The Latino Film Festival closes Sunday. Then we’re festival-free for awhile.
Anita O’Day: The Life of a Jazz Singer, Elmwood, opens Friday. People don’t recognize the 
name Anita O’Day the way they do Billie Holiday or Ella Fitzgerald, but as a jazz vocalist she’s arguably in their class. She possessed a beautiful voice, a unique and expressive way of making familiar lyrics her own, and a phenomenal sense of rhythm and pacing. Filmmakers Robbie Cavolina and Ian McCrudden provide you with a great introduction, wisely concentrating on the music rather than her bad marriages and drug addictions. The movie left me wanting to buy some Anita O’Day recordings; I guess it did its job. Read my full review.
Strangers On a Train, Cerrito, Saturday, 6:00; Sunday, 5:00. One of Hitchcock’s scariest films, and therefore one of his best. A rich, spoiled psychotic killer (the worst kind) convinces himself that a moderately-famous athlete has agreed to exchange murders. The athlete soon finds himself hounded by suspicious cops who think he’s killed his wife and a psycho who thinks the athlete owes him a murder. Another Cerrito Classic.
Godfather Part I & Part II, Lark, continues through Tuesday. 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 seems most suited for. 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.
Bayflicks 