inspiring conga beat. They come to see some of the Bay Area's best bluegrass musicians, like Berkeley's Redwing. They come to get a taste of the blues every second Monday of the month.

So, in the spirit of Dizzy's, Armando's is all about the music. Jeans' inspiration might be Bob Dylan, as there's a quote from a recent Rolling Stone interview with the legend scrawled high on a wall: "The best sound you can get is an intimate club room, where you've got four walls and the sound just bounces. That's the way this music is meant to be heard."

If you like your music with liquor -- I needed some, as I thought the acoustic bounce was a little harsh -- you can order a glass of red wine, like Bear's Lair Cabernet Sauvignon. But you'll pay more for a glass ($5) than a whole bottle. It's $4 at Trader Joe's. No matter. There's beer, too, and random cashew distribution.

The crowd is local, casually dressed and friendly; mostly couples in their mid-to-late 40s and older. Some even came from Livermore and Sunnyvale. When the band takes a break, there's a little chatter among tables, but by 10 p.m., when the group's well into their second set, there's more dancing than anything else. Couples groove on the side of the stage, near a cluster of wall-high guitars and mandolins.

I forgot to mention the most important thing, which is that Armando's is only open nine hours a week, from 8 to 11 p.m. on Thursdays, Fridays and Saturdays. Just enough time to focus on the music before heading to a late-night hot spot.

Night Writer Jessica Yadegaran profiles bars, clubs and similar hangouts in the Bay Area every other week in Friday TimeOut. Send comments or suggestions to jyadegaran@cctimes.com.

ARMANDO'S

WHERE: 707 Marina Vista Ave., Martinez.

HOURS: 8 to 11 p.m. Thursdays-Saturdays. Blues jam from 7 to 9 p.m. the second Monday of each month.

CONTACT: 925-228-6985; http://www.martinezvibes.com/armandos.

PARKING: Plenty right there in downtown Martinez.

COVER: $10.

ATMOSPHERE: Bowery Street music dive with shabby touches.

CROWD: Couples, 45 and older.

BARBIES: No.

NASTOIDS: No.

LIVE MUSIC: Bluegrass, jazz, blues, rock 'n' roll. Check schedule on Web site.

Just after 5:30 p.m. at Metro Lafayette, an Olympia oyster in one hand, a glass of Muscadet in the other, I feel as stripped-down cool as the empty bar itself. The minerality of the wine and shellfish, the stainless steel bartop, the kaleidoscopic effect of sunlight filtering through a platoon of top-shelf liquor bottles -- rarely have I felt so cosmopolitan.
Metro's urban sensibility builds on the success of Lafayette's Chow and Pizza Antica -- two popular, unpretentious restaurants with big-city pedigrees that captured the imagination of diners and daddies alike. Metro distills the formula: refining service, simplifying and purifying the menu, and surrounding it all with an arty, almost austere, ambience.

On these perfect summer nights, it's hard to resist the open courtyard, where owner and host Jack Moore glides with the assurance of a veteran surfer, watching the surface for telltale ripples. He's present the moment a setback surfaces, whisking away the offensive plate and replacing it with a fresh dish in remarkable time.

He pours wine, positions heat lamps and locates your desires with uncanny radar. Best of all, the perpetually smiling Moore, who has opened and worked in countless high-powered restaurants, knows when to leave you alone.

In the past five years, Lafayette has become a magnet for skilled chefs and enlightened restaurateurs. And the momentum is building. Just last week, Jeff Amber opened Gigi in the homey spot that housed Kaffee Barbara. Amber, an accomplished S.F. chef, comes from Chow and promises to raise the stakes yet again. Both Gigi and Metro look toward the French countryside; while Chow and Pizza Antica are inspired by Italy.

With Metro Lafayette, a name that deftly captures the area's growing culinary sophistication, this town has evolved into a true dining destination. Metro has 40-plus wines by the glass, only a quarter of which are from California; four dining areas veer from hip to relaxed to private to somber; and the sourcing of ingredients by chef Mark Lusardi means produce with the snap and sweetness of backyard beans.

Lusardi and Moore's vision for Metro succeeds only because their reputations have attracted staff that might otherwise look to San Francisco or the wine country. That's why Lafayette's new restaurant identity is so exciting; it's a magnet, pulling talented professionals into our orbit.

Unlike Chow or Pizza Antica, Metro is a night out, not an alternative to cooking, but you shouldn't feel self-conscious -- even in shorts. That's the beauty of the European cafe concept. Lafayette restaurants such as Postino, Duck Club or even little Vino offer exceptional food, but not the relaxed, contemporary environment of Metro.

There's no pressure -- imaginary or otherwise -- to order main courses. In fact, you'll have the most fun sticking to the first three-quarters of the dinner menu, not least because it allows you to play around with the brilliant wine list.

Maine Peekytoe Crabcakes, smartly priced at $7 a cake, defy gravity. The golden cylinder of crab, served on end, flakes with a touch from your tines. Clean lines of basil oil and chile sauce frame the cake and a swirl of cucumber spaghetti, softly laced with herb and acid. Try it with an exuberant glass of Gruner Veltliner ($7) -- its perfume is like passion fruit.

The Spicy Raw Tuna Poke ($14), a specialty of Lusardi's while he was at Pearl Oyster Bar in Oakland, is unparalleled (and I spent five years as a chef on ahi-happy Kauai). Unlike most of his dishes, which celebrate the subdued, the poke, served in an oversized, chilled martini glass, has in-your-face flavor, alive with ginger, soy and sesame.

As luscious as the poke is bracing, bruschetta ($10) brings warm peaches and soft, caramelized goat cheese on a crispy platform with whole toasted hazelnuts and chewy grilled onions. It's sex on toast.

On Tuesday, Metro switched from an all-day menu to separate ones for lunch at dinner (they continue to serve the whole day through, switching over at 3 p.m.). While it's mostly overlap and you still won't find an entree for less than $12 -- the price of my sinfully rich Croque Monsieur -- the menu's layout and options are much more lunch-friendly.

For a foodie like myself, the prices are reasonable -- a bargain considering the time it would take to travel to a restaurant of similar caliber. I've been again and again on my own dime. Still, a veggie pasta seems too high at $17 for lunch. Certainly it shouldn't cost more than the stunning Nicoise salad ($14), one of the new lunch items Lusardi has been testing out as a special. A ring of romaine hearts, the size and crispness of Belgian endive, encircles vibrant sprigs of Italian parsley and baby arugula. It's topped with wedges of ripe, firm heirloom tomatoes, a bundle of just-plucked haricots vertes, creamy hard-boiled egg and hunks of tender, oil-poached top-grade tuna. Even the tiny shavings of scallion -- so sweet, so crisp -- make one take notice.

A scatter of black olive, an anchovy fillet, plenty of sea salt and a classic red wine vinaigrette transform this garden party into an orgy of delights. It's the sort of high-minded display that shifts a critic into a higher gear: "Hmmm, perhaps that oversized fingerling potato should have been cooked another 45 seconds."

That might be why some dinner entrees struck me as restrained, disappointing. It challenged the California mantra of "Get good ingredients and don't screw them up." Lusardi most emphatically doesn't screw anything up. On the dozen-plus dishes tried, I didn't stumble on a single mishandled piece of produce. But two plates lacked oomph. Our halibut ($24) with "lobster butter" and chicken ($20) with "green olive-preserved lemon salsa" had an emperor's-new-clothes quality. Each came with great summer produce, but appeared, and tasted, naked.

The same problem undermined our Japanese Greens ($8). A ginger-sesame vinaigrette was so lightly applied, and the lettuces so grassy, that it reminded me why the organic movement got off to such a shaky start. The dish might be a reflection of Lusardi's stint at Roxanne's in Larkspur, the now-closed raw-food mecca.

Such is the periodic price we pay for Lusardi's commitment to culinary purity. Preparations are so pristine, they can become tiresome. Part of the fun of Chow is the high-energy sloppiness. At 7:30 p.m., when I watched Metro's kitchen in action, there were three line cooks doing little else but watching a single steak cook. It reminds me of when I was a cook in an overstaffed Wente Restaurant kitchen more than a decade ago. Cooks falter when they aren't challenged. The best chefs take a little risk.

That said, Lusardi might be right to focus on freshness! freshness! freshness! while the kitchen takes form. Once he's instilled a wholesome philosophy into his staff, once he feels safe walking away, then perhaps he'll have more fun.

Until then, even in a prissy plate, one can find moments of ecstasy. Follow one of the Japanese salad's shiitake shavings with a sip of raisiny, full-bodied Volnay ($24 a glass/$88 a bottle), and I guarantee you'll be transported to a new dimension. This really is the place to work your wine muscles; not to reflexively reach for California chardonnay (although Metro has two good choices there as well). When I inquired about pinot noir, the waiter brought me a free tasting of the Volnay, a French Burgundy, and a lovely, delicate Saintsbury from Carneros ($11/$38.50). Two wildly different wines from the same grape.

The only outright complaint we had was with our New York steak ($28), which was overcooked -- then undercooked after Moore returned with another. But Moore undermined any lasting resentment by taking the steak off the bill, meaning we got piles of free fries -- "wicked and wonderful things," as a tablemate dubbed them.

Nit-picks include:

I was forced on my hands and knees to wedge a napkin under the base of an off-balance table (I didn't want to complain!).

Time and again, waiters were unsure or reluctant to specify which oysters were which (there are six varieties on offer each day).

Our waitress asked if I would like the Croque Monsieur the traditional way, with fried egg (but then it would be a Croque Madame, Madame!).

And that long hallway of an indoor dining room is so dark and depressing (although warm and cozy, I imagine, in winter).
Polishing off a plate-and-a-half of crispy, salty, skin-on fries didn't stop us from a lovely lemon cheesecake and the Metro Sundae (all desserts $8). Neither gooey nor sticky sweet, the jumble of gelati was dark and deep, chock-full of espresso, hazelnut and Valrhona hot fudge sauce.

For more than 20 years, Le Marquis reigned in this shopping center where Metro now sits. In 1996, the classic French restaurant changed its menu to reflect growing Mediterranean tastes, but it couldn't make the transition, closing five years later. Now, with a Whole Foods slated to open in the center next year, Metro is on the cutting edge of a contemporary culinary generation. It's exciting to be dining at a restaurant that feels so hip.

At 8:30 p.m., after my friends and I return from a leisurely dinner in the outside courtyard, the bar is throbbing loudly with the young and beautiful, and I suddenly feel quite square. But I had my moment in the city -- in Lafayette -- the Bay Area's hottest new restaurant town.

Reach Times Food editor Nicholas Boer at 925-943-8254 or nboer@cctimes.com.

METRO LAFAYETTE

***1/2 out of **** stars

FOOD: ***1/2

AMBIENCE: ***

SERVICE: ***1/2

WHERE: 3524 Mt. Diablo Blvd. (in the Safeway shopping center), Lafayette.

CONTACT: 925-284-4422; http://www.metrolafayette.com.

HOURS: 11 a.m.-11 p.m. Tuesdays-Sundays (bar open until midnight).

CUISINE: California fresh with rustic French influences.

PRICES: $$$. Dinner entrees $17-$28.

VEGETARIAN: Chef Mark Lusardi worked at raw-food mecca Roxanne's and has a sure touch accommodating vegetarian and vegan requests.

BEVERAGES: Bar has depth; great wine list.

RESERVATIONS: Recommended.

NOISE LEVEL: Quite loud in bar area; courtyard is peaceful.

PARKING: Plenty of space in shopping center.

KIDS: Not as inviting for families as Chow or Pizza Antica, but the courtyard would work.

PLUSES: Oysters, fresh produce, modern sensibilities.

MINUSES: Some dishes lack punch. Indoor dining can be loud or somber.

DATE OPENED: June 12, 2007.
policy

The Times does not let restaurants know that we are coming in to do a review, and we strive to remain anonymous. If we feel we have been recognized or are given special treatment, we will tell you. We pay for our meal, just as you would.

Star key

* Fair

** Good

*** Great

**** Extraordinary

Price code

$ Typical entree under $10

$$ Typical entree under $20

$$$ Typical entree under $30

$$$$ Typical entree under $40

LOOK, "GREASE" was great. It was, after all, the word. But after nearly 30 years, it's time for another happily nostalgic big screen musical to come along and set feet tapping. And so the movie musical version of "Hairspray," with its mass appeal and infectious good cheer, is the new word.

The year is 1962, and a Baltimore girl named Tracy Turnblad (Nikki Blonsky, handling her debut with Jennifer Hudson style aplomb) dares to dream of being on a local version of "American Bandstand," a dance show for teens called the Corny Collins Show. As a plump girl, she is not what the producers would call "camera ready," but with her bubbly enthusiasm, she manages to thrust and charm her way onto the show and into the hearts of greater Baltimore. Once there, she also ignites a campaign of integration extending beyond weight.

"I think every day should be 'Negro Day'," she announces during her debut, referring to what the station officially calls the one day a month Corny (James Marsden) brings on black singers and dancers. The station owner can sputter that he wants that "chubby Communist" off the show, but that's not going to happen. First and foremost, "Hairspray" is a fairy tale in which the chubby girl gets her way.

Born in the campy recesses of writer/director John Water's mind, circa 1988, "Hairspray" added a musical score for its evolution in 2002 into a Tony Award-winning Broadway hit and now arrives in multiplexes with a dream team cast. Christopher Walken dances. "Grease 2" alumnae Michelle Pfeiffer reappears from life in the Bay Area suburbs to play "Corny Collins'" wicked producer Velma, who is also the mother of Tracy's rival, Amber (Brittany Snow). Teen Dream Zac Efron shakes his hips and sings as Link, Tracy's love interest.

Wait, it just gets better: Looking very regal, Queen Latifah serves up braised ribs and fights for civil rights. Waters has a cameo, as the neighborhood flasher. So do Jerry Stiller and Ricki Lake, cast members from the original film.

And then there is John Travolta, who plays Tracy's ginormous mother, Edna. But we'll get to him and his fat suit after we get our enthusiasm out of the way.

The Waters style is to deliberately hit wrong notes, which makes his 1988 film a novelty best watched in 10-minute spurts. Anything off-key has been smoothed over in director Adam Shankman's version. There are still trace elements of Waters' clever bad taste -- from pregnant women puffing on cigarettes and sipping martinis to a teacher's lounge cloudy with smoke, just as they really were in the old days -- but this is a harmonious production.

Shankman is a man who knows his way around a hit. His earlier directing efforts include the critically reviled "A Walk to Remember" and "Bringing Down the House," both of which were enormously popular with audiences. Shankman also served as the choreographer for "Hairspray," and he's done a marvelous job, whether taking his cast through their paces within the confines of the school bus or in detention hall (where the school's black population brings sexy back every afternoon).

Composers Marc Shaiman and Scott Wittman won a Tony for their lively music and lyrics, and the cast belts them out in good spirit (it's great to see Pfeiffer singing again). But while I could sing you four or five numbers from "Grease" verbatim, none of the songs from "Hairspray," except perhaps the first, "Good Morning Baltimore," made much of an impression. This could, I admit, have something to do with advanced age.

The other downer is Travolta, which is interesting, given the fact that he was supposedly the linchpin to getting the film made. Having led us to disco in 1977's "Saturday Night Fever" and "Summer Lovin' " in "Grease" in 1978, Travolta absolutely has the credentials for "Hairspray." But was Edna the part for him? The concessions he's made to it are overwhelmed by the concessions he's asked of the character.

To play Edna, he's donned a Baltimore accent -- sort of -- and a vast fat suit. Divine, who played Edna in the original, had the benefit of his own fat and grew up in Baltimore with Waters.

At the same time, Divine wasn't worried about how he looked (hideous). Travolta's Edna wants to be pretty and dainty. Because he's such a talented dancer, Travolta has succeeded in giving her a graceful physicality, and when Edna and her husband Wilbur (Walken) go cheek to cheek, it's delightful. But the heavy makeup intended to keep Edna pretty are a distraction. We end up dwelling on her smooth skin and strange jaw line. Moreover, her benign qualities -- if Divine was a grumpy Mama Bear, Travolta is a blushing bride -- change the scope of the character so much that we start to wonder, now why is this role supposed to go to a man?

This is hardly ruinous. But when you're under the kind of spell "Hairspray" casts, you don't want anything to interfere with it.

Mary F. Pols is the Times movie critic. Reach her at 925-945-4741 or mpols@cctimes.com.

'hairspray'

B+

Starring: John Travolta, Nikki Blonsky, Amanda Bynes, Christopher Walken, Zac Efron, Queen Latifah, Elijah Kelley, Michelle Pfeiffer, Brittany Snow, James Marsden

Director: Adam Shankman

Rated: PG for language, some suggestive content and momentary teen smoking

Opens today: In Bay Area theaters

Running time: 1 hour, 47 minutes

He's built the brasserie. Will they come?
Opposite a vast empty field in a vacant business park, Shutters might have arrived via tornado, or perhaps spaceship.

Scottie Nguyen, who came to America as a 10-year-old Vietnamese refugee, knows otherwise. He spent half a million dollars and a lifetime of acquired food sense on this lofty venture.

With piped pop standards, silent screenings from Turner Classic Movies and a bank of Restoration Hardware leather chairs, Shutters evokes the heady days of the '50s. The L-shaped dining room's exposed ceiling, exhibition kitchen and glittering glass create a feeling much grander than its 86 seats would imply.

And it's the simple butcher paper -- on top of white tablecloths -- that sum up Shutters' confident elegance.

Nguyen hopes Brentwood is ready for a retro-modern restaurant that promotes the booming city's agricultural riches. A wine dinner with nearby Hannah Nicole Vineyards is scheduled for Friday, while corn from Brentwood's Nunn Better Farms pops up on the menu's brilliant pork chop ($19).

More than any other restaurant synonym, "brasserie" connotes hustle and bustle -- exactly what Nguyen wants. It's also what Shutters deserves. While the appetizers needed attention on our visit, smart service, a top-notch beer menu and big, bold, beautiful entrees captured all that a brasserie should be.

