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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ACT ONE/TWO
2128 Center (at Shattuck), Berkeley, (510) 843-FILM, www.landmarktheatres.com. $6. This duplex offers a 10-week midnight movie series (plus "drawings for valuable and coveted prizes"). For additional screenings, see our Showtimes page.
SATURDAY (Nov. 8): Terry Gilliam's delightful, overlooked fantasy The Adventures of Baron Munchausen (1988), with the young Sarah Polley midnight.
ALLIANCE FRANÇAISE
345 Bush (at Polk), 775-7755, www.afsf.com. French-language films shown on projected video. $5 donation.
WEDNESDAY (Nov. 5): Alain Corneau's Le Cousin (1997) casts French comedians in a drug drama about a cop and his informer 7 p.m.
SATURDAY (Nov. 8): Le Cousin 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.
THURSDAY (Nov. 6): Ardac Animal Rights screens Chattel, a protest against animal mistreatment 8 p.m.
FRIDAY (Nov. 7): The world premiere of David Herrera's half-hour experimental film Rebus (2003) 8 p.m.
SATURDAY (Nov. 8): Mark Boswell's experimental feature The Subversion Agency (2003) postulates an American-Communist golf match somewhere in an imaginary Caribbean. Filmmaker in person 8:30 p.m.
AUCTIONS BY THE BAY
Movie Palace Auction Sales Room, 2700 Saratoga (near West Red Line), Alameda, (510) 740-0220, www.auctionsbythebay.com. $7. Classic films in 35mm (save as noted) screen in a former U.S. Navy theater.
FRIDAY (Nov. 7): Preston Sturges' divorce and remarriage screwball comedy The Palm Beach Story (1942) lightly treads ground recently stomped on by the Coen brothers 7, 9 p.m.
SATURDAY (Nov. 8): Vincente Minnelli's splendid backstage musical The Band Wagon (1953) 7, 9:30 p.m.
SUNDAY (Nov. 9): Late greats Elia Kazan and Budd Schulberg's fame claim On the Waterfront (1954), with Marlon Brando, Eva Marie Saint, and the late great Rod Steiger 7, 9:15 p.m.
BRIDGE
3010 Geary (at Blake), 751-3213, www.peacheschrist.com for this series. This popular little theater offers, in addition to its regular screenings (see Showtimes for listings), a "Midnight Mass" every Saturday, hosted by Peaches Christ. $8.
FRIDAY (Nov. 7): Peaches presents a second, all-new San Francisco Underground Short Film Festival, full of shorts both "high art" and "drive-in trash" midnight.
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: Harry Smith's "abstract city symphony" inspired by Brecht, Weill, and Duchamp, Film #18: Mahagonny (1980), gets a rare 35mm screening 2, 7:30 p.m.
THURSDAY: Opening night of the seventh Latino Film Festival screens "Noche de Málaga," an evening of shorts from Spain's Málaga Film Festival, plus food, flamenco dancing, and a reception. Film and party $65; film only $15 6 p.m. Red Bear (Caetano, Argentina), $9 10 p.m.
FRIDAY: Latino Film Festival -- "Unusual Encounters" (shorts), $7 10:30 a.m. Queen of the Gypsies (Ajami, Spain/U.S.), $7 1 p.m. Collect Call (Argueta, Guatemala/U.S.), $7 3:15 p.m. A "Tribute to Moctesuma Esparza" honors the producer of The Milagro Beanfield War and many other films with clips and the first Mocte Award for influential Latinos in Hollywood. Tribute and film $20, plus dinner $135 6 p.m. We Are the Music (Paris, Cuba), $9 10 p.m.
SATURDAY: Latino Film Festival -- Lesbians in Buenos Aires (Garcia, Argentina), $7 10:30 a.m. Francesca, Which Side Are You On? (Sanchez, Mexico), $7 1 p.m. An evening of silent films from Brazil screens Fragmentos da Vida (Medina, 1929) and Aitare da Praia (Roiz, 1925). Reception (with live samba) $45 6 p.m., film only (with live music) $15 7:30 p.m. Wedding Days (Pinzás, Spain), $9 9:45 p.m.
SUNDAY: Latino Film Festival -- Sex, Politics and Cocktails (Hernandez), $7 10:30 a.m. The Last Sephardic Jew (Nieto, Spain), $7 1:30 p.m. Bedtime Fairy Tale for Crocodiles (Cruz, Mexico), $9 4 p.m. "Director's Night" offers a reception, awards, and the film Bolivar Am I (Triana, Colombia), $45 6 p.m. Awards and film only $9 8:30 p.m.
