Artists' Television Access. Other Cinema: Black Lives Matter: From an extended tour of black neighborhoods in mid-'60s San Francisco to cinema verité clips of Oakland protests today, this series of short films puts some of America's ongoing racial conflicts into a local perspective (but also includes newsreels from Selma, Ferguson, and other notable locations). Sat., Feb. 28, 8:30 p.m. $6. othercinema.com. 992 Valencia, San Francisco, 824-3890, atasite.org.
Balboa Theatre. Balboa Birthday Bash: Former Balboa director Gary Meyer returns to host a screening of Frank Urson's 1927 crime caper Chicago — the silent film that preceded both the 1975 Broadway musical and its totally-not-silent 2002 film (re-)adaptation — with live music by Kitten on the Keys and Parlour Tricks adding to the throwback atmosphere. Sun., March 1, 7 p.m. $7.50-$10. 3630 Balboa, San Francisco, 221-2184, balboamovies.com.
Chinese Historical Society of America. Your Day Is My Night: San Francisco Cinematheque hosts director Lynne Sachs for a screening of her documentary film about immigrants living in cramped shared quarters in NYC's Chinatown. Sat., Feb. 28, 1 p.m. $5. sfcinematheque.org. 965 Clay, San Francisco, 391-1188, chsa.org.
Clay Theatre. Still Alice: Julianne Moore's performance as a well-to-do woman stricken with Alzheimer's before her time redeems Richard Glatzer and Wash Westmoreland's cringe-drama, which otherwise doesn't say anything new about the disease (though some seriously tacky product placement does imply that Pinkberry may be somehow related). Daily. Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem: An Orthodox Jewish Israeli woman (Ronit Elkabetz, who also wrote and directed) seeks a divorce without official permission from her husband, which the law requires. Her only recourse is to probe the depths of absurd intransigence in a stifling rabbinical courtroom, suffering and enduring scrutiny with exquisite cinematic purity. Starting Feb. 27. Daily. The Rocky Horror Picture Show: The Bawdy Caste performs onstage while the ultimate cult film plays in the background. Last Saturday of every month, 11:59 p.m. $9-$10. 2261 Fillmore, San Francisco, 267-4893, landmarktheatres.com.
Dark Room Theater. Bad Movie Night: The Last Boy Scout: For the first night of their "Last"-themed month of March — which is also the last ever month of Bad Movie Night — BMN hosts Sherilyn Connelly, Ira Emsig, and Tim Kay watch Bruce Willis and Damon Wayans kill a bunch of dudes to prove that they don't actually want to hump each other. Sun., March 1, 8 p.m. $6.99. 2263 Mission, San Francisco, 401-7987, darkroomsf.com.
Delancey Street Theater. The Wiz Sing-Along & Silent Auction: Fundraiser for the San Francisco Coalition of Essential Small Schools featuring the soulfully classic 1978 adaptation of The Wizard of Oz starring Diana Ross and Michael Jackson, plus an auction including sports and theater tickets, dinner deals, fashion items, and more. Sat., Feb. 28, 6 p.m. $25-$45. sfcess.org/auction.html. 600 Embarcadero, San Francisco, 512-5153, delanceystreetfoundation.org.
