Reps Etc.

Commentary by Gregg Rickman (greggr1@mindspring.com). Times compiled from information available Tuesday; it's always advisable to call for confirmation. Price given is standard adult admission; discounts often apply for students, seniors, and members.

We're interested in your film or video event. Please send materials at least two weeks in advance to: Film Editor, SF Weekly, 185 Berry, Suite 3800, San Francisco, CA 94107.

ALLIANCE FRANÇAISE

345 Bush (at Polk), 775-7755, www.afsf.com. French-language films shown on projected video. $5 donation.

WEDNESDAY (Aug. 7): A monthlong tribute to Eric Rohmer commences with the director's own tribute to Claire's Knee (France, 1970) 7 p.m.

SATURDAY (Aug. 10): Claire's Knee 2 p.m.

BRIDGE

3010 Geary (at Blake), 751-3213, www.peacheschrist.com for this series. This popular little theater offers, in addition to its regular screenings (see Showtimes for listings), a "Midnight Mass" devoted to camp guilty pleasures. $8.

SATURDAY (Aug. 10): Frank Perry's Mommie Dearest (1981), career-damning for Perry and star Faye Dunaway. This film, and an accompanying fifth annual Mother/Daughter Mud-wrestling Match, closes the series midnight.

CASTRO

429 Castro (at Market), 621-6120, www.thecastrotheatre.com. $7 save as noted. Short-run rep in a spectacular 1922 Greco-Roman-themed palace designed by Timothy L. Pflueger. Evening intermissions feature David Hegarty or Bill McCoy on the Mighty Wurlitzer.

WEDNESDAY: Karmen Geï (Joseph Gaï Ramaka, Senegal, 2000); see Ongoing for more 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 p.m.

THURSDAY: Les Blank's Flower Films marks its 35th anniversary with a screening of Blank's Burden of Dreams (1982), a documentary portrait of filmmaker Werner Herzog's passionate attempts to create his grand opera film Fitzcarraldo in the Amazon jungle. Poor Herzog has never recovered the indie-cult reputation he had as a poetic visionary before this exposé. Why can't Blank pick on Michael Bay for a change? $15 reception at 6 p.m., screening with Q&A session to follow with the filmmakers at 7:30 p.m.

FRIDAY THROUGH THURSDAY (Aug. 9-15): D.A. Pennebaker's long-unseen concert film Ziggy Stardust and the Spiders From Mars (1973), with David Bowie in glam mode; see Opening for review 7, 9 p.m.; also Sat, Sun, & Wed 1, 3, 5, 7, 9 p.m.

FOREIGN CINEMA

2534 Mission (between 21st and 22nd streets), 648-7600, www.foreigncinema.com. Free with meal. This restaurant screens foreign films, usually in 35mm, on the back wall of its outdoor patio, with drive-in speakers available for the tables of those who want to watch while they dine.

DAILY (closed Mondays): Run and gun with La Femme Nikita (Luc Besson, France, 1990), screening through Aug. 25 at 8:15, 10:15 p.m.; also Fri & Sat midnight.

JEZEBEL'S JOINT

510 Larkin (at Turk), 820-3907, www.sfindie.com. This "Rock 'n' Roll DJ Bar" offers an "SF IndieFest MicroCinema" in its 40-seat theater. All screenings are followed by DJ music at 10 p.m. Free.

WEDNESDAY: Fruit of the Vine, "a film about skateboarding in empty swimming pools" 8 p.m.

THURSDAY: Knut Hamsun's great 1890 novel about a starving writer, Hunger, is now a video about an unemployed screenwriter (Robert Culp's son Joseph) 8 p.m.

FRIDAY: A gay comedian comes out in Chicago in Straightman 8 p.m.

LUMIERE

1572 California (at Polk), 352-0810, www.landmarktheatres.com. This multiplex is only partly a "calendar house" rep theater; for the rest of the Lumiere schedule, see our Showtimes page. $8.75.

WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY: Anne-Sophie Birot's Girls Can't Swim (France, 2000). See Ongoing for review. Call for times.

STARTS FRIDAY: Benoit Jacquot's Sade (France, 2000). See Opening for review. Call for times.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE

2575 Bancroft (at Bowditch), Berkeley, (510) 642-1124, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. $7, second show $1.50. The East Bay mecca for film scholars, part of UC's Berkeley Art Museum, thrives at its on-campus location, up the steps on Bancroft between Telegraph Avenue and the Hearst Gym.

WEDNESDAY: A rejected poet wreaks revenge on college president Larry Hagman by seducing his wife, daughter, and mistress in satirist Theodore Flicker's Up in the Cellar (1970) 7:30 p.m.

THURSDAY: A program of "ephemeral" films curated by archivist Rick Prelinger offers such gems as a German documentary on ants; Tommy Kirk, Angie Dickinson, and Tex Ritter touring American landmarks by Greyhound bus in Freedom Highway (1956); and Citizens for Decent Literature's anti-pornographic Perversion for Profit (c. 1965) 7:30 p.m.

FRIDAY: Frantisek Vlácil's medieval epic The Valley of the Bees (Czechoslovakia, 1967) 7:30 p.m.

SATURDAY: France's working-class hero Jean Gabin is honored with a screening of the Occupation-set dark comedy Four Bags Full (1957; 7 p.m.), penned by the celebrated writing team of Jean Aurenche and Pierre Bost; and Pierre Granier-Deferre's Le Chat (1971; 8:40 p.m.), with Gabin and Simone Signoret in a bitter adaption of a Simenon tale about an old couple who hate each other.

SUNDAY: A Czech veteran's return home to ruins after World War II is the subject of Frantisek Vlácil's Adelheid (Czechoslovakia, 1969) 5:30 p.m.

MONDAY: Theater closed.

TUESDAY: Lovers try to communicate in Anne-Marie Miéville's Lou Didn't Say No (France/Switzerland, 1993), plus her short Living It Up (1987) 7:30 p.m.

PARAMOUNT

2025 Broadway (at 20th Street), Oakland, (510) 465-6400, www.paramounttheatre.com. $5. This beautifully restored picture palace's ongoing "Movie Classics Series" regularly includes a feature plus a newsreel, cartoon, previews, and a few spins of the Dec-O-Win prize wheel. Doors open at 7 p.m.

FRIDAY (Aug. 9): Stanley Kubrick's truly twisted Dr. Strangelove (1964) 8 p.m.

RAFAEL FILM CENTER

1118 Fourth St. (at A Street), San Rafael, 454-1222, www.finc.org. $8.50. This three-screen repertory theater is operated by the Film Institute of Northern California. Programs are complex; check carefully and call for confirmation.