There’s nothing I can say about the Oscars that you haven’t read elsewhere, so I’ll just go directly to my weekly recommendations:
Recommended: Valley Girl, Castro, Friday, 7:00. Was there ever a less promising film to become a classic? Made on a miniscule budget, financed by people more concerned with tits than story, with a title ripped off from a recent hit novelty song, it was just one of many teenage sexploitation movies then glutting the early-’80s drive-ins. Yet writers Wayne Crawford and Andrew Lane and director Martha Coolidge made it the ultimate teenage romantic comedy. Valley Girl sports Nicolas Cage in his first major role and makes some of the best use of rock ‘n’ roll ever in a non-concert movie. The Castro is showing Valley Girl with The Legend of Billie Jean and Ladies and Gentlemen, the Fabulous Stains as part of what they’re calling a Punk Grrrl Triple Feature.
Recommended: Seven Chances, California Theatre, San Jose, Friday, 7:30. Director/Star Buster Keaton didn’t like this comedy about a young man in financial trouble who must marry that day or lose a fortune, but artists are rarely the best judges of their own work. Keaton turned this silly plot (forced on him by his producer) into one of the most efficient feature-length laugh machines ever filmed. Watch it with an audience, and you seldom get a chance not to laugh. The climatic chase, involving hundreds of brides and an avalanche, may be the funniest sequence ever. But be warned: By today’s standards, Seven Chances is quite racist and sexist. The Cinequest Festival will present Seven Chances and the short One Week (both silent films) accompanied by Chris Elliot on the Wurlitzer pipe organ.
Not Recommended: Sarah Silverman: Jesus is Magic, Red Vic, Friday and Saturday. Sarah Silverman’s scene in The Aristocrats is the best moment in that wonderful movie, but her combination concert/concept movie only occasionally hits a bullseye. At her best, her raunchy, intentionally shocking humor leaves you laughing so hard you can’t breathe. But she falls flat as often as she delights, and when shock humor isn’t funny, it’s just offensive.
Recommended, with Reservations: The Thin Man, Stanford, Friday through Sunday. Murder mystery, screwball comedy, wallow in classic MGM glamour, and 93-minute commercial for alcohol as the secret to a happy marriage. Also the start of a very long franchise. William Powell and Myrna Loy make great chemistry as Nick and Nora Charles, the rich, drunk-and-in-love couple with a little murder to clear up. The mystery and the comedy never quite jell, but it’s so fun to watch Powell and Loy together that you really don’t care. On a double-bill with Top Hat.
Recommended: Top Hat, Stanford, Friday through Sunday. If escapism is a valid artistic goal, Top Hat is one of the great masterpieces of 20th Century art. From the perfect clothes that everyone wears so well to the absurd mistaken-identity plot to the art deco set that makes Venice look like a very exclusive water park, everything about the ultimate Astaire-Rogers musical tells you not to take it seriously. But who needs realism when Fred Astaire dances his way into Ginger Rogers’ heart to four great (and one mediocre) Irving Berlin tunes? And when the music stops, it’s still a very good comedy. On a double-bill with The Thin Man.
Recommended: Go for Zucker!, Lark, opening Friday. Possibly the first Jewish film from Germany in 70 years that’s not about the Holocaust, and almost certainly the funniest. Pool hall hustler and one-time Communist sportscaster Jaeckie Zucker is so not Jewish that he refuses to call his granddaughter by her given name: Sarah. Overwhelmed by financial and family woes, he sees monetary salvation in his mother’s death. But to get his half of the inheritance, he must host his hated, orthodox relatives for a week. This movie has everything: religion, death, reconciliation, pool, first-cousin incest, an orthodox Jew on ecstasy, and plenty of good, strong laughs.
Recommended: Match Point, Parkway, opening Friday, and continuing at the Presidio. The opening and closing credits have that distinct Woody Allen look, and one plot twist may remind you of Crimes and Misdemeanors, but nothing else in this very British class-and-sex drama reveals its writer/director. And while it’s no Annie Hall, this tale of a social-climbing tennis pro who lusts too much for another gold digger is probably Allen’s best in 20 years.
Recommended, with Reservations: Plan 9 From Outer Space, Castro, Saturday and Sunday. I call them unintentional comedies–movies so bad they’re funny (as opposed to so bad they’re boring). Ed Wood’s strange science fiction fable, which includes Bela Lugosi’s last performance, isn’t the best of them (or the worst, or the best at being the worst), but it certainly earns its cult following. As part of an “Ed Wood Film Festival,” The Castro will screen a new, colorized print of Plan . That’s a real moral dilemma for me. I’m opposed to colorization because it mucks with a film’s artistic integrity, but can I use artistic integrity and Plan 9 from Outer Space in the same sentence?
Noteworthy: The Great Train Robbery & Tumbleweeds, Tiburon International Film Festival, Sunday, 1:00. The Tiburon International Film Festival is billing this presentation as “The Great Train Robbery,” but in terms of length, that one-reel 1903 western is just the short before the feature. Made at the dawn of narrative cinema, The Great Train Robbery’s success helped push film’s transition from a technical novelty into a story-telling medium. Filmed almost entirely in long shots, it still works as simple entertainment. The feature presentation is William S. Hart’s last film, Tumbleweeds, from 1925, which I haven’t seen. These silent films, unfortunately, will be presented with recorded, not live, accompaniment.
Not Recommended: Mardi Gras: Made in China, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Thursday, 7:00. David Redmon had a terrific idea for a 20-minute film: Compare the wild partying at New Orleans Mardi Gras–specifically, the tradition of women exposing their breasts in exchange for cheap, plastic beads–with the hard lives of the Chinese workers who make those beads. But Redmon fails to keep this idea compelling for a full 78 minutes. It doesn’t help that Hurricane Katrina changed our view of New Orleans. Part of the Human Rights Watch International Film Festival.
Noteworthy: Selections from “Les Vampires”, Alliance Française, Thursday, 7:00. In 1915, Louis Feuillade made a seven-hour serial about a gang of heartless crooks led by an evil and seductive woman (Musidora). Alliance Française will show selections from the series, with live musical accompaniment by The Ahl-I Nafs.
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