MONDAY: "Reel Food: An Insider's Guide to Cooking in the Movies" features a critique, with clips, of cooking scenes from films from Joey Altman and Kerry Heffernan, plus the documentaries Our Lady of Tamales and Cat's in the Kitchen. $15 7 p.m. $55 for film program and food/wine reception to follow.
TUESDAY: Jacques Perrin's continually popular Winged Migration (France, 2002); see Ongoing for review 7, 9:10 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.
WEDNESDAY THROUGH SUNDAY: The original Dutch version, albeit no treat, of George Sluizer's thriller The Vanishing (1988) 6:15, 8:15 p.m.; also Fri-Sun 10:15 p.m.
MONDAY: Closed.
STARTS TUESDAY: Wim Wenders' angelic Wings of Desire (Germany, 1988) screens through Nov. 30 6:30, 8:15 p.m.; also Fri-Sun 10:45 p.m.
KENNEDY'S PUB
1040 Columbus (at Chestnut), 441-8855. Curry and drinks available. Free.
THURSDAY (Nov. 6): Lance Carnes and Marc Dolezal offer a film noir series screening classics on 16mm shot at least in part in San Francisco. A hit man takes refuge in North Beach in The Raging Tide (George Sherman, 1951) 8 p.m.
LUMIERE
1572 California (at Polk), 352-0810, www.landmarktheatres.com. This multiplex is only partly a "calendar house" rep theater; for the rest of the Lumiere schedule, see our Showtimes page. $9.50.
FRIDAY THROUGH THURSDAY (Nov. 7-13): José Padilha's Bus 174 (Brazil, 2002). See Opening for review. Call for times.
MARIN CIVIC CENTER
Showcase Theatre, 3501 Civic Center (at Avenue of the Flags), San Rafael, 499-6800 and www.italianfilm.com for this series. The 2003 Italian Film Festival screens at this Frank Lloyd Wright-designed complex for six weeks. $10.75.
SATURDAY (Nov. 8): The truth about a man's father upends his life in Truth and Lies (Piergiorgio Gay, 2002) 7, 9:15 p.m.
MECHANICS' INSTITUTE LIBRARY
57 Post (near Market), 393-0100 and www.milibrary.org for information; phone or e-mail rsvp@milibrary.org for reservations. $5. This cultural asset of long standing hosts an ongoing film series on projected video, with salon-style discussions to follow.
FRIDAY (Nov. 7): A John Garfield series opens with the film that marked him as a rebel without a cause for the Roosevelt era, Four Daughters (Michael Curtiz, 1938). The film also features the Lane sisters, memorable targets of Elmer Fudd's endearments: "Wose-mawy Wane ... Pwissiwa Wane ... Wowa Wane!" 6:30 p.m.
OPERA PLAZA
601 Van Ness (at Golden Gate), 352-0810, www.landmarktheatres.com. This multiplex is only partly a "calendar house" rep theater. For the rest of the Opera Plaza's schedule, see our Showtimes page. $9.25.
WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY: Writer/director John Carlos Frey plays a border-patrol agent who goes undercover among the illegals in The Gatekeeper (2002). See Ongoing for review. Call for times.
STARTS FRIDAY: Call for films and times.
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: Program 1 of "Standby," a five-week series of video art made in New York City, 1983-93, includes Flaubert Dreams of Travel But the Illness of His Mother Prevents It (1986), with Willem Dafoe 7:30 p.m.
THURSDAY: A free screening of The Good Wife of Tokyo (Kim Longinotto, Claire Hunt, U.K., 1993), about a singer for a British rock band who returns home to marry 5:30 p.m. The annual Margaret Mead Film Festival of anthropological works opens here with David MacDougal's The New Boys (Australia/India, 2003), about 12-year-olds in their first year of a prep school for India's elite 7:30 p.m.
FRIDAY: Maziar Bahari's Football, Iranian Style (Iran, 2001) probes soccer's popularity there 7:30 p.m.
SATURDAY: A two-day "History of Polish Animation" screens Program 1, films made from 1962-85, including Jan Lenica's Labyrinth (1962) 7:30 p.m.
