Alley Cat Books. my gaze///yr gaze: Irwin Swirnoff's queer film series returns with Gregg Araki's haunting Mysterious Skin. Sun., July 5, 6 p.m. Free. 3036 24th St., San Francisco, 824-1761, alleycatbookshop.com.
Artists' Television Access. Nearfields: Experimental music and film works by John Davis, Paul Clipson, Jim Haynes, and Collin McKelvey. Fri., July 3, 8 p.m. $10. 992 Valencia, San Francisco, 824-3890, atasite.org.
Clay Theatre. Testament of Youth: This new film version of Vera Brittain's memoir, which has been a seam in the fabric of British cultural history ever since its publication in 1933, is elegant and absorbing, with the quiet command that's sort of standard-issue British miniseries stuff. Less standard, and crucial, is the film's central perspective: It's a war story as told by a woman, who's a pacifist. Daily. 2261 Fillmore, San Francisco, 267-4893, landmarktheatres.com.
Embarcadero Center Cinema. The Overnight: A pizza-party playdate between two young couples turns very, very friendly, advancing in a jumble of hangups and high hopes, with just enough booze, bong rips, and body-image insecurities to go around. And before we know it, a coy indie sex comedy has fully disrobed, revealing — wait for it — a deep relationship drama, characterized with tactfully exaggerated comic proportions and benefiting from the pitch-perfect casting of Adam Scott, Taylor Schilling, Jason Schwartzman, and Judith Godrèche. Together, they have the right proportions of wit and feeling, and their shared escapade is funny and racy without ever trying too hard. Daily. Batkid Begins: Nothing good or decent or remotely happy-making has happened in San Francisco since November 15, 2013, when the entire city collaborated to help Miles Scott live out his fantasy of being Batkid. For those of you heartless monsters who don't remember, Scott is the then-5-year-old leukemia survivor whose love of superheros inspired the Make-A-Wish Foundation to transform San Francisco into Gotham City for a day. Now Warner Brothers is releasing a documentary about Batkid's special day — so watch it, and remember what it's like to feel. Daily. batkidbegins.com. The Wolfpack: A loose laboratory study of the nature of escapism, Crystal Moselle's documentary introduces us to the six Angulo brothers, who — home-schooled and forbidden from leaving their cramped NYC apartment — have devoted a lot of time to transcribing their favorite movies, line by line, then filming home-video versions of their own re-enactments with impressive homemade costumes and props. Daily. Infinitely Polar Bear: Starring Mark Ruffalo as a bipolar 1970s dad who takes dubious custody of his two young daughters, this heartfelt, openly autobiographical, faultlessly cast work is Maya Forbes' debut as a writer-director. So why does it seem so bogus? Ruffalo's usual rumpled charm feels brittle and unnatural, cheapened by distracting shtick, and the movie plays out as a clump of episodes in search of dramatic shape, seeming to have paid more attention to recognizable period art direction than to recognizable humanity. 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.
Niebyl-Proctor Marxist Library. FilmWorks United: Wisconsin Rising: Screening of Sam Mayfield's 2014 documentary about the fight to oppose Governor Scott Walker's attempts to prevent Wisconsin public employees from using collective bargaining power in wage disputes. Part of LaborFest's International Working Class Film & Video Festival. Wed., July 8, 6:30 p.m. Free. laborfest.net. 6501 Telegraph, Oakland, 510-595-7417, marxistlibr.org.
Oddball Films. Sexual Miseducation: Vintage sex ed shorts, dubious how-to vids, stag film excerpts from the silent era, and other filmic remnants from forgotten corners of the American sexual psyche. Thu., July 2, 8 p.m. $10. What the F(ilm)?!: All-American Cine-Insanity from the Archive: A pre-Fourth of July night of retro flashbacks and patriotic kitsch, including propaganda cartoons, campy food documentaries, fireworks safety shorts, and more. Fri., July 3, 8 p.m. $10. 275 Capp, San Francisco, 558-8112, oddballfilms.blogspot.com.
Opera Plaza Cinemas. Rebels of the Neon God: Tsai Ming-liang's 1992 debut Rebels of the Neon God, now getting its first domestic theatrical distribution along with a spiffy restoration, is a grimy cool introduction to the director of What Time Is It There? and last year's Stray Dogs, replete with damaged young characters who bum about media-drenched Taipei, occupied with repressed longing and petty crime. Through July 2. I'll See You in My Dreams: You might go in expecting a heart-on-sleeve handout to middle-class women of retirement age, but I'll See You in My Dreams isn't charity, and director Brett Haley doesn't seem so interested in demographic premeditation. It's light touches all around, with everybody — especially our protagonist, a retiree and widow played with truth and grace by Blythe Danner — seeming to have gotten the emotional availability memo. Neither a feel-good bromide nor a cynical comeback thereto, I'll See You in My Dreams seems patiently to be working out an equation which allows getting older on one side of the equal sign and keeping calm on the other. Daily. The Third Man: Behold once more this glum, glorious, gleaming relic — Carol Reed's 1949 film of Graham Greene's script, here presented in a razor-sharp new digital restoration — and indulge the privilege of peeking back at a beautiful moment when cinema seemed to have found its true purpose, probing the shadows of civilization itself. Even all these many decades later, you won't find a more stylish study of pure, polite evil, with a climactic chiaroscuro sewer-tunnel chase that luxuriates in the utter noirness of it all, wanting never to end. Starting July 3. Daily. 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. 601 Van Ness, San Francisco, 777-3456, landmarktheatres.com.
Pacific Film Archive. The Poetry of Time: Andrei Tarkovsky: Retrospective of films by the legendary Russian film director, including Ivan's Childhood (June 27), Andrei Rublev (July 4), The Steamroller and the Violin (July 9), The Mirror (July 11), Solaris (July 16), Nostalghia (July 18), Stalker (July 23), and The Sacrifice (July 25). Sat., July 4, 7 p.m.; Thu., July 9, 7:30 p.m.; Sat., July 11, 8:45 p.m.; Thu., July 16, 7:30 p.m.; Sat., July 18, 8:30 p.m.; Thu., July 23, 7:30 p.m.; Sat., July 25, 8:15 p.m. 2575 Bancroft, Berkeley, 510-642-1124, bampfa.berkeley.edu.
Roxie Theater. Ooh Ooh, Baby: Boy Bands/Girl Groups Music Video Sing A Long Night: Lulu Cachoo hosts SF IndieFest's latest video party featuring lots of NKOTB, NSYNC, TLC, SWV, etc. Bonus points for wearing matching outfits and being able to harmonize with your friends. Fri., July 3, 9 p.m. $10. sfindie.com. Closer to God: Essentially an update of Frankenstein, Billy Senese's dark and emotionally taut first feature follows the doomed path of a well-meaning genetic scientist (appropriately named Victor) who brings home a perfect clone baby. As Bible-rattling activists gather outside, we learn that a failed experiment also resides inside. July 3-9. lcpictures.com. I Believe in Unicorns: An indie fantasia about young love — and the not-so-fantastic realities that lurk beneath the daydream facade — from first-time writer/director Leah Meyerhoff, who makes personal appearances at select Roxie screenings this week. July 3-9. 3117 16th St., San Francisco, 863-1087, roxie.com.
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