What’s Screening: Dec Friday 29 – Jan 4

~ Lincoln Spector

We have a documentary about Israel this week. There’s also science fiction from America and Russia. Billy Wilder studies office hanky-panky. How about a feature film made entirely with silhouettes. How do you fight crime while sloshed? Just follow the Nick and Nora Charles couple.

New films opening theatrically

A- Israelism, New Parkway (2023)
֍ Friday, 4:55pm
֍ Saturday, 2:10pm
֍ Monday, 7:20pm

I missed this film last week. So here it is. The documentary starts like a commercial for Israel, but then reality soon takes over. There’s the army veteran who discovered he’s lost his humanity. There’s the young American activist. There’s the Palestinian tour guide who will show you things you won’t see on a Birthright trip. Soldiers break into homes without warrants. Jeremy Ben Ami, Noam Chomsky, and Cornel West tell the filmmakers what they think. But it’s mostly young adults who tell their stories. This documentary shows how right-wing Americans, raised to love Israel, attack those who refuse to believe that a Palestinian is human.

Theatrical revivals

A Stalker (1979) Roxie, Saturday, 6:00pm

This slow, strange, allegorical fantasy from the great Andrei Tarkovsky gets under your skin. A guide, called a stalker, takes two other men on a journey into a strange place called The Zone. We never find out exactly what it is, and it looks pretty much like the world they already live in – except that The Zone is in color and their home is in black and white. But we learn that The Zone is dangerous, is constantly changing, and that those changes are caused by the emotions of the people who dare to enter it.

A The Apartment (1960)
֍ 4-Star, Saturday, 4:00pm
֍ 4-Star, Saturday, 7:00pm
֍ New Mission, Saturday, 11:20am, Brunch
Billy Wilder won a Best Picture Oscar for this serious comedy about powerful men exploiting those working below them. Jack Lemmon gave one of his best performances as a minor white-collar worker who rises in the company by loaning his apartment to company executives. These married men need a private place for hanky-panky with their mistresses. With Fred MacMurray as the top exploiter and Shirley MacLane as the woman he exploits and Lemmon loves. Read my Blu-ray review.

A Star Trek IV: The Voyage Home (1986), Vogue
֍ Wednesday, 7:30pm
֍ Thursday, 9:45pm

The best big-screen chapter in the Star Trek franchise (yes, I prefer it, just barely, to Wrath of Khan) has the original cast time travel to 1986 San Francisco. Why? To save the whales, who, according to the Star Trek universe, were hunted to extinction in the late 20th century. Played largely for laughs (with a plot like that, how else could you play it), it finds plenty of fish-out-of-water humor–from Scotty’s struggles with a Macintosh to McCoy’s horror at the “medieval” medical procedures. Leonard Nimoy directed as well as playing Spock.

A- The Adventures of Prince Achmed (1926), Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum, Saturday, 7:30pm

Hand-Tinted 35mm Print! The earliest known animated feature looks like no other movie ever made. The characters are neither drawings nor puppets, but black, opaque, cut-out silhouettes. As such, it lacks the details we expect from classic Disney or today’s Pixar, but it’s nonetheless beautiful and enchanting. It also enhances the viewer’s imagination. The story is a common hero’s journey, with a brave protagonist, an evil magician, and a good witch. Aladdin pops up as well. Greg Pane will accompany this silent film on piano. With the shorts Suspense and Frozen Hearts.

B+ The Thin Man (1934), Cerrito, Thursday, 1:00pm

Free! Here we have a murder mystery, a screwball comedy, a wallow in classic MGM glamour, and a 93-minute commercial about alcohol as the secret for a happy marriage (wealth helps a lot too). William Powell and Myrna Loy make great chemistry together as Nick and Nora Charles, the rich, drunk-and-in-love couple with a little murder to clear up. The mystery never quite gels, but the picture is so much fun, you really don’t care. The movie started a very long franchise.

B+ The Rocky Horror Picture Show (1975), Balboa, Saturday & Sunday, 11:00pm

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

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.

One thought on “What’s Screening: Dec Friday 29 – Jan 4”

  1. When STALKER first came out I found it a bore. I was bIg fan of Tarkovsky’s first two features, MY NAME IS IVAN and ANDREI RUBLEV but had mixed feelings about the subsequent films, all masterful and beautiful to watch but requiring patience I didn’t always have. Then I read Geoff Dyer’s ZONA, watched STALKER again and was able to reevaluate and have greater appreciation of Tarkovsky’s work. I urge you to read ZONA. https://geoffdyer.com/books/zona/. Some video inerviews. https://www.google.com/search?sca_esv=594483408&rlz=1C5CHFA_enUS831US831&sxsrf=AM9HkKmISk-bmRBr3z5gvffNDzNGWfKEyw:1703883257898&q=zona+geoff+dyer&tbm=vid&source=lnms&sa=X&ved=2ahUKEwi7oM3iw7WDAxUbJUQIHevOBG8Q0pQJegQIDBAB&biw=2162&bih=1022&dpr=2.2

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