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. Assassination: Snipers. Marksmen. Hired Guns. Double Agents. A group of exiled rebels are planning a hit on an Army Commander in Japanese-occupied Korea, but the only killer for the job is in prison. Now, the Resistance must devise a jailbreak, escape a hitman...and discover which of them is a traitor. Daily. 2200 Clement, San Francisco, 666-3488, lntsf.com/4-star-theatre.html.
Castro Theatre. I Wake Up Dreaming: Curator Elliot Lavine seeks out the shadows normally hidden by the summer sun in this mini-festival of weekly film noir screenings. Thursdays. Continues through Sept. 3. iwakeupdreaming.com. 429 Castro, San Francisco, 621-6120, castrotheatre.com.
Clay Theatre. Monty Python and the Holy Grail: It's Square Pegs at the Round Table as England's zaniest humorists take on the Middle Ages and convert Arthurian legend into uncontrollable lunacy! Written and performed by all your favorites—Graham Chapman, John Cleese, Terry Gilliam, Eric Idle, Terry Jones and Michael Palin—Monty Python and the Holy Grail has been fully re-mastered in high definition and now includes the new, never-before-seen 12-minute short feature "Terry Gilliam's Lost Animations." If you're already a fan (and name one person who's seen it who isn't!), you won't want to miss the chance to enjoy the film the way it's meant to be experienced—on the Big Screen, in a movie theater, with other die-hard fans laughing at the gags (the clippety-clopping coconuts!) and reciting the dialog ("It's just a flesh wound!"). And if you've never seen this comic masterpiece, you're in for a very special treat. As reviewer Jeff Shannon writes, "The comedy highlights are too numerous to mention...The sum of this madness is a movie that's beloved by anyone with a pulse and an irreverent sense of humor." What more can we say, except "Ni!" Fri., Sept. 4; Sat., Sept. 5. 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, landmarktheatres.com.
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. 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). Starting Sept. 4. 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. 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. 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. Starting Sept. 4. 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. 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.
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. The Look of Silence: In Joshua Oppenheimer's new documentary — a companion piece to his jaw-dropping 2012 film, The Act of Killing — a calmly watchful optometrist makes house calls to a few old men with failing eyesight. These happen to include some unpunished perpetrators of Indonesia's 1965 genocide, in which his brother was killed. He has a few questions. Daily. 601 Van Ness, San Francisco, 777-3456, landmarktheatres.com.
Roxie Cinema. We Come As Friends: A journey into the heart of Africa by Academy Award® nominated director Hubert Sauper. Every 6 days, 7 p.m. $10. 863-1087. roxie.com. 3117 16th St., San Francisco, 863-1087, www.roxie.com.
Yerba Buena Center for the Arts. Hardcore Cronenberg: The YBCA presents 10 of David Cronenberg's fascinating films — some of which have not been well served on video and are being presented in rare 35mm screenings — including A History of Violence (Sept. 3 & 6), and Maps to the Stars (Sept. 5 & 6). Thursdays, 7:30 p.m.; Sundays, 2 p.m.; Sat., Sept. 5, 7:30 p.m.; Sun., Sept. 6, 4 p.m. Continues through Sept. 6. $8-$10. 701 Mission, San Francisco, 978-2787, ybca.org.
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