Alley Cat Books. my gaze///yr gaze: Irwin Swirnoff's queer film series debuts at Alley Cat, with guest selector Rotimi Agbabiaka screening Marlon Riggs' Tongues Untied and Isaac Julien's Looking for Langston. Sun., April 5, 6 p.m. Free. 3036 24th St., San Francisco, 824-1761, alleycatbookshop.com.
Artists' Television Access. Rainbow's Edge: Local experimental filmmaker Ryan Wicks unleashes the Charles Manson-channeling short film he describes as a "psychedelic conspiracy can-packed in horror," accompanied by the additional shorts Asterix, Tubular Snows, and Dallas. Fri., April 3, 8 p.m. $7-$10. 992 Valencia, San Francisco, 824-3890, atasite.org.
Clay Theatre. Wild Tales: A cornucopia of comeuppance, this exuberant pulp anthology from Argentine writer-director Damián Szifrón would like to point out how ready and willing humans still are to act like animals. The tales include a perhaps deservedly unlucky assembly of airplane passengers; a dish of revenge best served at a late-night diner; a bribery spiral spinning out of control from a drunken rich kid's hit-and-run; an elaborate road-rage duel that'll be the envy of Tarantino; a demolitionist getting his own blow-up button pushed by parking-enforcement bureaucracy; and one catastrophically tacky wedding. Daily. Star Trek II: The Wrath of Khan: We bet you $5 that the theater suddenly gets real dusty during the engine room scene. #LLAP April 3-4, 11:59 p.m. 2261 Fillmore, San Francisco, 267-4893, landmarktheatres.com.
Embarcadero Center Cinema. 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. 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. 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. Daily. 3 Hearts: Benoît Jacquot's romantic melodrama comes across as something like An Affair to Remember meets Your Sister's Sister, sans both the sweeping glamour of the former and the latter's easygoing modern charm. Instead it has what seems like a calculatedly broad "French movie" appeal, with pedigreed stars Charlotte Gainsbourg, Chiara Mastroianni, and Catherine Deneuve arranged like rigid bowling pins on a slick, flat surface of plot, and Benoît Poelvoorde as the hapless semi-homely man in their midst, the gutterball. Daily. Merchants of Doubt: Director Robert Kenner turns the Naomi Oreskes and Erik M. Conway book that exposed amoral paid pundits who sow doubt about climate change into a mostly redundant, Food, Inc.-like documentary. Daily. Serena: Danish director Susanne Bier's Depression-era downer puts forth Bradley Cooper as a Carolina lumber baron whose company culture gets seriously disrupted by his new wife, Jennifer Lawrence, who knows how to land an ax and manage occupational hazards while also becoming one. Daily. Effie Gray: In Richard Laxton's lushly photographed period piece, Victorian-era art critic John Ruskin (Greg Wise) marries young Effie Gray (Dakota Fanning) and promptly sets about ignoring her, leaving Effie confused and struggling to find her role in the world — and for possible means of escape at a time when divorce was not a thing, especially for women. Starting April 3. Daily. White God: A sort of Euro-miserablist cross between The Birds and Rise of the Planet of the Apes, but with dogs, Kornél Mundruczó's White God shows us modern Hungary as a joyless society defined — and done in — by zero tolerance of mongrels. Starting April 3. Daily. 1 Embarcadero Center, San Francisco, 267-4893, landmarktheatres.com.
Exploratorium. Saturday Cinema: Weekly thematic film screenings presented in the Kanbar Forum by the Exploratorium's Cinema Arts program. Saturdays. Free with museum admission. Pier 15, San Francisco, 528-4444, exploratorium.edu.
New Parkway Theater. Locally Grown Docs: A half-dozen short films by, for, and about inspirational Bay Area citizens. Sat., April 4, 3 p.m. $10. facebook.com/locallygrowndocs. 474 24th St., Oakland, 510-658-7900, thenewparkway.com.
Opera Plaza Cinemas. An Honest Liar: A considerate profile of James "The Amazing" Randi, the gnomish prestidigitator who made his name breaking Harry Houdini's escape records, beheading Alice Cooper for a show, and elaborately debunking spoon-benders and faith healers as a matter of science-minded principle. Daily. Deli Man: Erik Greenberg Anjou's documentary traces the rise and fall of a sadly vanishing institution: the endangered species known as the Jewish Delicatessen. Daily. The Wrecking Crew: If you've heard any pop music recorded in California in the 1960s or early 1970s, you've heard the work of the Wrecking Crew, a free-floating collective of studio musicians who played without credit on tens of thousands of songs. Danny Tedesco's joyous documentary is a personal, heartfelt tribute to those unsung heroes, who were just happy to get paid to do what they loved. Daily. Magician: The Astonishing Life & Work of Orson Welles: Multiple documentaries and narrative films have been made about Welles' Citizen Kane and his panic-inducing 1938 War of the Worlds broadcast, but if nothing else, Chuck Workman's relentlessly entertaining documentary is a good primer for those who are unfamiliar with Welles, while functioning as a greatest-hits reel for students of the man. If Magician inspires the uninitiated to check out Citizen Kane, Touch of Evil, or F for Fake, that'll be the best trick of all. Daily. Kumiko, the Treasure Hunter: One of the best movies of 2015 so far, David and Nathan Zellner's black comedy stars the mesmerizing Rinko Kikuchi as a desperate Tokyo "office lady" who hates everything about her life, so she travels to North Dakota, certain that Joel and Ethan Coen's Fargo was a true story, and that the money is still buried by that one fence. Starting April 3. Daily. 601 Van Ness, San Francisco, 777-3456, landmarktheatres.com.
