What’s Screening: March 8 – 14

~ Lincoln Spector

This Sunday is Oscar night. As far as I can tell, seven Bay Area movie theaters will be playing – not a movie – but a celebration of the concept of movies. Or at least a celebration of ostentatious clothing.

Here are the theaters that I know will have a Oscar party:

Festivals & Series

New films opening

A Shayda, AMC Metreon 16, opens Friday

Divorce is always difficult, but much more so when children are in the picture. It’s much worse when mother and daughter are clearly scared of the abusive and fanatic father. Every time the father gets visiting rights, mother, and child shake with fear – even though it’s not set in Iran, rather, in Australia. The child actress Mona gives an exceptional performance. The other actors are also excellent. The film is based on real-life experiences of the filmmaker’s childhood.

Movies that play over & over

Festival Recommendations: Ennio Morricone

A The Battle of Algiers (1966), 4-Star, Wednesday, 7:30pm

You could watch Gillo Pontecorvo’s masterpiece five or six times and still believe that it’s a documentary. And yet, every person on the screen was play-acting. Pontecorvo recreates Algeria’s long war to break away from France. The war didn’t have to happen, but the French government couldn’t stop fighting. A very powerful film. Part of A Fistful of Music: Honoring Ennio Morricone.

A The Thing (1983), 4-Star, Friday, 7:30pm

Pre-show Set by DJ Utrillo: John Carpenter created a remake that’s better than Howard Hawks’ 1951 original – even if it’s much more gruesome. Things get dangerous for a group of men (no women) in a science station in Antarctica. Communication or transportation is shut down. Worse, an intelligent, evil, and ravenous alien is killing everything it can. What’s more, it’s a shapeshifter, so you don’t know if you’re talking to your best friend or a monster intent on eating you. But with all the grisly effects, the most horrible makeup in the film is Kurt Russell’s eyeliner. Part of A Fistful of Music: Honoring Ennio Morricone.

B+ The Hateful Eight (2015), 4-Star, Sunday, 3:30

Quentin Tarantino’s roadshow western is surprisingly small and intimate, while reveling in the majesty of a long-unused large-film format. Two bounty hunters (Samuel L. Jackson and Kurt Russell), along with a captured killer (Jennifer Jason Leigh) find themselves stuck in a store in the middle of nowhere, waiting out a blizzard, along with five other disreputable people. The film occasionally reminded me of Stagecoach, but this is Tarantino, not Ford, so you can expect a lot of talking and bloody violence. I’ve written more on this one. Part of A Fistful of Music: Honoring Ennio Morricone.

Vintage films on the big screen

Double bill at the Stanford

A Swing Time, 3:40pm & 7:30pm:
Even by Astaire-Rogers standards, Swing Time plot seems lightweight: Gambler Fred and dance teacher Ginger fall in love, fight, break up, fall in love again, and repeat the cycle, all the while singing and dancing. But with the songs, the dances, and the gags, it’s a near masterpiece.
C- Roberta, 5:30pm & 9:30pm
This is really an Irene Dunne vehicle, with Astaire and Rogers in supporting roles. They’re not onscreen enough to turn this dull musical into a winner.

A Our Hospitality (1923), Stanford, 9:30pm

Three years before he made The General, Buster Keaton mined the antebellum South for comic gold in this almost gentle slapstick comedy about a Hatfield/McCoy–type feud. The New York-raised Buster goes down south to inherit his estate, but when he arrives at his destination, he finds himself a guest in the home of men sworn to kill him. Luckily, the code of southern hospitality forbids killing a guest…as long as he’s in your home. Read my Blu-ray review. With Dennis James at the Wurlitzer organ. On a double silent feature, The Mark of Zorro. (The first version from 1920.) Zorro will start at 7:00pm.

A Pulp Fiction (1994), New Mission
֍ Monday, 9:15pm
֍ Sunday, 11:00pm; Movie Party
֍ Wednesday, 6:0m

Quentin Tarantino achieved cult status by writing and directing this witty mesh of interrelated stories involving talkative killers, a crooked boxer, romantic armed robbers, and a former POW who hid a watch in a very uncomfortable place. Tarantino entertainingly plays with dialog, story-telling techniques, non-linear time, and any sense the audience may have of right and wrong.

B+ Mantrap (1926), Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum, Saturday, 7:30pm

Here’s your chance to discover why Clara Bow was such a huge star in the 1920’s. Sexy, funny, and bubbling with energy, she plays a big-city manicurist who on a whim marries a man from the Canadian wilderness. Ernest Torrence plays her new husband—several notches below her on the physical attraction scale. Not surprisingly, she flirts with everything in pants. One of the best romantic comedies to come out of the silent era, and a terrific date movie. Preceded by two shorts: Mabel’s Married Life and The Danger Girl. Accompanied on the piano by Bruce Loeb.

B Mandabi (1968), BAMPFA, Thursday, 7:00pm

Ousmane Sembene, often called “The father of African Cinema,” shows the writer/director’s sardonic wit in this early work. Its protagonist, Ibrahim, is a truly unlikeable person. He’s cruel to his two wives, he hasn’t worked in years, he eats loudly, has a swollen ego, and is an idiot. Suddenly, everything comes up roses when he gets a very large money order from a nephew in Paris. Of course, word gets around. What’s more, how can he cash the order; he has no ID or even a birth certificate. Smarter and richer men recognize a mark when they see one.

B Vagabond (1985), Balboa, Tuesday,7:30pm

I think Agnès Varda intended this as a cap on the hippie movement, and it’s not a fond farewell. The plot is pure Citizen Kane, except instead of a newspaper magnate, the dead protagonist is a young woman hitchhiker who died in a ditch. Then come the flashbacks and interviews with people who crossed her path over the course of her last winter. Neither Varda nor actress Sandrine Bonnaire make her likeable. She’s dirty, smelly, unreliable, prone to theft, and doesn’t even thank the people who help her along the way. I would have liked to know the characters better. The film doesn’t quite hold together, but it has some wonderful scenes.

Too long ago to remember

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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.