What’s Screening: July 14 – 20

~ Lincoln Spector

Two of my favorite festivals will be playing this week. Outside of the fests (and in them), several worthwhile comedies are playing in Bay Area movie theaters.

Festivals & Series

Festival Recommendations

Want to know more about the San Francisco Silent Film Festival, which is already running? Check out this article for more information. I’m personally looking forward to Three Ages, The Cat and the Canary, Stan & Ollie, Stan & Ollie, A Midsummer Night’s Dream.

If you want to know about what to see at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, read Part 2.

Another chance to see (theatrically)

B+ Frances Ha (2013), New Mission
֍ Saturday, 11:00am
֍ Monday, 7:40pm

Screenwriter Greta Gerwig and director Noah Baumbach created this comedy about that period of life when you realize that you’re actually an adult. The title character, played by Gerwig, has been out of college for a few years, but she’s living on unrealistic dreams. Unlike her best friend, she doesn’t seem ready to make that difficult transition into maturity. There’s no real plot; just an assortment of incidents–jobs, places to live, men to sleep with–as she moves slowly and reluctantly into true adulthood. The result is quirky, touching, and funny.

Theatrical revivals

A+ Ikiru (1952), BAMPFA, Sunday, 4:00pm

One of Akira Kurosawa’s best, and one of the greatest serious dramas ever put on the screen. Takashi Shimura gives the performance of his lifetime as an aging government bureaucrat dying of cancer. Emotionally cut off from his family–including the son and daughter-in-law with whom he lives–he struggles to find some meaning in his life before he dies. A deep and profound meditation on mortality and what it means to be human, Ikiru manages to be deeply spiritual without ever mentioning God or religion. Read my Blu-ray Review.

A+ Brazil, 4-Star
֍ Wednesday, 7:30pm
֍ Thursday, 5:00pm

One of the best black comedies ever filmed, and the best dystopian fantasy ever. In a bizarre, repressive, anally bureaucratic, and thoroughly dysfunctional society, one government worker (Jonathan Pryce) escapes into his own romantically heroic imagination. But when he finds a real woman who looks like the girl of his dreams (Kim Greist), everything starts to fall apart. With a very funny Robert De Niro as a heroic plumber. Read my Blu-ray review.

B+ The Awful Truth (1937), Stanford, Saturday & Sunday, 5:45pm & 9:20pm

One of the few comedies to win Best Picture – along with five other Oscars. Like most of the screwballs of the 30’s and 40’s, it’s about very wealthy people falling in and out of love. Irene Dunne and Cary Grant play a married couple who get a divorce. But somehow, they keep running into each other. The ending is obvious, but that’s because of the Production Code. It’s surprisingly slow for a screwball, but that allows us to get to know the characters a bit more. On a double bill with Topper, which I’ve never seen.

B+ The Music Man (1962), Vogue, Wednesday & Thursday, 7:30pm

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 featuring a 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.

C+ Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989), Balboa, Monday, 7:30pm

Japan’s Studio Ghibli doesn’t always make great movies. This one, set in a very quaint and fantasized Europe, isn’t all that much. A young witch moves to the big city, makes friends, and loses her powers. But then, her only powers are flying with a broom and having two-way conversations with her cat. Of course, a big disaster gives our protagonist a chance to become a heroine. Not much.

C+ Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), Balboa, Monday & Wednesday, 7:30pm

NOT in 3D! but in 35mm! Set in a previously-unexplored tributary of the Amazon that looks suspiciously like the Universal back lot, Creature follows a small group of scientists, a colorful local fisherman, and the obligatory beautiful woman, as they search for fossils and find something stranger–a sort of man-fish hybrid that doesn’t appear to be particularly well-adapted for anything. Perhaps that explains why he’s all alone; his species is well on the way to extinction.

Continuing engagements

Movies I can’t review

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Published by Lincoln Spector

Lincoln Spector writes about cinema, technology, and cinema technology. From 1986 through 2008, he wrote Gigglebytes, the first technology-oriented humor column. From 1977 through 2016, he wrote PC World's Answer Line column and blog.