4-Star Theatre. Straight Outta Compton: In the mid-1980s, the streets of Compton, California, were some of the most dangerous in the country. When five young men translated their experiences growing up into brutally honest music that rebelled against abusive authority, they gave an explosive voice to a silenced generation. Following the meteoric rise and fall of N.W.A., Straight Outta Compton tells the astonishing story of how these youngsters revolutionized music and pop culture forever the moment they told the world the truth about life in the hood and ignited a cultural war. Daily. Listening: The award-winning debut feature from visionary director Khalil Sullins, is a psychological thriller about penniless grad students who invent mind-reading technology that destroys their lives. David, Ryan, and Jordan hope the telepathy invention will solve all their problems, but the bleeding-edge technology opens a Pandora's box of new dangers, as the team discovers that when they open their minds, there is nowhere to hide their thoughts. Secrets and betrayals surface, and the technology is stolen by a covert government agency with a hidden agenda. Starting Sept. 11. Daily. 2200 Clement, San Francisco, 666-3488, lntsf.com/4-star-theatre.html.
Castro Theatre. Bullitt: Classic San Francisco cop procedural has Steve McQueen aggressively investigating a mob hit in the face of politico intervention. Peter Yates' taut direction makes great use of The City and the famous car chase remains one to be outdone. Co-starring a steely Robert Vaughn, the gorgeous Jacqueline Bisset and a groovy score by Lalo Schifrin. Thu., Sept. 10. 18th Annual California Independent Film Festival: The California Independent Film Festival (CAIFF) is one of the most successful and fastest growing film festivals in California. Since its inception in 1997, CAIFF has captured both national and worldwide press. This star-studded event provides both local Bay Area residents and visitors with an opportunity to see world-class films, meet filmmakers from around the world and international international celebrities. Fri., Sept. 11; Sat., Sept. 12. 429 Castro, San Francisco, 621-6120, castrotheatre.com.
Clay Theatre. The Room: Tommy Wiseau's cinematic bomb is every bit as bad as it's cracked up to be. You'll crack up as well at this riotous midnight screening with lots of Rocky Horror-style audience participation. Second Saturday of every month, 11:59 p.m. The Diary of a Teenage Girl: A coming-of-age story that is as poignant as it is unsettling. Like most teenage girls, Minnie Goetze (Bel Powley) is longing for love, acceptance and a sense of purpose in the world. Minnie begins a complex love affair with her mother's (Kristen Wiig) boyfriend, "the handsomest man in the world," Monroe Rutherford (Alexander Skarsgård). What follows is a sharp, funny and provocative account of one girl's sexual and artistic awakening, without judgment. Set in 1976 San Francisco, The Diary of a Teenage Girl begins at the crossroads of the fading hippie movement and the dawn of punk rock. In her feature film directorial debut, writer/director Marielle Heller brings Phoebe Gloeckner's novel to life with fearless performances, a stirring score, inventive graphic novel-like animation sequences, imagination, humor and heart. Daily. 2261 Fillmore, San Francisco, 267-4893, www.landmarktheatres.com/san-francisco/clay-theatre.
Embarcadero Center Cinema. End of the Tour: The story of the five-day interview between novelist and Rolling Stone reporter David Lipsky (Jesse Eisenberg) and acclaimed novelist David Foster Wallace (Jason Segel), which took place right after the 1996 publication of Wallace's groundbreaking epic novel, Infinite Jest. As the days go on, a tenuous yet intense relationship seems to develop between journalist and subject. The two men bob and weave around each other, sharing laughs and also possibly revealing hidden frailties—but it's never clear how truthful they are being with each other. Ironically, the interview was never published, and five days of audio tapes were packed away in Lipsky's closet. The film is based on Lipsky's critically acclaimed memoir about this unforgettable encounter, written following Wallace's 2008 suicide. Both Segel and Eisenberg reveal great depths of emotion in their performances and the film is directed with humor and tenderness by James Ponsoldt (The Spectacular Now), from Pulitzer Prize-winner Donald Margulies' insightful and heartbreaking screenplay. Daily. Best of Enemies: In the summer of 1968, television news changed forever. Dead last in the ratings, ABC hired two towering public intellectuals to debate each other during the Democratic and Republican national conventions. William F. Buckley Jr. was a leading light of the new conservative movement. Gore Vidal, a Democrat and cousin to Jackie Onassis, was a leftist novelist and polemicist. Armed with deep-seated distrust and enmity, Vidal and Buckley believed each other's political ideologies were dangerous for America. Like rounds in a heavyweight battle, they pummeled out policy and personal insult—their explosive exchanges devolving into vitriolic name-calling. Live and unscripted, they kept viewers riveted. Ratings for ABC News skyrocketed, and a new era