What’s Screening: November 24 – 30

~ Lincoln Spector

Once Thanksgiving is over, you can be thankful for all the good, vintage movies playing in theaters over the week. You can pick between four films that I give an A+ (perhaps five if you consider films that also played last week). There are also three A films, and one with an A-. So, you have plenty of good choices.

I’m having technical problems. For example, you may click a link for Akira Kurosawa and get Purple Rain. But mostly, you’ll get what you want.

Theatrical Revivals

A+ Citizen Kane (1941), Balboa, 1:00pm

How does any movie survive an 80-year reputation as the “Greatest Film Ever Made?” One obvious reason is that it’s very, very good. But that’s not enough. True, there are films more perceptive about the human condition, pictures more dazzling in their technique, and movies more fun. But I’d be hard pressed to name a film this insightful that’s also as technically dazzling and fun to watch. As Orson Welles and his collaborators tell the life story of a newspaper tycoon through the flashback memories of those who knew him, they also turn the techniques of cinema inside out. Read my A+ appreciation.

A+ Five Easy Pieces (1970), 4-Star, 5:00pm & 7:30pm

Call it the Great American Loosely-Plotted Character Study. In his first starring role, Jack Nicholson brilliantly plays a relationship-averse blue-collar worker with a surprising family history. Of course, he goes on a personal, emotional, and physical journey in the film, but there’s nothing redemptive in it; he’s not a better man for having gone through the experience. Little happens in Five Easy Pieces, but what happens is more than worth following. See my A+ appreciation.

A+ Ran (1985), BAMPFA, Sunday, 1:30pm

I doubt anyone else ever made a movie as sad, as tragic, as despairing of the human condition, and yet so beautiful as Akira Kurosawa’s final masterpiece.  To give yourself over to it is to experience – in your gut – that many people are capable of unspeakable evil, and that these people tend to come out on top. This is probably the most heartbreaking adaptation of King Lear. Read my Kurasawa Diary article. Part of the series Rialto Pictures Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Salute.

Kurosawa Diary, Part 27: Ran

A+ Fargo, Vogue, Wednesday & Thursday, 7:30pm

The Coen Brothers’ masterpiece treads along that thin line between the horrific and the hilarious while never forgetting the humane. Frances McDormand and William H. Macy became movie stars by playing a compassionate pregnant police officer and a car salesman way over his head. One of the best outdoor noirs ever. Also starring the bleakest snowscapes in American cinema. Read My Thoughts on Fargo.

A David Byrne’s American Utopia, (2021), Lark
֍ Friday, 5:00pm
֍ Tuesday, 8:00pm
֍ Wednesday, 6:00pm
֍ Saturday, 10:00am

You can reasonably call this a sequel to Stop Making Sense, with great music, visuals, and choreography, all with Byrne at the center. Thanks to new technology, even the pianist can play and dance all over the stage. About half the songs came from The Talking Heads era, while others were new (at least to me). But this concert video is more political, and Byrne talks much more to the audience, about everything from houseguests to voting. Director Spike Lee keeps the sounds and visuals always exciting.

A Aliens (1986), 4-Star, Saturday, 8:00pm

Alien had only one monster, but James Cameron’s sequel strands a platoon of marines on a barely hospitable planet infested with the big, egg-laying predators. It works as a horror film, an action flick, a war movie, science fiction, a feminist work (the climatic fight is between two mothers protecting their babies), and a condemnation of capitalism. Sigourney Weaver, made famous by the original film, stars again.

A Being There (1979), 4-Star, Sunday, 6:0pm

Peter Sellers gave the best performance of his life as a mentally deficient TV addict in this biting satire. An accident brings him into the halls of wealth and power, where his idiotic comments are interpreted as sage advice, courageous honesty, or brilliant wit. Funny and biting. Directed by Hal Ashby.

A- Army of Shadows (1969), BAMPFA, Saturday, 6:30pm

Resistance is a dirty and almost inevitably deadly job, but in Nazi-occupied France, someone had to do it. Jean-Pierre Melville’s dark, semi-autobiographical, 1969 adventure can occasionally confuse those who don’t know the history (or the geography), but the rewards are well worth the effort. The suspense scenes, including a night-time novice parachute jump and a rescue attempt by ambulance, are nerve-wracking, but not nearly so much as the protagonists’ constant fear and horrendous moral dilemmas. Nothing gets romanticized in this spy story. Part of the series Rialto Pictures Twenty-Fifth Anniversary Salute.

B+ Don Q, Son of Zorro (1925), Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum, Saturday, 7:30pm

Yes, they were already making sequels in the silent days, and Don Q is a very enjoyable one. In fact, this follow-up to Douglas Fairbanks’ first swashbuckler, The Mark of Zorro, is one of those rare sequels that surpasses the original. Fairbanks plays two roles: the original Zorro and the son in the title. Piano accompaniment by Frederick Hodges.

B+ A Shot in the Dark (1964), Lark

֍ Sunday, 4:40pm
֍ Monday, 10:00am
֍ Monday, 8:00pm
In the first Pink Panther movie, Peter Sellers created one of cinema’s most famous comic characters: the dignified yet idiotic detective Inspector Clouseau. Sellers had only a small part in The Pink Panther, but in the sequel, he stole the movie. The cast includes George Sanders and the beautiful but talent-impaired Elke Sommer.

B Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), Balboa, Friday, 11:00pm

I don’t have to tell you about this one, do I? W/ The Bawdy Caste Live Shadow Cast!

Continuing engagements

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.