Order that pork -- please! -- from naturally raised duBreton pigs in Quebec. It has a texture as supple as swordfish. Neither smoked nor cured, the thick chop is darkly crusted with ground peanuts (a nod to Nguyen's Vietnamese heritage?) and Cajun spice. For a side dish, Nguyen grills Brentwood cobs, then sautes the kernels with shallots. For corn that's already delicious naked, it's overkill to cook it twice, but the almost raisiny texture is appealing against meat and creamy mashed potatoes.

I wouldn't blink if charged twice as much for the Sauteed Cod ($14) in an S.F. hotel. Nguyen steams handfuls of thumb-sized clams in parsley broth and mounts it with a crockful of butter. Served in a bowl under a ragged fillet of crusty fish, the tiny clam shells were great for slurping up shots of rich jus.

The rustic look of all our entrees was most appealing. The Duck Confit ($21), a classic brasserie dish, was served up as two extra crispy legs over skin-on mashed potatoes. While slightly chewy (they had probably been braised in stock rather than duck fat), the legs were full of flavor, served with a stock reduction so loaded with butter that the sauce congealed as it cooled. A saute of frisee and button mushrooms added little -- a few shiitakes and less-wilted lettuce might have worked better.

Our server, Denise Parla, who trained Nguyen's staff, proved as engaging as she was competent. Nguyen spent 10 years at Pasta Pomodoro in San Francisco, eventually serving as general manager, so he has a strong sense of customer relations. But with one hand in the kitchen, Nguyen needs a reliable wait staff to go through more than the motions if he's going to develop a clientele.

After we got talking with Parla about Brentwood wines (they aren't yet on the list, so we hadn't ordered any), she brought out six glasses and gave the three of us tastes of two stunning local viogniers. She also brewed a fresh pot of coffee to go with a delicious cheesecake she had urged us to order. It was the most caring service -- that didn't turn intrusive -- I've received in an East County restaurant.

Had it been a blind date, my first impression of Shutters -- despite its good looks -- would have probably cut the evening short. I arrived first, sitting in a small, hard chair at a table next to where Nguyen was talking uncomfortably with a customer in the business.

After my friends arrived, the Calamari Frites ($8) we shared while pondering the menu had no redeeming qualities whatsoever. The oversized rings sported a lackluster coating and the accompanying salad of frisee and lentils, besides being a bizarre combination, was as dull as the two dipping sauces.

The Dungeness Crabcakes ($10), which Nguyen told me on the phone were made from fresh Alaskan crab (he has yet to reprint the typo-heavy menu since opening two months ago), were better, but also dull -- deep-fried and mayonnaisey.

The Shutters Salad ($9), a dish Nguyen says he created at home by "tossing it all in there -- whatever I had" when he was hungry one night, tasted as random as it sounds: a jumble of produce, some fresh, some sour, and a splash of cheap truffle oil.

Grilled Asparagus ($8) provided the first glimmer of what was to come: smoky spears and thick shavings of parmesan stained yellow in a pool of olive oil. I sopped it up greedily with delicious aromatic rolls Nguyen bakes off from frozen La Brea dough.

What's most impressive about Nguyen is his strong sense of vision. Relying on his travels abroad and insights from dining throughout the Bay Area, he's developed a gutsy, contemporary menu and built a handsome restaurant around it. Far more seasoned chefs and managers with the means and desire to open their own place lack the courage to make it happen.

There's a baseball diamond just a home run away from Shutters -- a sign, perhaps, that when the game is on, the crowds will come. It's a two-way street, of course: Nguyen's dream of a hustling, bustling restaurant can only occur if Brentwood's hunger for the same is strong. That pork chop could help pave the way.

Reach Times Food editor Nicholas Boer at 925-943-8254 or nboer@cctimes.com.

shutters brasserie

HH1/2

FOOD: HH1/2

AMBIENCE: HH1/2

SERVICE: HHH

WHERE: 2013 Elkins Way, Suite A1, Brentwood.

CONTACT: 925-516-4131; http://www.shuttersbrasserie.com.

HOURS: 11 a.m.-3 p.m. Wednesdays-Sundays; 5:30 p.m.-closing Wednesdays-Mondays.

CUISINE: French-American brasserie.

PRICES: $$. Dinner entrees $14-$28.

VEGETARIAN: Will substitute grilled portabellos for any entree item (trout comes with spinach, walnuts, lentils and asparagus).

BEVERAGES: Smart, compact wine list with lots of European selections and local highlights. Excellent imported beers, including Red Seal and Duvel.

RESERVATIONS: Walk-ins and reservations encouraged.

NOISE LEVEL: Tall ceilings quiet ambient noise. Front tables and patio might be better for conversation.

PARKING: Plenty of mall parking.

KIDS: Appropriate. Special Italian comfort food menu.

PLUSES: Rustic entrees, professional service, retro decor.

MINUSES: Appetizers need work.

DATE OPENED: May 8, 2007.

"Rescue Dawn" is yet more proof that no one wants to end up in a prisoner of war camp. But if you were, the movie's hero, Dieter Dengler (Christian Bale) would be exactly what most of us would be looking for in a cellmate: enterprising, resilient and while heroic in that ultra cool Steve McQueen style, also sweet to the core and more than a little eccentric.
Who wouldn't love a prisoner of war who is just crazy enough to shout, "We're going to get even," while staring down the barrel of his captor's rifle? I left "Rescue Dawn" feeling absolutely smitten, with the character of Dieter, with Bale -- a fiercely dedicated actor who has often left me cold in the past -- and with director Werner Herzog, for giving new life to the old genre of the escape picture.

With the chameleonlike Don Cheadle the question is not "Will he win an Oscar?" but rather "When will he win his Oscar?" In the exuberant new film from director Kasi Lemmons, "Talk to Me," he gives just the kind of performance the Academy loves: bigger than life, plagued by demons and based on a real person.
He plays ex-con Ralph "Petey" Greene, a radio personality who made a name for himself in 1960s Washington, D.C., and ultimately served as inspiration to some of today's shock jocks. The script, by Michael Genet and Rick Famuyiwa, introduces us to Petey in prison, where he has a radio show. Between his loquaciousness and sheer force of personality, he's become the most popular guy in the big house.

Dewey Hughes (Chiwetel Ejiofor), the program director of WOL-AM, gets a taste of Petey's charms during a visit to his own incarcerated brother (Mike Epps). He's too uptight to appreciate Petey's ghetto talk at first, but he's also too smart not to notice that Petey attracts attention every time he opens his mouth.

When Petey asks him for a job when he gets out, Dewey casually tells him to drop by the station, never dreaming Petey and his equally flamboyant girlfriend Vernell (Taraji Henson, shining almost as brightly as she did in "Hustle & Flow") will land on his doorstep mere months later, dressed like a pair of parrots and making more noise than a whole flock of the birds. From the appalled look on the face of the station owner, played by Martin Sheen, you'd think they were very messy parrots as well.

In some of the movie's most entertaining and comedic scenes, we see Petey talk his way onto the air and into Dewey's heart simultaneously (while pushing aside other big personalities like "Nighthawk," the smooth talker played by Cedric the Entertainer). He's embraced by listeners in a time of great need -- after the murder of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., he discourages rioting in the black communities -- and quickly becomes a star.

Cheadle was Oscar- nominated for a moving performance in "Hotel Rwanda" in 2004, but I have to admit a certain fondness for the wilder Cheadle, the one who shot into my consciousness in 1995's "Devil in the Blue Dress," where he stole scenes from none other than Denzel Washington. Whether he's giving fiery political commentary or pressing up against the mike to admit to his own foibles, he imbues Petey with a seductive quality.

But the fact that Petey had neither a conventional happy ending nor what you'd call a monumental fall -- he fades away eventually, but not until he's been very successful in radio, television and even standup comedy -- does present something of a dramatic problem for the filmmakers.

Their solution is to make the meat of the movie the very long and often contentious relationship between Petey and Dewey. They butt heads because Dewey wants Petey to be more like him -- responsible, ambitious and less hedonistic (Petey drinks too much, among other vices). Meanwhile, Petey wants Dewey to be more like him -- free-thinking, free-talking and fun. In the end, they do influence each other but neither ever succeeds in completely making the other over.

In a larger sense, their conflict represents the division that developed in the black community in the 1970s and '80s, between the upwardly mobile and those who felt left behind.

What's powerful about "Talk to Me" is the way it acknowledges how difficult it was for Dewey and Petey to face not only their own dichotomy but their real love for each other.

Cheadle and Ejiofor have two spectacular face-offs in a pool hall, at very different points in Petey and Dewey's lives. Ejiofor's performance is less showy, but the actor, who starred in "Dirty Pretty Things" and in last year's "Children of Men," is also a great talent.

The movie flounders somewhat when it gets trapped in the business of portraying the passage of time (20 years from beginning to end), particularly when a rift keeps the two leads apart. Things are sped along by Dewey's evolving outfits and hairstyles, but we feel as though Petey's story gets lost in there, as though there might be more we're not being told. Also, although I'd like to shake the memory of a few God-awful moments involving overacting from Martin Sheen, they are sadly lodged in my mind as unfortunate strikes against this otherwise beautifully acted film.

Mary F. Pols is the Times movie critic. Reach her at 925-945-4741 or mpols@cctimes.com.

"TALK TO ME"

Three-and-a-half stars out of four

Starring: Don Cheadle, Chiwetel Ejiofor, Taraji Henson, Martin Sheen, Vondie Curtis-Hall, Cedric the Entertainer

Director: Kasi Lemmons

Rated: R for pervasive language and some sexual content

Opens today: EmeryBay Stadium, Emeryville; Cinemark, Union City; Metreon, S.F.

Running time: 1 hour, 56 minutes

I've held off on gushing over downtown Oakland for a while. Weeks, I'd say. Maybe even months. Enough of that. Open the verbal floodgates.
San Francisco's Levende Lounge has come to that magical corner of Washington and 9th streets, completing a perfect square of nightlife bliss in a historic corner of the East Bay.

When I first moved to the Bay Area, L squared was first and foremost a spot for cocktailing. Serious cocktailing. Over the years, however, they've established themselves as an eatery of Asian and Latin American distinction, and how they've tweaked their Old Oakland brand is no exception.

First of all, you won't pay a cover at Levende East. Ever. You can have dinner, stay for drinks and take advantage of live music or a local DJ -- from Cecil to Wisdom and Eric Lacy -- spinning down-tempo and deep house half the week. Soon, the folks of Late Night Sneaky, a DJ/percussion outfit, will bring Acoustic Sneaky to Levende East. You also can choose from 16 specialty cocktails, nine margaritas and bottle service that's a third the price of tables in San Francisco clubs.

On a recent Friday night, I nibbled on smoky ceviche -- over dry ice, nice touch -- and sipped on an Upside Down Martini ($11) with my lawyer friend, Angele. My drink had muddled pineapple, vodka, cherry liqueur and Champagne. It was deelish, if a bit stiff for me. Angele had the Effen Cherry Bomb ($9), Effen Black Cherry Vodka and crushed brandied cherries, served up. One guy I met very much recommended the bar's selection of rare bourbons and rums, and another wise guy was a big fan of 69, a margarita made with single barrel reserve tequila.

Anyway, since we were munching and it was around 9:30 p.m., we held on to our dinner table for two and took in the decor: overstuffed chocolate leather and suede sofas, delicate chain chandeliers, and a custom built bar of walnut and Kirei wood, which seats 18. A communal table directly in front and parallel to the bar seats an additional 20, I'd say, and it's exactly where you want to be: high above the dining area but close to the bar, and all those good-looking, well-dressed urbanites.

Unfortunately, it felt like the entire scene was in that small space. By 11, that whole area was about three deep, congested and difficult to infiltrate, at least for us. And we don't smell. Take my advice: If you want to be in the hottest spot of the space, near those cute boys, get there early and glue yourself to that communal table. Chances are they won't come to you.

But Angele and I were content chilling in the dining area, people-watching, chatting about dating and listening to the down-tempo grooves of co-owner Ben Doren, DJ-turned-restaurateur. Dirk Kahl, another owner, also steps into the booth at times. That's another thing you won't find at a lot of San Francisco lounges -- owners with mad spinning skills. East Bay props.

Night Writer Jessica Yadegaran profiles bars, clubs and similar hangouts in the Bay Area every other week in Friday TimeOut. Send comments or suggestions to jyadegaran@cctimes.com.

LEVENDE EAST

WHERE: 827 Washington St., Oakland.

HOURS: 5 p.m. to 2 a.m. Mondays-Saturdays; dinner until 11 p.m. nightly.

CONTACT: 510-835-5585, http://www.levendeeast.com.

PARKING: It's downtown Oakland, so try your luck on the numbered streets.

COVER: None.

ATMOSPHERE: Swanky supper club meets cocktail lounge.

CROWD: Sleek urban professionals, birthday parties, even a baby.

BARBIES: Very few. Male to female ratio is at least 2:1.

NASTOIDS: They look, don't touch.

MUSIC: A DJ Thursdays-Saturdays.

For Monica Dito, it's all about elocution, elocution, elocution.
Like Eliza Doolittle performing for Henry Higgins in "My Fair Lady," the 25-year-old punctuates and enunciates -- in an adopted Italian accent -- every syllable of the evening's specials.

Later she repeats our entire order aloud, person by person, course by course.

It's a little jarring, but by sheer force of will, Dito is intent on transforming Cavalli -- tucked in the back of a suburban mall -- into a trattoria to be taken seriously. This despite a resume whose most tangible qualification is a two-year stint at the Cheesecake Factory.

As with any pursuit, however, youth and inexperience can be an asset -- providing an unfiltered perspective. Dito rightly sunk valuable time and most of her small renovation budget on "the most comfortable chairs that any restaurant has." Then she remodeled the dining room around the chairs. The result is a most welcoming space -- one that Dito hopes you'll linger in for hours.

Cavalli puts me in mind of an intimate wine-country inn. A handful of tables with those cushy, armless, ecru chairs; a ceiling crisscrossed with heavy wood beams; and lots of natural light.

Luck helps, too, and if she hadn't teamed up with chef Ivica Dunatov (whom Dito essentially hired sight unseen), her mission would be as impossible as it is unlikely. Dito's mother is from France, her father from Italy, so Dunatov's French-accented Italian menu seems predestined.

Dunatov's plates and presentations have a clean, modern aesthetic. It's the food of a competent chef unconcerned with celebrity. For his salad caprese ($9), Dunatov turns fresh mozzarella and sweet Toy Box cherry tomatoes into a colorful tangle. Then he ties it together with ribbons of balsamic syrup and a splash of emerald oil infused with fresh basil.

Dunatov threads hairline squiggles of that same balsamic syrup about a carpaccio of filet mignon ($14) -- topped with airy greens and wisps of Parmigiano-Reggiano. The heady perfume of truffle oil is mellowed by the salty nuttiness of the cheese. The meat itself is a gorgeous red but pulpy, probably from being frozen in order to facilitate thin shavings.

Our final appetizer brought a crispy cigar of warm, not-too-rich brie on a scatter of baby spinach ($12). My friend Steve was turned off by the salad's shallots ("It's got raw onions in it!"), but I enjoyed the honest, subtle dressing of walnut oil and whole untoasted pecans. A little more citrus, however -- in many of Dunatov's dishes --would perk up the experience.

The biggest challenge for Dito will be to find waiters in the mold of her chef -- capable and humble -- who can realize the big dreams she has for this tiny restaurant. There seems to be a relatively large staff on hand, including her 17-year-old brother, so training is a tall order. When I asked one waiter what was in the herbed olive oil, he just shrugged and walked away. Later he brought our entrees without any clue where they belonged (odd in light of Dito's pointed repetition of our order).

One of the specials Dito recited, and rejoiced in our ordering, was gnocchi with porcini ($16). Chewy with a lemony veal jus and generous slices of rare mushroom, it was a real treat. Sharing this among the three of us made for a sophisticated and not-too-heavy pasta course, proving the potential Cavalli has for refined dining.

Dunatov would be wise to cut the menu nearly in half -- at least until a steadier clientele finds its way to this off-the-beaten-track location. As it stands now, with a dozen appetizers, eight pastas and eight entrees, the kitchen often offers more choices than there are customers. A more compact menu would allow more seasonal flexibility and guarantee a fresher product. (Plus, it would encourage them to reprint those dog-eared menus more often.)

Two of our seafood dishes displayed only supermarket-counter freshness. Seared slabs of rare ahi tuna ($26) couldn't stand on their own, needing more than a light coating of blond sesame seeds. And smartly sauced -- but not deveined -- shrimp ($23) alternated between dull and downright mushy.

A crisp-skinned duck breast ($25), on the other hand, shows Dunatov's sure French technique. It brought a rich, not-too-sweet veal reduction fortified with port and poached blueberries; hot and crispy potatoes with creamy charred cloves of garlic; and a soft and flavorful side of ratatouille.

Food like this calls for good wine, and we were fortunate enough to arrive on the same day that Dito received a case of lush Liano -- an Italian blend of cabernet and sangiovese. At $20 a glass, we opted for just one, but the pour was generous and Dito topped it off after we praised its depth and drinkability. She also dropped the price on one of her top Tuscan whites after our first two choices were out of stock.

Desserts were a weak point on our visit. They were out of tiramisu, and a hot apple creation (served in the same filo wrapper as the brie) was uninteresting. Dito brought us a fancy-looking chocolate dessert on the house, but it had a commercial blandness.

Her reflex to offer compensation for shortages and other mishaps is no small matter, however. She has won over many a customer, evidenced by the several e-mails I received about Cavalli and the "charming" and "sensitive" hostess.

Dito gathers the chef and staff together to have dinner at the end of every evening, re-creating the community she enjoyed while visiting her father's family each year in Italy's southern countryside, where everything on the table, including the wine, was homegrown.

But Dito's most powerful trait is a drive to succeed -- her parents inspired her to be her own boss. Toward the end of our meal, I spied Dito alone, pumping her fist in the air as she nailed the foam on a cappuccino. This is the sort of intensity usually reserved for professional sports.

Cavalli recently expanded its hours to seven days a week, and you'll find both the chef and Dito here every night (Dunatov offered to work for free on Mondays so they could build an advertising budget).

Two restaurants have opened and closed here in just the past three years, making one pause to wonder if the location is just too much to overcome. But if anyone can do it, a determined Dito -- despite her dearth of experience -- is the one.

