Commentary by Gregg Rickman (greggr1@mindspring.com). Times compiled from information available Tuesday; it's always advisable to call for confirmation. Price given is standard adult admission; discounts often apply for students, seniors, and members.
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111 MINNA GALLERY
111 Minna (between New Montgomery and Second streets), 864-0660 and www.microcinema.com for information on this program. $5.
MONDAY (Aug. 25): The "Sizzling Summer Edition" of the monthly "Independent Exposure Screening Series" presents 14 films from six countries -- England, Germany, the Netherlands, Australia, Canada, and Berkeley. Titles include Chris Spears' Famous Crimes of Passion, Thomas Muller's My TV Hates Me, and Colin Graham's Mr. Slow Burn In: Drinking Problem 8 p.m.
ALLIANCE FRANÇAISE
345 Bush (at Polk), 775-7755, www.afsf.com. French-language films shown on projected video. $5 donation.
WEDNESDAY (Aug. 20): François Ozon's family comedy, with a gay son, Sitcom (1998) 7 p.m.
SATURDAY (Aug. 23): Sitcom 2 p.m.
ARTISTS' TELEVISION ACCESS
992 Valencia (at 21st Street), 824-3890, www.atasite.org for most programs, www.othercinema.com for Saturday evening programs. $5 save as noted. This venue offers all manner of strange and unusual video and film.
WEDNESDAY (Aug. 20): A program of "Alternative Representations in Documentary Production," films from San Francisco State University by Vanessa Phuong, Ari Liebowsky, Lee Mansala, Deann Borshay Liem, Angela McCann, Ryan White, Angel Vasquez, and others. $3. Reception 7:30 p.m. , films 8:30 p.m.
THURSDAY (Aug. 21): The anti-war group ANSWER sponsors a screening of the Third World revolutionary classic The Battle of Algiers (Gillo Pontecorvo, Italy/Algeria, 1966) 8 p.m.
CASTRO
429 Castro (near Market), 621-6120, www.thecastrotheatre.com, $8 save as noted. Short-run rep in a spectacular 1922 Greco-Roman-themed palace designed by Timothy L. Pflueger. Evening intermissions feature David Hegarty or Bill McCoy on the Mighty Wurlitzer.
WEDNESDAY: A series of Luis Buñuel's sardonic late ventures into French cinema screens career highlight The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (1972), a series of interrupted dinner parties. Let's do a remake and film it at PlumpJack's 2, 4:30, 7, 9:30 p.m.
THURSDAY: Buñuel's last film, That Obscure Object of Desire (1977), casts two different women as the temptress who drives Fernando Rey mad in this remake of Sternberg's The Devil Is a Woman 7, 9:30 p.m.
FRIDAY THROUGH THURSDAY (Aug. 22-28): Errol Flynn stars in Warner Bros.' highly enjoyable The Adventures of Robin Hood (Michael Curtiz and William Keighley, 1938), a high point of Hollywood entertainment in glorious Technicolor 7, 9:30 p.m.; also Sun 2, 4:30 p.m.
FLATIRON 2
27 Sutter (near Market and Sansome), two doors down from the Flatiron Building. Free with reservation; call 552-1533 or e-mail darkmarc@msn.com to reserve seats. A "16mm Noir" series presented by the Danger & Despair Knitting Circle screens here every Thursday in August, with round-table discussion to follow.
THURSDAY (Aug. 21): Michael Savage take note! Suave radio host Claude Raines contemplates homicide in The Unsuspected (Michael Curtiz, 1947) 8 p.m.
FOREIGN CINEMA
2534 Mission (between 21st and 22nd streets), 648-7600, www.foreigncinema.com. Free with meal. This restaurant screens foreign films, usually in 35mm, on the back wall of its outdoor patio, with drive-in speakers available for the tables of those who want to watch while they dine.
NIGHTLY (Closed Mondays): Pedro Almodóvar's engrossing weepie All About My Mother (Spain, 1999) screens through Sept. 7 8:15, 10 p.m.
FOUR STAR
2200 Clement (at 23rd Avenue), 666-3488, www.hkinsf.com/4star/. This innovative theater screens second-run movies and, through Aug. 28, its seventh annual Asian Film Festival. (Note: Some films are projected video.) $6 regular admission, $8 for AFF screenings.