SUNDAY: "Polish Animation," Program 2 includes films by Lenica and Walerian Borowczyk, including their collaboration House (1958), in films made from 1958-71, plus Lenica's The Island of R.O. (2001) 5:30 p.m.
MONDAY & TUESDAY: Theater closed.
PALACE OF FINE ARTS
3301 Lyon (at Bay), 567-6642 for venue, 554-5525 and www.aifisf.com for this program. The 28th annual American Indian Film Festival screens here for three days, with a different admission fee each day.
THURSDAY (Nov. 6): The festival opens with Jan Egleson's Coyote Waits (2003), $7 7:30 p.m.
FRIDAY (Nov. 7): Steve Barron's Dreamkeeper (2003), free 7:30 p.m.
SATURDAY (Nov. 8): The American Indian Motion Pictures Awards Show, with guests including Bill Miller, Cindy Minker, and Eagle & Hawk. $15 7:30 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 (Nov. 6): A "Thrillville" screening of producer Charles K. Feldman's campy James Bond spoof Casino Royale (U.K., 1967), with five directors and dozens of writers and stars, including David Niven, Peter Sellers, and Woody Allen as evil little Jimmy Bond. Preceded by a live set from the theremin lounge act Project: Pimento. $8 9 p.m.
SATURDAY (Nov. 8): Pepepalooza! screens a program by local filmmaker Pepe Urquijo, including Fruit of Labor, Pimpin' Fruit, and Of Mexican Descent. See www.pepelicula.com for more. $8 3 p.m.
SUNDAY (Nov. 9): Last spring's anti-war protests are documented in We Interrupt This Empire... (2003) 3 p.m.
TUESDAY (Nov. 11): "A birthday party for a former mental patient turns into a whirlwind of sex, chaos and violence" in local filmmaker Jovani G's Sinfully Sane 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 Death of Klinghoffer (Peggy Woolcock, U.K., 2003) 6:30, 9 p.m. The Revolution Will Not Be Televised (Kim Bartley, Donnacha O'Briain, 2003) 7 p.m. Bubba Ho-Tep (Don Coscarelli, 2003) 8:40 p.m. Tibet: Cry of the Snow Lion (Tom Peosay, 2003) Wed 6:45, 8:50 p.m.; Thurs 9:10 p.m. See Ongoing for reviews.
THURSDAY: A Rita Hayworth series screens Only Angels Have Wings (Howard Hawks, 1939), an air adventure film with an unusually stern Cary Grant, an unusually dithery Jean Arthur, and Hayworth in a key supporting role 7 p.m.
STARTS FRIDAY: The Revolution Will Not Be Televised continues. Call theater for other films and show times.
FRIDAY: The Latino Film Festival screens Wedding Days (Pinzás, Spain) 6:30 p.m. One or the Other (Sisniega, Mexico) 9:10 p.m.
SATURDAY: Latino Film Festival -- For families, Oscar's Magic Adventure (Sanchez, Venezuela) noon. Despite Treblinka (Stawsky, Uruguay) 2:20 p.m. From Cuba in 1964, We Are the Music (Paris) 4:45 p.m. Red Bear (Caetano, Argentina) 7 p.m. A Beautiful Secret (Laborde, Mexico) 9:15 p.m.
SUNDAY: Latino Film Festival -- Havana Feelings (Heufelder, Cuba) noon. The Photographer (Alarcón, Chile) 2 p.m. Lefty (Salcés, Mexico) 4:25 p.m. Lua Cambará on the Staircases of the Palace (Cariry, Brazil) 6:50 p.m. Rita Hayworth takes the title role in Gene Kelly's breakout film as dancer/choreographer, Cover Girl (1944) 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: Stephen Frears' Dirty Pretty Things (U.K., 2003) 2, 7:15, 9:25 p.m.
THURSDAY: A "Surf Film Night" screens "real" surf films; www.wavefest.com for more 7:15, 9:15 p.m.
FRIDAY THROUGH TUESDAY: The world of backyard wrestling is explored in Paul Hough's documentary The Backyard (2002). Where's Tyler Durden when you need him? See Opening for more 7:15, 9:15 p.m.; also Sat & Sun 2, 4 p.m.
ROXIE
3117 16th St. (at Valencia), 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $8 save as noted. Short-run repertory in one of the most adventurously programmed theaters in the USA.
WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY: Thomas Riedelsheimer's Rivers and Tides (2001) profiles time-sculpting Andy Goldsworthy; see Ongoing for review 7, 9:30 p.m.; also Wed 2, 4:30 p.m.
