What’s Screening: August 25 – 31

~ Lincoln Spector

I’m back! For the last three weeks, I haven’t watched a single movie. So, let’s get going.

Vintage cinema

A+ The Last Waltz (1978), Roxie, Thursday, 6:40pm

The Band played their final concert on Thanksgiving night, 1976. Their guest performers included Bob Dylan, Eric Clapton, Muddy Waters, and Joni Mitchell. Martin Scorsese brought a crew of talented filmmakers to record the show and created the greatest rock documentary ever made. Scorsese and company ignored the audience and focused on the musicians, creating an intimate look at talented artists who understood that this was a once-in-a-lifetime event. Read my A+ appreciation.

A+ Rear Window (1954) & C- Vertigo (1958) in a Hitchcock/Steward Double Bill at the Stanford

Rear Window: Alfred Hitchcock at his absolute best! James Stewart is riveting as a news photographer temporarily confined to his apartment and a wheelchair, amusing himself by spying on his neighbors. But then he discovers that one of his neighbors may have committed murder. Hitchcock examines voyeurism, urban alienation, and the institution of marriage, as well as treating his audience to great entertainment. Read my A+ Appreciation.
Vertigo: For many cinephiles, this is the greatest movie ever made. Not me. Neither the story nor most of the characters make any sense, and I don’t believe anyone’s motivations. Yes, the film is very atmospheric, yet that’s just not enough. I don’t need to stare at a screen to experience San Francisco’s fog.

A Waltz with Bashir (2008), BAMPFA, Wednesday, 7:00pm

Animated documentary sounds like an oxymoron, but I’m not sure what else to call this excellent film. The bulk of the film consists of actual interviews that writer/director Ari Folman had with other veterans of Israel’s 1982 Lebanon war. Folman tries to reconstruct his own traumatic memories of the front line through interviews, and the flashbacks that illustrate them are animated in a sparse yet aggressively 3D style. The result carries a documentary’s authenticity, but with a visual power that can only come out of the imagination. Extraordinary. Part of the series The Art of Animation: Storytelling in the Digital Age.

A The African Queen (1951), Lark
֍ Sunday, 10:00am
֍ Sunday, 5:30pm
֍ Monday, 6:30pm

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) with 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, facing 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. See my Blu-ray review.

A Persepolis (2007), BAMPFA, Thursday, 7:00

Free and outdoors! Can a 95-minute, low-budget, animated film be an epic?I think this one qualifies. It may also qualify as a masterpiece. Iranian/French cartoonist Marjane Satrapi based Persepolis on her own autobiographical graphic novels (Vincent Paronnaud shares screenwriting and directing credits). Through the eyes of the young Marjane, we see Iran go through oppression, revolution, hope, worse oppression, war, and even worse oppression. Read my full review.

A- Sullivan’s Travels: (1941), BAMPFA, Saturday, 7:30

Here’s satire of Hollywood itself. Joel McCrea stars as a successful director tired of making light-hearted comedies like Ants in Your Pants of 1939. To prepare himself for making a serious drama about the depression, he disguises himself as a hobo and rides the rails. The movie turns surprisingly dark in the last act, and ends with a stirring speech proclaiming Sturges’ message: “Movies shouldn’t have messages.” Part of the series Preston Sturges: More Than Comedy.

A Shadow of a Doubt (1943) & A Strangers on a Train (1951) Hitchcock Double Bill at the Stanford

Shadow of a Doubt: A small-town girl begins to suspect that her beloved Uncle Charlie is a notorious serial killer. Then he begins to suspect that she suspects. Joseph Cotton plays the villain to perfection. Most of the time he’s warm, friendly, and relaxed, but he can quickly turn dark or say something frightening. The locations were shot in Santa Rosa.
Strangers on a Train: One of Hitchcock’s scariest films, and therefore one of his best. A rich, spoiled psychopath convinces himself that a moderately-famous athlete has agreed to exchange murders.

B Pee-Wee’s Big Adventure (1985), Roxie

֍ Friday, 9:30pm
֍ Monday, 9:05pm
Tim Burton’s first feature revels in its own silliness. Pee-Wee Herman, before children’s television and indecent exposure, is a strange, neurotically innocent creature. The movie is uneven, and most of the jokes are extremely dumb, but the oddball charm cannot be denied. Besides, the last sequence, reworking the plot as a Hollywood action flick, is alone worth the price of admission.

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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.