WEDNESDAY: The Asian Film Festival screens a warrior's tragedy, Kun Pan: Legend of the Warlord (Thanit Jintanukul, Thailand, 2002) noon. A young woman sees spirits in Inner Senses (Lo Chi Leung, Hong Kong, 2002), co-starring the late Leslie Cheung 1:50 p.m. Le Hoang's Golden Key (Vietnam, 2001), set during the American bombings of 1972 3:45 p.m. Director Phi Tien Son's autobiographical film about an army deserter, Heading South, Going North (Vietnam, 2000) 5:35 p.m. Evans Chan's digital indie The Map of Sex and Love (H.K., 2001) charts both gay and straight 7:25 p.m. A prisoner escapes into the "forest of resurrection" in the fantasy Versus (Ryuhei Kitamura, Japan, 2002) 9:45 p.m.
THURSDAY: AFF -- Mother and daughter bicker and bond in Eliana Eliana (Riri Riza, Indonesia, 2002) noon. The life of a legendary criminal of the 1950s, Dang Bailey's and Young Gangsters (Nonzee Nimibutr, Thailand, 1997) 1:45 p.m. Kun Pan 3:50 p.m. A Mongolian clan fights Japanese invaders in Sorrow of Brooke Steppe (Saifu Mailisi, China, 1997) 5:45 p.m. Rural female teacher helps locals in Pretty Big Feet (Yang Yazhou, China, 2002) 7:35 p.m. Inner Senses 9:40 p.m.
FRIDAY: AFF -- Inner Senses 12:30 p.m. Heading South, Going North 2:35 p.m. Versus 4:30 p.m. King Hu's martial arts classic Touch of Zen (Taiwan, 1969) 6:45 p.m. An evil cell phone makes callers cranky in a top Korean grosser, The Phone (Ahn Byung-Ki, 2002) 10:05 p.m.
SATURDAY: AFF -- Samo Hung stars in Flying Dragon, Leaping Tiger (Allen Lan, H.K., 2002) noon. It's Freddy vs. Jason when cult samurai heroes hook up in Zatoichi Meets the One-Armed Swordsman (Kimiyoshi Yasuda, Japan, 1971) 1:50 p.m. A wife takes her husband's love affair with another man poorly in Desire (Kim Eungsu, Korea, 2002) 3:45 p.m. Sorrow of Brooke Steppe 5:35 p.m. A kidnapping stirs up Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance (Park Chan-Wook, Korea, 2002) 7:20 p.m. Koreans journey home through China 600 years ago in Musa: The Warrior (Kim Sung-Su, South Korea, 2001) 9:50 p.m.
SUNDAY: AFF -- A warm family comedy, 25 Kids and One Dad (Wang Hong, China, 2002) 12:20 p.m. Musa 2:30 p.m. Heading South, Going North 5:40 p.m. Desire 7:40 p.m. Yamashita: The Tiger's Treasure (Chito S. Rono, Philippines, 2002) 9:30 p.m.
MONDAY: AFF -- Seijun Suzuki's bizarre shoot-'em-up Pistol Opera (Japan, 2001), a third-of-a-century-later sequel to his cult hit Branded to Kill 12:15 p.m. Pretty Big Feet 2:35 p.m. An American pilot (Paul Kersey) is smuggled through Japanese-occupied China in the wartime drama Love's Grief Over Yellow River (Feng Xiaoning, China, 1999) 4:45 p.m. Heading South, Going North 7 p.m. Musa 9 p.m.
TUESDAY: AFF -- Dang Bailey's noon. Touch of Zen 2:05 p.m. Desire 5:30 p.m. Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance 7:20 p.m. The Phone 9:50 p.m.
MOVIE PALACE AUCTION SALES ROOM
2700 Saratoga (near West Red Line), Alameda, (510) 740-0220, www.auctionsbythebay.com. $7. A new series of classic films screening in 35mm plays this summer in the Alameda facilities of Auctions by the Bay.
FRIDAY (Aug. 22): Humphrey Bogart incarnates Philip Marlowe in The Big Sleep (Howard Hawks, 1946) 7, 9:30 p.m.
SATURDAY (Aug. 23): The Tempest re-envisioned as Forbidden Planet (Fred M. Wilcox, 1956), a landmark science-fiction film 7, 9:30 p.m.
PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE
2575 Bancroft (at Bowditch), Berkeley, (510) 642-1124, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. $8, second show $2. The East Bay mecca for film scholars, part of UC's Berkeley Art Museum, thrives at its on-campus location, up the steps on Bancroft between Telegraph Avenue and the Hearst Gym.