Roxie Theater. Apartment Troubles: In Jennifer Prediger and Jess Weixler's female buddy comedy, Olivia (Prediger) and Nicole (Weixler) face eviction from their Manhattan apartment, so they decide to visit Nicole's wealthy Aunt Kimberley (Megan Mullally) in Hollywood and audition on the American Idol-esque talent show Kimberley hosts. Wackiness ensues. Through April 2. $7.50-$10. The Cult of JT LeRoy: Local filmmaker Marjorie Sturm's documentary offers a sober yet somewhat punch-drunk reminder of what it felt like when the local literary wunderkind with a disturbingly tragic past was shown to possess an even more disturbingly tragic future, on account of having become a celebrity without ever having been an actual person. Through April 2. $7.50-$10. Welcome to New York: Based on the 2011 Dominique Strauss-Kahn case, the latest drama from eternal provocateur Abel Ferrara stars Gérard Depardieu as a French financial bigwig who sexually assaults a Manhattan chambermaid. Being an unapologetic pussyhound who's also on the short track for the French presidency, he's very surprised when he's arrested and put in a New York jail, since that's not supposed to happen to powerful white men like him. Through April 2. $7.50-$10. Living Is Easy with Eyes Closed: Sixties nostalgia isn't just for Berkeley Baby Boomers, which this lighthearted, multiple Goya Award-winning Spanish film makes clear as it follows a John Lennon-obsessed school teacher and two young students on a 1966 road trip to try and meet the Beatle (and maybe, y'know, learn something about themselves along the way). Through April 2. Ned Rifle: With this second and probably final sequel to his 1997 film Henry Fool, indie stalwart Hal Hartley again revisits the benchmark of his own indie stalwartness. Here, in an epitome of filmmaker's prerogative, is the son of that movie's title character on a self-appointed quest to kill him, resulting in a modest crime caper built out of dryly quirky philosophical conversations and a cast game enough to dig in to Hartley's deadpan writerly dialogue. April 3-9. Ahoy!: SF IndieFest invites you to leave your troubles on shore and take a sail with its Yacht Rock music video sing-along party, featuring all the best/worst soft rock from the '70s and '80s. Remember: The canvas can do miracles. Just you wait and see. Fri., April 3, 9:30 p.m. $12. sfindie.com. Sin Visa: San Jose's Zarco Films presents the world premiere of its first full-length feature, which follows an undocumented immigrant who confronts physical, emotional, and sexual abuse in the Bay Area before striking up an unlikely and transformative friendship. Sat., April 4, 7 p.m.; Sun., April 5, 5 & 7 p.m. $10-$15. zarcofilms.com. 3117 16th St., San Francisco, 863-1087, roxie.com.
SFSU Campus, Fine Arts Building. Carlos Reygadas Retrospective: SFSU Associate Professor Tarek Elhaik hosts a free two-day showcase of films by the Mexican director. Fri., April 3, 4-10 p.m.; Sat., April 4, 9 a.m.-5 p.m. Free. 1600 Holloway, San Francisco, 338-6535, sfsu.edu.
Victoria Theatre. Fourth Annual Sing Along Jesus Christ Superstar: Door prizes, a costume contest, and possible salvation await you at this benefit for the San Francisco Trans March hosted by Bad Flower Productions and the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence. Fri., April 3, 7 p.m. $15-$35. thesisters.org. 2961 16th St., San Francisco, 863-7576, victoriatheatre.org.
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. The Cry of Jazz: New Documentaries: Never mind Ken Burns' bebop hagiographies. These docs dig deeper beneath the surface, taking a closer look at some of the lesser known figures of the genre — including pianist James Booker (Bayou Maharajah, April 2); saxophonists Frank Morgan (Sound of Redemption: The Frank Morgan Story, April 9 & 11) and Rahsaan Roland Kirk (The Case of the Three Sided Dream, April 16); and percussionist Kahil El'Zabar (Be Known, April 18) — and concluding with a paint-splattered blast from the past that mixes footage of NYC's legendary old subway graffiti with music by Charles Mingus (Stations of the Elevated, April 23). Thursdays, 7:30 p.m.; Sat., April 11, 7:30 p.m.; Sat., April 18, 7:30 p.m. Continues through April 23. $8-$10. Dark Horse: Film Noir Westerns: The YBCA hosts a month of Sunday double features that explore the darkness lurking at the heart of select old oaters, including Blood on the Moon and The Tall T (April 5), The Ox-Bow Incident and Pursued (April 12), Ramrod and The Gunfighter (April 19), and The Searchers and Winchester '73 (April 26). Starting April 5. Sundays, 2 p.m. Continues through April 26. $8-$10. 701 Mission, San Francisco, 978-2787, ybca.org.
Comments are closed.
