Things aren’t as silent-movie heavy as last week, but the Chaplin festival continues at the Castro and the Pacific Film Archive, and that dominates this week’s recommendations (and warnings).
A Dog’s Life, The Idle Class, and Shoulder Arms, Pacific Film Archive, Saturday, 2:30. Charlie Chaplin made far more shorts than features (hundreds as opposed to ten), and these three represent his peak in that form. Whether the little tramp is fending off crooks with the help of his faithful dog, mistaken for an alcoholic millionaire who happens to look just like him, or sneaking behind enemy lines disguised as a tree, he’s consistently hilarious and often very funny. These silent films will be presented with Chaplin’s own score recorded onto the soundtrack. Part of the PFA’s Charles Chaplin series.
The Great Dictator, Pacific Film Archive, Sunday, 2:00. Charlie Chaplin made his one great talkie on his first attempt. He plays a dual role in The Great Dictator–a Jewish barber who’s clearly the tramp with a voice (but not an actual name), and Adenoid Hynkel, just as clearly modeled after Adolph Hitler. Slapstick and dark satire seldom work so well together. Many people criticize the final scene, where Chaplin faces the camera and pleas for peace, tolerance, and democracy, but I’ve seen audiences burst into applause as it concludes.
Double Feature: The Great Dictator and A Dog’s Life, The Idle Class, and Shoulder Arms, Castro, Wednesday. See the descriptions above and put them together for the worth of this double feature. A part of the Castro’s PFA at the Castro”“Charles Chaplin series.
Through a Glass Darkly, Pacific Film Archive, Thursday, 7:00. While on vacation on a remote island, a woman thought cured of her mental illness slides back into madness, and her family doesn’t know what to do about it. There are other family problems of course”“difficulties with her husband and brother, for instance”“but these are soon overshadowed by the pointless tragedy of insanity. Like so much of Bergman’s best work, Through a Glass Darkly illuminates a crisis of faith. On a double-bill with The Virgin Spring, which I’ve seen too long ago to review, but remember liking very much. But here’s some Virgin Spring trivia: Although he didn’t credit Bergman, Wes Craven clearly based Last House on the Left on Bergman’s story”“same plot, but a very different approach. Part of the Archive’s Ingmar Bergman series.
Peter Pan (2003), Elmwood, Saturday & Sunday, early matinees. This sounds like 
sacrilege, but the newest version of J.M. Barrie’s play and novel beats the old ones, including the silent and Disney versions. The special effects help of course, but the real improvements come from the dark edge that’s in the originals but had never before made it to the screen. It also helped to have a real boy (Jeremy Sumpter) play Peter. Too bad this version didn’t find a wider audience.
Double Feature: The Apartment and Irma la Douce, Castro, Saturday (matinees, only) and Sunday. Billy Wilder, Jack Lemmon, and Shirley MacLaine team up for two comedies that were very racy in the early 1960’s. The Apartment still works today, not with shock value but with a clear-eyed view of sexual hypocrisy and the class system in our supposedly classless society. Lemmon plays a clerk who lets the more powerful (but married) men in his company use his apartment for their extra-marital enjoyment. The Paris-set Irma la Douce hasn’t aged as well. Neither it’s reformer-and-prostitute situation or the gags built around it deliver much heft.
Hairspray (2007), B
ridge, Thursday, 7:00. In the early 1960’s, Americans died horrible, violent deaths over issues of racial equality. And now it’s a musical! Well, why not? The Hollywood version of the Broadway musical based upon John Water’s original independent film celebrates the spirit of the civil rights movement by turning it into one big, happy dance contest on local daytime TV. The result is charming, upbeat, and very funny, with pleasant musical numbers, joyous dancing, political themes that would have been radically dangerous 45 years ago, and John Travolta in a fat suit and a dress. What’s not to like? On a double bill with Grease as a Big Gay Movie Night presented by Energy 92.7fm. A benefit for Project Open Hand.
The Circus, Pacific Film Archive, Saturday, 4:50. Made in between Chaplin’s two feature masterpieces (The Gold Rush and City Lights), The Circus can’t help but suffer by comparison. But it’s funny and touching enough to be liked”“if not loved”“on its own merits. This time around, the Little Tramp finds himself hired as a stagehand by a small circus, and accidentally becoming a comic star without knowing it. He also falls in love with the circus owner’s beautiful daughter, who sees him only as a good friend. The story feels like a denial of Chaplin’s personal life at the time; he was a womanizer with a young wife he wanted to shed, and an artist who knew very well that great comedy doesn’t just happen. In the case of The Circus, he merely made good comedy. Part of the PFA’s Charles Chaplin series, The Circus will be shown with Chaplin’s recorded own score (including a dreadful song he sings himself) rather than live accompaniment. For more details, read about The Altered Charlie Chaplin Problem.
How to Cook Your Life, Red Vic, Sunday and Monday. Cooking and Buddhism make a tasty combination in Doris Dörrie’s documentary. And in the world view 
of its subject, Edward Espe Brown”“Zen master, gourmet chef, and author of The Tassajara Bread Book. The camera does little more than follow Brown as he gives cooking classes, discusses the importance of thinking about what you eat, and drops pearls of wisdom like “If you have a little bit of shit on your nose, everything smells bad.” At 100 minutes, How to Cook Your Life runs a bit long. Near the end, I found myself checking my watch in a far-from-Zen mindset. But when I left the theater, I wanted to renounce junk food and spend the rest of my life eating only wholesome foods made from scratch.
The Wizard of Oz, Cerrito, Saturday, 6:00, Sunday, 5:00. 
I don’t really have to tell you about this one, do I? Well, perhaps I have to explain why I’m only giving it a B. Despite its clever songs, lush Technicolor photography, and one great performance (Bert Lahr’s Cowardly Lion), The Wizard of Oz never struck me as the masterpiece that everyone else sees. It’s a good, fun movie, but not quite fun enough to earn an A. Another Cerrito Classic.
Limelight, Castro, Saturday, 8:30. Chaplin’s last American movie is definitely a talkie. As a past-his-prime music hall comedian in early 20th century London, Chaplin pontificates on life, determination, and love as he nurses a crippled ballet dancer (Claire Bloom) back to health. Basically a dull melodrama, Limelight comes to life whenever Chaplin’s onstage, where his character proves very funny, indeed. There’s not much of this in the film’s 142-minute running time, but Limelight climaxes with the only known filmed sequence of Chaplin and Buster Keaton being funny together. That’s every bit as good as it sounds (or perhaps, I should say, as it looks). A part of the Castro’s PFA at the Castro”“Charles Chaplin series.
Valley of the Heart’s Delight, Roxie, opens Friday. I hate saying anything bad
about a locally-made independent film struggling to get national distribution. Based very loosely on historical events, Valley of the Heart’s Delight details the circumstances leading to the lynching of two kidnapping/murder suspects in San Jose in 1933. The lynching occurred with the active or passive endorsement of just about everyone who should have stopped it, from the local sheriff to the Governor of California. Writer/Producer John Miles Murphy believes the suspects were innocent, and has turned his theories into a work of fiction with completely original characters. Cinematographer Hiro Narita, Production Designer Douglas Freeman, and Costume Designer Cathleen Edwards all do a remarkable job creating 1933 San Jose out of modern day Bay Area locations and very little money. Unfortunately, Murphy and director Tim Boxell fail to fill that world with real people. Click here for my full review.
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