WEDNESDAY: A two-month series of campy takes on immorality, "Excess of Evil," screens Beth B's Salvation! (1987), about sleazy televangelist Stephen McHattie joining forces with heavy-metal aficionado Exene Cervenka 7:30 p.m.
THURSDAY: Alina Marazzi's film about her mother, who died when she was 7, For One More Hour With You (Italy, 2002), employs home movies and her mother's journals 7:30 p.m.
FRIDAY: A Czech horror-fantasy series screens Jill Svoboda's Invisible (1988; 7:30 p.m. ), an old dark house mystery with a patriarch who thinks himself unseeable. Also, a program of the creepy-crawly "Shorts of Jan Svankajer" including his Poe adaptations The Pit, the Pendulum, and Hope (1983) and The Fall of the House of Usher (1981) 9:35 p.m.
SATURDAY: The Best of Ottawa Animation Festival 2002 includes Home Road Movies (Robert Bradbrook), The Hedge of Thorns (Anita Killi, Norway), and a Samurai Jack episode directed by Genndy Tartakovsky 7, 8:50 p.m.
SUNDAY: W.C. Fields tries to sell Esoteric Studios exec Franklin Pangborn the script of the film we're watching in the bizarre, self-referential comedy Never Give a Sucker an Even Break (Edward Cline, 1941) 5:30 p.m.
MONDAY: Theater closed.
TUESDAY: Jalal Toufic's "Âshûrâ": This Blood Spilled in My Veins (Lebanon, 2002) overlays footage of a solemn Muslim ritual with interviews with French philosophers Jacques Derrida and Gilles Deleuze on themes of ritual and memory 7:30 p.m.
PARAMOUNT
2025 Broadway (at 20th Street), Oakland, (510) 465-6400, www.paramounttheatre.com. $5. This beautifully restored picture palace's ongoing "Movie Classics Series" regularly includes a feature plus a newsreel, cartoon, previews, and a few spins of the Dec-O-Win prize wheel.
FRIDAY (Aug. 22): Ian Fleming's children's tale turned elephantine musical Chitty Chitty Bang Bang (Ken Hughes, 1967). Doors open at 7 p.m. , film at 8 p.m.
PARKWAY
1834 Park (at Lake Merritt), Oakland, (510) 814-2400, www.picturepubpizza.com. $5 save as noted. Pizza, beer, and movies on two screens. Call theater for programs, booked a week in advance. The Parkway also offers occasional scheduled special programs.
THURSDAY (Aug. 21): "God damn you all to hell!" The original Planet of the Apes (Franklin J. Schaffner, 1968) screens as a benefit for Anarchy Magazine, which locates an affinity for its politics in this Other Earth epic. $7 6:30, 9:15 p.m.
MIDNIGHT SHOW (Saturday): The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Jim Sharman, 1975), with live performance by Barely Legal. $6.
RAFAEL FILM CENTER
1118 Fourth St. (at A), San Rafael, 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $9 save as noted. This three-screen repertory theater, now officially the Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center, is operated by the California Film Institute. Programs are complex; check carefully and call for confirmation.
WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY: The Cuckoo (Kukushka) (Aleksandr Rogozhin, Russia, 2003) 6:45, 9:10 p.m. The Secret Lives of Dentists (Alan Rudolph, 2003) 6:30, 8:45 p.m. Jacques Perrin's Winged Migration (France, 2002) 9 p.m.; also Wed 7 p.m. See Ongoing for reviews.
WEDNESDAY: A Wednesday/Sunday Claudette Colbert series screens Cecil B. DeMille's Cleopatra (1934), famous for Claudette's milk bath 7 p.m.
STARTS FRIDAY: Dana Brown's surfumentary Step Into Liquid (2003); see Ongoing for review. The Secret Lives of Dentists, The Cuckoo (Kukushka), and Winged Migration continue. Call for times.
SUNDAY: Preston Sturges' scintillating screwball farce The Palm Beach Story (1942), with Claudette Colbert (and her identical twin) trying to help out her estranged husband Joel McCrea (and his identical twin) 7 p.m.
RED VIC
1727 Haight (at Cole), 668-3994, www.redvicmoviehouse.com. $6.50 save as noted. There's a spot on the couch for you at this collectively owned rep house.
