What’s Screening: September 15 – 21

It’s a good week for vintage cinema in the Bay Area. The Scorsese series at the 4-Star is still going. The New Mission is screening five different films…two of which will have live music. Rock opera plays, as well. Speaking of not talking, the Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum has a selection of sound cartoons the day after they’re playing comedy shorts.

Festivals & Series

• The San Francisco Latino Film Festival
• Scorsese series runs until September 24

New films opening theatrically

A 26.2 To Life (2023), Roxie, opens Friday

Here’s a surprisingly upbeat documentary about life in San Quentin State Prison. The film follows three inmates with life sentences. What is their daily inspiration to keep going? According to director Christine Yoo, it’s the 1000-mile club, a group of runners coached by volunteers who prepare them for the San Quentin Marathon by clocking 1000 miles in a year’s training. The workouts give the inmates a sense of purpose and direction. I’ve yet to see the inside of a prison with my own eyes, but this was the closest I’ve seen.

A I Went To the Dance (1989), opens Friday, Lark, Sebastopol, the Roxie. {note}, the Roxie will only play once.

Les Blank made many documentaries about food and music. This one, which is about Cajun music, is one of his best. Many musicians play their music and talk about making wonderful noise. You can think of the picture as a large lecture on the history of Cajun music. But it can also get you up dancing. Most of the musicians in this fantastic film are little known. Here are some of their names: Dewey Balfa, Charles Barry, and Beausoleil. After the screening, there will be Q&A with Maureen Gosling and Harrod Blank, and after that live music by Eric & Suzy Thompson. I attended the first of these events, and loved it. 

Promising events

Silent & Sound
Shorts, Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum

Saturday & Sunday
Saturday, 7:30pm:
Four comic shorts. Easy Street is a very funny Charlie Chaplin short. The Bellboy stars “Fatty” Arbuckle, with Buster Keaton as his sidekick. Laurel and Hardy’s Double Whoopee is also very funny. I haven’t seen Lupino Lane’s Movieland. Frederick Hodges provides the piano accompaniment.
Fleischer Cartoons, Sunday, 3:00: A selection of short cartoons, mostly talkies. Among the shows are Swing You Sinners, The Old Man of the Mountain, and Snow White.

Theatrical revivals

A Lolita (1962), New Mission
֍ Friday, 11:35am
֍ Sunday, 11:00am

I’m not sure if Kubrick’s take on Nabokov is a very funny tragedy or a very sad comedy, but it’s certainly about reprehensible people. James Mason carries the tragic vibe as the intellectual obsessed with a teenage girl who cares only for himself.  Peter Sellers is very funny as his rival for the underage prize. Shelley Winters plays Lolita’s horny mother. And yet, with all that talent, the very young Sue Lyon holds the film together as the title character. Kubrick and his collaborators found ingenious ways to get around the censorship of the day.

A Nosferatu (1922), New Mission, Tuesday, 9:90pm

Silent film with live score by Invincible Czars! Forget about sexy vampires; the first film version of Dracula doesn’t have one. This unauthorized rip-off got the filmmakers in legal trouble. Max Schreck played Count “Orlok” as a reptilian predator in vaguely human form. This 1922 silent isn’t the scariest monster movie ever made, but it just might be the creepiest. Not to be confused with Werner Herzog’s 1979 remake. Read my Blu-ray review.

A The Dark Knight, (2008), New Mission
֍ Saturday, 9:30pm
֍ Tuesday, 12:10pm

In what is by far the best Batman movie I’ve ever seen, no one – including Bruce Wayne/Batman himself (Christian Bale) – gets away without moral compromises. But what can you expect when fighting the Joker (Heath Ledger), who believes that everyone can be turned to evil, and knows how to prove the point. The action scenes use very little CGI, making the mayhem all the more frightening. Read my full (but old) full review.

B+ A Face in the Crowd (1957), Balboa, Sunday, 7:30pm

Andy Griffith gives an over-the-top but powerful performance as a down-and-out country singer turned television personality, then demagogue, in this surprisingly prescient drama about the effects of celebrity and politics. If you know Griffith only from his TV work, you’ll be surprised that he had this in him. The cast includes an excellent Patricia Neal, a not-yet-famous Walter Matthau, and a very young Lee Remick. The film’s occasionally preachy, as if writer Budd Schulberg and director Elia Kazan needed to be sure that everyone would get the message.

