Stagecoach, Stanford, Wednesday, 7:30. Nine very different people must cross dangerous territory in the ti
tular vehicle–a journey that forces them to confront their prejudices as well as angry Apaches. A young, impossibly handsome John Wayne made the leap from B pictures to A-list star with his performance of an escaped convict, but it’s Thomas Mitchell’s alcoholic doctor who really carries the picture. If you’re one of those people who doesn’t have to see westerns because you already know they’re not worth seeing, Stagecoach will open your mind. On a triple bill with Randy Rides Alone and New Frontier, two of Wayne’s (probably laughable) B pictures. Important Note: According to the Stanford web site, the theater is screening two Wayne war films that night, but a press announcement told me otherwise.
Double Bill: King Kong & Tarzan the Ape Man, Stanford, Saturday through Monday. Big, silly, and at times stilted, the original King Kong is still 
one amazing movie. And not just because of Willis H. O’Brien’s special effects, technically cutting edge in 1933 and still effective today. Screenwriter Ruth Rose fashioned the lead human characters around herself and the film’s two directors (one of whom was her husband), giving the fantasy an autobiographical edge. The first Johnny Weissmuller Tarzan movie doesn’t hold up anywhere near as well, but it’s fun.
Paths to Paradise, Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum, Saturday, 7:30. I’ve never seen Paths to Paradise. In fact, the only feature I’ve ever seen with the now mostly-forgotten silent comedian Raymond Griffith was the hilarious Hands Up. But that experience, plus what I’ve read about Paths to Paradise in Walter Kerr’s book The Silent Clowns, leaves me wanting to catch this one.
Waltz with Bashir, Red Vic, Wednesday and Thursday. Animated documentary sounds like an oxymoron, but I’m not sure what else to call Waltz
With Bashir. The bulk of the film consists of actual interviews that writer/director Ari Folman had with other veterans of Israel’s 1982 Lebanon war, as he tries to reconstruct his own traumatic memories of the front line. But the interviews, and the flashbacks that illustrate them, are animated in a sparse yet aggressively 3D style. The result carries a documentary’s authenticity, but with a visual power that can only come out of the imagination. Extraordinary.
Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner, Cerrito, Saturday, 6:00; Sunday, 5:00. Stanley Kramer’s morality play about mixed marriage and tolerance is as dated as a 40-year-old movie can get. And not only the theme seems stale in an age where we have a mixed-race president. The picture’s dialog, sexual prudery, and visual style (including an overdependence on rear projection, made necessary by Spencer Tracy’s ill health) must have seemed old-fashioned in 1967. But while Guess Who’s Coming to Dinner no longer works as entertainment or moral lesson, it now holds considerable interest as a relic–a preserved piece of Hollywood, and America, in transition. And who knows; without this movie, we might have had a different president. A Cerrito Classic.
The Wizard of Oz, Roxie, Saturday, 2:15. 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. Special presentation: Evan I. Schwartz, the author of the book Finding Oz, will be on hand to introduce the movie.
Memento, Pacific Film Archive, Monday, 3:00. Only this exceptional thriller by Christopher Nolan. And how many tell the story backwards, putting you into the mind of someone who can’t remember what just happened? Okay, but how many give that man a mental disability that guarantees failure and makes him extremely dangerous both to himself and to innocent bystanders? Too many to name. How many thrillers center on a hero bent on identifying, and then killing, the man who murdered his wife? (If you didn’t understand the above, try reading it after watching Memento.) Part of the class and series, Thinking About Not Thinking: Buddhism, Meditation, and Film. Lecture by Robert Sharf.
Gabriel over the White House, Pacific Film Archive,Wednesday, 7:00. I’m not sure what to make of this very strange movie about a president who goes from crook to saint after a near-fatal car crash. On one level, it might be saying “Here’s what we need to do to fix the country and the world.” On the other, it seems to be warning against fascism. Part of the series From Riches to Rags: Hollywood and the New Deal.
The Wrestler, Red Vic, Monday and Tuesday. Yes, Mickey Rourke and Marisa Tomei both give outstanding performances; in Rourke’s case, it was as 
physically risky as it was emotionally so. And yes, the movie took me into a subculture I had never seen before. What’s more, it had what was probably the most difficult-to-watch sequenc
e in my lifetime of movie-going. But there seemed to be something hollow inside the story, as if writer Robert D. Siegel and director Darren Aronofsky weren’t willing to plunge in as deeply as Rourke. And the ending was horribly clichéd.
Reefer Madness, Pacific Film Archive, Thursday, 7:30. The old anti-marijuana exploitation flick, with “a totally dope soundtrack by Cal student DJs.”
Slumdog Millionaire, Elmwood, opens Friday, and Red Vic, Friday and Saturday. Am I the only person in the universe who didn’t love this mess? Sure, there are some good scenes and funny moments, but the whole story is so ridiculously contrived I couldn’t suspend disbelief. Not only did this poor kid learn the exact pieces of trivia he would need through his mean street experiences, but he learned them in the order he would later be asked them. I can swallow a lot, but not that.
Bayflicks 
