What’s Screening: February 16 – 22

~ Lincoln Spector

Two late Ozu films play in Bay Area theaters this week. There’s also The Big Lebowski with a live cast. John Travolta can become very, very fat, but no one has a Spotless Mind!

If you don’t understand what you just read, don’t worry about it.

Festivals & Series

Movies that play over & over

Vintage films on the big screen

A Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (2004), Roxie, Thursday, 9:10pm & Tuesday, 6:30pm

35mm! You probably have never seen a movie like this one. A young man and a young woman meet on a train and have a fling. Neither the man nor the woman (Jim Carrey and Kate Winslet) want to remember the affair. And they don’t have to. A doctor (Tom Wilkinson) has a procedure that removes a specific person from your memory. And soon more than just two couples don’t know their pasts. From a screenplay by the excellent (and probably crazy) Charlie Kaufman. Among the cast is Elijah Wood, Mark Ruffalo, Jane Adams, and Kirsten Dunst.

A Floating Weeds (1959), BAMPFA, Friday, 7:pm

Digital Restoration! Here’s a late masterpiece from Yasujirō Ozu. A small group of actors arrive in a small fishing town. At first, it seems like an enjoyable reunion among old friends. But the audiences are shrinking, and worse, old love affairs pop up again, and the head of the troupe starts destroying friendships and relationships. The film is a remake of his earlier silent film A Story of Floating Weeds. I haven’t yet seen the original version. Part of the series Yasujiro Ozu: The Elegance of Simplicity.

A The Big Lebowski (1998), 4-Star, Friday & Saturday, 7:30pm

With the Bawdy Caste! The Coen Brothers’ most beloved film takes a Raymond Chandler-type story and replaces the tough, noirish private detective with a drunken pothead slacker who cares only for bowling and prefers to be called The Dude (Jeff Bridges). The film’s concept and execution are damn near perfect. Aside from genre parody, there’s a thin, barely tangible sense of Zen to the movie. It’s as if you could throw yourself out into the universe and everything will come out okay…unless it doesn’t. Read my Blu-ray review.

A Amélie, New Mission, Friday through Tuesday

The best word to describe this Parisian romantic comedy is magic. Audrey Tautou stars as a very unusual young woman who not only is looking for love, but also trying to avoid it. Amelie also spends much of her life making other people happy. Much of the magic comes from the music score by Les Jours Tristes, Neil Hannon, and Yann Tiersen. I’ve never seen Paris so beautiful.

A The Holdovers, Lark
֍ Tuesday, 8:00pm
֍ Wednesday, 2:40pm

The trailer tells you that this is a comedy, but there are only occasional funny moments. This is a mostly serious drama, set in 1969, when young men avoided the Vietnam draft. It follows three broken people set in and around a very expensive, all male, conservative, private middle school. First, there’s the history professor (Paul Giamatti), who seems to hate all his students, and they all hate him back. Dominic Sessa plays a student with serious problems related to his mother’s new marriage. Da’Vine Joy Randolph plays the school’s cook. Her son died in combat, and she is now connected to the school for life.

A- Anatomy of a Fall (2023), Lark
֍ Friday, 1:50pm
֍ Wednesday, 8:00pm

A family man on a mountain chalet falls and dies. And that’s when things become difficult in this large, winter house. Was it murder or suicide? The members of the family have their own serious problems. The wife has had affairs. Their son is blind, and there are considerable legal issues. The film is set and shot in France, and much of the dialogue is in French – the rest is in English. This film is a showcase for excellent actors. Warning: The movie runs more than two and a half hours.

B+ Comedy Shorts Night, Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum, Saturday, 7:30pm

Here are four short silent comedies – and at least three of them are worth watching. In One AM, Charlie Chaplin drops the tramp and plays a very rich drunk. Buster Keaton’s The Boat is one of the stoneface’s best shorts. High and Dizzy is one of the earliest films where Harold Lloyd climbs a skyscraper. I haven’t seen 45 Minutes from Hollywood. Bruce Loeb will play the piano.

B+ Before Sunset (2004), 4-Star, Wednesday, 7:30pmThis is the sequel to Before Sunrise. Nine years after they first met, the couple from Before Sunset meet again – this time in Paris. They talk, joke, and occasionally flirt. They both have found disappointment in their lives. The film is set in real time – its 80-minute runtime matches the 80 minutes in the life of the characters. Best seen after watching Before Sunrise. Read my full article.

B+ Late Autumn (1950), BAMPFA, Sunday, 2:00pm

In one of his last films, Ozu mixes Japanese drama and Shakespearean comedy. All the men (and a widowed mother) know who should marry the young lady who insists she’s happy alone. But the movie isn’t entirely comedic. And yet, there’s a thick slice of sadness woven in. Part of the series Yasujiro Ozu: The Elegance of Simplicity

B+ Hairspray (1988 version), Balboa, Sunday, 7:00pm

This is the Hollywood version of the Broadway musical, based upon John Water’s independent film. Of course, the movie celebrates the spirit of the early ’60s civil rights movement by turning it into a big, happy dance contest on local daytime TV. The result is charming, upbeat, and very funny, with pleasant musical numbers, joyous dancing, and political themes that still feel relevant. And how can you not love John Travolta in a fat suit and a dress?

B Pee-wee’s Big Adventure (1985), 4-Star
֍ 10:00am
֍ 1:30pm – Popcorn Palace
֍ 3:30pm

Tim Burton’s first feature revels in its own silliness. Pee-Wee Herman, before children’s television and indecent exposure, is a strange, neurotically innocent creature. The movie is uneven, and most of the jokes are extremely dumb, but the oddball charm cannot be denied.

B The Zone of Interest
֍ New Parkway, Thursday, 7:15pm
֍ Roxie: check and times

Here is a very calm Holocaust picture without any violence. It shows mostly the easy life of Rudolf Höss, the German officer who ran Auschwitz. It’s a desk job, doing the numbers of mass killing. Höss and his family are quite comfortable, and he appears to be a wonderful father. They have plenty of servants. But things don’t always go as they should. While wading in the river, Rudolf finds human teeth, and the water and air are filled with ash. But there’s no real story, and I think screenwriters Martin Amis and Jonathan Glazer couldn’t come up with a good ending.

Too long ago to remember

These are films I saw and liked long ago, but I didn’t write about them back then. So, I can’t really review them.

Continuing engagements

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.