I really hope to have a life back, soon. Honest.
In the meantime, here’s this week’s recommendations and warnings–for the lucky ones out there with time to go to movies.
Venus, Balboa, opens Friday. Yet another film about an old person befriending a young
one, but it’s so much better than Mrs. Palfrey At the Claremont. Peter O’Toole stars as an aging actor (not much of a stretch) whose sexual desires have outlived both his ability to attract women and his talents at pleasing them. The object of his attentions is a young woman (newcomer Jodi Whittaker) who tries to discourage his flirtations while latching on to him as a friend and, perhaps as a father figure. The resulting relationship burns with conflict and occasional minor violence, but also concern and genuine love. Funny, sad, and real.
Children of Paradise, Castro, Sunday. What a place Paris must have been in the early 19th century! Or so Marcel Carné’s 1945 romantic epic paints it. The beautiful Garance (Arletty) wraps brilliant mimes, famous actors, dangerous criminals and the filthy rich around her finger, never seeming to realize the harm she does to every man she touches. A 3-hour, bittersweet romantic epic passionately in love with artifice, theater, and all things French, shot as the occupation was coming to an end. Part of the Janus Films series.
Beauty and the Beast, Castro, Thursday. 
Many years ago, I attended a double bill of the original King Kong and Jean Cocteau’s haunting retelling of the famous fairytale. The audience, mostly young children, ruined Kong by running, playing, and talking throughout the screening. I cringed, imagining how bad those little devils would behave when confronted with a slow-paced, atmospheric film with subtitles. But when Beauty and the Beast came on, they sat quiet, spellbound by a story they all knew but had never imagined it quite like this. On a rather strange double bill with The Seventh Seal in the Janus Films series.
Hands Up!, Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum, Saturday, 4:00. It’s been at least 25 years since I’ve seen this silent comedy, so I can’t trust my memory and give it a whole-hearted recommendation. But what I remember is very funny. The unflappable Raymond Griffith stars as a Confederate spy sent out west to sabotage a Union gold mine. Along the way he outsmarts a firing squad, falls in love with two sisters, and succeeds in everything except his mission. Part of the museum’s Mid-Winter Film Festival. With piano accompaniment by Phil Carli.
Brazil, Red Vic, Tuesday through Thursday. One of the best black comedies ever
filmed, and the best dystopian fantasy on celluloid. In a bizarre, repressive, anally bureaucratic, and thoroughly dysfunctional society, one government worker (Jonathan Pryce) tries to escape into his own romantically heroic imagination. But when he finds a real woman who looks like the girl of his dreams (Kim Greist), everything starts to fall apart. With Robert De Niro as a heroic plumber. This is the second of Gilliam’s three great fantasies of the 1980’s, and the only one clearly intended for adults.
An Inconvenient Truth, Balboa, Tuesday, 9:20; Wednesday, 4:10. If Al Gore had been this charming and funny in the 2000 election, the world would be a better place. Basically a concert film of a multimedia slideshow, An Inconvenient Truth explains the science and dangers of global warming in a manner so clear, concise, and entertaining that it can enthrall a ten-year-old (and I know because I saw it with one). I’m generally skeptical about political documentaries as a force for good, but if it’s possible for a movie to have a major, positive effect on the human race, this is the one. Part of the Balboa’s two day-long free screenings of Oscar-Nominated Documentaries.
This Is Spinal Tap, Parkway, Tuesday, 9:15. On a scale of one to ten, This is Spinal Tap rates an eleven. And if you didn’t get that joke, you haven’t seen the parody that put all “rockumentaries” in their place. A benefit for the Midnight Special Law Collective.
Singin’ in the Rain, Pacific Film Archive, Wednesday, 3:00. In 1952, the late twenties were a fond memory of an innocent time, and nostalgia was a large part of Singin’ in the 
Rain’s appeal. The nostalgia is gone now, and we can clearly see this movie for what it is: the greatest musical ever filmed, and perhaps the best work of pure escapist entertainment to ever come out of Hollywood. Take out the songs, and you have one of the best comedies of the 1950’s, and the funniest movie Hollywood ever made about itself. But take out the songs, and you take out the best part. Part of Marilyn Fabe’s Film 50: History of Cinema class.
The Queen, Lark, opens Friday. The Queen works best as a study of a totally bizarre one-family lifestyle. Helen Mirren is perfect, brittle yet human, as the monarch Bette Midler once called “the whitest woman in the world.” Concentrating on the week after Princess Di’s death, the film focuses on Elizabeth’s failure to react to or understand her subjects’ affection for her son’s estranged ex-wife. But there’s a coldness to The Queen, as if the film, like its central character, is keeping everyone at arm’s length.
Casino Royale, Cerrito, opens Friday. The best James Bond flick since From Russia
With Love, in large part because it doesn’t feel like a James Bond flick. (In fact, to a large degree, it feels like a James Bond book. And the book it feels like is, amazingly enough, Casino Royale.) Instead of gadgets, countless babes, wit, and incredible cool, you get a well-made and gritty thriller with several great action sequences (and a couple of babes). It just so happens that the protagonist, a newly-promoted, borderline psychotic government agent with a huge chip on his shoulder, is named Bond…James Bond.
Babel, Elmwood, opens Friday. A stupid act committed by a boy too young to understand the consequences sends shockwaves around the world, affecting the lives of an American tourist couple in Morocco, an immigrant nanny in the United States, her family in Mexico, an alienated deaf-mute teenager in Japan, and the boy’s own family. Writer Guillermo Arriaga and director Alejandro González Iñárritu weave a complex, four-strand tale of love, tragedy, parental responsibility, and the borders–political, economic, linguistic, and emotional–that separate us all. In the end, Babel (an appropriate title for a film told in Arabic, English, Spanish, Japanese, and Japanese sign language) hails the incredible human ability to heal. The cast, which ranges from major international stars (Brad Pitt, Cate Blanchett, Gael García Bernal, Kôji Yakusho) to complete novices, is uniformly excellent. Emotionally draining yet exhilarating, and filled with an intense love of humanity that never ignores our weaker selves, Babel is easily the best new movie I saw in 2006.
Little Children, Parkway, opens Friday. Good films don’t have to tell you what a 
character is thinking or feeling; you sense it from the dialog and the performances. But Todd Field and Tom Perrotta didn’t trust their characters or their actors (which is too bad because the cast couldn’t have been better) and filled Little Children with detailed and annoying narration. Every time the story and performances build dramatic tension, Will Lyman’s omnipotent voice destroys it by telling you what everyone is thinking and why they’re doing what they’re doing. Things improve after the halfway mark–there’s less narration, giving you a chance to truly appreciate the good performances–but there’s still the overabundance of subplots and some unbelievably idiotic character behavior.
Bayflicks 