What’s Screening: June 12 – 18

Frameline, the LGBT festival, opens Thursday at the Castro.

Other than that, not much to report, if only because I’ve been just too busy. But a very special event is happening tonight in Fremont:

A Around the Bay, Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum, Friday, 8:00. Sparse and  utilitarian, Alejandro Adams’ low-key drama gets right to the point, then tells its dysfunctional family story without pyrotechnics. Single dad Wyatt (Steve Voldseth) is so remote and disconnected from his five-year-old son (Connor Maselli) that he leaves the child home alone–“and that’s in a house with an unfenced swimming pool. Looking for a way out of his responsibilities, he asks his estranged 21-year-old daughter (Katherine Celio) to move in as caregiver. Slowly, they work out some of their problems, but by no means all of them. Adams made Around the Bay for very little money, shooting it on standard-def video. The low budget shows, but thanks to an excellent script and cast, doesn’t hurt the film. As part of the Museum’s June series on Local Independent Production, I’ll be introducing Adams and leading the Q&A after the film. Read my original review.

A- Double Bill: Citizen Kane & Singin’ in the Rain, Stanford, Friday through Monday. Two great masterpieces, amongst the best ever, but I have to downgrade  this to an A- because they make a really strange double-bill. There are films more insightful about the human condition than Citizen Kane, pictures more dazzling in their technique, and movies more fun. But I’d be hard pressed to name many this insightful that are also this dazzling and fun. There’s nothing insightful about Singin’ in the Rain, the great Hollywood musical about the birth of Hollywood musicals, but I’d be hard pressed to find any movie more fun.

An Evening With John Korty, Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum, Sunday, 7:00. Writer, director, animator, and cinematographer John Korty will discuss independent production in the Bay Area. Part of the Museum’s June series on Local Independent Production.

B Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure, Elmwood, Saturday and Sunday, noon. Tim Burton’s first feature revels in its own silliness. Pee-Wee Herman, before children’s television and indecent exposure, is a strange, almost neurotically innocent creature. The movie is uneven, and most of the jokes are extremely dumb, but the oddball charm cannot be denied. Besides, the last sequence, reworking the plot as a Hollywood action film, is alone worth the price of admission.