What’s Screening: February 5 – 11

IndieFest runs through this week and the next at the Roxie.

B+ The Music Man, Pacific Film Archive, Saturday, 5:30. One of my childhood  favorites doesn’t quite look like a masterpiece anymore. But it’s still big, dazzling, funny, and filled with catchy tunes. Robert Preston carries the picture as Professor Harold Hill, the conman who pretends to be a music teacher, and deep down wants to be one. The cast is rounded out with Shirley Jones, Buddy Hackett, Paul Ford, and the Buffalo Bills (this may be the only major Hollywood movie with a featured barbershop quartet). Shot in Technirama–a process that used twice as much film for each frame than standard 35mm–The Music Man really should be experienced on a large, wide screen.

B+ The Fisher King & Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, Castro, Wednesday. The Fisher King–Terry Gilliam’s first film from someone else’s screenplay, and his first shot in his native USA—isn’t up to his best work. But it’s still very good. Jeff Bridges plays a guilt-ridden former shock jock who befriends a homeless lunatic (Robin Williams) in hope of redemption. As with all of Gilliam’s work, fantasy and reality converge. I do not fear Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, but I do loath it. This confused, ugly, and meaningless exercise would be forgivable if it also wasn’t boring and witless. The second of three Gilliam Wednesdays at the Castro.

A+ Citizen Kane, Pacific Film Archive, Wednesday, 3:00. How does a movie survive a half-century  reputation as the Greatest Film Ever Made? By being really, really good. True, there are films more insightful about the human condition, 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. Now I’ll tell you what Rosebud is: It’s a McGuffin.

A- A Serious Man, Castro, Thursday. Just when you think the Coen Brothers couldn’t get any stranger, they make this extremely depressing comedy about a middle-aged college professor watching his life fall apart. His career is in trouble, a student is trying to bribe him, he’s suffering a crisis of faith, and wife is leaving him (although for some reason he’s the one who has to move), and it’s all happening in the days before his stoner son’s Bar Mitzvah. Set in 1967 (when the counterculture really began to take off) and grounded in Jewish mysticism, this is a comic tale of utter desperation. On a double-bill with The Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans, which I have not seen and have no opinion on.

The Pre-Code Follies, Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum, Friday, 8:30. Live entertainment by Kitten on the Keys plus an assortment of cartoons, shorts, and clips from the early 1930’s, when Hollywood could get away with…well, not as much as today, but a lot more than they’d soon be allowed.

C- The Eagle, Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum, Saturday, 7:30. Rudolph Valentino in an extremely silly melodrama, with the saving grace of not taking itself seriously. Valentino is a fun star who holds the screen well, even for a straight male for whom he doesn’t excite sexual fantasies. But even a silly melodrama deserves a better resolution than the The Eagle provides. Bruce Loeb on piano.

A Playtime, Yerba Buena Center for the Arts, Thursday, 7:30. An American tourist, Monsieur Hulot, and assorted other specimens of humanity adrift and befuddled in a very modernParis. That’s all there is of plot in Jacques Tati’s large-scale comedy, and that’s all that’s needed. On one level, Tati is commenting on modern architecture. On another, he’s just making us laugh in his odd, almost meditative way. And even when you’re not laughing, you’re fascinated by the little details of Tati’s city-sized universe. Tati spent (and lost) a fortune on Playtime, building a giant set and shooting the movie in 65mm for 70mm release, and the result is ours to enjoy…immensely.