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.
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ACT ONE/TWO
2128 Center (at Shattuck), Berkeley, (510) 843-FILM, www.landmarktheatres.com. $6. This duplex offers a midnight movie series (plus "drawings for valuable and coveted prizes") on Saturdays for 10 weeks. For additional screenings see our Showtimes page.
SATURDAY (Sept. 28): Teenage vampires stalk Santa Cruz, looking for some of that government-supplied medical marijuana, in Joel Schumacher's The Lost Boys (1987) midnight.
ALLIANCE FRANÇAISE
345 Bush (at Polk), 775-7755, www.afsf.com. French-language films shown on projected video. $5 donation.
WEDNESDAY (Sept. 25): Strangers have sex, become friends in An Affair of Love (Frédéric Fonteyne, France, 1999), known at home by the spicier title Une liaison pornographique 7 p.m.
SATURDAY (Sept. 28): An Affair of Love 2 p.m.
ARTISTS' TELEVISION ACCESS
992 Valencia (at 21st Street), 824-3890, www.atasite.org. $5 save as noted. This venue offers all manner of strange and unusual video and film.
THURSDAY (Sept. 26): The ATA's monthly "Open Screening" -- $3; free for artistes. BYO video by 7 p.m., screenings at 8 p.m.
FRIDAY (Sept. 27): The MadCat Women's International Film Festival presents a program of shorts, "Altered Realities," featuring Abigail Child's Dark, Dark, made up of fragments of re-edited Hollywood films with music by Ennio Morricone; Amy Hicks' stop-motion, found-footage Hatching Beauty, about a single mom considering selling her ovum; and Pearce Williams' animated Sharp Proofing, behind a psychiatrist's closed doors. Program repeats tomorrow. $7 8 p.m.
SATURDAY (Sept. 28): "Altered Realities," $7 5 p.m. A program devoted to "Playing Public Space" screens Sarah Lewison's Situationist critiques of urban spaces, Brad Vanderburg's Bloodhag (heavy-metal heads in the library), work from the Surveillance Camera Players, and more 8:30 p.m.
SUNDAY (Sept. 29): Andras Kovacs' Cold Days (Hungary, 1966), built around the trial of four men for war crimes in 1946, gets a rare airing on video 7 p.m.
CASTRO
429 Castro (near 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 & THURSDAY: Herbert Brenon's silent film version of Peter Pan (1924), with Ernest Torrance a definitive Capt. Hook and Betty Bronson the perfect Peter Pan, screens with live piano accompaniment by Joel Adlen. $10 7:30 p.m.
FRIDAY THROUGH THURSDAY (Sept. 27-Oct. 3): David Lean's desert epic Lawrence of Arabia (1962) materializes from the Sahara with newly digitized sound, all 222 minutes of it 2, 7:30 p.m.
CLAY
2261 Fillmore (at Clay), 352-0870, www.landmarktheatres.com. An eight-week "8 Tales" midnight series continues; see www.8tales.com for more. For the rest of the Clay's schedule, see our Showtimes page. $5.
FRIDAY & SATURDAY (Sept. 27 & 28): The Coen Brothers' cult hit The Big Lebowski (1996), about the hunt for a rug that ties together a room midnight.
EL RIO OUTDOOR CINEMA
El Rio Bar & Patio, 3158 Mission (at Precita near Cesar Chavez), 282-3325. $5. This once-a-month alternative film and video series offers movies projected on a screen hung between a lemon and a fig tree in the outdoor patio of a neighborhood bar.
TUESDAY (Oct. 1): Microcinema's "Independent Exposure" program of short films, videos, and digital works from around the world screens a special "Halloweird Edition" of scary movies, including I Have Some Regrets About the 60's by Galaxaco of Seattle, We Hate You Little Boy by Janene Higgins, The Loneliest Little Boy in the World by Mike Dereniewski, Abusive Parental Guidance Suggested by Matt Kovalakides (seems to be a theme here), Shitheel Blues by Javid Kazmi, and scariest sounding of all, Yodeling Lesson by Vanessa Renwick 8 p.m.
FINE ARTS CINEMA
2451 Shattuck (at Haste), Berkeley, (510) 848-1143, www.fineartscinema.com. $7. A fall season continues for this innovatively programmed art house.
WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY: Two films by the documentary team of Deborah Dickson, Susan Froemke, and Albert Maysles, Lalee's Kin: The Legacy of Cotton (2001; 7:30 p.m.), about a fight for better schools in the Mississippi Delta, and Concert of Wills: Making the Getty Center (1997; 9:15 p.m.), on the architecture and angst surrounding the building of the new L.A. landmark.
FRIDAY THROUGH SUNDAY: Herbert Brenon's delightful silent film version of Peter Pan (1924) screens with live piano by Joel Adlen. Don't miss the man in the big dog suit in the opening scenes -- he's great Fri 7:30 p.m.; Sat 4:30, 7:30 p.m.; Sun 4:30 p.m.
MONDAY THROUGH WEDNESDAY (Sept. 30-Oct. 2): Anne Makepeace's interesting documentary Coming to Light (1999; 7:30 p.m.), about famed photographer Edward S. Curtis and his photographs of American Indians, screens with the amusing Forgotten Silver (Peter Jackson and Costa Botes, New Zealand, 1995; 9:10 p.m.), a biodoc about an imaginary New Zealand film pioneer.
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): Rintaro's animated Metropolis (Japan, 2001), at 7:30, 9:30 p.m.; also Fri & Sat midnight.
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