Reach Times Food editor Nicholas Boer at 925-943-8254 or nboer@cctimes.com.

CAVALLI

Overall Rating: Two and a half stars out of four

FOOD: Two and a half stars out of four

AMBIENCE: Three stars out of four

SERVICE: Two stars out of four

WHERE: 1520 Palos Verdes Mall, at Geary and Pleasant Hill roads, Walnut Creek.

CONTACT: 925-287-1570; http://www.cavalli-ristorante.com.

HOURS: 5-10 p.m. daily.

CUISINE: Italian with French accents.

PRICES: $$$. Pastas $13-$19; entrees $20-$28.

VEGETARIAN: Pastas (some are made with veal stock, so check with your server). Gluten-free pasta available.

BEVERAGES: Thoughtful, medium-priced list focused on Italian and French wines. Italian sodas and lemonade.

RESERVATIONS: Suggested, particularly on weekends. Restaurant is small and tables don't turn often.

NOISE LEVEL: Quiet enough for pleasant conversation.

PARKING: Lots of mall parking.

KIDS: Pasta with choice of sauce.

PLUSES: Refined Italian cuisine. Comfortable chairs and unrushed service.

MINUSES: Service can be alternately overbearing and neglectful.

DATE OPENED: New owner took over in September '06; grand opening with new name in April.
POLICY

The Times does not let restaurants know that we are coming in to do a review, and we strive to remain anonymous. If we feel we have been recognized or are given special treatment, we will tell you. We pay for our meal, just as you would.

Price code

$ Typical entree under $10

$$ Typical entree under $20

$$$ Typical entree under $30

$$$$ Typical entree under $40

It's not as if "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix" is the spinach on our plates and the only thing standing between us and dessert, aka, "Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows." However, it does feel rather like the rice: obligatory, filling at two plus hours and not all that exciting.

The movie itself is less to blame than the timing. If this were the sixth movie, coming out just ten days before the seventh book arrived in bookstores, it would serve as a perfect catching up tool, priming us for the finale of J.K. Rowling's wizards and witches saga. But as the fifth it has the inevitable air of a distraction, of something sent either too early or too late to a party.

Our hero, Harry (Daniel Radcliffe) is well into adolescence, and even gets kissed for the first time in this film. As he describes the event, it's a bit "wet," which fits with the rest of "Phoenix's" unrelentingly gloomy plot. We have life sucking Dementors and the wizarding world's refusal to accept Harry's and Dumbledore's (Michael Gambon) word for it that Lord Voldermort (Ralph Fiennes) is back. Then Hogwart's, which was always Harry's refuge, is invaded by the Ministry of Magic's most meddlesome minion, Dolores Umbridge (Imelda Staunton), who immediately puts an end to all fun, including Quidditch.

Umbridge may be only a fill-in villain, a one-off, but as Staunton, an Oscar nominee in 2005 for "Vera Drake," plays her, she's the most memorable character in the movie (Evanna Lynch, who plays spacey Luna Lovegood, is a close second). Umbridge wears pink every day and maintains the scarily steadfastly sweet exterior of a Stepford wife (with those blue eyes, rosy cheeks and dimply smiles you wonder if Staunton found inspiration in Laura Bush). Under that pretty surface, Umbridge is so deeply malicious that even the imposing Professor McGonagall (Maggie Smith) looks nervous when she's around.

The big question for any filmmaker coming into the series this late in the game, as director David Yates has, is how can the film make its mark in the franchise?

The obvious choice would be to go dark, as Alfonso Cuaron did so successfully in "Harry Potter and the Prisoner of Azkaban," still the best in the film series.

Yates and his cinematographer, Slawomir Idziak, do exactly that, although they take that darkness to a whole new level.

As the cosmic connection between Harry and Voldermort deepens, we see a lot of sweaty Harry tossing and turning in his bed, veins throbbing in his neck while he channels the evil lord. You start to think, is this a junkie movie? Is Harry going to tie off a vein and do terrible drugs in front of us?

Yates is not exactly a kiddie director. Before becoming a Potter man - he's already signed up to do the next film as well - he was best known for "State of Play," an addictive British television miniseries set in the overlapping and equally dirty worlds of journalism and politics. "State of Play" is very adult and very smart.

Meanwhile Idziak shot "Black Hawk Down" and there's a real similarity between his style there and here, a sort of garish wartime urgency. When the Weasleys, Harry and his godfather, Sirius Black (Gary Oldman, who can't play a nice guy to save his life) sit down to dinner in the super secret headquarters of the Order of the Phoenix, you sort of expect someone to show up at the door selling crack while a helicopter drops snipers on the opposite roof. We know Harry is growing up - ack, that photo of Radcliffe in a black leather vest from a recent "Details" shoot is ample proof of that - but somehow the atmosphere of this film feels almost too adult.

Of course it's tricky, handing off the baton between directors and directors of photography in what will eventually be a seven-movie long series. We certainly want fresh energy brought to each film, but at the same time, there needs to be a continuity beyond just the actors and the setting. Reading Rowling's books, we're not thinking, oh, now this one should feel like a David Lynch film while that earlier one was really a family picture. On the page, they are all part of the universe of Harry Potter, a universe we've all been rather pleased with, apparently. But on the screen, the stories, now in their fourth set of hands, feel uncomfortably fractured. Thank heavens for books.

HARRY POTTER AND THE ORDER OF THE PHOENIX

B-

Starring: Daniel Radcliffe, Rupert Grint, Emma Watson, Gary Oldman, Maggie Smith, Julie Walters, Alan Rickman, Imelda Staunton, Robbie Coltrane, Evanna Lynch, Michael Gambon

Directed by: David Yates

Rated: PG-13 for sequences of fantasy violence and frightening images

Opens wide today.

2 hours, 18 minutes

Nee Lau and Alice Liu imagined an accessible, affordable restaurant along the lines of Pasta Pomodoro -- before chef Scott Larson presented them with a menu proposal.

It included Pesce all' Aqua Pazza ($24), whole boneless fish poached in saffron; Costoletta d'Agnello ($26), double-cut lamb chops with goat cheese-parsnip puree; and Bistecca di Manzo ($27), a 14-ounce char-grilled rib-eye steak with caramelized tomato jam.

"We decided to go upscale," Liu says of Baci Ristorante in Vallejo (no relation to the Baci restaurants in Pleasanton).

What choice did they have? To a restaurant critic like me, dishes like these are a siren song, as irresistible as Sophia Loren in "Aida."

After discovering the menu online, I was smitten, that's for sure. I rarely review north of the Benicia Bridge, but at the first opportunity I was back in the toll lane, just two weeks after giving Benicia's Sahara a glowing write-up.

There are some outstanding dishes at Baci. But, at just 2 months old, the restaurant with its handsome bar, two banquet rooms, brunch, lunch and dinner menus and an all-day attached coffeehouse, needs a little time to mellow.

But first, the good news.

The pastas at Baci are among the best I've ever had. Larson locks in the chew by air-drying, rather than rinsing, the pasta after parboiling. And he uses a minimum of sauce, extracting maximum flavor by sauteeing the ingredients in lots of extra virgin olive oil. It's like the difference between gloppy sweet-and-sour pork and a vibrant stir-fry.

In Larson's pungent puttanesca ($14), even the parsley gets fried, infusing the dish with a nutty perfume. Ropy strands of fusilli are pummeled with fried capers, olives, anchovy, garlic and black pepper. A dribble of marinara is added to the crackling pan, melting into the olive oil and staining the strings a gutsy red.

Since graduating from the Culinary Institute of America in 1993, Larson has spent his career in Manhattan and the restaurant-savvy town of Philadelphia. Growing up with parents from Naples and Sicily, Larson has an affinity for soulful vegetables, notably fennel, bitter greens and broccoli rabe.

The biting broccoli stalks stalk Larson's orecchiette ($14) like a tiger would mice. The little ears of tender pasta may be no match to a panful of hot Italian sausage, angry garlic and those astringent shoots of green, but who cares with a dish this delish? Besides, a shower of ricotta salata helps to tame and bind those aggressive flavors.

Either one of those pastas preceded by Treviso alla Griglia con Gorgonzola e Prosciutto ($9) would qualify as one of the best meals available for purchase in the Bay Area. So impressive was this bundle of bitter lettuce, slathered in herb oil, sheathed in imported ham and wilted on the grill, that it made our other three starters look lackluster. Its glossy gorgonzola surrenders to a blow torch, gems of pistachio nuts are crisp and concentrated from a hot oven, and a black, black, balsamic reduction swirls on the plate.

Larson worked at Coco Pazzo in Manhattan, bad-boy chef Anthony Bourdain's formative playground, and he radiates a kind of East Coast contempt for California cuisine's gentler sensibilities. While many Bay Area chefs could use a little European stock, Larson would do well to ground himself in their ingredient-driven philosophy.

There was no excuse for the mediocre tomatoes and rubbery mozzarella in our Insalata Caprese ($8.50). Italian pesto, aged balsamico and roasted peppers are all well and good, but they are meaningless against a flavorless slice of tomato. My advice is to 86 the micro arugula and invest in some ripe Brandywines.

It was amusing, too, to come across one of California cuisine's forsaken children: chilled melon soup ($6) -- with a ribbon of pink creme fraiche -- in an East Coast chef's kitchen. But it worked. As pulpy as good split pea, the melon ("I just happened to have a couple leftover from brunch," Larson says) had an honest, summery character, more savory than sweet.

A bowl of mussels ($10) reads deliciously: "swimming in flavor" -- but I found them rather tired with raw-ish tomato chunks and no noticeable perfume from being sauteed with orange zest and fresh basil. To his credit, Larson makes a homemade shellfish stock in which he steams the bivalves, but a natural broth from the mussel's juices might have worked better.

The one main course that really grabbed me was the Gamberoni Trifolati ($22), plump prawns with Pernod, olives and a pinch of pepper, served with crispy half-moons of baked polenta.

The poached whole fish, the kind of dish I usually love, came as a boneless fillet on the bottom of a bowl covered in a mound of green beans. "Aqua Pazza!" said the server in exaggerated Italian as she set down the dish. Seeing only a pile of beans and having skipped past the Italian name of my order, I frowned and pointed questioningly across the table. "Aqua Pazza!" she said again, taking it from me and putting in front of my companion. Once we figured it out and I cleared away the beans (I also love haricot vertes, but these, simmered in the poaching liquid, lacked flavor and snap), I found snow-white bass in a lovely fennel-and-saffron-spiked broth. Reworked slightly, this could be a killer dish.

A classic version of osso buco ($24) tasted dry, as if the cooked shanks had been stored outside the cooking broth. And the saffron risotto, while tasty, was clumpy, not loose with veal juices.

The giant Sicilian-style swordfish steak, a value at $22, comes on a mound of roasted eggplant and sweet peppers. Soft-textured, the swordfish wasn't top-quality, but it was branded with thick grill marks and sauced with an intriguingly dark emulsion of brown butter and orange juice.

Liu, who owns Cones N' Cakes, an ice cream shop in San Francisco, is the acting floor manager. She doesn't have any fine-dining experience, so, while she's quite personable, Liu relies on her servers to set the tone. Our waiter was experienced, but cynical in an amusing way. When we remarked at the immensity of our affogato, a typically dainty dessert, he quipped, "This is Vallejo." Paola Oestreich, the pastry chef, puts out stunning-looking creations, such as panna cotta with Frangelico and caramelized bananas ($7.50), and is in charge of the fresh pastries at Baci Caffe next door.

A busboy brought us the wrong doggy bag, and another was rude -- fairly minor offenses for such a young restaurant. The real disconnect here is the atmosphere, one that could charitably be called homespun. Garish paintings, red tablecloths and a peculiar meandering grape motif would send Martha Stewart up the sponged-orange walls, past the plastic flowers and through the European-style faux windows. It would be funny if it hadn't taken nine months and half a million dollars to renovate the building. The 6,000-square-foot space boasts a 19th century bar and a brand-new kitchen.

Lau, who also owns China Wok across the street, is in charge of promotion. He's a little too in-your-face for fine dining, but well-meaning nonetheless, and quick to help out wherever needed.

It's fantastic that Liu and Lau have not only invested in a restaurant in Vallejo, but are aiming so high. Next month, the Empress Theatre next door is scheduled to open, bringing live theater and artsy films to downtown. Larson told me over the phone that he's never experienced such gratitude from patrons.

"There is just nothing else like this in town," he says.

Reach Times Food editor Nicholas Boer at 925-943-8254 or nboer@cctimes.com.

BACI RISTORANTE

** 1/2 stars

# FOOD: **1/2

# AMBIENCE: **

# SERVICE: **

# WHERE: 324 Virginia St., Vallejo.

# CONTACT: 707-552-4888; http://www.bacicaffe.com.

# HOURS: Lunch 11:30 a.m.-3 p.m. Mondays-Fridays; Italian-style brunch 10 a.m.-3 p.m. Saturdays-Sundays; dinner 4-10 p.m. nightly.

# CUISINE: Italian.

# PRICES: $$. Dinner entrees $12-$27.

# VEGETARIAN: Pasta puttanesca, three-cheese ravioli.

# BEVERAGES: Solid, affordable wine list with lots of Italian options. Try the Casalnova Prosecco ($35) and the Spanish Ercavio Tempranillo ($29).

# RESERVATIONS: Recommended.

# NOISE LEVEL: Tall ceilings and well-spaced tables keep it quiet.

# PARKING: Lot across the street and plenty of street parking.

# KIDS: A little upscale for small children. Fries and spaghetti and meatballs available; kids menu in the works.

# PLUSES: Authentic Italian dishes, including killer pastas. The treviso appetizer is amazing. Reasonable menu prices and wine list.

# MINUSES: Garish decor. Some dishes are heavy.

policy

The Times does not let restaurants know that we are coming in to do a review, and we strive to remain anonymous. If we feel we have been recognized or are given special treatment, we will tell you. We pay for our meal, just as you would.

Star key

* Fair

** Good

*** Great

**** Extraordinary

Price code

$ Typical entree under $10

$$ Typical entree under $20

$$$ Typical entree under $30

$$$$ Typical entree under $40

IT'S HARD TO KNOW whether to laugh or cry at Michael Moore's "Sicko," which is part documentary-style comedy and part tragic travelogue through the American health care system. Sometimes, the only thing you can do is laugh and cry at the same time.

At this point, watching any new film of Moore's -- or, for his detractors, not watching but criticizing it anyway -- is an experience inescapably shaped by such previous provocations as "Fahrenheit 9/11" and "Bowling for Columbine." The lopsided liberalism of those films is mostly absent from this one, in which Moore seems mad at pretty much everybody who had anything to do with shaping, or sustaining, the critically ill health care system in the United States.

It may come as a surprise to his Moveon.org fan base, therefore, that most of the politicians Moore blames for the current mess by name are Democrats (although Richard Nixon comes in for a beatdown, too), and he takes special pains to pillory Hillary. Moore's obvious admiration for Hillary Clinton's plans for universal health care during the '90s, as the medical czarina of her husband's administration, starts off sounding like a big wet kiss for her current presidential bid. But it quickly sours.

Moore shows how the far right linked the first lady's reforms to socialized medicine, effectively neutering her politically for the remainder of Bill Clinton's terms in the White House. The film also reveals that after she was elected to the U.S. Senate, Clinton became one of the top recipients of campaign contributions from the health and pharmaceutical industries.

The medical insurance system that is laid out like a rotting corpse in "Sicko" isn't merely corruptible, it's contemptible. The section of the film that dissects the recent Medicare bill and how it floated through Congress on a wave of political payoffs makes you want to scream at the screen.

For the most part, "Sicko" represents Moore's most mature work as a filmmaker. There is less of the cheap-shot firing at such eye-level pinatas as Charlton Heston in "Columbine." And as director, Moore waits 45 minutes to bring his narrator and sometime heat-seeking star -- himself -- into the picture.

When he does appear, Moore approaches his journey through the health care maze in the same way Mark Twain made himself the principal boob in "The Innocents Abroad." He's a stranger in a strange land, full of wonderment at what is going on around him. This device works just fine when he uses it to explain things, but this fatuous pose is the cause of occasional disingenuous lines, such as when he says, "I always thought the health insurance companies were there to help us." Much of Moore's narration drips with sarcasm, and most of it is very funny. But this he says with evident sincerity, even though there is no doubt in our minds that he ever thought any such thing.

The film quickly runs through a series of testimonials -- most of them heartbreaking -- from people whose lives have been wrecked by a health insurance system that either declines to cover the procedures they need, or whose co-payments and deductibles have drained their life savings.

It shows testimony from a former executive at Humana who says the company awarded him bonuses based on the how effectively he denied costly treatment to patients who applied for MRIs or brain scans. Another former executive, a physician, confesses to a congressional panel that she advanced her own career by rejecting requests from patients pleading for treatment, probably killing some of them.

Moore isn't a journalist, and with "Sicko" he isn't interested in getting bogged down in the nuts and bolts of how the "free" health care systems in countries to which the United States compares unfavorably -- the examples he cites are Canada, England, France and (a little red meat for Sean Hannity and Bill O'Reilly) Cuba -- pay the bills.

The mostly white, upper-middle class people whom Moore interviews in those countries (plus a few members of the Cuban proletariat) appear very content with systems that allow them to show up at the doctor's office sick -- or in France, get a house call from the state-run group S.O.S. Medecins -- without ever seeing a bill.

It would be reassuring to know that clinics in the immigrant ghettos that ring Paris provide medical care that is just as good, but the film never goes there. Moore doesn't stray far from the cafes of the prosperous when he's abroad. He plays most comparisons with the United States for laughs, while playing dumb a lot himself.

When some expatriate Americans in France tell him that the government provides them with free day care, free nannies and even pays to have someone come to their homes to do the laundry, Moore gasps, and keeps repeating, "No way!" Way.

As a diagnosis of what ails us, "Sicko" can never be more than a snapshot, but then so is a chest X-ray. The film focuses on the vast majority of Americans who are enrolled in the health care system, whose jobs have conferred upon them what Moore sardonically refers to as "the American dream" of full coverage. They are blue collar people who have tried to observe the rules of that system and have been left for dead by it. In some cases, literally.

