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WEDNESDAY: A free screening of Yasujiro Ozu's formally inventive melodrama Woman of Tokyo (Japan, 1933) 5:30 p.m. Program 4 of "Standby," a five-week series of video art made in New York City, 1983-93, screens four formally inventive works, including Dara Birnbaum's The Damnation of Faust: Evocation (1983) and Gary Hill's Why Do Things Get in a Muddle? (1984), this last a monologue that Hill recorded backward and played forward 7:30 p.m.
THURSDAY: Three silents by Yasujiro Ozu – Woman of Tokyo 5:30 p.m. A gangster film with a strong admixture of comedy, Walk Cheerfully (1930) 7 p.m. A college comedy about "exam hell," the quite funny I Flunked But ... (1930) 9 p.m.
FRIDAY: Ozu's last silent and first sound films, respectively – the masterpiece An Inn at Tokyo (1935; 7:30 p.m.), about homeless families just scraping by, and The Only Son (1936; 9:10 p.m.), about a poor mother's visit to her poorer son's.
SATURDAY: Ozu satirizes Japan's new rich in What Did the Lady Forget? (1937) 3, 7 p.m. A family disregards its duties, not for the first time in Ozu's work, in The Brothers and Sisters of the Toda Family (1941) 4:35, 8:35 p.m.
SUNDAY: Two crime melodramas from the early Ozu, That Night's Wife (1930; 5:30 p.m.) and Dragnet Girl (1933; 7 p.m.).
MONDAY: Theater closed.
TUESDAY: Two more of Ozu's early comedies, the funny The Lady and the Beard (1931; 7 p.m.) and the socially biting Tokyo Chorus (1931; 8:35 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 (Dec. 5): Bob Hope and Bing Crosby make like a dictionary in The Road to Morocco (David Butler, 1942), probably the funniest of the "Road" series. 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 (Dec. 4): Chronicle television critic Tim Goodman offers a "TV Hootenanny," with "from the vault" boob-tube screenings, an auction of the swag he gets as a critic, and a Q&A (ask him if he still doesn't like Carnivale). "Early Bird Special Show," $10 6:30 p.m. "Stay Up Late & Call in Sick to the Day Job Show," $8 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: New prints of Chris Marker's dazzling Sans Soleil (France, 1982) and La Jetée (1962). Also, Jonathan Karsh's My Flesh and Blood (2003); Vladimir Michalek's Autumn Spring (Czech Republic, 2002); Tibet: Cry of the Snow Lion (Tom Peosay, 2003). See Ongoing for reviews. Call for times.
STARTS FRIDAY: A love triangle in 1930s Budapest lasts until wartime in Rolf Schübel's Gloomy Sunday (Germany, 2000); see Opening for review. War refugees in the United States are the Lost Boys of Sudan (Megan Mylan and Jon Shenk, 2003); see Ongoing for review. Call for times and other films.
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: You don't need a weatherman to know which way the wind blows in The Weather Underground (Sam Green and Bill Siegel, 2003) 2, 7:15, 9:15 p.m.
THURSDAY THROUGH MONDAY: Mr. Show's Bob Odenkirk's Melvin Goes to Dinner (2003). See Opening for review 7:15, 9:15 p.m.; also Sat & Sun 2, 4 p.m.
STARTS TUESDAY: Call for program.
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: Lost Boys of Sudan (Megan Mylan and Jon Shenk, 2003). See Ongoing for review 6, 8, 10 p.m.; also Wed 2, 4 p.m.
STARTS FRIDAY: Call theater for program.
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 works by Indian filmmaker Satyajit Ray with Hollywood classics.
WEDNESDAY THROUGH FRIDAY: A screenwriter has a breakdown in Satyajit Ray's The Coward (1965), and a family falls prey to a charlatan in The Holy Man (1966), screening together at 7:30 p.m. Ray's The Adversary (1970; 5:30, 10 p.m.) addresses a young man's temptations in the big city.
SATURDAY & SUNDAY: Ray changes pace with a musical comedy for kids, Goopy Gyne Bagha Byne (1968; 3:35, 7:30 p.m.), screening with young Deanna Durbin's Hollywood breakthrough 100 Men and a Girl (1971; 5:55, 9:55 p.m.).
MONDAY & TUESDAY: Theater 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.
WEDNESDAY (Dec. 3): The Goethe-Institut screens Robert Frye's Berlin Metamorphoses (2002), a documentary on the city's rebirth after World War II. Filmmaker in person 7:30 p.m.
THURSDAY (Dec. 4): Travis Wilkerson's An Injury to One (2003) looks back at the pivotal mining strikes of 90 years ago in Butte, Mont.; filmmaker in person with this movie, a new version of his earlier National Archive, and also a work-in-progress. $7 7:30 p.m.
