Believe it or not, vintage cinema still exists in Bay Area theaters. This week we’ve got two of Preston Sturges’ best comedies, and if you haven’t seen them, you’re missing much of life’s treats. There’s also The Beatles, Kurosawa in noir mode, Hayao Miyazaki’s masterpiece, one of Pixar’s best, and the only X-rated film that won Best Picture Oscar.
Festivals & Series
- The San Francisco Jewish Film Festival continues
- The Pixar Family Film Series continues weekly through the summer
Special Events
Beatles Karaoke with Joshua Raoul Brody, 4-Star, Friday, 7:00pm, and then
A Hard Days Night (1964), 4-Star, 8:30
When United Artists agreed to finance a movie around a suddenly popular British rock group, they wanted something fast and cheap. After all, the band’s popularity was limited to England and Germany, and could likely die before the film got into theaters. We all know now that UA had nothing to worry about. The Beatles are still popular everywhere. What’s more, Richard Lester’s A Hard Day’s Night still burns with outrageous camerawork and editing, subversive humor, and a sense of joy in life and especially in rock and roll.
Theatrical revivals
A+ The Lady Eve (1941), BAMPFA, Saturday, 5:pm
Introduced by Stuart Klawans. Like most great screwballs, Preston Sturges’ The Lady Eve looks at class differences through laughter. It also examines the problems between a free-spirited woman and an uptight man (Barbara Stanwyck and Henry Fonda). Stanwyck plays the younger half of a father/daughter team of card sharks, who makes the mistake of falling in love with her current mark – a shy, scientifically minded, naïve aristocrat played wonderfully by Fonda. The result: crazy hijinks in glamorous settings. Read my appreciation. Part of the series Preston Sturges: More Than Comedy.
A+ The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek (1944), BAMPFA, Sunday, 7:00pm
Also introduced by Stuart Klawans. Has there ever been an ingénue with a more perfectly comical name than Trudy Kockenlocker? Or a code-era Hollywood movie that so deftly outwitted the censors of its time? There are funnier movies than The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek, but not many, and none this funny that flew in the face of traditional morality with such glee. With its deft mixture of physical and verbal comedy, and its daring break from the conventions of its day, The Miracle of Morgan’s Creek is a masterpiece. Read my full report. Part of the series Preston Sturges: More Than Comedy.
A Drunken Angel (1948), BAMPFA, Saturday, 7:30
The title refers to a gruff, short-tempered, and alcoholic doctor (Takashi Shimura) who runs a small slum clinic next to a filthy sump. He’s trying desperately to keep people alive, and one of those people is a tubercular gangster played by Toshiro Mifune in his first Akira Kurosawa-directed performance. Strutting, macho, and confused, Mifune’s gangster is torn between fighting his disease and maintaining A high-living lifestyle. Easily Kurosawa’s best pre-Rashomon work. Read my Kurosawa Diary entry. Part of the series Shitamachi: Tales of Downtown Tokyo.
A Spirited Away (2001), Lark
֍ Saturday, 10:00am, dubbed
֍ Sunday, 3:00pm, subtitled
֍ Monday, 4:00pm, subtitled
Hayao Miyazaki’s masterpiece is a beautiful, complex, and occasionally scary tale of a young girl cast into a strange and magical world. The intriguing and imaginative creatures, not to mention the moral dilemmas, are beyond anything that Dorothy ever had to deal with in Oz. A truly amazing work of animation.
A Inside Out (2015), Rafael
֍ Saturday, 1:00pm
֍ Monday, 7:00pm
Funny, technically dazzling, and suitable for adults, Pixar shows its magic touch in this family-friendly animated feature. When a young girl gets uprooted to San Francisco, her brain must deal with loss, fear, confusion, and hope. Inside Out is set almost entirely within her brain, where anthropomorphized emotions–Joy, Fear, Anger, Disgust and Sadness–become the film’s main characters. A lot of research into the human mind went into this film, making it very thoughtful while being more entertaining.
A- Holiday (1938), Stanford, 7:30pm & 9:15pm
This romantic comedy doesn’t seem quite crazy enough to be called a screwball. The laughs don’t pile up the way others do. But it has something else – a believable romance between intelligent people discussing their lives and their loves, and how they became the people they are. On the other hand, like a screwball, it stars Cary Grant and Katharine Hepburn, and plays around with class differences, so maybe it is a screwball. Grant plays a self-made man who discovers his fiancée comes from a very wealthy and aristocratic family. And Edward Everett Horton gets to play an intelligent man for a change. Read my Blu-ray review. On a double bill with Syvia Scarlett, which I barely remember.
A- La Dolce Vita (1960), Balboa, Wednesday, 7:30pm
Yes, this story of a gossip journalist living on the preying of the rich and decadent (Marcello Mastroianni) has many great moments. Consider the opening shot of Jesus flying through the air via helicopter, or the climactic out-of-control party. The famous fountain scene is absolutely stunning. The entire film makes brilliant use of the then-new Cinemascope frame. But the story doesn’t really go anywhere, and there are long, dull passages between the brilliance. I can’t quite call it a masterpiece.
B+ The Wicker Man (1973), 4-Star, Thursday, 5:30pm & 7:30pm
Hosted by Girls, Guts, & Giallo. This is a tough film to write about without spoiling everything. It’s also quite difficult to tell who you should be rooting for until you’re deep into the story. A policeman (Edward Woodward) flies from mainland Scotland to a small island to investigate a missing child. Strangely, no one seems upset about the disappearance. The people on the island are all Pagans, which is a problem because the policeman is a Christian fanatic who responds to their religion with narrow-minded hatred. Christopher Lee plays the local Lord, and Britt Ekland is there to look good without clothes.
B+ Midnight Cowboy (1969), Roxie
֍ Friday, 9:10pm
֍ Sunday, 3:30pm
֍ Tuesday, 8:45pm
New restoration! The only X-rated film to ever win a Best Picture Oscar (it was eventually re-rated R without changes), Midnight Cowboy also made Jon Voight a star and proved that Dustin Hoffman was more than The Graduate. Voight plays a naïve Texan who comes to New York thinking he’ll make a lot of money as a male prostitute. As I said, he’s naïve. Hoffman plays a grifter who becomes his only friend. A gritty study of two lost souls in the heartless city.
B+ The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), Balboa, 11:30pm
With the Bawdy Caste Live Shadow Cast! This is in no way, shape, or form a great movie. It’s cheaply shot. The songs, while catchy, are hardly great rock. The characters are broad clichés, and the plot is almost non-existent. But it’s a crazy, funny, absurd celebration of everything sexual, with Tim Curry carrying the movie as a cross-dressing mad scientist. Also starring a very young Susan Sarandon.
Movies I can’t review right now
- The Room, Balboa, 11:00pm
- Tristana, BAMPFA, Friday, 7:00pm
- Toy Story 2, BAMPFA, and free! Thursday, 7:00pm
- A View to A Kill, Vogue, Wednesday & Thursday, 7:30pm
Bayflicks 