Contact Bruce Newman of the San Jose Mercury News at bnewman@mercurynews.com.

NO ONE WANTS to see a rat running around in a kitchen. But in "Ratatouille," a rat dreams of being a great chef. Not whipping up garbage ganache or compost compotes for others in the rat universe, mind you, but gourmet cooking for humans.

The premise of Pixar's latest animated movie is so counterintuitive, you wonder if the filmmakers deliberately set a Herculean task for themselves just to see how good they actually are. If so, director Brad Bird and his creative team pass their own test with flying colors. "Ratatouille" manages to elevate a rat named Remy to star status -- no mere Templeton he -- and leave us both satisfied by the story and craving a good meal.

Remy (Patton Oswalt) would be content to cook for his rat brethren, if they weren't so intent on eating garbage. He understands the marriage of flavors and the beauty of fresh ingredients. When he finds a mushroom in the woods, he wants to combine it with chevre. "And saffron," he muses, his ugly rat nose wiggling with delight.

Circumstances conspire to lead Remy to a Parisian perch overlooking Gusteau's, a restaurant so famous even a rat knows about it. Further plot twists land Remy atop the curly head of Linguini (Lou Romano) the kitchen's hapless garbage boy, who is happy to serve as the conduit for the rat's innate cooking talent. Hiding under a chef's hat, Remy uses Linguini's thick curls like a puppet master.

Gusteau's kitchen, with its gleaming copper pots, black and white tiles and imposing stoves, is both a miracle of animation and the highest form of kitchen porn. Our first glimpse of it is at rat level, as Remy dodges one near-death experience after another while trying to salvage a soup Linguini has inadvertently ruined.

Every detail is just right. The kitchen employees wear shiny black Dansko clogs. The door to the walk-in makes that distinctive sucking sound. So distinct is the kitchen tumult from the muffled elegance of the dining room, the passage through the double doors into the restaurant seems like entry into a different time zone. It should come as no surprise that the French Laundry's Thomas Keller, one of America's more famous celebrity chefs, served as a consultant on the film. Think of the research dinners he, Bird and Jan Pinkava, who came up with the original story, must have had in Paris.

There's a special poignancy to the fact that Remy ends up at Gusteau's. The chef-owner, Gusteau (voiced by Brad Garrett), now deceased, has already been something of a mentor to him (and as a ghost, continues to be). It was Gusteau's cookbook "Anyone Can Cook," that inspired Remy; it also serves him, quite literally, as a life raft at one point.

Gusteau died of a broken heart, after being downgraded from four to three stars by bitter restaurant critic Anton Ego (Peter O'Toole), a reference to real French chef Bernard Loiseau, who killed himself in 2003 amid rumors that he was about to lose a Michelin star. (He had just slipped in the Gault Milleau rankings.) Paying homage to Loiseau is a sweet move by Bird, who also wrote the screenplay.

Another nice touch is his resoluteness in portraying Remy et al as real rats rather than cartoon cuties. When you see them moving en masse, they are thoroughly disgusting. The fact that Bird finds a way out of a story that posits a rat as the brightest new talent on the Parisian cooking scene would be impressive enough; the fact that he does it while saying something moving about the transformative power of taste is marvelous.

Pixar also deserves credit for valuing story over star power. Some of you may have heard of Patton Oswalt, who voices Remy, but he's no Justin Timberlake, and the fact that he isn't allows us to see Remy as a created character, not as a shadow of some familiar celebrity. O'Toole plays one villain and Ian Holm the other (a nasty bite-sized chef named Skinner), but what you notice is the skill of the performer, not the identity.

A quibble: The film is G rated. But those parents who are trying to keep guns out of the consciousness of their small children for as long as possible, be warned, there are two gun scenes in "Ratatouille," one short, funny and probably easy for a kid to miss. But the other involves many shots directed at Remy and Emile, reloading, loud noises, etc. In a movie that takes the time and care to remind us of how fast a small animal's heart beats when it's frightened, you wonder why more care wasn't taken in finding an alternate weapon for the old lady brandishing that gun (why not a broom?)

Nonetheless, "Ratatouille," ranks up there with the best of Pixar's best, joining "Nemo," "Monsters, Inc." and "Toy Story" (1 and 2) in the ranks of instant classics. It's a reminder of how good "kids'" entertainment can be. As a story about using a special creative gift to bring pleasure to others, it is also, in a sense, a Pixar autobiography.

Mary F. Pols is the Times movie critic. Reach her at 925-945-4741 or mpols@cctimes.com.

A glass of Vouvray Champlou and crispy cones of shrimp ragout. Hmmmm. Where am I?<p>
I could be in Palo Alto's hip Zibibbo, or S.F.'s swankier Michael Mina, or perhaps, Zeebop -- in India's state of Goa.<p>
Actually, I'm in downtown Pleasant Hill, near a Borders and a suburban multiplex. <p>
But Abhay Kumar's 6-week-old Monsoon Masala shares spirit with this tasteful trio. The menu was inspired by Zeebop, where Kumar dined in November. His "MM" logo evokes Michael Mina, where Kumar found a mentor for his short, spice-friendly wine list. And Monsoon Masala's decor, with its "Vertigo" floors, sleek black tables, swinging stainless steel doors and hovering mango chandeliers suggests Zibibbo's cosmopolitan cool.<p>
Ironically, then, it was Monsoon's traditional comfort dishes that really sold me. A recent lunch order -- called a Tiffin ($7.95) -- brought two hearty curries, tender basmati rice, fresh-baked naan, cooling yogurt, a crisp salad and spicy mint chutney. <p>
India's answer to the bento box, Tiffins were popularized by those wanting home-cooked delicacies at work or school. The delivery concept has been translated to the Bay Area by Annadaata (www.annadaata.com), and I bet Kumar could capture the Contra Costa market if he wanted to. All he needs is a couple of tiffinwallas (the beloved lunch-box carriers of India). <p>
With notice, Kumar will pack one or 20 Tiffins for you to enjoy at the office, but they're best enjoyed at Monsoon, where each colorful curry and chutney comes in its own shapely porcelain dish. Besides, it's really a loss-leader to get you in the door; Kumar's betting you'll fall in love -- and come back for dinner with a friend or three.<p>
Kumar extols Goa's culinary heritage, which dates back 500 years and is heavily influenced by the French and Portuguese. Goans are known for their love of bread, rice and fish. Monsoon Masala's menu offers the most extensive seafood offerings of any Indian restaurant I've seen. It's an ode to India's long coastline. There are mussels with coconut milk ($11.95) and catfish with a fiery sauce ($11.95). <p>
Those shrimp-filled cones I mentioned earlier are papadam -- paper-thin wafers made from lentils. The rich ragout inside reminds me of ratatouille, sweet with long cooked onions and ripe tomatoes, but spiked with capsicum and curry leaves rather than herbes de Provence.<p>
Kumar discovered these Prawn Filled Papadams ($9.50) at Zeebop, but he lets chef Lino Mascarenhas, who's from Goa, interpret the dish. Paired with that Vouvray ($9/$32) -- a fruity but bone-dry chenin blanc -- it's fantastic. <p>
Lobster Rechiado ($23.95), a tail simmered in a rough tomato puree suffused with ginger, garlic, cinnamon and cloves, is another nod to Goa's seashore. The sauce picks up the shell's sweet fragrance, making for a complex cioppino-like flavor. Kumar says he's only served a handful so far -- it's twice the price of any other entree on the menu -- but he believes sales will pick up once diners figure out what Monsoon is up to.<p>
It's a hard menu to pin down. On the appetizer side, you'll find masala lamb chops ($9.50), a half tandoori chicken cooked to order ($6.50), and Ajwaini Macchi ($10.50) -- a huge platter of salmon "cubes" whose tattered and tousled presentation made me wonder if a grizzly bear had taken a swipe at it. The only reason these hearty dishes could possibly qualify as appetizers rather than entrees is a lack of side starch.<p>
I would recommend the Calamari ($9.50), although I was surprised it didn't match the description: deep-fried in chickpea batter. Instead, naked, white bites, tender but slightly dry and gritty, came in a heap of that lovely ratatouille-like sauce. <p>
Traditionalists should go for the curries which are served with superior basmati rice (tinged an unnatural orange), and prepared in the familiar North Indian or Goan styles. All are flavorful yet relatively tame, even when ordered hot. <p>
Chicken Tikka Masala ($8.95), often a cream-laden and banal stroganoff, is served here well-textured from ground tomato and onion, oozing oil redolent of red spice. The succulent meat comes in large chunks roasted in the tandoor. <p>
More subtle is Xacuti Chicken ($8.95), a traditional, thin, grassy curry made with ground coconut and coconut milk. Try it with a glass of German Riesling ($7).<p>
Lamb curry has always been my weakness, and Rogan Josh ($8.95) is a contender for top honors. The ragged North Indian classic packs a punchy perfume of garam masala. I slurped up the luxurious flesh and sauce, discovering green cardamom pods -- heavenly spice! -- along the way.<p>
More refined is the Goanese Lamb Curry ($9.95), impeccably smooth from yogurt and cashew butter. Poached slippers of leg meat warm to the sweet spiciness of Kashmiri cloves. Try it with the spicy, cherry richness of the La Cabotte Cote du Rhone ($8/$27).<p>
Although he's been in the business 15 years and opened two restaurants in Australia, this is the first place Kumar can call his own. With 16-hour days, he's not seeing much of his two small children except when they stop in for a meal. His wife, Priyanka, who helped design the restaurant, also takes charge of the paperwork and shows up on weekends to face the rush. <p>
Despite Kuram's constant presence, or maybe because of it, Monsoon's staff is relaxed and playful. It has the mood of a well-established restaurant, but it doesn't feel particularly well-managed. My servers fumbled my wine orders a couple of times and (while I'm not complaining) the wines by the glass come filled to the rim. What's odd is that larger glasses are used for the white wines, so while you get less red than white, you still can't swirl. <p>
On one night, we ordered two appetizers before our entrees. The calamari came up quickly but a server tried to deliver it to two other tables before I flagged him down. Then the lobster entree arrived, followed much later by the Rogan Gosh and finally the salmon appetizer.<p>
I also worry that Kumar, after a long and expensive remodel (it was previously a NordicTrack shop), might not be making much of a profit. His prime location is heavily staffed and portions and pours can be overly generous (on one visit, our waitress wasted one glass and failed to charge us for another).<p>
It's certainly wise to err on the side of the customer while traditions are tested and systems established, but we diners also have a vested interest in seeing Monsoon Masala stay around for a very long time. <p>
Where else are we going to get our Tiffin and a glass of Prosecco ($8)?<p>
Reach Times Food editor Nicholas Boer at 925-943-8254 or <a href="mailto:nboer@cctimes.com">nboer@cctimes.com</a>.<p>
MONSOON MASALA<p>
<li> OVERALL: **1/2<p>
<li> FOOD: ***<p>
<li> AMBIENCE: **1/2<p>
<li> SERVICE: *1/2<p>
<li> WHERE: 2375 Contra Costa Blvd., Suite A, Pleasant Hill.<p>
<li> CONTACT: 925-685-9100.<p>
<li> HOURS: 11 a.m.-10 p.m. (service straight through).<p>
<li> CUISINE: Indian (Bombay and Goa) in a modern guise.<p>
<li> PRICES: $$. Lunch entrees $6.95-$9.95; dinner entrees $7.95-$23.95.<p>
<li> VEGETARIAN: Lots of options. <p>
<li> BEVERAGES: Smart and small wine list with generous pours by the glass, including sophisticated styles well-suited to the spicy cuisine. Kingfisher on draft. Non-drinkers, try the cool Mango Lassi. <p>
<li> RESERVATIONS: Accepted at all times. Can accommodate parties up to 20.<p>
<li> NOISE LEVEL: Moderate.<p>
<li> PARKING: Lots of mall parking, including a large garage directly behind the restaurant.<p>
<li> KIDS: Chicken sausage or lamb roll cooked in tandoor oven and served in a hot dog bun, $5.50.<p>
<li> PLUSSES Great value, especially with appetizers and the Tiffins at lunch. Modern, comfortable environment and quality wines. <p>
<li> MINUSES: Service lacks polish. <p>
<li> DATE OPENED: May 18, 2007.<p>
policy<p>
The Times does not let restaurants know that we are coming in to do a review, and we strive to remain anonymous. If we feel we have been recognized or are given special treatment, we will tell you. We pay for our meal, just as you would. <p>
Star key <p>
* Fair<p>
** Good<p>
*** Great<p>
**** Extraordinary<p>
Price code<p>
$ Typical entree under $10<p>
$$ Typical entree under $20<p>
$$$ Typical entree under $30<p>
$$$$ Typical entree under $40<p>
<p>
<p>

I HAVE ONE THING to say about country music fans: They're very good-looking.<p>
The second thing: I think we're all, on some level, country music fans.<p>
Don't let my preoccupation with Jack White nor my adolescent worship of Tori Amos fool you. I wear jeans and enjoy watching synchronized dancing. I like heartbreaking lyrics (albeit on Johnny Cash more than Keith Urban), and relish any opportunity to wear the brown suede cowboy hat I bought in Puerto Nuevo 10 years ago. <p>
That opportunity came with a recent trip to Fremont, and into the Saddle Rack, a mega-saloon that bills itself as the best nightclub in California. That's quite a distinction, and probably belongs to some celebrity circus in Los Angeles. <p>
What you will find at the Saddle Rack is high-quality entertainment, two spacious dance floors, multiple points of entry for drinking, and a little bit of danger.<p>
I'm talking about the mechanical bull, which is where Julie and I bolted after paying our cover on a recent Saturday night. It was a little after 9 p.m., and the convention-capable space probably housed about 100 or so people. Trying hard to be country, we ordered Bud Lights at one of three cash-only bars that line the perimeter of the club, and made our way to the bull.<p>
Julie discussed technique.<p>
"I've been asking people how to do it," she said, wearing a punk wife-beater and knocking back her Bud. "It's all in the hips." Alas, it was early, and no one was manning the circular pit. So we decided to come back. <p>
On our way to a table -- the Saddle Rack has no shortage of seating, which is a huge plus -- we stopped at the Hitching Post, an old dentist's chair that doubles as a shot seat. Just order from the list of mixed or straight shots and recline while someone pours the juice down your gullet. It costs $6. We shuddered watching one brave girl fight a gag reflex. <p>
From there, we grabbed two stools and checked out the music. The cover band, Appaloosa, starring "Nashville Star 4" finalist Monique LeCompte, was in full swing by now, and boy, were they hoppin' under that professional light show. <p>
Here's my point about the fandom: When LeCompte got into Gretchen Wilson's "Redneck Woman," I looked at Jules. "I love this song," I said. Minutes later, she said the same thing about another tune. We went back and forth like this until I realized the pattern. "I guess we kind of like country music," I muttered. <p>
And then we looked at the crowds. With envy. They had mad line-dancing skills. We missed a lesson the night before -- think the Country Two Step and the Colorado Cha Cha -- and were bummed about it. While we eventually got the hang of the Electric Slide-like moves, we definitely would've benefited from some direction. <p>
No matter. There's something so fun -- like a Broadway show almost -- about watching hoards of people line dance. It's like a huge family barbecue, but at a club. Instead of bumpin' and grindin' to sexed-up songs, Grandpa's dancing with his granddaughter, while her friends are meeting boys without exploring each other's body parts.<p>
One group of guys in their mid-20s even high-fived after completing a line dance. That's hot.<p>
I talked to a few equally hot boys. Some, like me, were there for the first time. Three cuties from Mountain View were there for the scene: friendly and laid-back, with a lot of eye-candy, as in striking Barbies wearing tight jeans and tighter sparkly tops. I haven't seen so many good-looking people under one roof since I covered Fashion Week at Fort Mason. <p>
I told the boys I wasn't a real cowgirl. I confessed that I was in costume, but that I was having fun. They said a lot of their friends came to the Saddle Rack in costume. I looked around. It was true. There were more Sevens than Wranglers.<p>
By 11:30 p.m., we made our way back to the bull. So had a lot of other people. It was packed. One by one, riders read and signed liability waivers before hopping and falling off the bull within seconds. Every single one of them. Naturally, Julie and I lost our nerve.<p>
But we stayed, hooting and hollering and cheering on these daredevils. Each time someone thumped to the floor, I let out a slight scream. Before I left, one guy whispered in my ear: "Better dancer, better bull rider."<p>
Night Writer Jessica Yadegaran profiles bars, clubs and similar hangouts in the Bay Area every other week in Friday TimeOut. Send comments or suggestions to <a href="mailto:jyadegaran@cctimes.com">jyadegaran@cctimes.com</a>.<p>
<p>
The Saddle Rack<p>
WHERE: 42011 Boscell Road, Fremont.<p>
HOURS: 7 p.m.-12:30 a.m. Wednesdays, 7 p.m.-1:45 a.m. Thursdays-Saturdays.<p>
CONTACT:510-979-0477; <a href="http://www.thesaddlerack.com">http://www.thesaddlerack.com</a>.<p>
PARKING: Plenty. It's in a commercial park. <p>
COVER: $5 Wednesdays-Thursdays; $10 before 10 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays; $15 after 10 p.m. Fridays; $20 after 10 p.m. Saturdays.<p>
ATMOSPHERE: Mega-saloon meets dance-party honky-tonk. <p>
CROWD: Denim-donned country devotees of all generations.<p>
BARBIES: As far as the eye can see.<p>
NASTOIDS: At least they open doors for you.<p>
EXTRAS: Mechanical bull; dance lessons 7:30-9 p.m. Wednesdays-Fridays.<p>
<p>
<p>

GIRLS LIKE the title character in "Stephanie Daley" pop up on the news every so often, young women who hid their pregnancies, gave birth by themselves and then disposed of the infants, either dead or alive. We recoil in horror and think "How could she?"

Hilary Brougher's somber, honest movie gives us what we rarely get: the girl's side of the story. "Stephanie Daley" is played by Amber Tamblyn, perhaps best known for her winning work in the short-lived TV series "Joan of Arcadia." She played Joan, a high school student who took good Samaritan instructions directly from God yet was not beyond whining about it. The premise was absurd but Tamblyn always made Joan feel very real.

