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ALLIANCE FRANÇAISE
345 Bush (at Polk), 775-7755, www.afsf.com. French-language films shown on projected video. $5 donation.
WEDNESDAY (May 28): Gérard Depardieu prefers homely secretary to beautiful wife in Bertrand Blier's Too Beautiful for You (France, 1990) 7 p.m.
SATURDAY (May 31): Too Beautiful for You 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 (May 29): "Moving Still," a program of films by Veronica Majano and PJ Raval, billed as "two emerging queer filmmakers of color whose works address the process of location." Locations include Majano's Calle Chula (1998) and Two Four (2002), shot in the Mission and decrying gentrification, and her latest, She Said (2003), shot in Oakland; and Raval's Holding Patterns (2002), shot in Austin, and his 100% Cotton (2000), shot in a laundromat. Artists in person for post-screening discussion. $8 7:30 p.m.
FRIDAY (May 30): A program of "Short Shorts" from recent SFAI grads includes Michele Silva's portrait of crack dealers at Sixth and Howard streets, BUMS; Todd Daniels' Leni Riefenstahl: The Woman Behind the Reich, shot using LEGOs (it says here); Brendan Lott's Afraid of Virginia Who's Wolf; and more 8 p.m.
SATURDAY (May 31): The ATA's Other Cinema concludes its spring series with a program of "New Experimental Works," including Kerry Laitala's The Muse of Cinema, Simon Tarr's 3-D Sundog Verga Matrix, Robbyn Leonard's sidewalk film installation Bathing With Lover, and many more 8:30 p.m.
SUNDAY (June 1): The Mission Creek Music Festival presents a film fest including Christian Anthony's Music for Adults, Virgil Porter's Burn My Eye, and Gibbs Chapman's Thinking Fellers Union 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 & THURSDAY: Matthew Barney's Cremaster Cycle screens here through June 5. Currently, Cremaster 3 (2002), the one that ends with a race up the ramp of the Guggenheim noon, 4, 8 p.m.
FRIDAY THROUGH SUNDAY: Cremaster 1 (1995), "a musical revue performed on the blue Astroturf playing field of Bronco Stadium in Boise, Idaho," and Cremaster 2 (1999), with Norman Mailer as Harry Houdini -- let's not forget the bees. Complete shows at 1:30, 4:15, 7, 9:40 p.m.
MONDAY THROUGH WEDNESDAY (June 2-4): Barney's a satyr on the Isle of Man in Cremaster 4 (1994), screening with Cremaster 5 (1997), a dream opera set in 19th-century Budapest. Complete shows at 2, 4:30, 7, 9:30 p.m.
FILM ARTS FOUNDATION
145 Ninth St. (between Mission and Howard), 552-8760, www.filmarts.org/rsvp for this program. Free.
FRIDAY (May 30): An "Open House" featuring music, snacks, screenings, and panels at this site for local filmmakers. Free 6-9 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: Sandra Nettlebeck's tasty drama of a cook under pressure, Mostly Martha (Germany, 2002), screens through June 15 8:30, 10:15 p.m.
FOUR STAR
2200 Clement (at 23rd Avenue), 666-3488, www.hkinsf.com. This innovative theater screens second-run movies and a "Midnight Madness" series on weekends. For the rest of the Four Star's schedule, see our Showtimes page. $6.
MIDNIGHT SHOW (Friday & Saturday): Dino De Laurentiis' superproduction of Flash Gordon (1980), given a heavy camp treatment by hard-boiled Brit Mike Hodges (Get Carter), whose career never regained traction after this 7 p.m.
JEZEBEL'S JOINT
510 Larkin (at Turk), 345-9832, www.jezebelsjointsf.com. This "Rock 'n' Roll DJ Bar" offers an "S.F. IndieFest MicroCinema" Monday through Friday (most weeks). Screenings are followed by DJ music at 10 p.m. Free.
WEDNESDAY: Melody Gilbert's Married at the Mall (2002) tracks tales of couples who wed at the Chapel of Love at the Mall of America 8 p.m.
THURSDAY: Katsuhito Ishii's Party 7 (Japan, 2000) is billed as an explicit homage to David Lynch, full of "mirrors, enclosures, secrets, sex and betrayal." What, no dancing dwarf? 8 p.m.
FRIDAY: The "true street culture" of Brixton -- ravers, yuppies (!), and "Internet anarchists" -- put southwest England "through the windshield of the new millennium" in Richard Parry's South West 9 (U.K., 2001) 8 p.m.
MONDAY: "Silent Monday" -- call for program.
TUESDAY: Call for program.
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 offers a May series of the films of Michael Powell. Shown on projected video, with salon-style discussions to follow.
FRIDAY (May 30): The late Wendy Hiller stars in the splendid comic romance I Know Where I'm Going! (Powell and Emeric Pressburger, U.K., 1945) 6:30 p.m.
MEZZANINE GALLERY
444 Jessie (one half block from Powell Street BART), 820-9669 for information on this program. Mezzanine offers a "June Art Salon" this week and next. Free.
TUESDAY (June 3): The works of more than two dozen filmmakers screen in "Single Channel: Collaborating With the Moving Image," a program of highlights from Microcinema International's eight-year history 7-10 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: "Recon/Decon," a program of films re-editing Hollywood including Kevin and Jennifer McCoy's Horror Chase (2002), a loop of the chase from Evil Dead II; Scott Stark's Noema (1998), de-eroticized moments from porn; and Les LeVeque's "Reconstruction Trilogy," condensed versions, circa 12 minutes apiece, of three standards -- Backwards Birth of a Nation (2000), Stutter the Searchers (2001), and Red Green Blue Gone With the Wind (2001) 7:30 p.m.
