I guess film festivals and the holiday season don’t mix. For the second week in a row, no festivals.
A The Artist, Embarcadero, opens Friday. Michel Hazanavicius just made a silent movie about the death of silent movies. Even more amazing than that, he pulls it off, creating a warm, funny, heartfelt, and occasionally sad story of a Hollywood star’s fall 
from grace as talkies ruin his career. Meanwhile, a struggling actress who loves him becomes a star in the new medium of talkies. Hazanavicius fills the picture with funny bits that illuminate the characters; for instance, the star’s unhappy wife spends her time drawing bad teeth and devil horns on photos of her husband. A black-and-white, narrow-screen, silent film is a hard sell in today’s market, and I don’t know if The Artist will find its audience. Catch it before it disappears. Or at least read my full review.
B+ Seducing Charlie Barker, Opera Plaza, opens Friday; Rafael, Friday and Saturday, 7:00. Starting out as a relatively serious comedy,Seducing Charlie Barker manages the rare trick of 
turning almost completely serious as the protagonist’s problems deepen. Charlie Barker, an unemployed actor with talent but little business sense, is not a happy man. Not only has his career stalled, but he’s financially dependent on his wife, who hates her high-pay, high-pressure behind-the-scenes job on a TV talk show. Wild sex with a young, gorgeous, horny, yet stupid sociopath will not, in the end, improve things. The filmmakers will appear in person at the Rafael Saturday night. Read my full review.
A Die Hard, Roxie, Thursday, 7:30. The 1980s was a great decade for big, loud action movies. Bruce Willis plays a New York cop in LA for Christmas, hoping to win back his estranged wife and their kids. But then a group of Very Bad People take over the office building where she works (and where he’s visiting) and hold everyone hostage. Willis spends most of the movie playing cat-and-mouse with the bad guys, bonding with an LA cop over the phone, and mumbling about his rotten luck. Die Hard spawned three sequels and innumerable rip-offs, and while many of them were good, none matched the original. The Roxie will serve beer for this presentation, which they’ve titled “2 Drunk 2 Die Hard.” They describe the film as a “classic Christmas film about a man scaling buildings to bestow surprises upon the naughty and the nice.” Since there are no more 35mm prints of Die Hard, they will be showing it off of a Blu-ray disc. I suspect it will look excellent.
A Sunset Boulevard, Stanford, Wednesday through next Friday. Billy Wilder’s meditation on Hollywood’s seedy underbelly is the flip side of Singin’ in the Rain (now that would make a great double bill). Norma Desmond is very much Lena Lamont after twenty-two years of denial and depression. And in the role of Norma, Gloria Swanson gives one of the great over-the-top performances in Hollywood history. On a double-bill with Five Graves to Cairo, which I’ve yet to see.
A The African Queen, Stanford, Saturday and Sunday. Humphrey Bogart, Katharine Hepburn, Africa, and Technicolor all make for splendid entertainment in John
Huston’s romantic comedy action adventure. The start of World War I traps an earthy working-class mechanic (Bogart) and a prim and proper missionary (Hepburn) behind enemy lines and hundreds of miles of jungle. It’s a bum and a nun on the run. They face rapids, insects, alcohol (he’s for it; she’s against it), German guns, and an unusual (for Hollywood) romance between two moderately-attractive middle-aged people in filthy clothes. Paramount recently restored the film and issued this new print. Judging from the Blu-ray release (see my review), it should look fantastic. On a double bill with Desk Set, which I’ve never seen.
A Double Indemnity, Stanford, ends Friday. Rich but unhappy
(and evil) housewife Barbara Stanwyck leads insurance salesman Fred MacMurray by the nose from adultery to murder in Billy Wilder’s near-perfect thriller. Not that she has any trouble leading him (this is not the wholesome MacMurray we remember from My Three Sons). Edward G. Robinson is in fine form as the co-worker and close friend that MacMurray must deceive. A good, gritty thriller about sex (or the code-era equivalent) and betrayal, Double Indemnity can reasonably be called the first true film noir. On a double bill with The Bitter Tea of General Yen, which I’ve never seen but also stars Stanwyck.
C Sing-Along Sound of Music, Castro, ends Sunday. Many people love it, but I find the biggest money maker of the 1960s lumbering, slow, and dull. Not funny or 
romantic enough to be light entertainment, yet lacking the substance to be anything else. And most of the songs give the impression that, by their last collaboration, Roger and Hammerstein had run out of steam. On the other hand, the Todd-AO photography of Alpine landscapes makes this one of the most visually beautiful of Hollywood movies. I’ve never experienced a Sing-Along Sound of Music presentation, however. This might be something entirely different.
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