Here Tamblyn creates a character so believable that she makes you realize how unfortunately unrealistic Joan -- who was always forthright with her parents and would never have been incautious about birth control -- actually was. Tamblyn's performance is a delicate balancing act; she has to stealthily reveal who Stephanie is to us while still holding back the most vital information until the very end.

When Stephanie walks into the party where she will meet her one and only lover, she's awkward and so out of place that it hurts to watch her. Her friend has done her make up (terribly), and she's wearing a shirt that shows off her stomach. But all she wants to do is flee to an upstairs room to pet her hostess' cat. Brougher gets every bit of this party scene right, particularly the way Stephanie ends up giving away her virginity out of gratitude that someone wants it.

All of this is told to us in flashback. Brougher, who also wrote the screenplay, has set up the plot almost as a detective story with Tilda Swinton playing Lydie Crane, the forensic psychologist the prosecution has hired to assess Stephanie. It's Lydie's job to find out whether Stephanie understood she was pregnant and killed the premature infant after giving birth in a bathroom during a school ski club outing, or whether the child was both a surprise and stillborn, as Stephanie insists.

In a piece of dramatic construction that feels too obviously nailed together, Lydie has an emotional interest in Stephanie's case. She herself gave birth to a stillborn daughter the year before. She's pregnant again and very anxious about it; mostly because she suspects that she did something wrong during that first pregnancy. She also feels guilty about the way she mourned, or rather, didn't mourn in full, the loss of that child.

Swinton is, as always, raw and natural and fascinating just to look at. When she stumbles about, kissing one of her best friends (Denis O'Hare) while simultaneously grappling with jealousy because she thinks her husband (Timothy Hutton, doing a very good job raising our doubts as well) might be cheating on her, she's almost as awkward as Stephanie. But why Brougher felt the story needed the symmetry of the pregnancies is unclear.

Perhaps she hoped to differentiate "Stephanie Daley's" plot from that of 1985's "Agnes of God." But she already had, simply by rooting her story in the real world, the world of girls who are afraid to ask questions, afraid to go to their mothers, afraid to take a close look at their own bodies.

Unlike "Agnes," Stephanie is no dazed novice living in the shelter of a convent, proclaiming she's had a virgin birth. She's just a real girl, with a real problem. Unfortunately this very worthy film is at this point scheduled to only spend a week in local theaters, so if you want to see it, either make the effort to get over to San Francisco or hassle your local theater into booking it.

Mary F. Pols is the Times movie critic. Reach her at 925-945-4741 or mpols@cctimes.com.

'STEPHANIE DALEY'

***1/2

Starring: Tilda Swinton, Amber Tamblyn, Timothy Hutton, Denis O'Hare, Melissa Leo, Jim Gaffigan

Director: Hilary Brougher

Rated: R for disturbing material involving teen pregnancy, sexual content and language

Opens today: Opera Plaza, S.F.

Running time: 1 hour, 31 minutes

WITH A TITLE as audaciously incongruous as "Colma: The Musical," a movie had better deliver. We in the Bay Area know how strange a notion it is that a city best known for its graveyards would inspire a musical. And while it isn't quite "Springtime for Hitler," it is in the same ball park.

Fortunately, this homegrown film, which focuses on three close friends during the uncertain months after they finish high school, is utterly original and unforgettable. It features 13 musical numbers written by H.P. Mendoza, all of them smart and fun and some of them so catchy you can't get them out of your head.

Mendoza also stars as Rodel, who is witty and outrageous but also more than a little sad. His mother is dead, and he can't stand to break the news to his conservative Filipino-American father that he is gay. His two best friends are Billy (Jake Moreno), an aspiring actor who plans to go to college in the fall, and Maribel (L.A. Renigen), a party girl who doesn't have as many objections to her hometown as the boys do.

The opening number repeats the chorus "Colma stays" as in nothing ever changes in Colma. That could be a condemnation, but it could also be comforting, and that ambiguity meshes nicely with the movie's coming-of-age themes. Mendoza, who also wrote the screenplay, shows considerable wisdom in illuminating that nebulous time of life when you don't know what is going to come next, or even what should come next.

It's a foggy summer in Colma, both literally and figuratively, for Billy, Maribel and Rodel. Each character is flawed in some way -- Billy for instance, turns into a real boor at a certain point, so much so we're not sure he's going to be redeemable -- but they have an underdog charm that makes us root for them. All three seem too old for their parts, but that's forgivable in a production like this, where it seems a small miracle that the movie even got made.

Director Richard Wong, a cinematographer and video engineer making his feature film debut, makes extraordinary good use of real settings. When Maribel lands three fake IDs and the friends head off to a dive, Wong uses the bar like a very small but perfectly planned out stage set. You see barflies nodding their heads to the music from a balcony or dancing their way down the stairs, and it's both naturalistic and absurd. Even better is a haunting number that takes place in a graveyard, with Rodel and Maribel singing while couples in wedding garb waltz in the background.

It's a weirdly wonderful scene, and perfectly representative of the unique magic of "Colma: The Musical."

Mary F. Pols is the Times movie critic. Reach her at 925-945-4741 or mpols@cctimes.com.

'COLMA: THE MUSICAL'

***1/2

Starring: H. P. Mendoza, Jake Moreno, L.A. Renigen

Director: Richard Wong

Rated: R for language

Opens today: Embarcadero, SF

Running time: 1 hour, 35 minutes

IN THE PARANORMAL horror film "1408," John Cusack plays a cynical writer, a spanking offense in 50 states. With his deadpan eyes and the skeptical smirk that hovers around his undersized mouth, Cusack is uniquely suited to the role; a movie that reallywanted to spook us would posit him as a happy, church-going family man. But until such time, we have Swedish director Mikael Hafstrom's rather fun take on Stephen King's short story of the same name.

Mike Enslin (Cusack) is a former idealist turned horror hack. He churns out books with titles like "Ten Nights in Haunted Graveyards," but, of course, has a sensitive first novel hidden away in his past (for once, can't a cinematic hack just be an unredeemable hack? They do exist).

Although he peddles the idea of the supernatural in his best-selling books, Mike doesn't buy it for a minute. The supposition is that he doesn't believe in ghosts because he doesn't believe in anything. Our enjoyment of the film hinges on how much we long to see that nonchalance knocked off Mike's face.

To that end, the first 45 cunningly anticipatory minutes of "1408" are the best. We see Enslin go surfing, have a near death experience, then settle down with his mail in a coffee shop. A postcard from New York's Dolphin Hotel warns him not to enter room 1408, catnip to a horror writer.

Hotel owners usually welcome a visit from Mike Enslin -- whose books are full of literary flourishes like "I award the Weeping Beech Inn six skulls for its Eggs Benedict" -- because their bookings go up 50 percent as a result. But the Dolphin turns down his request for accommodations, and Mike has to threaten to sue to get a reservation.

Once he arrives, he then has to get past the obstacle of the hotel manager, Mr. Olin, played by Samuel L. Jackson. If ever a man could persuade you to change your mind about something, it would be Jackson. As he tells Mike, no one has lasted more than an hour in the room. Since 1912, 56 people have died there, many from suicide, more from "natural deaths," including drowning in chicken soup. "It's an evil (expletive) room," Olin says.

But does Mike listen? Of course not, God love him. He gets on the elevator and heads on up to the 14th floor of the Dolphin. Which, by the way, is actually the 13th floor because for reasons having to do with superstition, the hotel's floors go right from 12 to 14. Once inside, he puts his bag down, walks around the place and then says into his micro-cassette recorder, like a fool, "Where is the bone-chilling terror?"

The problem inherent in a story like this is that whatever is in the room is going to have a hard time living up to the dread we've been experiencing. After the first tantalizing spooky bits involving reflections in mirrors, chocolate on the pillow and a clock radio that has a life of its own, I stopped hiding behind my notebook.

The sort of dream delirium that happens next is effective -- and even, in one scene involving a loved one Mike lost, actually affecting -- but not enough to send anyone home with nightmares.

What's nice is that the story stays smart and avoids gore. There is blood, but it's mostly the seeping out of the wall type variety rather than the spurting out of severed limbs variety filmmakers have been obsessed with lately. Hafstrom (who also directed "Derailed" and was Oscar nominated for his Swedish feature "Evil" in 2004) prefers to get his scares from a big-eyed child standing in the middle of the room, "Sixth Sense" style.

Cusack is alone on the screen, if you don't count some ghosts, for much of the movie. He makes this hard work look effortless, just as he managed to talk into the camera in "High Fidelity" without ever losing our affection. That's a tall order for an actor. The conundrum is, even as it would be interesting to see him devote more time to playing against type, undeniably, being John Cusack is a good thing.

Mary F. Pols is the Times movie critic. Reach her at 925-945-4741 or mpols@cctimes.com.

'1408'

HHH

Starring: John Cusack, Samuel L. Jackson, Mary McCormack

Director: Mikael Hafstrom

Rated: PG-13 for thematic material including disturbing sequences of violence and terror, frightening images and language

Opens today: At Bay Area theaters

Running time: 1 hour, 34 minutes

A new chef -- like Che himself -- can be revolutionary. In many cases, he is the restaurant. When the genius chef Albert Tordjman tried to sell his rinky-dink Flying Saucer -- a restaurant dishing the Bay Area's wildest cuisine throughout the '90s -- foodies guffawed. Without Tordjman, the Mission District space was just that -- space -- less valuable than an abandoned pizza parlor.

Mudd's in San Ramon has always been a beautiful restaurant with plenty of self-worth. But its value to diners has yo-yoed like the price of gas. Chefs, some great, some mediocre, have come and gone since it opened in 1980.

Since February, however, when chef Darren Robey took charge, Mudd's quality and creativity have accelerated. If you haven't driven to Mudd's for a while, I suggest you make a reservation. The dinner menu is awesome.

There's a tropical edge to the appetizers (Robey did a stint in Key West), but the focus is on California, a natural style considering Robey's time at Moose's in San Francisco and Mudd's sprawling garden of organic produce.

Many of his dishes are impressively intricate. The grass-fed beef filet ($29), for instance, comes with a Maine lobster and wild mushroom tart (housemade pastry), sauteed spinach, roasted cipollini onions, baby carrots, mache salad and Bernaise sauce.

Yet with all this detail, the kitchen's craftsmanship is solid and presentations clean. Robey, who's English, did a 9-month externship in Reims, and French technique still informs his style. His dinner crew is new to Mudd's; several cooks followed Robey from Sonoma's Ledson Hotel, where he cheffed for three years.

None of the dozen dishes I tried was utterly transcendent -- that rare moment when improbable components come together like an opus -- but neither was there ever an off note. The kitchen coaxes the best out of ingredients; another second in the pan might send them downhill. Robey's unctuous Foie Gras ($15), for instance, lolling over a peach roasted in the duck liver's fat, is a dish on the verge of collapse. But it holds, quivering and glistening with a lick of balsamic syrup. A freshly formed and neatly folded vanilla crepe completes the thought.

Ingredients like caviar and foie gras are a tough sell in San Ramon, but Robey believes they make a statement. "I don't think it's a good restaurant unless you offer certain things on the menu," he says.

It swayed me. Reading through the appetizers on a recent Saturday night quickened my pulse (and not because of the prices). Hamachi ($12), Soft Shell Crab ($14), Scallops ($15) and Duck ($10). Proteins like these propose a certain mood, encouraging you to say, "I do love fine dining."

Robey had the good fortune of hiring Fred Lam soon after taking over at Mudd's. Formerly a cook at Bernardus Lodge, a plush, elegant restaurant in Carmel, Lam has created two appetizers that beautifully express summer.

A playful demitasse of lychee spritzer (a floral, grape-like fruit) accompanies impeccably fresh dominos of raw fish in the Hamachi Carpaccio. The yellowtail, refreshed with a ripe melon garnish, is bathed in an airy lime mayonnaise spiked with ginger.

And Lam's Duck Spring Roll pairs two of nature's most sprightly offerings -- tropical passion fruit and Thai basil -- and contrasts those flavors with squiggles of dark hoi sin. The package itself is a riff on chilled Vietnamese shrimp rolls, packed with live herbs and rosy breast meat. While it lacked a cigar-tight design, the roll's freshness blooms forth from the rice paper wrapper. An edible orchid completes the islandy creation.

Staying true to the season isn't limited to Mudd's produce purchases. For his most recent menu change (already his third), Robey flies in live soft shell crabs from Maryland. By using the lightest of tempura batters, and flash-frying the crab in rice oil, Robey pays homage to its delicate flavors. Pairing it with fresh corn is an instinctive summer play, but a little more acid could have really made the dish fly. The creamy lime-green dressing garnishing the base of the plate tasted flat.

Many a time I've been seduced by starters, only to be ready for a breakup by the time the main course shows up. But Robey's entrees really shine. Vegetarians will love his perky Lemon Pepper Linguine ($17), whose cherry tomato broth is enriched with ricotta and spiked with garlic and chile flakes. Whole squash blossoms are a lovely addition.

Perfectly roasted Pork Tenderloin ($26) is sliced and fanned across a rich compote of fresh figs melted into balsamic vinegar and molasses. Robey puts his stamp on the dish with wilted leaves of olive-oil-slathered and grilled escarole. It's a bitter touch that's brilliant against the figgy richness.

A thick slab of Parsley Crusted Halibut ($25) comes alive with a toss of chives, chervil and tarragon. Robey again reaches for sweet summer corn, this time marrying the nuggets and fish with a rich vinaigrette of slow-cooked bacon, brown butter and shallots.

It's a real pleasure to have the calendar represented on your plate. Not only do you eat well, but every visit brings something new. The Grilled Salmon ($24) is June's best reflection; a plate as resplendent as any flower garden. Purple potatoes, green and yellow beans, toy box tomatoes and magenta olives are nearly naked. Quail eggs, both hard-boiled and fried, add elegance, while waffle chips and crisped salmon skin lend texture. This would be the ultimate lunch to serve founder and ecological visionary Virginia Mudd on a hot summer day.

John Ebert has long been the proprietor and shows great pride in the progressive history of Mudd's (a detailed chronology is on the Web site). He admits to epic struggles in the kitchen and says Robey's inspired menus represent a real turning point.

"It's just night and day," Ebert says. "It's been a long, hard struggle, but I think we've finally turned the corner."

When John Birdsall reviewed Mudd's in these pages back in 2005, he described the cuisine "as dated as a pair of Earth shoes."

Today, Mudd's is looking forward, and Ebert, to be congratulated for hiring Robey, needs to give it a further push. Our server forgot our amuse bouche, the flimsy flatware seemed decades old, and our particle board table needed some padding -- a white tablecloth couldn't hide the damage.

The chef's the thing, for sure, but to really bring Mudd's into the 21st century, there needs to be an investment in the environment.

Reach Times Food editor Nicholas Boer at 925-943-8254 or nboer@cctimes.com.

mudd's

***

# FOOD: *** 1/2

# AMBIENCE: *** 1/2

# SERVICE: **

# WHERE: 10 Boardwalk Place (at Park), San Ramon.

# HOURS: Lunch 11 a.m.-2 p.m. Mondays-Saturdays; brunch 10 a.m.-2 p.m. Sundays; dinner 5:30-9 p.m. Mondays-Fridays, 5-9 p.m. Saturdays and Sundays.

# CONTACT: 925-837-9387; http://www.muddsrestaurant.com. For special food requests, e-mail the chef at darren@mudds.com.

# CUISINE: European-inspired Californian.

# PRICES: $$$. Entrees $17-$29.

# VEGETARIAN: Soups made with vegetable stock, salads, pasta.

# BEVERAGES: Solid if uninspired wine list with limited choices by the glass and from the Livermore Valley. Creative cocktails and Italian sodas.

# RESERVATIONS: Recommended.

# NOISE LEVEL: Quiet on our visit.

# PARKING: Private lot.

# KIDS: Housemade macaroni and cheese, frozen chicken fingers.

# PLUSSES: Intricate seasonal cuisine using top-quality ingredients. Lovely setting with a garden you can walk in.

# MINUSES: Inexpensive flatware and damaged tables.

# DATE OPENED: 1980.

policy

The Times does not let restaurants know that we are coming in to do a review, and we strive to remain anonymous. If we feel we have been recognized or are given special treatment, we will tell you. We pay for our meal, just as you would.

Star key

* Fair

** Good

*** Great

**** Extraordinary

Price code

$ -- Typical entree under $10

$$ -- Typical entree under $20

$$$ -- Typical entree under $30

$$$$ -- Typical entree under $40

MOVIES, summer movies in particular, and trash have always made comfortable bedfellows. Year after year, studios rack their collective brains for new ways to package trash, making it bigger and shinier.

That's what Corey Yuen has done with the new movie "DOA: Dead or Alive," based on the video game of the same name. Yuen doesn't need to pay tribute to anything. He was there.

A fight choreographer and director, he has worked often with Jet Li and he helmed 2002's "The Transporter," one of the most ridiculously entertaining Grade-B movies of recent years. Admittedly, he's not the most talented filmmaker ever to emerge from Hong Kong, but that still ranks him several notches above the average Hollywood action director. "DOA: Dead or Alive" starts fast, moves fast and ends before you know it.

Like a cross between "Charlie's Angels" and "Enter the Dragon," the action revolves around an annual fight tournament on a remote island.

The best fighters in the world, each with a different style, are invited to join. Among this year's combatants we have Tina (Jaime Pressly), the daughter of a professional wrestler; Christie (Holly Valance), a British master thief; and Kasumi (Devon Aoki), a Japanese princess whose brother attended the tournament the previous year and never returned.

The man in charge of the tournament, Donovan (Eric Roberts), has a preposterous evil scheme brewing. Using nanotechnology, he records all the fighters' moves and downloads them into a pair of sunglasses, so he can anticipate any move and win any battle. Our three heroines must team up to defeat him. A swordswoman with purple hair (Natassia Malthe) and the rollerblading Helena (Sarah Carter) eventually help.

