Noir City continues through the weekend. Both IndieFest and the Mostly British Film Festival open Friday.
A Strangers on a Train, Pacific Film Archive, Friday, 7:00. One of Hitchcock’s scariest
films, and therefore one of his best. A rich, spoiled psychotic killer (the worst kind) convinces himself that a moderately-famous athlete has agreed to exchange murders. The athlete soon finds himself hounded by suspicious cops who think he’s killed his wife and a psycho who thinks the athlete owes him a murder. Part of the series Suspicion: The Films of Claude Chabrol and Alfred Hitchcock.
A Airplane!, Castro, Monday, 7:00. They’re flying on instruments, blowing the autopilot, and might possibly like gladiator movies. So win one for the Zipper, but whatever you do, don’t call him "Shirley." Airplane! throws jokes like confetti–carelessly tossing out vast quantities of them so that some might hit their target. There’s no logical reason why a movie this silly can be so satisfying, but then logic never was part of the Airplane! formula. I’d be hard-pressed to name a feature-length comedy with such a high joke-to-minute ratio. A Sketchfest tribute to the film’s three writer/directors, Jim Abrahams, David Zucker, and Jerry Zucker. The three of them, plus star Robert Hays, are promised in person.
A- The Mark of Zorro (1940 version), Stanford, Saturday through Monday. Antonio Banderas wasn’t the first ridiculously handsome face to don a mask and save the 
peasants of Spanish California. Tyrone Power made the role his own in the second and best movie to actually follow Johnston McCulley’s original novel. Power, who was bisexual in real life, plays Don Diego as an effeminate fop, and his masked alter ego as dashing masculinity. The movie is witty, fun, politically progressive, and includes one of the best sword fights ever to kill off Basil Rathbone. Double-billed with the 1937 version of The Prisoner of Zenda.
B Nuremberg, Rafael, opens Friday. If you’re looking for a great, insightful, and emotionally effective documentary about the Third Reich or the Holocaust, this isn’t it. It tries to cover too much in 78 minutes, has a monotone feel, and is clearly bending over to avoid criticizing our wartime allies for their mistakes in trying to appease Hitler. But it has the attraction of something that was, in its time, fresh; you’re watching familiar sights, but you’re seeing them from the vantage point of something new. And you can’t watch this film without thinking about more recent war crimes that should also go on trial. Read my longer account.
Voyeurism and Early Cinema, SFMOMA, Tuesday, noon. This collection of early films concentrates on what cinema arguably was all about then, now, and forever: watching other people. Free.
B+ Sing-A-Long Wizard of Oz, Lark, Saturday & Sunday, 2:30. I’ve never experienced the Sing-A-Long version, and I 
don’t really have to tell you about the non-interactive version, 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.
Bayflicks 