"When did beauty become so f--kin' ugly?"

It's a key question in San Rafael filmmaker Jonathan Parker's (Bartleby, The Californians, both filmed in Marin) acerbic little comedy, (Untitled), which takes aim at contemporary art--its creators, vendors and consumers.

The question is asked by Josh Jacobs (Eion Bailey), the creator of large, gauzy, unthreatening abstractions that are snapped up by a buyer for office buildings and hospitals. Josh's dealer is Madeleine Gray (Marley Shelton), owner of a trendy New York gallery, who keeps his paintings in the back room. In the front room, meanwhile, she exhibits works by artists such as Ray Barko (English footballer Vinnie Jones), who mounts taxidermied animals in grotesque postures--possums hanging from a chandelier, a monkey breathing into (or out of) a vacuum cleaner hose--or works by the single-named Monroe (Ptolemy Slocum), whose minimalist pieces include "Wall Surrounded by Space" (a blank wall) and "Lightbulb Going On and Off" (just what it says).

Poised against these visual artists is Josh's composer brother Adrian (Adam Goldberg), whose orchestrations include chains rattling in a bucket, paper being crumpled and torn, and a vocalist pretending to cry. Unlike the work of Monroe and Barko, Adrian's efforts meet with little recognition--in one concert, the number of audience members about equals the number of performers. Adrian, a scowl permanently engraved on his face, is resentful of everyone, especially his successful brother.

Madeleine, always dressed in black, underwrites the more experimental works by cleaning up on Josh's lucrative paintings; but when Josh demands to be moved to the front room and given his own show, she refuses: It wouldn't go over well with the art-buying types she's trying to cultivate, like Porter Canby (Zak Orth), who is "not familiar" with the work of Matisse and sees "collecting" as a way of social climbing.

Throw in a passionate affair between Madeleine and Adrian, sound design by Oscar-winning Richard Beggs and music by Pulitzer Prize-winner David Lang, and this timely satire-—written by Parker and Catherine DiNapoli--packs a wallop.

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This week's Italian Film Festival offering is Federico Bondi's Black Sea, about the complex relationship between a widowed Italian woman and her Romanian caregiver. Nov. 7 at Marin Center Showcase Theatre at 5:30 and 7:45pm.

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