Like "Grindhouse," the film shies away from eroticism but contains plenty of skimpy outfits and perfectly sculpted bodies. Yuen's computer-assisted action sequences move with speed and precision, slowing down to catch a particularly impressive move, or speeding up to pump the adrenaline. (One great fight scene takes place in a forest of bamboo trees.) Occasionally, the film tries to explain its plot, and that's where it runs into trouble. The script, by J.F. Lawton ("Under Siege") and newcomers Adam and Seth Gross, is riddled with annoying expositional dialogue. For example, by leaving her temple and her people, the princess has become a "shinobi," or "outcast." Characters bring this up at least four times, using both terms each time, as if translating back and forth makes it sound more impressive.

Likewise, don't expect any brilliant performances; there's very little room here for emoting. Most of the scant space is devoted to cute girls, sharp swords and serious butt-kicking. In short, "DOA: Dead or Alive" is unquestionably brain-dead, but also a great example of unpretentious, second-gear celluloid, generated quickly, cheaply -- and for the fun of it.

'doa: dead or alive'

HHH

Starring: Jaime Pressly, Devon Aoki, Holly Valance, Sarah Carter, Natassia Malthe, Eric Roberts, Matthew Marsden, Brian J. White, Collin Chou, Kane Kosugi

Director: Corey Yuen

Rated: PG-13 for pervasive martial arts and action violence, some sexuality and nudity

Opens today: Bay Area theaters

Running time: 1 hour, 27 minutes

They may be superheroes, but the "Fantastic Four" are unpretentious sorts. In their second cinematic outing, "Rise of the Silver Surfer," they fly coach, drive a Fantastic-mobile made by Dodge and are fixtures in the gossip columns.

In theory, this could be refreshing to audiences bored with arty angst from the likes of Spider-Man and Batman. But as superhero experiences go, "Fantastic Four: Rise of the Silver Surfer" is mundane. It's not funny enough to be a spoof, but it's also not deep enough to hold any intrigue. Even the special effects have a ho-hum, TV-style quality.

Perhaps it's not coincidental that many members of the cast were best known for television gigs before they became Fantastic. Ioan Gruffudd, who plays Reed Richards/Mr. Fantastic, the stretchy scientist, made his name in the miniseries "Horatio Hornblower." Reed's fiancée, Sue Storm, aka, the Invisible Woman, is played by Jessica Alba, who will always be that girl from "Dark Angel." She wears blue contact lenses and a blonde wig for the role, which may be the worst affront to a natural brunette since Angelina Jolie went platinum for the 2002 bomb "Life or Something Like It."

As the Thing, "The Shield's" Michael Chiklis is encased in a cracked sienna substance that looks as though it ought to be underfoot at Burning Man (we only see Chiklis himself twice, and then so briefly, you wonder if union regulations required him to show his face). Then there is the Human Torch, played by Chris Evans, whose dull good looks belong on a soap opera. Even the villainous Doctor Doom is played by a tried and true TV star, "Nip/Tuck's" Julian McMahon.

The first film, which grossed $330 million in worldwide box office, was also directed by Tim Story. It provided the history of how the Fantastic Four developed their respective super powers and then came to terms with them. This movie takes a more traditional world-in-crisis point of view (anyone else bored with that one?), as the Silver Surfer soars in from the solar system and begins causing various weather-related calamities: a solidified sea in Japan, snow at the Great Pyramids. This disturbs people but doesn't cause widespread panic, probably because everyone on Earth has seen this kind of stuff in the movies before.

As a villain, the computer-generated Silver Surfer (voiced by Laurence Fishburne) is not going to give anyone nightmares. He's sleek, sexless and looks like a hood ornament on a very expensive car. The Surfer doesn't cackle or menace or even nibble on the scenery. He just quietly goes about digging big craters in various scenic locations.

The need for these holes is never explained, although the plot calls for a ravenous, energy-sucking beast named Galactus/Destroyer (everybody has two names in this movie) to arrive on the eighth day of hole drilling and devour Earth. Perhaps then the holes were part of the Surfer's nefarious marination plan; first he'd tenderize the planet, then stuff it with garlic.

It's all ridiculous, although not quite ridiculous enough. Take for instance the delivery of this line, shouted, rather plaintively, by Mr. Fantastic at a climactic moment. "The Surfer needs his board." Sir Laurence Olivier himself would have had trouble injecting these words with true drama. But a friskier film could have made comedy out of it. "Fantastic Four" is too uninspired to even try.

Mary F. Pols is the Times movie critic. Reach her at 925-945-4741 or mpols@cctimes.com.

the Silver Surfer'

HH

Starring: Ioan Gruffudd, Jessica Alba, Chris Evans, Michael Chiklis, Julian McMahon, Kerry Washington, Andre Braugher, Beau Garrett

Director: Tim Story

Rated: : PG for sequences of action violence, some mild language and innuendo

Opens today: Bay Area theaters

Running time: 1 hour, 32 minutes

OF COURSE your brother hated Nancy Drew. The boys always had her pegged as the kind of girl who would someday make them feel small, a know-it-all, goodie-two-shoes. Meanwhile, you loved her. For many of us, this was the first battle of the sexes.

During its first 15 minutes, "Nancy Drew," Andrew Fleming's new film version of the classic girl detective saga shed more light on my brother's loathing of the slim sleuth than my own adoration for her. Emma Roberts, the young actress playing Nancy, seemed too young and girlish. Her voice was irritatingly squeaky.

"Nancy was cooler," I told myself. "I'm sure of it."

But as the movie, and particularly Roberts, who has pin-thin legs and serene brown eyes, won me over, I realized that Nancy's coolness has always been relative.

Most of us decide that Nancy is perfect when we're about7 or 8, a time when purity is without complications. The truth is, while she is indeed clever, dignified and plucky, Nancy is also kind of a dork. Fleming, who also made the frothy Nixon comedy "Dick," is smart enough to embrace that dorkiness wholeheartedly.

In Carolyn Keene's never-ending series, which began in the 1930s, Nancy spent the better part of a century as a teenager (Keene was actually many writers sharing the same pen name). So it's fitting that she's presented as something of an anachronism, even in her hometown of River Heights, where the movie opens.

But almost immediately, we're off to Los Angeles, where her father, Carson(Tate Donovan, well suited to the part) has a few months worth of lawyering to do. We barely glimpse Bess, George and the beloved housekeeper Hannah before the Drews hit the road. This might be considered a cop-out on Fleming's part -- he co-wrote the script with Tiffany Paulsen -- but by shaking off our expectations, he simplifies our relationship to the story.

With her penny loafers and outfits made from her dead mother's old patterns, Nancy is even more out of place in Hollywood. Her classmates are -- duh -- nasty to her. In the cafeteria, as Nancy lays out a picture perfect and obviously healthful lunch for herself, one mean girl texts "OMG, I'm sitting nx2 Martha Stewrt" to another, who immediately messages back, "swipe that cupcake." Nancy looks faintly saddened, but never damaged by the barbs of those who just don't get it.

The fact is, as long as she's got a case to crack, she feels useful and content. Carson left the decision of renting a house in Los Angeles to her, and she's deliberately picked a property with a mysterious past involving a dead actress who harbored a dark secret. Although all this happened way back in the early 1980s, Nancy is soon hot on the cold trail, using both newfangled evidence gathering methods (her iBook) and old-fashioned leg work.

There's a funny bit at a records office out in the desert that might remind you of a similar one involving Roberts' famous actress aunt, Julia, who also played a sleuth of sorts in "Erin Brockovich." Whereas Julia as Erin used her breasts as persuasive means to gain information, Emma as Nancy thoughtfully hands over one of Hannah's freshly baked blondies to the clerk, who has just said no to her. "For your troubles," she says, putting the confection in front of him. Then she walks away slowly, waiting for the sugar seduction to take hold.

It can't be easy to be Julia Roberts' niece (her father, Eric, is an actor as well). You'll notice the way the camera lingers on Emma's smile as if looking for evidence of the relationship. At 16, the girl has a coltlike grace -- a term often applied to her aunt -- but the smile, though toothy, is definitely different. You hope that young Emma, who starred in the TV series "Unfabulous," doesn't spend the next 10 years being watched for signs that she is the second coming.

Fortunately, the younger Ms. Roberts has a great deal of poise and talent of her own. "I wonder who was trying to kill us," Nancy muses, shortly after narrowly escaping being sideswiped by an SUV, and Roberts' intonation is just right. There's pleasure, curiosity and a sort of naughty delight that Nancy knows she's onto something. I kept thinking she reminded me of someone that wasn't Julia Roberts, and then I realized that there's a bit of Sarah Michelle Gellar's "Buffy" in this Nancy Drew. That's never a bad thing.

Fleming has made one egregious error. In L.A., Nancy is saddled with a sidekick named Corky (Josh Flitter), a 12-year-old with a crush. Corky is one of those chipmunk-cheeked children who talks like a dirty old man. Casting directors in Hollywood seem convinced we all love this type of child, even though they'd hide when they saw him coming if he were their paper boy.

Still, "Nancy Drew" is a cheerful diversion for the younger set, and Nancy's innocence plays as a welcome diversion to the ongoing Spears-Hilton-Lohan debacles.

Mary F. Pols is the Times movie critic. Reach her at 925-945-4741 or mpols@cctimes.com.

'nancy drew'

HHH

Starring: Emma Roberts, Tate Donovan, Josh Flitter, Max Thieriot, Rachael Leigh Cook, Barry Bostwick, Laura Harring

Director: Andrew Fleming

Rated: PG for mild violence, thematic elements and brief language

Opens today: In Bay Area theaters

Running time: 1 hour, 39 minutes

You know that moment in movies where things start happening in slow motion? It could be a child playing in the park; an eye-lock between lovers; or just long, luscious laughter. I figure they shift to slow-mo because they want to depict the transition from mundane to memorable.

This happened to me last Thursday, when a tall blond woman belted out "Movin' On Up," the theme song from "The Jeffersons," and brought down the house in the process.

Before this moment, my experience at AJ's Sports Pub & Grill was fairly banal. Don't get me wrong, I was having a fantastic time: fabulous conversation with a friend, a cold Stella, and the best curry sauce & chips outside London's East End.

But the Concord bar, which replaced Mr. Pickwick's, was not rocking my world. Scanning the crowd and scene, there was nothing to distinguish it. It was like every neighborhood bar, my friend said.

That was before Erin, Julie and Jeremy. Oh, and Deborah. The woman had pipes on her that made me go out and buy Heart's 1976 album "Dreamboat Annie" because of the way she delivered "Magic Man." She got a standing ovation and hoots and hollers and high-fives from her fellow karaokers.

And that's when it hit me. Not only was this the place in Central County for "Idol"-worthy karaoke (they even have a contest on Thursdays), but we were at their party. I recognized a good handful of the patrons from the last time I was at the bar, about a month ago. These were regulars.

And why wouldn't they be, I started to see. Oprah's on the tube. The service is sincere and friendly. I didn't have to get up from my table on the lower floor (one of six), because a cocktail waitress came to us, constantly checking in and asking what else we needed.

You can order from a full menu, featuring salads, sandwiches, burgers named after ball players and a few nods to old Mr. Pickwick, like a loaded Shepherds Pie that sounded delectable and the fish & chips we inhaled.

Add to all that the fact that, starting at 9, I had free, high-quality entertainment right in front of me. I actually felt my confidence boost just watching these people sing. They sip their beers during guitar solos. They talk to the crowd and dance for each other.

Keep in mind that, while I didn't see any, teens are allowed to partake until 10 p.m., when the bar stops serving food. So families can come for dinner in AJ's huge dining hall and then transfer to the bar for some k-love before hitting the sack.

Night Writer Jessica Yadegaran profiles bars, clubs and similar hangouts in the Bay Area every other week in Friday TimeOut. Send comments or suggestions to jyadegaran@cctimes.com.

AJ's Sports Pub & Grill

# WHERE: 4633 Clayton Road, Concord.

# HOURS: 11:30 a.m. to midnight Sundays-Wednesdays; 11:30 to 2 a.m. Thursdays-Saturdays.

# CONTACT: 925-459-0574.

# PARKING: It's in Strip Mall Land, so, yeah.

# COVER: Nope.

# ATMOSPHERE: Neighborhood bar with star-quality karaoke.

# CROWD: A little bit of everyone and everything.

# BARBIES: One.

# NASTOIDS: Yes, but they kept their distance.

# EXTRAS: TV, darts, karaoke on Thursdays and Fridays, live music on Saturdays.

# FREEBIES: Appetizers starting at 4:30 p.m., during happy hour.

Most chefs despise recipes but submit to them for consistency and sanity's sake. Mahida Hadeed is too stubborn.

"All my food is just by eye and taste -- no measurements," she says. "That's why I'm stuck working 10-12 hours every day." (That's seven days a week, if you're doing the math.)

Mahida's doggedness is shared by her husband Ibrahim (aka Abe), who mans the grill, washes the dishes and acts as the kitchen's bouncer -- ensuring every plate passes muster.

The presentations are especially striking when, as was the case on a recent Friday night, they're delivered by a waitress with as much polish as a Doberman's sneaker. It's a kick, actually, to have a server pour four ounces of wine for you to "taste," kneel on an empty chair to clear your plate, and bring the dessert list at the same time as the check. (Talk about mixed messages!)

But somehow it works in this devil-may-care town. It was kind of a relief, in fact, to forgo the stiff rituals of servile-waiter-meets-discriminating-diner.

Besides, Sahara, 3 months old Sunday, is a big step up in class for this location. When I dined here at Jax, the dining room looked like a construction zone with cooks swilling wine in the wide-open kitchen.

Now the restaurant is bathed in the warm, golden tones of dunes at sunset. At night, soft light beckons through a window framed by gossamer curtains. Inside, a new wall has turned the sprawling space into a cozy dining room -- affording the kitchen some privacy and adding desert-mural romance. Other Arabian scenes, including one of a Middle Eastern farmers market, add splashes of color. Glass sconces echo a sandscape's curves, while pitchers of water on each table whisper "oasis." If only those seat cushions weren't covered in plastic.

Sahara, which took the Hadeeds six months to remodel, opened at the right time in the right place. I imagine Ephesus, a Walnut Creek restaurant I reviewed last week with similar cuisine but much higher prices, might not last a year in this town. Sahara has found its niche.

Its reputation for quality and value is already established. Dining with a Benicia couple, I witnessed a local stop by to say hello.

"Everything here is delicious," she gushed. "Absolutely everything."

I would have to agree. Aside from the Rice Pudding (all desserts $4.25) -- a bowlful of long-cooked mush freshened with rose water -- every forkful was a pleasure.

If falafel is the measure of a Middle Eastern menu, then Mahida scores an A. She renders the hard marbles that are dried chickpeas into uncommonly moist patties. Soaking the beans overnight, she grinds them three times before spiking with cumin, cilantro, parsley and garlic. She achieves that exceptional texture by creating the right "feeling in the hand."

"I add water, I add flour, I add baking soda," she says.

The result is crispy fried balls just spicy enough to warrant a quick dip in cool yogurt ($6.75).

Also a step up from average is Mahida's Baba Ghanouj ($6.75), incredibly rich thanks to a free hand with tahini -- sesame seed paste. The silky marriage of grilled eggplant and nut oil produces a mouth-feel as sensuous as butterscotch pudding.

And the Hummus ($6.75) is first-rate too, slightly gritty on the tongue and bright with lemon and garlic. Served with soft rounds of egg-enriched pita, these classic spreads are as irresistible as seven-layer dip at a Super Bowl party.

You can get all these treats, including a blast of bright green tabbouleh -- flecked with, not composed of, bulgur -- in the Sahara's Offering ($14.75).

Even the tamest dish here is well-seasoned. Grilled with salt and pepper and finished with a light brushing of oil and oregano, the Lamb Kabob ($13.50) expresses the full flavor from the leg muscle. A huge portion (in stark contrast to Ephesus), the lamb comes with a full kabob of charred vegetables, including a wedge of meaty portobello.

The amount of chicken on my friend Lois' Shawerma ($12.50) is almost overwhelming. I kept stealing bites and she still took home a hefty doggy bag. Lois says Benicia has little patience for small portions or expensive menus. Sahara should do fine. The food is excellent, and the value is real.

Plus, it's exotic; the seasoning on the Shawerma is haunting. Mahida admits to purchasing a seven-spice mix, and she wasn't even sure what all went in it, but the numbing scent of cloves shines through. The meat is seared with sumac, a pungent spice, after an overnight drowning in garlic, onions, olive oil and vinegar. The result is chicken much juicier than typical shawerma (which, like gyros, is commonly shaved from a giant roast of pressed meat).

There are several atypical items on the otherwise Mediterranean menu. A New York steak ($21.75) comes with blue cheese sauce, and there's a Half Rack of Lamb ($17.75) with mint salsa. Meanwhile, there isn't a single seafood item on offer. (It didn't sell, our waitress tells us.)

If you like onions, don't miss the Musakan ($9.75/$15.75). A half or whole roasted game hen is smothered in pine nuts and sumac-kissed onions and cooked in the oven atop a round of pita, which absorbs the delicious juices like a pot-pie crust.

The dish is spiked with za'tar. You'll already be familiar with this zippy blend of thyme, sesame seeds and olive oil, as it's served with pita wedges -- in lieu of bread and butter -- at the beginning of dinner. It's a small touch that goes a long way in evoking an Arabian night.

The Hadeeds moved to Pennsylvania from Jerusalem in 1973. They opened Abe's Cafe, serving falafel and shish kabob, after relocating to San Francisco five years later. The couple bought a home in Benicia a year and a half ago and have quickly established themselves as part of the community.

At a recent lunch -- where service was better and entrees topped out at $8.75 -- business folks blurted "marvelous" and "I want to lick my plate" as they patted their mouths with gold cloth napkins.

I asked for some yogurt to go with my Angus beef Shawerma wrap ($7.75), and was given a full ramekin of cucumber and yogurt at no extra charge. As I passed by the kitchen to sneak a peek at the outdoor patio, I spotted Mahida in front of two giant bowls: one full of perfectly diced cucumber into which she was adding a half-gallon of Mountain High yogurt. In another rested a mountain of grilled eggplant, awaiting the tahini treatment.

She was the picture of calm, stocking up for the evening while a tattooed cook grilled bundles of lavash-wrapped shawerma for awaiting customers.

