Festivals are coming back. Berlin & Beyond runs Thursday through the 21st at the Bay Area’s favorite festival venue, the Castro. In addition to the Blue Angel screening I mentioned earlier and a Wim Wenders tribute, it includes 29 new (at least for America) features.
And although it’s not really a festival, the Rafael, starts its annual For Your Consideration series–also on Thursday. Here’s your chance to see some of the movies in the running for Best Foreign Language Film Oscar.
Key Largo, Castro, Sunday. In the 1930’s, movie stars like Edward G. Robinson got to kill punk character actors like Humphrey Bogart, but Bogey was the top star when John Huston made Key Largo in 1948. Set in a lonely Florida hotel during a hurricane, war veteran Bogart faces off against gangster Robinson. Most of the movie is talk, but when Richard Brooks and Huston himself adopt a Maxwell Anderson stage play, and Huston directs a solid and charismatic cast, who needs more than talk? On a double-bill with Dark Passage, which I haven’t seen.
Fellini’s Amarcord, Pacific Film Archive, Wednesday, 7:30. I’ve never seen Fellini’s highly-regarded story of life under fascism. Perhaps a new 35mm print at the PFA can tempt me.
Ballast, Red Vic, Wednesday and Thursday. Opens Friday. Vast, flat, cold, muddy landscapes make a 
perfect metaphor for the lonely human heart in Lance Hammer’s directorial debut. Set in a sparsely-populated piece of the Mississippi Delta, Ballast brings us into the lives of three troubled souls struggling with loss and a need for family. Hammer avoids professional actors, music, and artificial lighting, creating a reality that Hollywood could never match. Hollywood would have turned Ballast into an uplifting celebration of the human spirit (I can almost hear that line narrated in the trailer). That would have been a good movie, but Hammer made the story into a great one. Read my full review.
Underworld, Pacific Film Archive, Thursday, 7:30. I’ve never seen Josef von Sternberg’s silent gangster film, sometimes credited with jump-starting both the genre and Sternberg’s career. Not that von Sternberg deserves all the credit; Underworld was written by Ben Hecht, who would on to pen the original version of Scarface. Judith Rosenberg with accompany the film on piano. The opening presentation of the PFA series, Josef von Sternberg: Eros and Abstraction.
Monsieur Verdoux, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Saturday, 7:30; Sunday, 2:00. I feel like a cad attacking Charlie Chaplin’s second talkie and penultimate American film. It took courage in the Hollywood of 1947 to make a movie with a serial killer as the protagonist, and to use that murderer to attack greed, industrialization, and war. But let’s face it: The movie is slow, preachy beyond human tolerance (even if you agree with Chaplin’s sentiments), and almost totally devoid of humor.
Casablanca, Cerrito, Saturday, 6:00, Sunday, 5:00. Wh
at 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. A Cerrito Classic.
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