B+ The Truman Show (1998), Balboa, Thursday, 7:30pm

Before reality television reared its mediocre head, writer Andrew Niccol and director Peter Weir foresaw it in this comic fable about a man raised unknowingly in a giant television studio. Although prophetic in many ways, The Truman Show takes the concept way beyond plausibility, suggesting a television show that would be economically and legally impossible. Best to consider it a myth.

B The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari (1920), New Mission, Tuesday, 6:00pm

Silent film with live score by Invincible Czars! This important piece of German expressionism is an easier film to admire than to like. The story is very conventional–at least until the end. But visually speaking, this must be one of the weirdest commercial movies ever made. Its strange design and over-the-top acting keep the audience at arm’s length; the constant intensity can be exhausting. But the atmosphere can also have a powerful hold.

B Tommy (1975), Vogue, Wednesday & Thursday, 7:30pm (the website says 7:30am, but I think it’s a typo)

Ken Russell’s over-the-top film version of The Who’s rock opera hits you over the head with all the subtlety of Pete Townsend smashing a guitar. The movie turns from a spiritual quest into a satire of materialism and cults. Oliver Reed proves he can’t sing as he plays a male version of the stereotypical evil stepmother, but Roger Daltrey and Ann-Margaret sing, dance, and act like the professionals they are. So do Eric Clapton, Tina Turner, and Elton John in smaller roles. Townsend’s music is still brilliant, and if this isn’t the best version of Tommy, it’s certainly the most fun.

Double Bill: The Big Sleep & Sabrina, Stanford

B The Big Sleep (1946): Saturday & Sunday, 5:25, 9:35
This is probably the most complicated murder mystery ever made. Humphrey Bogart plays Phillip Marlowe, while Lauren Bacall plays his client’s daughter. That’s pretty much all you need to know. The movie runs entirely on their star wattage and clever dialog.
B- Sabrina (1954) 7:30, 3:20 Sat/Sun
I can only give Billy Wilder’s Sabrina a B-. While Audrey Hepburn romances a miscast Humphrey Bogart, the movie floats along, nice and friendly, occasionally funny, but never challenging.

B- A Clockwork Orange (1971)
֍ New Mission, Friday, 9:30pm,
֍ New Mission, Sunday, 6:00pm
֍ New Parkway, Thursday, 9:00pm

Stanley Kubrick’s strange, “ultra-violent” dystopian nightmare about crime and conditioning feels self-consciously arty. But several scenes–the Singin’ in the Rain rape, the brainwashing sequence, Alex’s vulnerability when he’s attacked by his former mates–are brilliant. Malcolm McDowell gives a great performance as a hooligan turned helpless victim.

C Ocean’s Eleven, New Mission, Saturday, 11:30pm

A flashy, slightly entertaining remake of a much older, also slightly entertaining movie. Like the original, it’s mainly about star power, and yes, the cast shines – but not enough to make the movie special. Like the original, it’s a heist movie with little sense of suspense and occasional touches of comedy. Fun, but not all that much fun.

D Cruising (1980), Roxie, Tuesday, 6:45pm

Now that the controversy has passed, we can see William Friedkin’s 1980 gay S&M murder mystery for what it is: a mess. While it may offer nostalgia for older gay men who miss their wilder days, it has little to offer the rest of us. As a study of a unique subculture at a particular time that’s lost forever, it’s shallow and exploitative. As a murder mystery, it’s poorly structured and unsatisfying. As a character study, it offers an uninteresting character who’s hardly worth studying. Al Pacino, as an inexperienced, heterosexual cop going undercover in New York’s leather scene, mostly just looks confused. Read my full-length review.

Continuing engagements

• A King of Comedy, 4-Star, Saturday, 9:00pm
  A After Hours, 4-Star, Saturday, 7:30pm
  

Movies I can’t review

• Rain Man, Fathoms Events, Sunday & Wednesday; check theaters, dates, and times
  
• Freaks, Balboa, Monday, 7:30pm, 16mm!
• Full Metal Jacket, Balboa, Tuesday, 7:30pm