FRIDAY THROUGH THURSDAY (Nov. 7-13): A double bill of Hidden in Plain Sight (John H. Smihula, 2002; 7 p.m.; also Sat, Sun, & Wed 2 p.m.), about the notorious School of the Americas -- Hogswarts for torturers; and Plan Colombia: Cashing in on the Drug War Failure (Gerard Ungerman and Audrey Brohey, 2003; 9:30 p.m.; also Sat, Sun, & Wed 4:30 p.m.). See Opening for reviews.
SHATTUCK
2230 Shattuck (at Kittredge), Berkeley, (510) 843-3456, www.landmarktheatres.com. $9.25. This venerable theater assigns one of its eight screens to repertory programming. For the rest of the Shattuck's schedule, see our Showtimes page.
WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY: John Carlos Frey's The Gatekeeper (2002). See Ongoing for review. Call for times.
FRIDAY THROUGH THURSDAY (Nov. 7-13): José Padilha's Bus 174 (Brazil, 2002). See Opening for review. Call for times.
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 & FRIDAY: Three battlefield survivors with different languages must live together in The Cuckoo (Kukushka, Aleksandr Rogozhkin, Russia, 2002). See Ongoing for review Thurs 7 p.m.; Fri TBA.
SATURDAY: Closed.
SUNDAY THROUGH TUESDAY: The Cuckoo Sun TBA; Mon & Tues 7 p.m.
STANFORD
221 University (at Emerson), Palo Alto, (650) 324-3700, www.stanfordtheatre.org. $6. This handsomely restored neighborhood palace usually (but not always) screens pre-1960 Hollywood fare in the best available prints, with excellent projection. The theater has begun to program films by Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray with Hollywood classics.
WEDNESDAY THROUGH FRIDAY: Two by Satyajit Ray, Home and the World (1984; 7:30 p.m.), about a woman's life in 1907 India, and Tagore (1961; 6:25, 10 p.m.), a documentary about the Bengali writer Rabindranath Tagore, author of the novel Home and the World.
SATURDAY & SUNDAY: Ray's comedy about a clerk who finds The Philosopher's Stone (1958; 3:30, 7:30 p.m.) -- which turns lead to gold -- screens with Samuel Goldwyn's lavishly produced The Secret Life of Walter Mitty (Norman Z. McLeod, 1947; 5:30, 9:35 p.m.), with Danny Kaye in an adventure drawn from James Thurber's fable about a middle-aged dreamer.
MONDAY & TUESDAY: Theater closed.
UA GALAXY
1285 Sutter (at Van Ness), 474-8700 for venue, 554-5525 and www.aifisf.com for this program. For regular screenings at this multiplex, see our Showtimes page. The 28th annual American Indian Film Festival screens here this Sunday through Thursday (Nov. 9-13).
SUNDAY (Nov. 9): Films for young people, including Thomas Yeahpau's Doe's Fascination With Words, $5 11 a.m. Documentaries on Don Burnstick and Winona LaDuke, $5 2 p.m. Two films on American Indian dance, including Dancing on the Moon, $7 7 p.m.
MONDAY (Nov. 10): Documentaries including Tribal Journey: Celebrating Our Ancestors, $5 noon. Documentaries including We're Still Here, $6 7 p.m.
TUESDAY (Nov. 11): Documentaries including Penobscot Basket Maker, $5 noon. The People Go On and A Seat at the Table, $7 7 p.m.
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.
WEDNESDAY (Nov. 5): The Goethe-Institut screens Memory of Berlin (John Burgen, 1998), about an adoptee's search for his birth mother. $6 7:30 p.m.
THURSDAY (Nov. 6): Visiting German filmmaker Klaus Eisenlohr's "Slow Spaces," on "the spatial practices of filmmaking," includes his short films The Sky Above Alexanderplatz and Local Time + 2 1/2. $7 7:30 p.m.
FRIDAY (Nov. 7): "Ten Perfect Moments," a series of highlights from 10 years of the YBC's screenings, offers Kent Harris' Beaver Trilogy (1975-95), three films recording Olivia Newton-John impressions from, respectively, the original imitator, Sean Penn, and Crispin Glover 7 p.m. S.R. Bindler's Hands on a Hard Body (1996) records a bizarre monster-truck competition in Texas 9 p.m.