WEDNESDAY: Direct from the western White House, it's The Texas Chainsaw Massacre (Tobe Hooper, 1974) 2, 7:15, 9:15 p.m.
THURSDAY: The fun continues with Sam Raimi's Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn (1987) 7:15, 9:15 p.m.
FRIDAY & SATURDAY: Rob Zombie's House of 1000 Corpses (2003) extends this glorious tradition 7:15, 9:15 p.m.; also Sat 2, 4 p.m.
SUNDAY: Federico Fellini gets in touch with his anima (Giulietta Masina) in his Jungian fantasy Juliet of the Spirits (Italy, 1965) 2, 7, 9:40 p.m.
MONDAY: Masina also stars in Fellini's earlier, grittier Nights of Cabiria (Italy, 1957) 7, 9:20 p.m.
TUESDAY & WEDNESDAY (Aug. 26 & 27): Ex-LAPD officer Mike Ruppert expresses his skeptical take on The Truth and Lies of 9-11 (2002), a filmed lecture 7, 9:45 p.m.; also Wed 2 p.m.
ROXIE
3117 16th St. (at Valencia), 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $8. Short-run repertory in one of the most adventurously programmed theaters in the USA.
WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY: OT: Our Town (Scott Hamilton Kennedy, 2001); see Ongoing for review 6:30, 8, 9:45 p.m.; also Wed 2, 4:15 p.m.
FRIDAY THROUGH THURSDAY (Aug. 22-28): If I Should Fall From Grace: The Shane MacGowan Story (Sarah Share, Ireland, 2001) profiles the Pogues singer/songwriter. See Opening for review 6, 8, 10 p.m.; also Sat, Sun, & Wed 2, 4 p.m.
SPANGENBERG THEATRE
Gunn High School Campus, 780 Arastradero (at Foothill Expressway), Palo Alto, (650) 354-8263, www.spangenbergtheatre.com. This recently refurbished Center for the Arts offers a 35mm film series on a large 30-foot screen. $5.
THURSDAY THROUGH SUNDAY (Aug. 21-24): Juliette Binoche essays George Sand in Diane Kurys' biopic Children of the Century (France, 1998) 7 p.m.; also Fri & Sat 9:15 p.m., Sat & Sun 4:30 p.m.
STANFORD
221 University (at Emerson), Palo Alto, (650) 324-3700, www.stanfordtheatre.org. $6. This handsomely restored neighborhood palace usually screens pre-1960 Hollywood fare in the best available prints, with excellent projection and a courteous staff.
WEDNESDAY: A silents series screens Buster Keaton's Civil War masterpiece The General (Keaton and Clyde Bruckman, 1926; 7:30 p.m. ), together with future Gone With the Wind director Victor Fleming's The Mollycoddle (1920; approximately 9:20 p.m. ), starring Douglas Fairbanks as a fop who toughens up in Arizona. Dennis James pulls out all organ stops as the accompanist to both.
THURSDAY & FRIDAY: Two adaptations of literary classics tastefully overseen by producer David O. Selznick, Little Women (George Cukor, 1933; 5:20, 9:45 p.m. ) and A Tale of Two Cities (Jack Conway, 1935; 7:30 p.m. ), both with all-star casts headed up by Katharine Hepburn and Ronald Colman, respectively.
SATURDAY THROUGH TUESDAY: The Fox CinemaScope romantic travelogue Three Coins in the Fountain (Jean Negulesco, 1954; 7:30 p.m.; also Sat & Sun 3:55 p.m. ) screens with a much-loved auto race charmer, Genevieve (Henry Cornelius, 1953; 5:50, 9:25 p.m. ), with Kay Kendall and Kenneth More. Let's hope the creative team behind Vin Diesel doesn't seize upon this for a remake!
YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS
701 Mission (at Third Street, in Yerba Buena Gardens), 978-2787, www.YerbaBuenaArts.org. $6 save as noted. This venue's Screening Room is a home for film and video programs of all sorts.
DAILY (Closed Mondays): Continuous screenings of "Looking Is Better Than Feeling You," a loop of videos by women, through Oct. 5 11 a.m.-5 p.m.
WEDNESDAY (Aug. 20): A Film Arts Foundation advance screening of the forthcoming documentary The Loss of Nameless Things (Bill Rose, 2003) is sold out. $7 7:30 p.m.
