The Stanford is going to weekly engagements. That’s the big news this week. The just-announced Humphrey Bogart festival will open a different double bill every Friday and run it through Thursday.
3rd I, the Chinese American, and the Latino Film Festival continue this week.
Sounds of Wall-E, Rafael, Sunday, 3:00. Andrew Stanton and Pixar made a courageous movie. 
When Disney finances your big-budget family entertainment, it takes guts to look closely and critically at such consequences of our consumer culture as garbage, obesity, and planetary destruction. Making an almost dialog-free film also took a fair amount of backbone. It also took sound designer Ben Burtt, who contributed as much to WALL-E as Humphrey Bogart did to Casablanca. Along with screening of the film itself (read my full review), Burtt and some co-workers will discuss and demonstrate how they created the sounds.
Godfather Part I & Part II, Lark, opens Friday for a 12-day run. Francis Coppola, taking the job simply because he needed the money, turned Mario Puzo’s potboiler into the Great American Crime Epic. Marlon Brando may have top billing, but Al Pacino owns the film (and became a star) as Michael Corleone, the respectable son inevitably and reluctantly pulled into a life of crime he doesn’t want but fits him perfectly. A masterpiece. And yet the sequel (which is also a prequel) tops it. By juxtaposing the rise of Vito Corleone (Marlon Brando in the first film, a young Robert De Niro here) with the moral fall of his son Michael (Al Pacino again), Puzo and Coppola show us how the decision a seemingly good man makes to care for his family will eventually destroy the very people he loves. Both films have recently undergone a major restoration by the master of the craft, Robert A. Harris.
Techno Chaplin: Modern Times, Rafael, Thursday, 7:00. Leave it to Charlie Chaplin to call an 
extremely anachronistic movie Modern Times. Why anachronistic? Because it’s a mostly silent picture (with a recorded score) made years after everyone else had started talking. Why Modern Times? Because it’s about assembly lines, mechanization, and the depression. Chaplin’s tramp moves from job to job and jail to jail as he tries to better his condition and that of an underage fugitive (Paulette Goddard, his future wife and the best leading lady of his career). For this special screening, visual effects supervisor Craig Barron, silent film historian John Bengtson, and sound designer Ben Burtt will discuss the effects and tricks Chaplin used to make his last (mostly) silent picture.
Family Friendly, Xmas Thrillville, Cerrito, Saturday, 2:00. This “Holiday Thrill-O-Tronic Show” will feature “a Christmas-theme cavalcade of vintage yuletide shorts, cartoons, TV shows, and more surprises from the festive 16mm film collections of SciFi Bob Ekman and Paul Etcheverry.” But no Santa Claus Conquers the Martians.
Lola Montes, Elmwood, Rafael, Castro, opens Wednesday for one-week run. I’ve never seen Max Ophuls’ biopic of the notorious 19th-century performer with the string of famous lovers. But it’s worth noting that the Elmwood–not a theater that does a lot of revival stuff–is one of three Bay Area venues that will be showing the restored director’s cut (okay, it was returned nearly 40 years ago).
Vengeance Is Mine, Pacific Film Archive, Friday, 8:35. Director Shohei Imamura takes us into 
the mind of a psychopath as he tracks the life of and manhunt for one of Japan’s most notorious serial killers. The result isn’t pretty. Imamura and screenwriter Masaru Baba treat Iwao Enokizu (Ken Ogata) analytically, neither asking for nor receiving any sympathy for a man incapable of giving any. Yet the film itself is far from cold. For while Enokizu himself fascinates and repels us, Imamura makes us care deeply for the imperfect people whose lives Enokizu touches, ruins, and in some cases cuts short. A great film.
Sherlock Jr., Pacific Film Archive, Saturday, 3:00. There’s nothing new about special effects. Buster Keaton used them extensively, in part to comment on the nature of film itself, in this story of a projectionist who dreams he’s a great detective. The sequence where he enters the movie screen and finds the scenes changing around him would be impressive if it were made today; for 1924, when the effects had to be done in the camera, it’s mind-boggling. Since it’s Keaton, Sherlock Jr.is also filled with impressive stunts and very funny gags. This is an extremely short “feature,” running only about 45 minutes (depending on the projection speed). As one of the PFA’s Movie Matinees for All Ages, Sherlock Jr. will screen with two of Keaton’s best shorts, The Scarecrow and Cops, with Judith Rosenberg on Piano.
Some Like It Hot, Castro, Tuesday. Maybe this isn’t, as the American Film Institute called it, the greatest American film comedy
yet made. But Billy Wilder’s farce about desperate musicians, vicious gangsters, and straight (as in heterosexual) men in drag definitely belongs in the top 20. And its closing line has never been beat. As the final and main night of the Castro’s Tony Curtis Tribute, Curtis himself will be in attendance.
Casablanca, Stanford, all week. What can I say? You’ve either already seen it or know you should. Let me just add that no one who worked on Casablanca thought they were making a masterpiece; it was just another movie coming off the Warner assembly line. But somehow, just this once, everything came together perfectly. On a double bill with Beat the Devil, which I didn’t care for when I saw it long, long ago.
The Big Lebowski, Clay, Friday and Saturday, midnight. Critics originally panned this Coen Brothers gem as a disappointing follow-up to the Coen’s previous endeavor, Fargo. Well, it isn’t as good as Fargo, but it’s still one hell of a funny movie. It’s also built quite a cult following; The Big Lebowski has probably played more Bay Area one-night stands in the years I’ve been maintaining this site than than any three other movies put together.
Bayflicks 