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 STREET GALLERY
111 Minna (between New Montgomery and Second streets), 864-0660 and www.microcinema.com for information on this program. A monthly "Independent Exposure Screening Series" offers a lineup of international works on the last Monday of each month through October. $5.
MONDAY: (Feb. 24): The "Love and Other Difficulties" edition of the series presents a program of romantic conundrums 8 p.m.
ALLIANCE FRANÇAISE
345 Bush (at Polk), 775-7755, www.afsf.com. French-language films shown on projected video. $5 donation.
WEDNESDAY (Feb. 19): A Juliette Binoche series continues with André Téchiné's Alice et Martin (France, 1996) 7 p.m.
SATURDAY (Feb. 22): Alice et Martin 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 (Feb. 20): Just in time for Gulf War II, Hidden Wars of Desert Storm looks back on background and results of the first mother of all battles 8 p.m.
FRIDAY (Feb. 21): The ATA's monthly "Open Screening." $4; free for filmmakers (who must contact Meg at openscreening@hotmail.com to reserve a spot) 7:30 p.m.
SATURDAY (Feb. 22): Activist Indian filmmaker Suma Josson, in person with her critiques of modern Hindu nationalism, the documentary Gujarat (2003; 2 p.m.) and a drama of two children trapped between the subcontinent's two worlds, Saree (1999; 3:30 p.m.). $10 for both programs. In the evening, video rebels Animal Charm in person with their latest subversive redubs of "infomercial culture," plus Marc Moscato's Compliance Culture, more shorts, and a live "scratch video rave-up" 8:30 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 & THURSDAY: A revival of Henri-Georges Clouzot's icy Quai des Orfèvres (France, 1947) -- recommended to cynics and film lovers everywhere 2, 4:30, 7, 9:30 p.m.
FRIDAY THROUGH WEDNESDAY (Feb. 21-26): A new print of David Lynch's dreamy tour of small-town nightmare, Blue Velvet (1986) 1:30, 4:15, 7, 9:35 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.
DAILY: Gérard Depardieu stars in the highly popular costumer Cyrano de Bergerac (Jean-Paul Rappeneau, France, 1990), screening through March 2 6:15, 8:30, 10:45 p.m.
JEZEBEL'S JOINT
510 Larkin (at Turk), 820-3907, www.sfindie.com. This "Rock 'n' Roll DJ Bar" offers an "S.F. IndieFest MicroCinema" Mondays through Fridays. All screenings are followed by DJ music at 10 p.m. Free.
WEDNESDAY: After her famed Decline of Western Civilization punkumentaries, but before she directed such Hollywood kids' fare as the Beverly Hillbillies and Little Rascals updates, Penelope Spheeris helmed a dramatic fiction film about teen runaways, Suburbia (1986) 8 p.m.
THURSDAY: A timely screening of Kevin McKiernan's documentary Good Kurds, Bad Kurds (2000), about the rebels in northern Iraq the U.S. government supports, and the rebels in Turkey we oppose 8 p.m.
FRIDAY: Listen With Pain: 20 Years of Einstürzende Neubauten (Christian Beetz, Birgit Herdlitschke, Germany, 2000) gives us the inside scoop on "Germany's great modern minimalist industrial band." Even the German title is painful: Hör mit Schmerzen 8 p.m.
MONDAY: This venue's silent Monday screens Charlie Chaplin's undated satire of depression, industrialization, and coke-sniffing prisoners, Modern Times (1936) 8 p.m.
TUESDAY: Hitchhiking lesbian vampires thin traffic around their castle in José Ramón Larraz's Vampyres (aka Daughters of Dracula, 1974) 8 p.m.
MECHANICS' INSTITUTE LIBRARY
57 Post (near Market), 393-0100 for reservations and information. $5. This cultural asset of long standing offers a "February Film Noir" series of projected video of classics, with salon-style discussions after the films featuring noir expert Eddie Muller.
FRIDAY (Feb. 21): In recent years, blacklisted Cy Endfield's low-budget noir Try and Get Me! (aka The Sound of Fury, 1950) has built up a cult following. It's based on a true story of robberies and a lynching in the California of the 1930s, here updated to a gray postwar era. Recommended 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. $8.75.
WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY: Alexander Sokurov's Russian Ark (Russia, 2002). See Ongoing for review. Call for times.
FRIDAY THROUGH THURSDAY (Feb. 21-27): Nils Tavernier's Etoiles: Dancers of the Paris Opera Ballet (France, 2001). See Opening for review. Call for times.
PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE
2575 Bancroft (at Bowditch), Berkeley, (510) 642-1124, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. $7, second show $1.50. 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: Hotel doorman Emil Jannings gets The Last Laugh (Germany, 1924) in F.W. Murnau's expressionist tragedy 3 p.m. Video pranksters Animal Charm, and the team of Struthers and Fields, screen live video mixes 7:30 p.m.
THURSDAY: A "Czech New Wave" series continues with a reworking of Gulliver's Travels, A Case for the New Hangman (Pavel Juracek, 1969) -- "banned forever" in 1973 7:30 p.m.
FRIDAY: A Deaf Film Festival commences with I Love You, But... (Peter Wolf, 1998), a romance between a deaf woman and hearing man, performed in American Sign Language. Filmmakers in person. Reception follows. $10 7 p.m.
SATURDAY: Deaf Film Festival -- A lecture, "Theorizing a Deaf Cinema," by Jane Norman 3 p.m. A deaf woman's life in a small Japanese village, I Love You (Akihiro Yonaiyama, 1999), with filmmaker in person 7 p.m. A deaf hit man is Bangkok Dangerous (1969) in Oxide Pang Chun and Danny Pang's thriller 9:30 p.m.
SUNDAY: Deaf Film Festival -- John Schuchman's illustrated lecture "Hollywood Speaks" examines film clichés 3 p.m. A program of "Deaf Shorts From Europe" 5 p.m.
MONDAY: Closed.
TUESDAY: Experimental cinema -- A program of films from the last 30 years of the 20th century includes works by Hollis Frampton, James Broughton, Su Friedrich, and more 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 (Feb. 20): Live 105's monthly "Rewind Cinema" series screens the early Coen Brothers comedy Raising Arizona (1987), with Nicolas Cage, Holly Hunter, and an evil, motorcycle-riding John Goodman 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 Street), San Rafael, 454-1222, www.finc.org. $8.50 save as noted. This three-screen repertory theater is operated by the California Film Institute. Programs are complex; check carefully and call for confirmation.
WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY: Noam Chomsky articulates his opinions about 9/11 in Power and Terror (John Junkerman, 2003) 7:15 p.m. Alexander Sokurov's Russian Ark (Russia, 2002) 6:30, 8:30 p.m. Shanghai Ghetto (Dana Janklowicz-Mann, Amir Mann, 2002) 9 p.m. Rabbit-Proof Fence (Phillip Noyce, Australia, 2002) 6:45, 8:45 p.m.
STARTS FRIDAY: Call theater for films and show times.
SUNDAY: A weekly "Pre-Code Hollywood" series introduced by Mick LaSalle concludes with Dorothy Arzner's Merrily We Go to Hell (1932), with Fredric March as an alcoholic married to Sylvia Sidney 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: The love story of two transsexuals in rural Georgia, Southern Comfort (Kate Davis, 2000). See Ongoing for review 2, 7:15, 9:15 p.m.
THURSDAY THROUGH SATURDAY: Paul Justman's documentary about the famed backup musicians "the Funk Brothers," Standing in the Shadows of Motown (2002) 7:15, 9:35 p.m.; also Sat 2, 4:15 p.m.
SUNDAY & MONDAY: François Ozon's color-coordinated murder mystery 8 Women (France, 2002), with an all-star cast drawn from 60 years of French film history 7:15, 9:30 p.m.; also Sun 2, 4:15 p.m.
TUESDAY & WEDNESDAY (Feb. 25 & 26): A January 1972 clash between British soldiers and Irish protesters is re-created in Paul Greengrass' docudrama Bloody Sunday (U.K./Ireland, 2002) 7, 9:20 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 U.S.A.
DAILY: Doris Dörrie's Naked (Nackt) (Germany, 2002); see Ongoing for review 7, 9:15 p.m.; also Wed, Sat, & Sun 2, 4:30 p.m.
