What’s Screening: October 22 – 28

A lot of festivals this week:

• The Arab Film Festival continues through Sunday.
• Docfest continues through Thursday.
• Global Lens 2010 continues through the week.
• The Petaluma International Film Festival opens tonight and runs through the weekend.
• So does Taiwan Film Days
• Berlin & Beyond opens tonight and runs through the week and passed it to the following Saturday.
• United Nations Association Film Festival Also opens tonight, and runs through the end of the month.
• French Cinema Now opens Thursday and runs through November 3.

King Lear, Pacific Film Archive, Saturday, 8:30. I was so delighted to discover Grigori  Kozintsev’s adaptation of Shakespeare’s most depressing tragedy on the current PFA schedule, then so disappointed to discover that I couldn’t possibly attend. I saw this film at the UC Theater (of blessed memory) around 1976, then again at the PFA in the early ‘80s. Here’s what I remember: Widescreen black and white makes the perfect medium for capturing Lear’s desolate wilderness. The play’s beautiful poetry works extremely well when presented as subtitles (the spoken, Russian dialog was translated by Boris Pasternak). At the time, I thought it was the best Shakespeare adaptation I’d ever seen.

Creature Features Lives!, Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum, Sunday, 4:00. If you lived in the Bay Area before the advent of home video, you remember Creature Features—channel 2’s late Friday night thing. And if you’ve been reading this blog for at least two weeks, you’ve read that sentence before and know that this is the second Creature Features tribute this month. The museum will screen a 1973 Creature Features show—complete with commercials. Original host Bob Wilkins will be onscreen, and replacement host John Stanley, along with Tom Wyrsch (no, I don’t know who that is) will be there in person for Q&A.

The Bicycle Thief, Pacific Film Archive, Friday, 7:00, Saturday, 6:00. I haven’t seen Vittorio De Sica’s neo-realism masterpiece in at least 20 years, so I’m officially unqualified to recommend it. But I remember something stunning and moving, and probably relevant to our economically uncertain times. Part of the series Days of Glory: Revisiting Italian Neorealism.

B Mantrap, Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum, Saturday, 7:30. Here’s your chance to discover why Clara Bow was such a huge star in the 1920’s. Sexy, funny, and bubbling with energy, she plays a big-city manicurist who on a whim marries a man from the Canadian wilderness. Her new  husband is played by Ernest Torrence—definitely several notches below her on the physical attraction scale. Needless to say, she flirts with everything in pants. The name Mantrap refers to the very small town where most of the movie is set, but it might as well refer to Bow’s character, or Bow herself. Not a great work of silent comedy, but a fun date movie. With Bruce Loeb on piano.

A- Howl, Roxie, Saturday and Sunday, 3:00. What did you expect–a conventional biopic? Would that do justice to the Allen Ginsberg epic poem with which the film shares its title? Like the poem, Howl is challenging, cutting-edge, and unconventional. By weaving together an extended interview with Ginsberg (James Franco), scenes from publisher Lawrence Ferlinghetti’s obscenity trial, and an illustrated reading of the titular poem, Howl gives an overview of Ginsberg’s early life, celebrates the work itself, and cherishes the freedom that made the poem possible. I’ve never read Ginsberg’s poem; this film makes me want to read it. And you might want to read my full review.

B+ Safety Last, Pacific Film Archive, Thursday, 7:00. Harold Lloyd’s iconic image, hanging from a large clock high over a city street, comes from this boy-makes-good-by-risking-his- neck fairytale. Lloyd made better pictures, but even mediocre Lloyd is damn funny. And when he starts climbing that building, the laughs–and thrills–don’t stop. With the Lloyd short “Never Weaken,” which laid the groundwork for Safety Last. Introduced by Merrill Schleier, author of Skyscraper Cinema: Architecture and Gender in American Film, and accompanied on piano by Judith Rosenberg.

B+ Winter’s Bone, Red Vic, Friday and Saturday. This may be the slowest mystery/thriller ever made, and that doesn’t hurt it a bit. With  her father gone and her mother hopeless, teenager Ree (Jennifer Lawrence) has become the responsible caregiver for her younger siblings in their ramshackle home in the Ozark back woods. But things get worse when the sheriff visits. Her father has jumped bail, and unless he’s found in seven days, they lose the property. You’ll never easily dismiss these people as  “hillbillies” again.