in public discourse was born. Directed by Robert Gordon and Academy Award-winner Morgan Neville (Twenty Feet from Stardom), Best of Enemies unleashes a highbrow blood sport that marked the dawn of pundit television as we know it today. Daily. Steve Jobs: The Man in the Machine: In his signature black turtleneck and blue jeans, Steve Jobs' image was ubiquitous. Perhaps the most publicly revered corporate figure of the technology age, Jobs' untimely death at the age of 56 in 2011 set off a worldwide outpouring of grief from consumers who worshipped his signature products such as the iPhone and the iMac. As the co-founder and CEO of Apple, his name and image had become synonymous with the sleek, high-tech personal devices that came to define and transform the first two decades of the 21st century. But who was the man on the stage under the giant iPhones? Oscar-winning director Alex Gibney (Taxi to the Dark Side, Going Clear: Scientology and the Prison of Belief, Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room) presents a critical examination of Jobs, revered both as a prophetic, iconoclastic genius and denounced as a barbed-tongued tyrant. The film is a candid telling of the Apple legend through interviews with a handful of those close to Jobs at different stages in his life. It unravels the larger-than-life myth he so deliberately crafted, and examines the enduring legacy of his values which continue to shape the culture of Silicon Valley to this day. Daily. Amy: That would be Winehouse, in case you wondered which Amy is the subject of director Asif Kapadia's uncreatively titled documentary, which refines an apparent Kapadia specialty: the intense remembrance of stars who died too young. We see the doomed chanteuse in the throes of her destructive relationships — with a responsibility-averse father, with a volatile husband, with chemicals — and hear her music remixed to highlight how it was driven by the raw power of personal-demon-indulgence. Daily. The Second Mother: Val (Regina Casé), a longtime live-in maid in São Paulo, feels almost like a part of the affluent family she faithfully serves—especially their 17-year-old son for whom she is a surrogate mother—but she has not seen her own teenage daughter for ten years. When her daughter Jessica (Camila Mardila) unexpectedly contacts her, wanting to stay with Val while applying to college, Val is excited but filled with trepidation. Jessica arrives, smart, confident and ambitious, feeling (and acting) like an equal, and throws the unspoken class barriers that rule the household into disarray. Instead of sleeping on a mattress on the floor of Val's boxlike bedroom, Jessica suggests she stay in the opulent empty guest room. Her presence upsets the status quo, testing relationships and loyalties and forcing everyone to reconsider what family really means. Casé and Mardila are wonderful together, winning a special Jury Prize for Acting at the 2015 Sundance Film Festival; funny and heartwarming, the film went on to win the Audience Award at the Berlin Film Festival. Written and directed by Anna Muylaert (co-writer of The Year My Parents Went on Vacation). Daily. Tangerine: The important thing to know about writer-director Sean Baker's new movie isn't that it was shot entirely on an iPhone, or that it's the buzziest tale of transgender prostitute revenge you're likely to encounter on a screen this year. Those things are true, but what's important about Tangerine is that it's so cathartically hilarious. It's at once a triumphant return to indie-film first principles — rawness, resourcefulness, sheer delight to be doing it at all — and a hot strong breath of fresh air. Daily. 1 Embarcadero Center, San Francisco, 267-4893, www.landmarktheatres.com/san-francisco/embarcadero-center-cinema.
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.
The Knockout. Cyberpunk Cinema: Thrillhouse Records presents a classic sci-fi flick every month, preceded by an episode of Cowboy Bebop. Second Monday of every month, 6:30 p.m. Free. cyberpunkcinema.tumblr.com. 3223 Mission, San Francisco, 550-6994, theknockoutsf.com.
Opera Plaza Cinema. Tangerine: It's Christmas Eve in Tinseltown and working girl Sin-Dee (incandescent newcomer Kitana Kiki Rodriguez) is back on the block. Upon hearing that her pimp boyfriend (James Ransone, Starlet, "Generation Kill") hasn't been faithful during the 28 days she was locked up, Sin-Dee goes on a mission to track him down and set him straight, with her best friend Alexandra (newcomer Mya Taylor) tagging along hoping to cool her down. Their rip-roaring odyssey leads them through various subcultures of Los Angeles, including an Armenian family dealing with their own repercussions of infidelity. Director Sean Baker (Starlet, Prince of Broadway) brings rich texture and intimate detail to worlds seldom seen on film. For Tangerine he opted to shoot on an iPhone with wide-screen adapter, and the results are spectacular: fluid and intimate, the film bursts off the screen with energy and style. A decidedly modern Christmas tale told on the streets of L.A., this acclaimed dramatic comedy defies expectation at every turn. Daily. 601 Van Ness, San Francisco, 267-4893, www.landmarktheatres.com/market/SanFrancisco/OperaPlazaCinema.htm.
