The Lives of Others, 4Star, Cerrito, Parkway, opening Friday. Yes, Ive finally saw this one. Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck creates a very intimate, human story about the horrors of Communism and all forms of totalitarianism. 
An up-and-coming officer in the East German secret police (Ulrich Mühe) receives a plum assignment: Gather dirt on a respected playwright with impeccable party credentials (Sebastian Koch). The playwright’s sin? He’s seriously involved with a beautiful actress (Martina Gedeck) whom a top party official wants for himself. Slowly, bit by bit, the secret policeman comes to identify with his prey and lose faith in the Socialist ideal. The Lives of Others works on many levels. It’s an indictment of an oppressive government that called itself humane. It’s a study of an alienated human being waking up to the horror of his job (at times, it reminded me of The Conversation). It’s a portrait of a society that, thank goodness, no longer exists. And it’s an excellent and suspenseful thriller.
Bamako, Lumiere, Rafael, and Shattuck, opening Friday. Better in parts than as a whole, Bamako mixes interesting vignettes of life in modern Africa with a preachy approach to its subject matter that wears you down. The bizarre concept puts the World Bank on trial, complete with formal court hearings, in a residential courtyard in Bamako, Mali. Around the trial, life goes on, and that life is the best part of the film. But as an attack on global economic policy, it’s more of a treatise than a motion picture, explaining what the problem is rather than showing you or involving you emotionally.
GREAT DOUBLE BILL: Citizen Kane and Taxi Driver, Castro, Sunday. Aside 
from being great American masterpieces, what do these two films have in common? They’re both character studies of men you probably wouldn’t want to know in real life. Of course, Charles Foster Kane wouldn’t actually pull out a gun and start shooting pimps, but he could probably get several news cycles of above-the-fold headlines out of Travis Bickle’s unique form of social engagement. And both both characters want to clean up New York slums and get involved with election campaigns. Of course, Taxi Driver lacks a big song and dance number, and I’m not really sure where I would put one, but then Charlie Kane doesn’t take Susan Alexander on a date to a porn theater. But the movies have something else in common: They bookend the Hollywood career of composer Bernard Herrman, being his first and last film projects, so they’re an appropriate bill for the Castro’s week-long Herrman tribute. Click the grade icons or titles above for my microreviews.
FUN TRIPLE BILL: Jason and the Argonauts, 
The 7th Voyage of Sinbad, and Mysterious Island, Castro, Saturday. Ray Harryhausen enjoys a unique place in the pantheon of noted filmmakers. This special effects “technician” neither wrote, produced, nor directed his films, yet he was their auteur, creating them from his own imagination. They were seldom masterpieces (although Jason and the Argonauts qualifies as one), but they were always entertaining fantasies made special by Harryhausen’s hand-made, character-oriented special effects. He also had the good sense to hire composer Bernard Herrman for most of his films, and this triple bill is another part of the Castro’s Herrman tribute. Click the grade icons or titles above for my microreviews.
Top Hat, Cerrito, Saturday, 6:00, Sunday, 5:00. If escapism is a valid artistic goal,
Top Hat is a great work of 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. Another Cerrito Classics.
The Kid, Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum, Saturday, 7:30. Charlie Chaplin’s first feature lacks the confident story sense of The Gold Rush and City Lights, wallowing occasionally in an almost painful moralizing and sentimentality. but it also contains some of his funniest scenes. Even the sentimentality works as often as it annoys. Accompanied by Judy Rosenberg at the piano.
Vertigo, Castro, Friday. What? I’m not recommending Vertigo? Everyone else thinks it’s a masterpiece, but it tops my short list of the Most Overrated Films of All Time. Vertigo isn’t like any other Hitchcock movie; it’s slow, uninvolving, and self-consciously arty. Part of the Castro’s tribute to composer Bernard Herrman.
Bayflicks 