What’s Screening: October 6 – 12

~ Lincoln Spector

There are six film festivals playing this week, which seems ridiculous. Do you choose the Dance Fest, the Latino Fest, or the Green Fest? Can you choose? And remember that Stop Making Sense is still playing all over the Bay Area.

Festivals & Series

Festival Recommendation: Mill Valley

A Fancy Dance 
֍ Sequoia, Friday, October 13, 7:30pm
֍ BAMPFA, Thursday, October 14, 8:50pm

Here’s a modern story of America’s Original People, and one that can break your heart. A teenage girl has been raised by an aunt who loves her very much. But the aunt is obviously not a good mother. She sells drugs. She taught the young girl to steal. When a very white limb of the family tree comes to take the girl away, the aunt and the niece run away.

A They Shot The Piano Player. Rafael, Friday, October 13, 7:30pm

This very serious animated drama begins with a love of jazz and ends with fascistic horrors. In the ’70s, the USA turned South America into a bloodbath. It begins when a musicologist (voiced by Jeff Goldblum) sets out to find the brilliant pianist Francisco Tenório Júnior (a real person who disappeared in 1976). In those days, Uncle Sam worked hard to destroy democracy. The animation isn’t Disney smooth, but it’s beautiful in bright colors. An excellent film.

New films opening theatrically & Streaming

A- The Persian Version, AMC Theaters, and possibly streaming

Leila’s sex life (along with her desire to direct movies) causes problems between her and her whole Iranian immigrant family. This mostly comic story follows the family and this particularly wild daughter. But then her mother has her own strange life, running a New York City real estate company. There are serious moments, but most of The Persian Version is as wild as the colors that makes the film a joy to watch.

Theatrical revivals

A The Bride of Frankenstein (1935), Sebastopol, Cerrito, Elmwood, Thursday, 1:0pm

Free! You spend more time scared for the monster than of it in James Whales’ masterpiece. Boris Karloff plays the nameless creature as a child in a too-large body, the ultimate outcast torn between his need for love and his anger at the society that rejects him. With Colin Clive as the mad scientist, Ernest Thesiger as a delightfully over-the-top madder scientist, and Elsa Lanchester as both Mary Shelley and the monster’s mate (although, technically speaking, Valerie Hobson plays the real Bride of Frankenstein).

A Boogie Nights (1997), New Mission, Friday & Sunday, 10:00pm

Paul Thomas Anderson’s epic tale tells the stories of porn stars with delusions of talent – including Mark Wahlberg’s nice, well-endowed young man, and Julianne Moore’s porn queen/mother hen. Set in the late 70s and early 80s, Boogie Nights tracks porn’s fall from gutter chic to soulless video. The excellent cast includes Heather Graham, Don Cheadle, Burt Reynolds, William H. Macy, and Philip Seymour Hoffman.

A Blade Runner: The Final Cut (1982), Balboa, Saturday, 7:30pm

Based on Philip K. Dick’s novel Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep, Blade Runner remains surprisingly thoughtful for ’80’s sci-fi – especially of the big budget variety. It ponders questions about the nature of humanity and our ability to objectify people when it suits our needs. The art direction and the music alone would make it a masterpiece. Read my longer essay.

A Galaxy Quest (1999), Balboa, Tuesday, 7:30pm

There’s no better way to parody a well-known genre than to write characters who know the genre and find themselves living in what they thought was their favorite fiction. Few movies do this better than Galaxy Quest. In this spoof of all things Star Trek, the cast of a long-cancelled sci-fi TV show find themselves on a real space adventure with good and bad aliens. Tim Allen, Sigourney Weaver, and Alan Rickman star.

A- Wallace & Gromit: the Curse of the Were-Rabbit (2005), Sebastopol, Cerrito, Elmwood, Saturday & Sunday, 11:00am

Free! An eccentric inventor, his long-suffering dog, snooty aristocrats, cute bunnies, and a whole lot of clay make up the funniest movie of 2005. I wish someone would put this G-rated, Claymation extravaganza on a double-bill with that other hilarious British comedy with a killer rabbit, Monty Python and the Holy Grail.

B+ The Johnstown Flood (1926), Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum, Saturday, 7:00pm

The evil rich make money while their workers drown! That makes it a powerfully exciting story. The film stars George O’Brien and Janet Gaynor, who would soon again star in the masterpiece, Sunrise. For its time, The Johnstown Flood has exceptional special effects. Preceded with the short Koko’s Earth Control. Frederick Hodges provides the musical accompaniment.

B+ Interview with the Vampire (original version, 1994), New Parkway, Sunday, 3:00pm

(Queer Classics) Writer Anne Rice and director Neil Jordan create a vampire epic stretching across three centuries. And a very dark yet sexy three centuries it is. Tom Cruise gets top billing as the immortal sociopath Lestat, but a not-yet-famous Brad Pitt is the real star, playing the tormented vampire being interviewed. Between them and Antonio Banderas, you could call this film Great-Looking Guys with an Eating Disorder. A 12-year-old Kirsten Dunst expertly plays a grown woman in a little girl’s body.

B+ Floating Features: The Rock (1996), Friday, Departs From Pier 43 ½, buy tickets through the Roxie

This Die Hard rip-off is ridiculous – and yet it gives you a very fun ride. A group of very bad people headed by Ed Harris take over Alcatraz and take the tourists hostage. So, the government sends a brilliant chemist (Nicholas Cage) and a British spy/jailbird (Sean Connery) to save the day. What makes the movie special is Harris’ and Connery’s characters. Harris isn’t all that bad (even if his underlings are) and hopes to avoid bloodshed. Connery plays his character as James Bond after 25 years in a secret American prison.

B+ The Shining (1980), New Parkway, Thursday, 8:45pm

Stephen King’s novel, The Shining is much better than the movie (that’s not always the truth). Stanley Kubrick, brilliant as he was, missed the main point of the story – that the protagonist loves his family, and is a good man struggling with his inner demons. Without that, it’s little more than a sequence of scares (all good scares, but just scares). Kubrick added some surprising and effective touches, but overall, he turned a brilliant novel into a simply very good horror flick. Read my longer article.

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.