THURSDAY: A series of the films of Nicholas Ray continues with The High Green Wall (1954), a teleplay from a story by Evelyn Waugh with Joseph Cotton and Thomas Gomez, and I'm a Stranger Here Myself (David Helpern Jr. and James Guzman, 1974), a documentary about Ray with producer Myron Meisel in person 7:30 p.m.
FRIDAY: Nicholas Ray's On Dangerous Ground (1951; 7:30 p.m. ), a film noir that turns into a film blanc in the snow; and Run for Cover (1955; 9:15 p.m. ), a good, low-key western with James Cagney.
SATURDAY: James Mason is a tormented teacher in Nicholas Ray's excellent family melodrama Bigger Than Life (1956; 4:30, 9:10 p.m. ), while James Dean is the quintessential Rebel Without a Cause (1955; 7 p.m. ), Ray's one great pop-culture breakthrough.
SUNDAY: Vera Chytilova's multicolored dazzler Daisies (Czechoslovakia, 1966), screening with her early short film Ceiling (1963) 5:30 p.m.
MONDAY: Theater closed.
TUESDAY: Jesse Lerner's The American Egypt (2001), on the role of the United States in Mexico's Yucatán peninsula, plus two shorts 7:30 p.m.
RAFAEL FILM CENTER
1118 Fourth St. (at A Street), 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: A spelling bee leaves kids Spellbound (Jeff Blitz, 2003) 6:30, 8:30 p.m. Jacques Perrin's Winged Migration (France, 2002) 7, 9 p.m. See Ongoing for reviews.
WEDNESDAY: Director John Antonelli in person with his documentary, with dramatized re-creations, of scenes from the life of our own Saint Jack, Kerouac (1985) 7 p.m.
THURSDAY: Nowhere in Africa (Caroline Link, Germany, 2002) 7:30 p.m. See Ongoing for review.
FRIDAY THROUGH TUESDAY: Spellbound, Winged Migration, and Nowhere in Africa continue. Call for times.
SUNDAY: A Sunday and Wednesday Greta Garbo series commences with her justly celebrated comedy Ninotchka (Ernst Lubitsch, 1939) 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 seconds crawl like The Hours (2002) in Stephen Daldry's melodrama. We like the kid, the cake, and Julianne Moore though 2, 7, 9:25 p.m.
THURSDAY THROUGH SATURDAY: Orlando Bloom surfs The Two Towers (Peter Jackson, New Zealand, 2002) Thurs & Fri 7 p.m.; Sat 2, 5:30, 9 p.m.
STARTS SUNDAY: Call for program.
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.
WEDNESDAY: Call for program.
THURSDAY: Beats on film -- John Antonelli's documentary Kerouac (1985; 8 p.m. ), with director in person for post-film Q&A, screening with Howard Brookner's Burroughs the Movie 6:20, 9:40 p.m.
STARTS FRIDAY: Beat on this film -- The world theatrical premiere of David Anspaugh's Wisegirls (2002), a Mafia comedy with Mira Sorvino, Mariah Carey, and Melora Walters. See Opening for more 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 newly refurbished Center for the Arts offers 35mm films on a 30-foot screen. $5.
FRIDAY (May 30): Matthew Broderick takes Ferris Bueller's Day Off (John Hughes, 1986) 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 THROUGH FRIDAY: The Stanford commemorates Bob Hope's 100th birthday with a three-week series of his films, beginning with the haunted house comedy The Ghost Breakers (George Marshall, 1940; 7:30 p.m. ) and the best of the Hope-Crosby comedies, Road to Morocco (David Butler, 1942; 5:45, 9:05 p.m. ). Anthony Quinn is a frustrated villain in both films.
SATURDAY & SUNDAY: Hope's two popular western spoofs, The Paleface (Norman Z. McLeod, 1948; 4:05, 7:30 p.m. ) and the especially cartoonlike Son of Paleface (Frank Tashlin, 1952; 5:45, 9:15 p.m. ). Jane Russell is a good foil for Hope in both films.
MONDAY & TUESDAY: Closed.
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. Closed Mondays.
DAILY: Continuous-loop screenings of three DVDs, part of the visual arts exhibition "Time After Time: Asia and Our Moment," run through July 13 -- From China, Chinese Utopia and Living Elsewhere, plus Haunted Houses, on Thai soap operas 11 a.m.-5 p.m.
WEDNESDAY (May 28): The Jewish Film Festival screens The Travellers (Robert Cohen, Canada, 2001), about four folk singers inspired by Pete Seeger. $7 7:30 p.m.
THURSDAY (May 29): The S.F. Cinematheque sponsors a "Stan Brakhage Memorial" commemorating the late experimental filmmaker with a screening of all of his hand-painted, 35mm films, including Eye Myth, Night Music, The Garden of Earthly Delights, Night Mulch, and Very. Also screening are his 1955, filmed-in-San Francisco In Between and his last movie, Panels for the Walls of Heaven. Call 978-ARTS for advance tickets ($50 and $20). Reception follows first screening 7:30, 9:30 p.m.
FRIDAY (May 30): "On Fire," a monthlong series of recent Korean films, concludes with Anh Byoung-ki's cell-phone thriller The Phone (2002). Take that, Colin Farrell! 7:30 p.m.