Opera Plaza Cinemas. Mr. Holmes: Director Bill Condon puts a spin on Arthur Conan Doyle's most celebrated character with Mr. Holmes, which stars Ian McKellen as the famous detective. The set-up is that a now-retired Holmes, his steel-trap mind starting to fade with old age, lives out his golden years in the late 1940s. He returns from a trip to Japan searching for a plant that could slow the aging process and help him regain the faculties he knows he's lost. While there, he witnessed first-hand the result of America's bombing of Hiroshima, which has put him in a contemplative state. He lives with his devoted housekeeper Mrs. Murno (Laura Linney), and her son Roger (Milo Parker), who turns out to be of great help when the detective reopens his investigation into the case that led to his retirement. Daily. Phoenix: A spellbinding mystery of identity, illusion and deception unfolds against the turmoil of post-World War II Germany in the stunning new film from acclaimed writer/director Christian Petzold (Barbara, Jerichow). Berlin, 1945: Nelly (Nina Hoss, A Most Wanted Man), a German-Jewish, ex-nightclub singer, has survived a concentration camp. But, like her country, she is scarred, her face disfigured by a bullet wound. After undergoing reconstructive surgery, Nelly emerges with a new face, one similar but different enough that her former husband, Johnny (Ronald Zehrfeld), doesn't recognize her. Rather than reveal herself, Nelly walks into a dangerous game of duplicity and disguise as she tries to figure out if the man she loves may have been the one who betrayed her to the Nazis. Submerged in shadowy atmosphere and the haunted mood of post-war Berlin, Phoenix weaves a complex, Hitchcockian tale of a nation's tragedy and a woman's search for answers as it builds towards an unforgettable, heart-stopping climax. (Partially subtitled) Daily. 601 Van Ness, San Francisco, 777-3456, www.landmarktheatres.com/san-francisco/opera-plaza-cinema.
Roxie Theater. 7 Chinese Brothers: Larry (Jason Schwartzman) drifts through life, from one menial position to the next, without much thought for the future. Often drunk, solitary and unmoored, his closest companion is his French bulldog. He has one living relative, his grandmother (Olympia Dukakis), and only one friend, Major Norwood (Tunde Adebimpe), a ladies man who scores on their nights out while Larry goes home alone. Not much fazes Larry, so he is gob-smacked to realize that he actually likes his new job at an oil-change place and not just because his new boss, Lupe (Eleanore Pienta), is so pretty. Stephen Root, Jonathan Togo, and filmmaker Alex Ross Perry are among the supporting ensemble in Bob Byington's low-key, existential comedy that also gently satirizes the workplace, whether it's the Buca di Beppo where Larry briefly toils, the Quick Lube or the assisted-living facility that Grandma calls home. Despite playing a character who is self-absorbed and sometimes obnoxious, Schwartzman imbues Larry with amiability and charm. Sun., Sept. 13, 7 p.m. 3117 16th St., San Francisco, 863-1087, roxie.com.
Temescal Arts Center. Shapeshifters Cinema: Free monthly film series featuring experimental image manipulators and ambient sound shamans. Second Sunday of every month, 8 p.m. Free. shapeshifterscinema.com. 511 48th St., Oakland, 510-923-1074, temescalartscenter.org.
The Walt Disney Family Museum. Silly Symphonies: Destino and Silly Symphony begin at 1:30 p.m., through Sept. 20 at Walt Disney Museum, 104 Montgomery St. S.F.; Free-$7; 415-345-6800 or waltdisney.org Through Sept. 20, 1:30 p.m. Free-$7. 345-6800. waltdisney.org. 104 Montgomery, San Francisco, 345-6800, waltdisney.org.
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Shakey Pictures: The Films Of Neil Young: Neil Young, one of rock and folk's most respected artists for over four decades, has also been directing, producing, writing, and shooting films for almost as long under the pseudonym Bernard Shakey. This survey includes some very rare and unreleased films and offers an extraordinary opportunity to discover another side of Young's creative genius, both behind and in front of the camera. Sept. 10-27. 701 Mission, San Francisco, 978-2787, ybca.org.
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