My wrap was delicious, particularly with a zingy side salad of tomato, onion and crisped pita croutons. Even counting the $4 it cost me to cross the Benicia Bridge, it was a steal. It took just an hour -- including the drive to and from downtown Walnut Creek -- for me to enjoy a lunch that captured the essence of the Middle East. Sounds impossible, I know. But check it out. This is no mirage.

Reach Times Food editor Nicholas Boer at 925-943-8254 or nboer@cctimes.com.

sahara

* * 1/2

# Food: * * *

# Ambience: * *1/2

# Service: *

# WHERE: 907 1st St., Benicia.

# HOURS: 11 a.m.-3 p.m. and 5-9 p.m. daily (until 10 p.m. Fridays and Saturdays).

# CONTACT: 707-746-0505.

# CUISINE: Middle Eastern with American touches.

# PRICES: $$. Lunch entrees $6.25-$8.75; dinner entrees $7.50-$21.75.

# VEGETARIAN: Falafel, hummus, baba ghanouj, salads.

# BEVERAGES: Bargain wine list (many around $20), primarily from California, all available by the glass. Try the St. Innocent Pinot Gris ($26). Good selection of quality beers.

# RESERVATIONS: Accepted.

# NOISE LEVEL: Small dining room has loud acoustics but conversation was trouble-free on our visit.

# PARKING: Lots of street spaces.

# KIDS: Kabobs are a good choice.

# PLUSSES: Low prices, big portions, high quality. Great falafel.

# MINUSES: No seafood. Service can be amateurish but fun.

# DATE OPENED: March 17, 2007.

policy

The Times does not let restaurants know that we are coming in to do a review, and we strive to remain anonymous. If we feel we have been recognized or are given special treatment, we will tell you. We pay for our meal, just as you would.

Star key

* Fair

** Good

*** Great

**** Extraordinary

Price code

$ -- Typical entree under $10

$$ -- Typical entree under $20

$$$ -- Typical entree under $30

$$$$ -- Typical entree under $40

GEORGE CLOONEY, Brad Pitt and the boys amble through "Ocean's Thirteen," looking sharp, cracking jokes and, as usual, being relentlessly charming. <p>
Steven Soderbergh's film is smooth, pleasing and lively. It's also completely devoid of genuine dramatic tension.<p>
The game this time -- the one we already know they'll win -- is revenge. Reuben (Elliott Gould) is defrauded by a shady businessman named Willy Banks (Al Pacino), who unceremoniously boots him out of a partnership in a grand new Las Vegas casino. With Reuben languishing in a hospital bed, the boys set out to ruin opening night at the so-called Bank, a piece of architecture that most closely resembles red and gold fly-paper hanging from the clouds.<p>
Their payback runs from the financial -- they'll rig every game so that the house loses -- to mental torment. Willy cherishes his reputation as a five-star hotelier more than anything, so the boys do everything in their power to ensure pain and suffering to the critic (David Paymer) who determines who gets the industry's most coveted annual award. <p>
This sequel to a sequel has not been made to further the narrative, but rather to give us an opportunity to lay eyes on the appealing cast again (and presumably, for them to get together and have more fun). Danny Ocean (Clooney) and his gang are like the bad boys in high school who grinned winningly as they admitted that no, they had not done the assignment, as if to say, "You knew I wouldn't, but aren't you all just glad I'm here?" Which most of their classmates in fact were; the bad boys do tend to jazz the place up.<p>
However, that game gets old. If "Ocean's Eleven" had the novelty of freshman year, "Ocean's Twelve," with its infuriatingly cutesy meta-scenes of Danny's wife Tess (Julia Roberts) impersonating Julia Roberts, was certainly the sophomore slump. Junior year represents a rebound from that, but it's also got the tenor of senior year, when you start to think the cool guys should get a new routine.<p>
With a cast of 11 principal characters, there's no way we'll know much more than their individual quirks. Linus (Matt Damon) is still struggling to prove his worth, and to that end he dons a fake nose, infiltrates the casino and seduces Willy's loyal assistant, Abigail (Ellen Barkin). Basher (Don Cheadle) writes sentimental "get well" poems to Reuben. Brothers Virgil (Casey Affleck, who has some funny moments in a Mexican dice factory), and Turk (Scott Caan) still fight like cats and dogs. Rusty (Brad Pitt) can still talk with his mouth full and look gorgeous.<p>
We know these guys are deeply bonded to each other; their willingness to go to any length to restore Reuben's dignity proves that. But the script holds us at arm's length. We're allowed to eavesdrop on Danny and Rusty's conversations about Rusty's love life, for instance, but we hear only mysterious, abstract snippets. All that tantalizing eventually becomes frustrating.<p>
However, there are intimations of some new maturity. Tess' absence is explained in an off-handed comment that also suggests there is an Ocean offspring. Rusty catches Danny, teary-eyed in his hotel room, watching Oprah make an impoverished family's dream come true. Rusty starts to mock him, but then ends up misty himself. Altruism is a theme here as the boys find unusual ways to play Robin Hood with Willy's riches. Danny recommends that Rusty have a couple of kids and settle down. The meta-moment gets a laugh, but it feels cheap.<p>
It's hard to fault Soderbergh for keeping us at a distance. He never intended us to penetrate the bravado of the gang. If we did, it would violate the premise that this is the new Rat Pack, icons of impossible cool. The tricky part in keeping with the Rat Pack approach is that while Dean Martin, Sammy Davis Jr., Frank Sinatra, Joey Bishop and Peter Lawford teamed up on a number of movies, most were completely forgettable. What mattered was the presence of those famous faces.<p>
Everything else was just padding. "Ocean's Thirteen" is yet another reminder of how history repeats itself.<p>
Mary F. Pols is the Times movie critic. Reach her at 925-945-4741 or <a href="mailto:mpols@cctimes.com">mpols@cctimes.com</a>.<p>
'ocean's 13'<p>
HH 1/2<p>
Starring: George Clooney, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, Andy Garcia, Don Cheadle, Bernie Mac, Casey Affleck, Scott Caan, Eddie Jemison, Shaobo Qin, Carl Reiner, Elliott Gould, Al Pacino, Ellen Barkin<p>
Director: Steven Soderbergh<p>
Rated: PG-13 for brief sensuality<p>
Opens today: Bay Area theaters<p>
Running time: 2 hours<p>
<p>
<p>

Remember those frightful dessert trays? Waiters pimping waxy cheesecake in congealed strawberry sauce?

At Ephesus, celebrating five years this summer, they've turned that sad tradition upside down. Once you arrive, chilled small plates -- fresh and colorful -- are delightfully described and transferred directly from tray to table.

Because you start eating right away, the hospitality feels genuine. So settling in to the dining room, with its exotic music and wood-fired grill, is instinctive. Our waitress served us on a recent Saturday night without pressing for the rest of our order. As we finished the salads, we browsed the menu, ordered a few hot appetizers and returned to our wine and conversation.

It's an honest and civilized way to dine. By the time our Baklava ($8.95) and Turkish Delight (chocolate-and-hazelnut stuffed figs, $6.95) arrived, I felt like a sultan. Granted, this carefree evening cost some treasure, but what's a few gold coins to a prince?

As "Ephesus Kebab Lounge" implies, there's an emphasis on skewers and cocktails. The Turkish cuisine has much in common with Aghan and Greek food: Lots of yogurt, nuts, eggplant and spice, but light on the hot chiles. Call it sunny fare, refreshing on these warm summer nights.

Turkish owner and father of three, Hakki Goksever knows where to get the most authentic spices, olive oil, grains and legumes. But it's Goksever's mom, Ufuk, the head chef, who's Ephesus's secret weapon. What could be better than having a Turkish grandma in the kitchen?

The three of us started with four of her chilled dishes ($7.95 each). My favorite was the Roasted Eggplant Salad -- smoky from the applewood grill and sweetly marinated with mild chiles, ripe tomatoes and fruity olive oil.

Another goodie, Circassian Chicken, is a rich, salty hummus-like puree of walnuts and tahini spiked with paprika oil and spooned atop shredded breast meat. It's a textural treat, especially with the chewy wedges of whole wheat pita. Deeply satisfying, this is Ephesus' most popular dish.

Mysterious and compelling are the Lupini Beans, a yellow, fava-like legume popular for snacking in the Mediterranean. Here, they're sauteed with onions and served cold in a pool of olive oil and a flurry of dill. The effect is chewy, slippery and creamy.

The worst the kitchen can do, it seems, is commit blandness. The Shredded Carrots are cooked before being chilled and mixed with yogurt. Expecting a crunchy, vibrant salad, I discovered a rather uninteresting mush.

On the hot side, the lentil soup (labeled "seasonal" for some unfathomable reason; $5.95) was also dull, despite a drizzle of paprika oil and a heavy dose of oregano.

Save room for the guiltily good Turkish Fries ($7.95). Deep-fried potatoes are tossed with ribbons of caramelized onion, cumin and salt.

Everyone should learn to make shredded Zucchini Cakes ($8.95) as the summer bounty kicks in. Wonderfully bright with parsley and mint and enriched with feta and parmesan, the hot patties are irresistible when dipped into a side dish of cold, thick yogurt. It's a lot to pay for zucchini, but I'd do it again.

The Rolled Boreks ($8.95) were also overpriced, though if I had ordered the beef version, I might have been more satisfied. As it was, a handful of bite-sized fried pastry rolls stuffed with feta and herbs were certainly tasty, but the dough outweighed the cheese.

Still, while it might cost a little bit more, I recommend starting with a couple of appetizers and ordering a single skewer for your entree. The leisurely pace and smaller portion at the end adds up to a gracious evening.

One skewer of Monkfish ($13.95, $22.95 for two and pilaf) could be the exception. Three small blocks of fish, no more than an ounce each, wouldn't satisfy many a cat. They're spiced just right, though, with enough lemon, garlic and smoke to tease the palate.

The most flavorful skewers are the lamb ($13, $25.95) and top sirloin ($12.95, $21.95), both seasoned with sumac, a lemony spice. Just try not to salivate.

We opted for the marinated Kobe top sirloin skewer ($20.95, $40.50), whose meat was remarkably tender for such a pedestrian cut (although I'm not sure it justifies the price). I loved the squares of charred onion and red pepper. Sweet, smoky and delicious.

Looking all the world like a jumbo hamburger patty, the Pistachio Kofte ($14.95, $25.95), a juicy blend of ground beef, lamb, nuts and 16 spices, has tremendous flavor. And while the smaller portion is plenty generous, the dish doesn't have the elegance of a skewer.

Ephesus has held up remarkably well since it opened in 2002. It remains a favorite recommendation of East Bay foodies, and offers an experience not commonly found in the suburbs.

And the future looks good. Semiha Kizziee, our lovely waitress (who's not shy about recommending dishes), was just made manager, allowing Hakki Goksever to devote time to a restaurant he's opening this weekend in Turkey. He has another restaurant planned for San Francisco.

So, whether you stop by for a dish of Circassian Chicken or go full kebab with a Kiwi Drop cocktail ($9.50), wine and four courses, put Ephesus on your list. The restaurant is named after the Turkish ruins where dwells the Temple of Artemis, one of the Seven Wonders of the Ancient World. And rightly so; it's possible to have a meal here fit for a king.

Reach Times Food editor Nicholas Boer at 925-943-8254 or nboer@cctimes.com.

ephesus kebab lounge

H H H

# Food: H H 1/2

# Ambience: H H H

# Service: H H H

# WHERE: 1321 Locust St., Walnut Creek.

# HOURS: 10:30 a.m.-2:30 p.m. Mondays-Saturdays; 4:30-10 p.m. nightly (until 11 p.m. on weekends).

# CONTACT: 925-945-8082. http://www.ephesuslounge.com.

# CUISINE: Turkish.

# PRICES: $$$. Dinner entrees $18.95-$40.50.

# VEGETARIAN: Lots of salads, hot appetizers and veggie kebabs.

# BEVERAGES: Full bar with specialty cocktail menu. Limited beer selection, expensive wine list. The Legaris Tempranillo ($48), a Spanish red, was excellent.

# RESERVATIONS: Suggested.

# NOISE LEVEL: A mix of Turkish, Greek and American music can call for raised voices.

# PARKING: Nearby garages and limited street parking.

# KIDS: Single kebabs available.

# PLUSSES: Relaxed energetic environment. Ready trays of chilled small plates.

# MINUSES: A couple or dishes were bland; check adds up quickly.

# DATE OPENED: Aug. 9, 2002.

policy

The Times does not let restaurants know that we are coming in to do a review, and we strive to remain anonymous. If we feel we have been recognized or are given special treatment, we will tell you. We pay for our meal, just as you would.

Star key

H Fair

HH Good

HHH Great

HHHH Extraordinary

Price code

$ -- Typical entree under $10

$$ -- Typical entree under $20

$$$ -- Typical entree under $30

$$$$ -- Typical entree under $40

"MR. BROOKS" is a tasty little perversion that should increase Kevin Costner's stature among people who still haven't forgiven him for "Waterworld," "The Postman" and the admittedly unforgivable "Message in a Bottle."<p>
After a brilliant turn as the alcoholic neighbor in 2005's "The Upside of Anger," Costner's reputation dipped slightly with "Rumor Has It." But the veteran actor rights himself here as straight-laced family man Earl Brooks, a wealthy factory owner whose conservative demeanor (he wears bow ties) masks his shadowy identity as a serial killer.<p>
Working from a screenplay by director Bruce A. Evans and Raynold Gideon, the team whose highs include "Stand by Me" and lows "Cutthroat Island," Costner imbues businessman Brooks with a rigidity reflected in a militant attention to detail when selecting victims and crime sites.<p>
Despite the coldness and brutality of his executions, Costner's creepy character rallies the audience to his side. In part, that stems from Earl's appealingly demented wit -- and Costner's perfectly timed delivery. The rest comes from his struggles to lead a normal life with his chatty, oblivious wife (Marg Helgenberger of "CSI") and his confused teenage daughter (Danielle Panabaker, James Woods' daughter on "Shark").<p>
The reappearance of Earl's nagging alter ego Marshall -- William Hurt in one of his most entertaining screen creations -- prompts the murder that opens the story. Marshall, a reflection of his mind's dark side, is visible only to Earl -- imbuing "Mr. Brooks" with a dash of "A Beautiful Mind" to go along with its "Talented Mr. Ripley" elements.<p>
The personification of a nudge, Marshall pokes holes in Earl's arguments against killing, forcing him to admit the truth -- he likes it. Their repartee, always edgy, often amusing, boosts this story line, which is the movie's strongest and most compelling. The addition of a blackmailer (Dane Cook) who calls himself Mr. Smith increases the momentum.<p>
In fact, were it not for some of the most ludicrous twists this side of an Ashley Judd thriller, "Mr. Brooks" would stand among the year's best dramas.<p>
As intricate as an M.C. Escher drawing but with murky lines, the story spins out plot thread after plot thread, culminating in three killers, one killer wannabe, an obsessive homicide detective, her greedy ex-husband, several dead bodies and a partridge in a pear tree.<p>
Adding to the follies, the screenwriters give the detective, played by a tightly wound Demi Moore, a net worth of $60 million (don't ask). Yet catching killers is her life, and she remains committed to capturing the "Thumbprint Killer," the media's name for Earl, sticking to her guns during the two years he went cold turkey. Now he's back and, for the first time, he feels the walls closing in.<p>
"Mr. Brooks" would be so much better without the Moore threads and without the screenwriters trying to show off how smart they are by tying together 5 million plot threads. The big if-only: If only they'd kept their focus on Costner's character, perhaps introducing a back story to explain his need to kill and letting him and his alter ego battle it out till the finish. The two are excellent together, and the film sings when they're on screen.<p>
If only.<p>
Reach Barry Caine of the Oakland Tribune at 925-416-4839 or <a href="mailto:bcaine@angnewspapers.com">bcaine@angnewspapers.com</a>.<p>
'MR. BROOKS'<p>
HH1/2<p>
Starring: Kevin Costner, William Hurt, Demi Moore, Dane Cook, Marg Helgenberger, Danielle Panabaker<p>
Director: Bruce A. Evans<p>
Rated: R for strong bloody violence, some graphic sexual content, nudity and language<p>
Opens today: At Bay Area theaters<p>
Running time: 2 hours<p>
<p>
<p>

IN THE SWEET but slight "Gracie," it's 1978, a girl wants to play high school soccer and just about the only thing on her side is Title IX, then a relatively new and untried U.S. law. That's enough of a premise for an inspirational sports story; just ask the producers of 2002's hit "Bend it Like Beckham," an audience pleaser which also hinged on a female athlete restrained by culture.<p>
But "Gracie," director Davis Guggenheim's follow-up to his riveting documentary "An Inconvenient Truth," doesn't have enough faith in its core material. It's inspired by the childhood of actress Elisabeth Shue, who played boy's soccer as a kid in New Jersey and is now married to Guggenheim. But screenwriters Lisa Marie Petersen and Karen Janszen pile on so much fake-feeling dramatic tension that they muck up an already perfectly compelling story about a strong young woman.<p>
First of all, they're not content to let Gracie Bowen (Carly Schroeder) make a bid to join the boys team in her New Jersey town because she loves the game. She's doing it because her favorite brother, Johnny (Jesse Lee Soffer), the former star of the team, gets killed in a car accident. Her inspiration is somewhat accidental; she's there when her working class father Bryan (Dermot Mulroney) urges Johnny's teammates to go out there next season to win for his sake.<p>
He certainly wasn't talking to her. Bryan, a controlling dad who thinks a bit too much about his own glory days as a soccer star, has been training his three sons in the back yard for years. But when Gracie approaches the ball, he sends her to the kitchen to help her mother (Elisabeth Shue), a matronly school nurse who passes on her own mother's advice to Gracie that for girls, "life is a [expletive] sandwich."<p>
So a dead brother does more for Gracie than either of her parents. (To be fair, Shue did lose her older brother, a soccer star like her brother Andrew, who has a small part in "Gracie," in a tragic accident, but not until he was in his mid-20s, long after Shue had her soccer phase.) Johnny is a lovely brother, too. He makes sure she gets a fair portion at dinner and whispers encouragements like "you can do anything" in her ear at an age when most brothers would be snapping her bra strap one minute and pretending not to know her the next.<p>
He'd be a forgivable dramatic tool if Gracie's way to the field weren't littered with such familiar foes. The grumpy coach (John Doman) can't open his eyes to the possibility she's any good. Her best friend Jena (Julia Garro) is worried everyone is going to think she's a "lesbo." Then there's Johnny's former teammate, the leering Kyle (Christopher Shand), who believes the proper place for Gracie is in the back seat of his muscle car.<p>
Every time Kyle head butts her on the field or kicks her when she's down, you wish the screenwriters trusted the audience more. The fact is, even if her friends and family were on her side, the character could hold our attention. Schroeder is an engaging actress, who does justice to the character's plucky spirit, and though beautiful, she seems as refreshingly gawky as a real teenager (the scenes where she dresses up with Jena and hits the town are the most vivid parts of the film).<p>
But more importantly, Gracie is a pioneer. I could still tell you the name of the first girl from my hometown to play hockey with the boys. Neither one of her brothers was dead (although the legend was she was better than both of them) and to this day, I'm not sure what her motivation was. But I'd like to know, and my hunch is, her story is a lot more universal than the one "Gracie's" writers have constructed.<p>
Mary F. Pols is the Times movie critic. Reach her at 925-945-4741 or <a href="mailto:mpols@cctimes.com">mpols@cctimes.com</a>.<p>
'GRACIE'<p>
HH<p>
Starring: Carly Schroeder, Dermot Mulroney, Elisabeth Shue, John Doman, Andrew Shue, Christopher Shand<p>
Director: Davis Guggenheim <p>
Rated: PG-13 for brief sexual content<p>
Opens today: Bay Area theaters<p>
Running time: 1 hour, 32 minutes<p>
<p>
<p>

