What’s Screening: February 11 – 17

IndieFest continues through the week. And the Silent Film Festival Winter Event plays Sunday.

Silent Film Festival Winter Event, Castro, Saturday, all day. Regular readers shouldn’t be surprised that I consider this the big event of the week. The day begins at 1:00 with a trio of Chaplin Shorts from his Mutual period, accompanied by Donald Sosin on piano. That’s followed at 3:30 by the French epic L’Argent, with the Mont Alto Motion Picture Orchestra providing the music. Finally, King Vidor’s adaptation of La Bohème at 8:00, with Dennis James on the Mighty Wurlitzer.

B+ The Oscar-Nominated Live-ActionShort Films, Lumiere, Opera Plaza, Rafael, Shattuck, opens Friday for one week. In theory, these are the best five short, live-action, narrative film to play in American theaters in 2010, which brings up a question: Did any short subjects play in American theaters last year? However they qualify, they’re overall a worthy selection, with one remarkable gem, three good little pleasures, and only one near-turkey. Read my full review.

B The Oscar-Nominated Animated Short Films, Lumiere, Opera Plaza, Rafael, Shattuck, opens Friday for one week. This collection of seven short cartoons (the five nominees and two that should have been nominated) range from conventional to creative, hilarious to poetic, and masterful to mediocre. "The Lost Thing" and the not-nominated "Urs" are the best. If you’re thinking about bringing your kids, all of these shorts are child appropriate, and most of them are child-entertaining. Some may even be child-enlightening. Read my full review.

Special Screening: Heaven Can Wait (1943 version), Stanford, Saturday, 7:30. I’ve never seen this movie, and I have no opinion on it. But for this one screening (out of five over the weekend), the Stanford will show an original nitrate, dye-transfer, Technicolor print. I believe this is the first screening of a nitrate print in the Bay Area since before I’ve been writing this blog. On a double-bill with The Gang’s All Here.

A+ Double Bill: McCabe & Mrs. Miller & Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid, Castro, Thursday. That very high grade goes exclusively to McCabe, the best of the anti-Westerns of the late 60s and early 70s, and one of the most perfectly photographed films ever made. Few people realize, at least on first viewing, how much the plot of Robert Altman’s genre-bending mood poem resembles a traditional western: A lone stranger with a dangerous reputation rides into a remote frontier town, tries to settle down to a peaceful existence, but is soon menaced by a trio of hired killers. Yet there’s nothing conventional about this sad yet beautiful tale of prostitution, alienated community, unrequited love, and a west that seems not so much wild as stranded in the middle of nowhere. Pat Garrett & Billy the Kid, by contrast, would earn about a B- on its own. There’s little exceptional about this workable glorification of the famous killer. On the other hand, it clearly shows you why Bob Dylan never became a movie star.

B+ Fight Club, Castro, Wednesday. This is one strange and disturbing flick. Edward Norton wants to be Brad Pitt. Who wouldn’t? Pitt’s a free-spirited kind of guy and a real man. Besides, he’s shagging Helena Bonham Carter (who plays an American, and would therefore never use the verb shag). On the other hand, he just might be a fascist. Or maybe…better not give away the strangest plot twist this side of Psycho and Bambi, even if it strains credibility more than a Glenn Beck conspiracy theory. And Bonham Carter gets to say the most shocking and hilariously obscene line in Hollywood history. On a double bill with  As Insomnia – the second of three David Fincher/Christopher Nolan double bills the Castro is playing on consecutive Wednesdays.

B The Fifth Element, UA Berkeley, Thursday, 8:00. This big, fun, special effects-laden science  fantasy adventure refuses to take itself seriously. It never manages to be particularly exciting, but it succeeds in being rousing and funny – intentionally funny – eye candy. It’s also one of the few futuristic movies that’s neither utopian nor dystopian, making it, for all the silliness of the plot, relatively realistic.

A+ Annie Hall, Red Vic, Sunday through Tuesday. Almost every Hollywood film deals on some level with romantic love, but very few accurately capture the complex, dizzying ups and downs of that common experience. And no other captures it as well, or as hilariously, as Woody Allen’s one unassailable masterpiece. This is a romantic comedy like no other. Not only is it funnier than most, without resorting to silly contrivances to keep the plot going or paint-by-the-number characters. It captures, in flashback, the entire arc of a modern relationship, from cautious flirtation to giddy joy to the moment when they must accept the reality of their "dead shark."

A+ Casablanca, Oakland Paramount, Friday, 8:00. What can I say? You’ve either already seen it or know you should. Let me just add that no one who worked on Casablanca thought they were making a masterpiece; it was just another movie coming off the Warner assembly line. But somehow, just this once, everything came together perfectly. And that, astonishingly enough, is about it.

B Bedlam, Stanford, Thursday (and the following Friday). A good, fun little low-budget horror film from 1946, set in the legendary madhouse. With Boris Karloff, of course. On a double bill with The Body Snatcher.

A The Band Wagon, Cerrito, Saturday and Sunday, 11:00am. Singin’ in the Rain’s producer and writers teamed up with director Vincente Minnelli to make the one great Fred Astaire vehicle without Ginger Rogers. Their trick? They blended a small dose of reality into the otherwise frivolous mix. For instance, Astaire’s character, an aging movie star nervously returning to the Broadway stage he abandoned years before, is clearly based on Astaire himself. The result is a sly satire of Broadway’s intellectual aspirations, lightened up with exceptional songs and dances including “That’s Entertainment” and “I Love Louisa.” A Cerrito Classic.

C- Rope, Pacific Film Archive, Friday, 7:00. Not Hitchcock’s worst film, but easily his most frustrating. Hitchcock was working from a terrific screenplay (by Arthur Laurents, adapted by Hume Cronyn from a play by Patrick Hamilton), but he made two major errors. First, he cast James Stewart in a role that in 1948 was still outside his acting range (it wouldn’t be for long). Second, he made the movie in eight ten-minute shots that give the impression of a single 80-minute take (which wasn’t technically possible back then). That later decision robbed him of the ability to edit, and Hitchcock without editing is handicapped Hitchcock. Part of the series The Films of Claude Chabrol and Alfred Hitchcock.

B Worst in Show, Roxie, Wednesday, February 9, 9:15; Sunday, February 13, 2:30. There’s one thing you know going into a documentary about Petaluma’s Ugliest Dog Contest: You’re going to see an awful lot of adorably ugly dogs. (Believe it or not, even the one shown here looks lovable when cuddling with his owner.) What’s surprising is how involved the human contestants become, and why. There’s a real shot at fame and modest fortune by having your dog win this contest, which is covered by media from all over the world. And there are controversies. Should dogs qualify who are ugly because disaster or disease have disfigured them–opening up charges of exploitation–or just those who come by it naturally. But even here, the Chinese Crested are arguably bred for ugliness, giving them an unfair advantage. The festival web site lists Worst in Show as a 90-minute movie, but the review screener sent to me by the festival runs just under an hour. Part of IndieFest.

Nude Nuns with Big Guns, Roxie, Saturday, 11:30. No grade, no recommendation, and no warning. No opinion whatsoever. I just like the name so much I had to include it in the schedule. Another, probably weirder part of IndieFest.