What’s Screening: November 3 – 9

~ Lincoln Spector

What do Bay Area cinemas (the few left) offer us when it comes to vintage movies? This week it’s early Fellini, Kubrick destroying the world, the great mobster epic, Billy Wilder at his best, and Richard Linklater his youth.

Festivals & Series

Remembered fondly

This is a new section, about films that I’ve seen and loved, but I don’t remember enough to give them a grade

? The White Sheik (1952), BAMPFA, Friday, 6:30pm

I remember Federico Fellini’s first feature as something like a screwball comedy. A bride on her honeymoon abandons her hapless husband for the star of a cheap serial. Of course, the man of her dreams is only the actor who appears in her dreams. I remember the film as being quite funny, but much more conventional than what we associate with the name Fellini. Part of the series Rialto Pictures Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Salute.

? The Last Starfighter (1984), 4-Star ,Sunday, 7:00pm

Soon after Return of the Jedi opened, this modest space opera blew fresh air over Star Wars and the then new craze of video games. A teenage boy living in a trailer park spends most of his time playing his favorite video game. Turns out that aliens planted the game to find someone with the needed skills to save the Universe. I haven’t seen it in decades, but I remember it as being a lot of fun.

Theatrical revivals

A+ Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned To Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb, Cerrito
֍ Monday & Tuesday, 4:30pm & 7:00pm
֍ Wednesday, 3:30pm

Here’s a deeply dark, hilarious comedy about the end of the world. General Jack D. Ripper (Sterling Hayden) orders his men to bomb the USSR and start World War III. But have no fear! The men responsible for avoiding Armageddon (three of them played by Peter Sellers) are almost as competent as Laurel and Hardy. Stanley Kubrick’s “nightmare comedy” reminds you just how scary things were back in the ’60s. Read my Blu-ray review.

A+ The Godfather (1972), Balboa, Tuesday, 7:00pm

Francis Coppola took the job simply because he needed the money, and he turned Mario Puzo’s potboiler into the Great American Crime Epic. Marlon Brando may have top billing, but the yet not famous Al Pacino owns the film as the son who does not want a life of crime – but proves exceptionally well-suited for the job. A masterpiece of character, atmosphere, and heart-stopping violence. Read my A+ essay.

A Double Indemnity (1944), 4-Star, Saturday & Sunday, 1:00pm & 3:3:30pm

Rich, unhappy, and evil housewife Barbara Stanwyck leads insurance salesman Fred MacMurray by the libido from adultery to murder in Billy Wilder’s near-perfect noir thriller. Not that she has any trouble leading him (this is not the wholesome MacMurray we remember from My Three Sons).  Edward G. Robinson is in fine form as the co-worker and close friend that MacMurray must deceive. A great, gritty thriller about sex (or the code-era equivalent) and betrayal.

A- Shrek (2001), New Parkway, Sunday, 2:55pm

Bad sequels can make us forget how much we loved the original, and in the case of Shrek, the original is very lovable indeed. This story of an ogre on a reluctant quest to save a princess turns both traditional fairy tales and their Disneyfied adaptations inside out. The evil prince’s castle looks like Disneyland, familiar characters make odd cameos, and that old song “Have You Seen the Muffin Man” turns gruesome in a very funny way. In the third act, Shrek rips apart one of the worst lessons that children learn from these old stories, providing a happy ending that neither Grimm nor Disney could have imagined.

A- Dazed and Confused (1993), New Mission
֍ Saturday, 11:45am
֍ Wednesday, 2:30pm

Cast reunion! Think American Graffiti set in the stoned ’70s. As the school year ends in a small Texas town, students and recent alumni head out looking for pot, parties, and sex. Some of them find it. Since Richard Linklater isn’t George Lucas (thank God), Dazed and Confused finds depths in the many characters. The young, largely unknown cast includes such future stars as Milla Jovovich, Ben Affleck, Parker Posey, and Matthew McConaughey.

B+ My Man Godfrey (1936), Stanford, Saturday & Sunday, 3:50pm & 5:35pm

Few screwballs turn up the class warfare as high as this one. A wealthy family hires a homeless man (William Powell) to become their new butler. His kindness and intelligence save the family while he romances one of the daughters (Lombard). The movie goes off the track badly in the last act, but that shouldn’t keep you from enjoying the rest of the movie. On a double bill with Only Yesterday.

C+ Kiki’s Delivery Service (1989), New Mission
֍ Saturday, 9:30pm
֍ Monday, 9:30pm
֍ @ Tuesday, 11:15am

All screenings subtitled. 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.

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.