Embarcadero Center Cinema. Birdman: In Alejandro González Iñárritu's bold comment on the uncertain new frontier of performing arts, Michael Keaton plays the wounded, ambitious, has-been star of a superhero-movie franchise, now mounting his own Raymond Carver adaptation on Broadway. Daily. Oscar Nominated Short Films 2015: Live Action: Forever flying far enough under the radar to avoid Oscar controversy are the short films, a genre which tends to be unheard of until a given film is nominated for the little gold statue. This is especially true of the live-action short films, and it's a shame, because there always a few works that deserve special attention. Daily. The Theory of Everything: In director James Marsh's gauzy and chastely reverential movie, Eddie Redmayne relishes the physically challenging role of young astrophysicist Stephen Hawking, bending himself through a progression of wheelchairs from 1960s Cambridge toward the gnarled, impish, computer-voiced transglobal keynoter we all know and love today. Daily. What We Do in the Shadows: In this mockumentary written and directed by two Flight of the Conchords guys, Vladislav, Viago, Deacon, and Nick are vampires of varying antiquity who cohabitate in a grungy flat in New Zealand. Followed by a documentary crew, they go on about the business of both being undead (if foppish) ghouls who feed on the blood of humans to survive, as well as being a bunch of straight men living together, which means the dishes and other basic chores tend to go undone. Through Feb. 26. Oscar Nominated Shorts: Animation: Animated shorts, when made well, have a beautiful way of boiling down everything that ever was and ever will be great about movie storytelling. In general, the only shortness that's a problem here is the shortsightedness of the Academy: There's just so much more original and award-worthy animation being made in any given year than this somewhat puny batch of nominees ever can contain. Still, they've picked some good ones. Daily. The Imitation Game: After breaking Nazi codes, basically winning World War II, and pretty much inventing the computer and modern-day artificial intelligence, British mathematician Alan Turing was then chemically castrated for being gay and poisoned to death with cyanide. Last year the Queen granted Turing a posthumous pardon, but nothing really says "we're sorry" like Benedict Cumberbatch playing him in a posh, Oscar-hungry historical thriller. Daily. Ballet 422: In this beautifully muted documentary by cinematographer-director Jody Lee Lipes, a New York City Ballet company dancer gets and takes a chance to create his own show. Lipes' reticent observational style, structured by the chronology of readying a debut production for its impending premiere, implies that all any movie really needs is the privilege to watch someone making something. And what's not to like about lovely young bodies in motion, striving for grace? Daily. Leviathan: Writer-director Andrey Zvyagintsev's sublimely bitter tragedy reveals that post-Soviet life is not sweet along the shores of the Barents Sea, where a middle-aged mechanic (Aleksey Serebryakov) endures increasingly unfavorable negotiations with his beautiful doom-barometer wife (Elena Lyadova), his sullen teenage son (Sergey Pokhodaev), and a petty, portly mayor (Roman Madyanov) who's determined to run him out of business and out of town, apparently just for the thrill of manifesting corruption. Daily. 1 Embarcadero Center, San Francisco, 267-4893, landmarktheatres.com.
Exploratorium. Saturday Cinema: The Animated Life of A.R. Wallace: Award-winning Sweet Fern Productions employed glorious paper puppets to create this animated 8-minute introduction to Alfred Russel Wallace, the British naturalist whose theories of natural selection actually predated Darwin's. Also included in the program are the experimental short Aesthetic Species Map and the snacktastic Zea. Sat., Feb. 28, 1, 2 & 3 p.m. Free with museum admission. Pier 15, San Francisco, 528-4444, exploratorium.edu.
Fort Mason, Cowell Theater. San Francisco International Ocean Film Festival: It's an old sailor's expression: Water, water everywhere, so let's make a film festival about it — and the 12th annual installment of the SFIOFF heeds the siren song of the sea with a flotilla of short and feature-length films. Feb. 27-March 1. $10-$15 per program (or $225 for festival pass). oceanfilmfest.org. Marina, San Francisco, 345-7575, fortmason.org.
New Parkway Theater. ArtGasm: She Is a Sex Junkie: Femina Potens' Madison Young presents a sexy new movie night dedicated to that erogenous zone "where artistic vision and erotic media meet in cinematic climax." Tonight's premiere event compiles short films by Lola Clavo, Maria Llopis, Julia Osterlag, Helena Torres, and Tejal Shah and Anuj Vaidya. Fri., Feb. 27, 10:30 p.m. $10. brownpapertickets.com/event/1165942. 474 24th St., Oakland.
Oddball Films. Sonic Cinema Soirée: Filmmaker David Michalak discusses and screens some his works, with live soundtracks performed by Reel Change. Thu., Feb. 26, 8 p.m. $10. 275 Capp, San Francisco, 558-8112, oddballfilms.blogspot.com.
Opera Plaza Cinemas. Two Days, One Night: This latest from Belgian brothers Jean-Pierre and Luc Dardenne, the directing duo known for no-frills social realism of refreshing truthfulness, stars Marion Cotillard as an emotionally unstable woman who runs a gauntlet asking former workmates to buy back her job by forgoing their bonuses. It not only works as a dissertation on the trickling consequences of economic downturn, but what's more important is that it works, bracingly, as a drama. Daily. She's Beautiful When She's Angry: Documentaries about social justice history often get to benefit from a kind of positive culture shock, in that the viewer can take some comfort in how much better things are now. And while there's been some measure of improvement since the time covered in Mary Dore's fascinating documentary about the feminist movement of the late 1960s and early 1970s, She's Beautiful When She's Angry demonstrates that things may be better than they were, but they still need to be better than they are. Daily. A Most Violent Year: A 1981 NYC period piece with the word "violent" right there in its title, writer-director J.C. Chandor's A Most Violent Year might disappoint some viewers by stoking unfair expectations. Instead of an over-cranked opera, it's really just a subtle character study about a would-be heating oil tycoon, and a reiteration of the perceptive question Chandor has been asking for three films now: With his self-made world maybe inevitably coming apart, what's a man to do? Daily. Oscar Nominated Shorts: Animation: Animated shorts, when made well, have a beautiful way of boiling down everything that ever was and ever will be great about movie storytelling. In general, the only shortness that's a problem here is the shortsightedness of the Academy: There's just so much more original and award-worthy animation being made in any given year than this somewhat puny batch of nominees ever can contain. Still, they've picked some good ones. Daily. Oscar Nominated Short Films 2015: Live Action: Forever flying far enough under the radar to avoid Oscar controversy are the short films, a genre which tends to be unheard of until a given film is nominated for the little gold statue. This is especially true of the live-action short films, and it's a shame, because there always a few works that deserve special attention. Daily. 601 Van Ness, San Francisco, 777-3456, landmarktheatres.com.