SAN FRANCISCO CINEMATHEQUE
S.F. Art Institute, 800 Chestnut (at Jones), 822-2885, www.sfcinematheque.org. $7 save as noted. The San Francisco Cinematheque specializes in avant-garde, historical, and experimental films at venues around the Bay Area, including the Yerba Buena Center (see separate entry).
SUNDAY (Feb. 23): Michele Smith's two-hour silent epic Regarding Penelope's Wake draws from hundreds of extracts from found-footage cinema, hand-painted, ripped, and otherwise processed to produce a retelling of Homer's Odyssey. Digital video; artist in person 7:30 p.m.
SHATTUCK
2230 Shattuck (at Kittredge), Berkeley, (510) 843-3456, www.landmarktheatres.com. $9. 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: Alexander Sokurov's Russian Ark (Russia, 2002). See Ongoing for review. Call for times.
FRIDAY THROUGH THURSDAY (Feb. 21-27): John Junkerman's Power and Terror: Noam Chomsky in Our Times (2003). Call for times.
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 & THURSDAY: Two of Jean Harlow's better films, in the jungle with Clark Gable in Red Dust (Victor Fleming, 1932; 7:30 p.m.) and as the Red Headed Woman (Jack Conway, 1932; 6, 9:05 p.m.) out to break up Wayne Morris' marriage.
FRIDAY: A double dose of Ida Lupino offers her as a songstress in Jean Negulesco's Road House (1948; 7:30 p.m.) -- a particular favorite of Martin Scorsese's and an inspiration for his Alice Doesn't Live Here Anymore -- and as one of Edmond O'Brien's two wives in The Bigamist (Lupino, 1953; 6, 9:15 p.m.). Joan Fontaine's the other wife.
SATURDAY & SUNDAY: Two of the great-looking, classic film noirs directed by Anthony Mann and photographed by John Alton, T-Men (1947; 7:30 p.m.; also Sun 4:15 p.m.) and Raw Deal (1948; 6, 9:15 p.m.), all about luckless cops, cons, and the women who love them (Claire Trevor is especially good in Deal).
MONDAY & TUESDAY: Theater closed.
YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS
701 Mission (at Third Street, in Yerba Buena Gardens), 978-2787, www.YerbaBuenaArts.org. $5 save as noted. This venue's Screening Room is a home for film and video programs of all sorts. Closed Mondays.
DAILY: Continuous loop screenings by Swedish video artists through April 13 -- On Wednesdays, Annka Ström's The Artist Live; on Thursdays, Ström's Ten New Love Songs; on Fridays, Anneè Olofsson's Ricochet and The Thrill Is Gone; on Saturdays, Annika Larsson's Cigar; on Sundays, Larsson's 40-15; on Tuesdays, Olofsson's You Need Her and You Want Her Golden Hair. Free with gallery admission 11 a.m.-5 p.m.
WEDNESDAY (Feb. 19): Film Arts Foundation's monthly series of new documentaries, "True Stories," premieres Mark Moskowitz's Stone Reader (2002), about a reader's search for the one-book author of a 1972 volume he really, really loves. $7 7:30 p.m.
THURSDAY (Feb. 20): The San Francisco Cinematheque offers "Six Adventures in Video With Tommy Becker," "sentimental vignettes" made up of spoken word, performance, music, and costume design. Live performance with artist in person. $7 7:30 p.m.
FRIDAY (Feb. 21): The Human Rights Watch International Film Festival (tonight and tomorrow; all videos $6) screens the latest from Alberto Vendemmiati and Fabrizio Lazzaretti, directors of Jung: In the Land of the Mujaheddin, whose Afghanistan Year 1380 (2002) picks up with the filmmakers returning to Afghanistan one week after Sept. 11 to follow the efforts of a group of doctors trying to build an emergency medical hospital 7:30 p.m. The story of the 1994 Rwandan massacres is told from the perspective of a U.N. general who tried to help in Steven Silver's The Last Just Man (2002) 8:30 p.m.
SATURDAY: Human Rights Watch -- Reza Khatibi's Seven Days in Tehran (France, 2002) offers perspective on moderate/fundamentalist political struggles in contemporary Iran 7 p.m. Raoul Peck (Lumumba) examines the effects of capitalism on his native Haiti in Profit and Nothing But (2001) 9 p.m.