FOLLOWING UP his smash hit "The 40-Year-Old Virgin" with the similarly crude-yet-cuddly "Knocked Up," Judd Apatow confirms that he is the master of a new cinematic subgenre, the Filthy Feel Good comedy. In his hands, decency always prevails, even if half his characters are porn addicts.<p>
The title says it all. After an evening out to celebrate her promotion from production assistant to on-air talent at the entertainment network "E!," the lushly pretty Alison (Katherine Heigl) is magnanimous -- and drunk -- enough to bed a jobless slob Ben (Seth Rogen, one of Steve Carrell's buddies from "Virgin").<p>
Ben is sweet and actually, almost cute, but he's the first to admit he's out of his league. "You're way prettier than I am," he says as she pulls off her shirt. Theirs is the very definition of a one-night stand, an encounter never intended to be repeated, except that Alison ends up pregnant. She decides to have the baby, and she asks Ben to participate. Some would also call this an act of generosity, but in the morally centered universe of Apatow ("Freaks and Geeks"), this is just what good people do.<p>
The film spans her pregnancy, during which time the pair get to know each other's very different worlds. Ben lives in a state of arrested development with four other slackers, played by Apatow regulars Jay Baruchel, Jonah Hill, Jason Segel and Martin Starr. The quintet has plans to launch a Web site detailing when and where movie nudity can be found. In truth, such a site already exists, but these boys have done more bong hits than market research. Apatow has made them perhaps more awful than they need to be.<p>
For Ben, getting to know Alison means spending time with her married older sister Debbie (Leslie Mann) and her husband Pete (Paul Rudd), whose mostly happy marriage has hit the nagging stage. "Knocked Up" is really a family affair; Debbie and Pete's kids are played by the two young daughters of Apatow and Mann, who is not only his wife, but frequently, his employee (she was the drunk driver in "Virgin"). If "Virgin" was more of a guy's film, Mann helps make this more of a woman's film; the scenes where she's struggling with aging are both hilarious and poignant. <p>
"Grey's Anatomy's" Heigl makes an easy transition from television to the big screen. For the most part, she's the straight woman, but she's still a vital presence. There are two scenes where Alison has career chats with her superficial bosses at E!, Jack (Alan Tudyk) and Jill (Kristen Wigg), and in each, Wigg, mumbling derogatory comments, is brilliant. She threatens to steal the scene, but you never forget she's got Heigl sitting next to her.<p>
Rogen, whom you may remember as the guy who riffed so well with Rudd in "Virgin," also comes into his own here. He and Rudd have goofy fun again, particularly on a drug-soaked trip to Vegas, but Rogen gives Ben unexpected depth. He has a steady warmth, and in the end, makes a convincing case that Alison's choice in bringing Ben home that night, while clouded by beer goggles, may have been rather a good one.<p>
Apatow is not our only crude humorist interested in decency. The Farrelly brothers make a practice of slamming the judgmental in their comedies -- "Shallow Hal" and "Stuck on You" for instance. Tastelessness is a weapon for them. They want you to go home and think twice before you judge anyone for being different. <p>
Apatow, on the other hand, wants you to laugh yourself silly and then go home feeling good about how we're all essentially the same. His approach is to tackle the mundane with a brutal truthfulness. Losing your virginity is almost always an awkward business, but just how awkward can it get? A one night stand is almost always embarrassing and awkward, but what if you were trapped in particularly cringe-worthy one?<p>
There's a priceless moment where Alison and Ben, out shopping, encounter a few friends she's been out of touch with. They're stunned by her pregnancy, and you can tell she's hoping to somehow avoid identifying the father as the doofus next to her. Apatow doesn't fully explore the dramatic potential of a scene like this, but he's smart not to get sidelined from his main objective, which is to be both believable and hilarious while always erring on the side of the comedy.<p>
When applied to movies, the term "feel-good" is often intended to be derisive, with the implication that if it makes you feel good, a movie has created some happy lie, or disingenuously manipulated us. Certainly no woman in Alison's situation could remain that upbeat in the face of five dorks. But Apatow's movies work precisely because his humor is so honest, and ultimately -- obscenities and all -- kind.<p>
Mary F. Pols is the Times movie critic. Reach her at 925-945-4741 or <a href="mailto:mpols@cctimes.com">mpols@cctimes.com</a>.<p>
'KNOCKED UP'<p>
HHHH<p>
Starring: Seth Rogen, Katherine Heigl, Paul Rudd, Leslie Mann, Jay Baruchel, Jonah Hill, Jason Segel, Martin Starr<p>
Director: Judd Apatow<p>
Rated: R for sexual content, drug use and language<p>
Opens today: Bay Area theaters<p>
Running time: 2 hours, 9 minutes<p>
<p>
<p>

What is this need we have to go back in time? Is the current scene so dull, or should I say so bleak, that we think a rewind will recharge our social batteries? <p>
Take the whole Prohibition thing in San Francisco. Every time you turn around, there's another bar or club claiming to resurrect that very un-American -- at least in our multi-flavored, Stoli minds -- time in history when, to feel booze wet your lips, you needed secret handshakes and puzzling passwords. <p>
Like books-to-blockbusters, are we that lacking in creativity? To some extent, yes. <p>
While I love Bourbon & Branch, the chic Tenderloin bar that manages in its Prohibition throwback to stay au moment, I think Slide is another story. The Theater District night club from the owners of Ruby Skye is sleek, even gorgeous. But aside from clever marketing ("Keep Quiet, Speak Easy"), what about it is even reminiscent of the 1920s? <p>
Back in the day they're going for, the space housed the Cable Car Theatre, and below that, Cafe Dans, a speakeasy those in the know accessed via a secret wall. From there, they rode a slide 15 feet below street level to the actual spot for illegal gambling and bootleg spirits. But you don't get a sense for that at Slide, which opened in September. <p>
First of all, the long line and velvet rope outside the entrance doesn't exactly promote keeping quiet. And once inside, the renovated serpentine slide is only for those wearing pants. Everyone else can take the stairs. On a Saturday night, it's so loud, I don't know how you'd be able to speak easy and be heard. <p>
J-Tim's blasting (thanks to sought-after local and very modern spinners, including DJ Donovan of Ana Mandara) at the biggest Barbie village this side of Mattel. At Slide, bands of H&M-clad South Bay sweeties bump and grind. The marrieds hit on the singletons. I went to Slide on two occasions, the more memorable one being last month, for a bachelorette party. It's always the people you're with who make a party, let's face it.<p>
I will say the decor is stunning. Two million bucks has that effect. Mahogany wood fills the thousands upon thousands of square feet. A baby grand piano from the 1920s is essentially a jukebox and DJ booth in one, offering hip-hop, mash-ups and the like. The will-never-tire color combo of baby blue and chocolate brown is everywhere, from the custom booths to the hardwood floors. And the bar: onyx and back-lit, staring at it makes you crave liquor.<p>
We scored one of the chocolate booths, and bottle service, so I wasn't able to try too many cocktails, but Slide has plenty to offer: 10 martinis with seductions such as pomegranate tequila and lychee liqueur, and a whopping 16 Champagne cocktails. Talk about picking up on a trend and running with it. Aside from Kir Royales and Bellinis, Slide dares to mix its sparkling with beer, Red Bull and rose. Below the surface, that's the most impressive thing about the place. <p>
When I wasn't cupping and screaming into my friends' ears, I was dancing with a gent who actually had moves. He swung me to the left; he swung me to the right. Was it to Ne-Yo or a Rat Pack mash? I couldn't tell you, but what I do recall is that he was a complete gentleman: jacket, tie, hat and all.<p>
Now that's a throwback I could get used to.<p>
Night Writer Jessica Yadegaran profiles bars, clubs and similar hangouts in the Bay Area every other week in Friday TimeOut. Send comments or suggestions to <a href="mailto:jyadegaran@cctimes.com">jyadegaran@cctimes.com</a>.<p>
<p>
Slide<p>
<li> WHERE: 430 Mason St., San Francisco.<p>
<li> HOURS: 7 p.m. to 2 a.m. Wednesdays-Saturdays.<p>
<li> CONTACT: 415-421-1916; <a href="http://www.slidesf.com">http://www.slidesf.com</a>.<p>
<li> PARKING: It's the Theater District, so plan to BART or cab it.<p>
<li> COVER: None.<p>
<li> ATMOSPHERE: Big, slick club with Prohibition throwbacks.<p>
<li> CROWD: 30-and-under Barbies not keeping quiet or speaking easy. Girl to guy ratio is 2:1.<p>
<li> BARBIES: I just said that.<p>
<li> NASTOIDS: A sprinkling.<p>
<li> EXTRAS: A slide.<p>
<p>
<p>

Among the faux opulence -- Roman columns, bronze statues, French masterpieces, crystal chandeliers -- there is one genuine character.<p>
Sam DuVall.<p>
Rumpled and tireless, he opens and closes restaurants like they were novels -- moving on when boredom sets in or profits fall short. Through it all, DuVall remains loquacious and gregarious -- like Izzy Gomez, the S.F. barkeep whose name inspired DuVall's small chain of steakhouses.<p>
DuVall has dabbled in Manhattan and L.A., but San Francisco has spawned most of the 27 restaurants in his 43-year career. Whether Cajun (the Elite Cafe, 1981) or Cuban (Habana, 2003), DuVall has shown a keen eye for budding trends. Twenty years ago, he found a winning formula with Izzy's Steak & Chop House in San Francisco. Five years ago, riding the Bay Area beef boom, DuVall opened an Izzy's in Corte Madera (which he sold a year ago), in San Carlos and, just last month, in San Ramon. <p>
A top-end choice, 14-ounce New York steak costs $24.95 here, compared with $30.95 at McNamara's Steak and Chop House in Dublin; $33 at Hap's Original Steakhouse in Pleasanton; or $39 (for prime) at Forbes Mill Steakhouse in Danville. One could call Izzy's the People's Steakhouse -- delivering thick cuts at a price you can afford. <p>
DuVall credits high volume, low management costs, and finding pre-existing restaurant locations with a "really great lease" for Izzy's reasonable menu prices (Izzy's in San Ramon was formerly O'Kane's, an Irish pub). Still, he has made some shrewd sacrifices. The china is from China. The tables are padded, but the tablecloth and silverware are lightweight (except for the wood-handled steak knives). Wine glasses are the same for red and white. And the sourdough, in traditional San Francisco form, is served cold with chilled Challenge butter packets.<p>
So while there's a sense of luxury, it's only a sense. I didn't sink into a cushy armchair on my recent visit, but I did sink my teeth into a darn good steak. <p>
How does the quality compare to other East Bay steakhouses? I did a roundup last year and found the steaks at Outback and McNamara's in Dublin to have the cleanest flavor. Hap's in Pleasanton, Vic Stewart's in Walnut Creek and Bighorn Grill in San Ramon all let me down in different ways. <p>
My New York Steak at Izzy's ($24.95), while lightly seasoned and simply grilled over gas, was about as good as it gets. Ultra-thick and rosy red, it was perfectly marked, gristle-free and well-flavored from dry aging -- a natural popular process that evaporates moisture and intensifies the beefy taste.<p>
DuVall sidesteps the trend toward more politically correct grass-fed beef, saying his customers like the rich flavor of corn-fed. And he says Kobe steaks are a plain rip-off. "It's the biggest joke in the steakhouse business," he says. (I might agree; I recently paid $69 for an unremarkable Kobe steak.)<p>
The proliferation of steakhouses in the East Bay is unrelenting. Forbes Mill Steakhouse opened last year in Danville. Fleming's is slated to open this summer in Walnut Creek. And Moresi's Chophouse is coming to Clayton in just a couple of weeks. If this is indicative of a larger trend, beef prices should only go higher. With so much corn now going to ethanol, the times of cheap, surplus feed grain may be over.<p>
DuVall acknowledges some pricing pressure, but he's committed to offering value -- a smart strategy in such a carnivores climate. And it's not just with beef. It seemed like a steal when we opted for three Lamb Chops ($24.95) rather than two ($21.95) at Izzy's. Not that we needed so much meat, but it made for welcome leftovers.<p>
While the menu is anchored in meat, there are other options. The Starters section in particular has some worthwhile seafood dishes. <p>
Our Calamari ($8.95) was crusty and slightly greasy, delicious with a potent cocktail sauce. Roasted Mussels ($9.50), delivered on a smoking, sizzling platter, were wonderfully sweet and lots of fun to eat. A glob of raw chopped garlic thrown on top was startling, but easy to work around. And the Louis Salad ($8.25) gets the full treatment: plump bay shrimp, avocado, crisp lettuce and a rich tart dressing. <p>
There are 375 seats at Izzy's, and the waiters seem to have pretty large sections, so don't be bashful in reeling yours in on a busy night. If the wait for your food is anything like ours (we waited 30 minutes twice), it would behoove you to order some snacks right off the bat. <p>
There are nine side dishes -- choose two -- to accompany your main course. Izzy's Own Potatoes, gooey with gouda, and Creamed Spinach are incredibly rich. Either goes well with a simply grilled steak, but two on a plate might kill you, and even one would be too much with the Au Poivre option -- a creamy pepper-brandy steak sauce. Steamed broccoli (a little peaked on our visit) or asparagus are more healthful options. <p>
There was one glaring weakness on our visit. Grilled Swordfish ($22.95) is a permanent fixture on the menu, always a dicey proposition unless you're willing to pay top dollar when supplies are tight. Our fish fillet was not only overcooked but was well past its prime. Since DuVall says that 25 percent of his sales are seafood, it's hard to believe that quick turnover would be a problem, especially in such a big, busy restaurant. So perhaps the supplier isn't providing the freshest product. Or maybe a kitchen whose focus is on hardy (forgiving) steaks doesn't give proper respect to more perishable products. <p>
One gets the sense, however, that these aren't the kinds of issues that preoccupy DuVall. He's left the kitchen worries to corporate chef and partner, Joe Kohn. DuVall, long an antiques collector, is more interested in setting the stage and getting his latest production under way. Who would dare challenge the judgment of an American restaurateur who chooses Statue of Liberty torches for sconces?<p>
The overall effect works. Groups of professional men surrounded by dark wood laugh easily; older couples sparkle infinitely in facing gilded mirrors; and singles compare accomplishments in DuVall's treasured Trophy Bar. <p>
"As I develop each (Izzy's), I try to make it nicer than I did before," DuVall says.<p>
I imagine the next one is already on the drawing board.<p>
Reach Times Food editor Nicholas Boer at 925-943-8254 or <a href="mailto:nboer@cctimes.com">nboer@cctimes.com</a>.<p>
<p>
IZZY'S STEAKS & CHOPS<p>
H H1/2<p>
<li> Food: HH1/2<p>
<li> Ambience: HHH<p>
<li> Service: HH<p>
<li> WHERE: 200 Montgomery (in the Market Place shopping center), San Ramon.<p>
<li> HOURS: 5-10 p.m. Sundays-Thursdays; 5-10:30 p.m. Fridays-Saturdays. Lounge opens at 4 p.m.<p>
<li> CONTACT: 925-830-8620; <a href="http://www.izzyssteaksandchops.com">http://www.izzyssteaksandchops.com</a>.<p>
<li> CUISINE: American steakhouse.<p>
<li> PRICES: $$$. Dinner entrees $9.95-$27.95.<p>
<li> VEGETARIAN: Choose any five sides for $14.95.<p>
<li> BEVERAGES: Full bar; compact red-heavy California list. One local wine: 2002 Murrieta's Well Zinfandel for $42 (retails at $26). <p>
<li> RESERVATIONS: Accepted.<p>
<li> NOISE LEVEL: Conversation can be challenging.<p>
<li> PARKING: Mall parking can get crowded.<p>
<li> KIDS: No special menu, but plates can be split for no extra charge.<p>
<li> PLUSSES: Affordable, good starters, good steaks.<p>
<li> MINUSES: Swordfish wasn't fresh; service can be slow.<p>
<li> DATE OPENED: April 17, 2007.<p>
policy<p>
The Times does not let restaurants know that we are coming in to do a review, and we strive to remain anonymous. If we feel we have been recognized or are given special treatment, we will tell you. We pay for our meal, just as you would. <p>
Star key <p>
H Fair<p>
HH Good<p>
HHH Great<p>
HHHH Extraordinary<p>
Price code<p>
$ -- Typical entree under $10<p>
$$ -- Typical entree under $20<p>
$$$ -- Typical entree under $30<p>
$$$$ -- Typical entree under $40<p>
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