Roxie Theater. Da Sweet Blood of Jesus: In Spike Lee's loving adaptation of Bill Gunn's 1973 Ganja & Hess, well-to-do Dr. Hess Green (Stephen Tyrone Williams) develops a strong taste for blood after being stabbed with an ancient African dagger by art curator Lafayette Hightower (Elvis Nolasco), an addiction which he eventually shares with Lafayette's newly widowed wife Ganja (Zaraah Abrahams). Through Feb. 26. HUMP! Film Festival: The Best of HUMP!: Curated by Seattle sex columnist Dan Savage, this festival of amateur erotic short films has been keeping it real — like, really real — for the past decade by showcasing wholesome, homemade smut reflecting all aspects of human sexuality. Through Feb. 28. humptour.strangertickets.com. All the Wilderness: After wandering through a post-apocalyptic wasteland in The Road, young Kodi Smit-McPhee now gets to wander through the altogether quirkier territories of Portlandia in this impressionistically moody coming-of-age indie drama from director Michael Johnson. Feb. 27-March 5. Synesthesia Film Festival: This monthly gathering is less a proper "festival" than it is a chance to commingle with indie filmmakers and fans and view new discoveries together, including short films, student works, web shows, music videos, and more. First Wednesday of every month, 7 p.m. $10. synesthesiafilmfestival.com. 3117 16th St., San Francisco, 863-1087, roxie.com.
Second Act Marketplace & Events. Wagner & Me: Salon97 presents a free screening of the BBC documentary that follows Stephen Fry — a charming and intelligent fellow of Jewish ancestry — as he tries to unpack the mystery of his love for the music of Richard Wagner, the monumental German composer who unfortunately also happened to be a nasty anti-Semite. Thu., Feb. 26, 6:30 p.m. Free. salon97.org. Stop & Go: Made from Scratch: A selection of stop-motion animated films — many inspired by and/or made with food — are paired with actual food samples for a night of delicious cinematic synaesthesia. Sat., Feb. 28, 7:30 p.m. $25 (includes food). stopandgoshow.com. 1727 Haight, San Francisco, 668-3994, secondactsf.com.
SOMArts Cultural Center. The News: SOMArts' monthly queer performance series turns down the lights and turns up the volume for a night of short movies with live soundtracks presented by Periwinkle Cinema. Participating artists include Annah Anti-Palindrome, Aja Archuleta, Beast Nest, Lisa Ganser, Peter Max Lawrence with Chainsaw Jane, Sofia Moreno, and Julie Thi Underhill. Tue., March 3, 7:30 p.m. $5. facebook.com/PeriwinkleCinema. 934 Brannan, San Francisco, 863-1414, somarts.org.
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. In Case of No Emergency: The Films of Ruben Östlund: This month's highly recommended YBCA retrospective of Swedish writer-director Ruben Östlund reveals the career progress through which sad-funny failures of manliness have become an Östlund specialty, with the filmmaker developing a sophisticated internet-age understanding of how social pressure and attention dissipation have combined into some subtle evil superforce that may be driving us all insane. Thu., Feb. 26, 7 p.m. $8-$10. Altmanesque: New Documentary & Rarities: Here's how the late American movie maverick Robert Altman liked to describe his relationship with Hollywood: "I make gloves, and they sell shoes." So we see in "Altmanesque," a selection of features and assorted shorts — including 1982's nostalgic ode to Americana, Come Back to the 5 & Dime, Jimmy Dean, Jimmy Dean (Feb. 28) — which is worth trying on. Sat., Feb. 28, 7:30 p.m. $8-$10. 701 Mission, San Francisco, 978-2787, ybca.org.
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