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.

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 (Oct. 26): Jack Nicholson, poster boy of writer's block, stars in The Shining (Stanley Kubrick, 1980) midnight.

ALLIANCE FRANÇAISE

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

WEDNESDAY (Oct. 23): Ugo Tognazzi and Michel Serrault co-star as a gay odd couple in a sequel to the hugely popular farce La Cage aux Folles II (Edouard Molinaro, France, 1980) -- no remake with Robin and Nathan has been announced 7 p.m.

SATURDAY (Oct. 26): La Cage aux Folles II 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.

WEDNESDAY (Oct. 23): A "Peripheral Produce" program returns from Portland, Ore., offering "fresh picks" from Matt McCormick, Bryan Boyce, and others. Artists in person 8 p.m.

THURSDAY (Oct. 24): "A Better World Is Under Construction," a program of anti-FTAA and globalization videos sponsored by S.F. IndyMedia and the Bay Area Social Forum 8 p.m.

FRIDAY (Oct. 25): BYO media to the ATA's monthly "Open Screening," free to artistes. $3 8 p.m.

SATURDAY (Oct. 26): Other Cinema offers a "Pantheistic Panorama," a lecture on modern pagan culture by V. Vale and Marian Wallace, with video interviews with Judi Bari, Julia Butterfly, Genesis P-Orridge, Starhawk, and others. Also, a live fire ritual and George Kuchar's Spawn of the Pagan 8:30 p.m.

BALBOA

3630 Balboa (at 37th Avenue), 221-8484, $7.50. This great neighborhood house is a good place to catch second-run Hollywood fare. See our Showtimes page for the Balboa's other screen.

WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY: Two classic farces play through Oct. 24, Some Like It Hot (Billy Wilder, 1959; 12:45, 4:45, 8:45 p.m.) and The Producers (Mel Brooks, 1968; 3, 7 p.m.) -- go and laugh.

STARTS FRIDAY: Call for program.

CASTRO

429 Castro (near Market), 621-6120, www.thecastrotheatre.com. $8 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: A bureaucrat with cancer decides to do something useful with his remaining life in Akira Kurosawa's moral fable Ikiru (1952), a very fine film 1:30, 4:15, 7:15 p.m.

FRIDAY THROUGH THURSDAY (Oct. 25-31): Kurosawa's evergreen action spectacle The Seven Samurai (1954) 2, 7:30 p.m.

CLAY

2261 Fillmore (at Clay), 352-0870, www.landmark.com. An eight-week "8 Tales" midnight series concludes; see www.8tales.com for more. For the rest of the Clay's schedule, see our Showtimes page. $5.

FRIDAY & SATURDAY (Oct. 25 & 26): No, it's not the Rally Monkey we've got on our backs, it's Iron Monkey (Wing-poo Yuen, Hong Kong, 1993), a prequel to the popular Once Upon a Time in China series. "Closing night festivities, trailer show, fun and games" are promised midnight.

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: Monteith McCollum's Hybrid (2000; 7:30 p.m.), reportedly an entertaining look at a hundred-year-old developer of hybrid corn, plays with Alexander Dovzhenko's lovely hymn to nature, Earth (U.S.S.R., 1930; 9:20 p.m.).

THURSDAY THROUGH WEDNESDAY (Oct. 24-30): F.W. Murnau's horror classic Nosferatu (Germany, 1922; 7:30 p.m.) plays with a live accordion score by Rich Kuhn, and Victor Halperin's atmospheric tale White Zombie (1932; 8:55 p.m.), with Bela Lugosi.

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.

WEDNESDAY THROUGH SUNDAY: An opera-loving thief bootlegs a performance by a technophobic Diva (Jean-Jacques Beineix, France, 1982), screening through Oct. 27 at 6:30, 8:45 p.m.; also Fri & Sat 11 p.m.

MONDAY: Closed.

STARTS TUESDAY: Alfred Hitchcock's Vertigo (1958) screens through Nov. 17 6:15, 8:30 p.m.; also Fri & Sat 11 p.m.

JEZEBEL'S JOINT

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

WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY (Oct. 23 & 24): Cartoonist/madman Bill Plympton's Mutant Aliens are loose in this theater. These aliens hail from the Planet of the Nose People 8 p.m.

FRIDAY (Oct. 25): Meanwhile on this planet, street musician Thoth plans to create "a world not unlike Tolkein's Middle Earth with its own language, culture and history." An Oscar-winning documentary from Sarah Kernochan 8 p.m.

MINNA STREET GALLERY

111 Minna (between New Montgomery and Second streets), 864-0660 and www.microcinema.com for information on this program. $5.

TUESDAY (Oct. 29): The Independent Exposure Screening Series concludes this year's season with the "Halloweird 2002 Edition" of 16 "weird, odd, creepy, gross, and frightening" shorts from international filmmakers, including Brian Tane's Punkarelli, Orin Portnoy's Killer Bunnies, and Matt Kovalikades' Abusive Parental Guidance Suggested 8 p.m.