Reps Etc.

FRIDAY (Dec. 6): "The last line of defense against Talpa and his evil supernatural army" -- Ronin Warriors, Volume 1 5-9 p.m.

SATURDAY (Dec. 7): Ronin Warriors, Volumes 2 through 4, continuously from 10:30 a.m.-8:30 p.m.

OPERA PLAZA

601 Van Ness (at Golden Gate), 352-0810, www.landmarktheatres.com. Taking over from the Lumiere this fall season, this multiplex is only partly a "calendar house" rep theater. For the rest of the Opera Plaza's schedule, see our Showtimes page. $8.75.

WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY: Daughter From Danang (Gail Dolgin and Vicente Franco, 2002); see Ongoing for review. Call for times.

FRIDAY THROUGH THURSDAY (Dec. 6-12): Christian Frei's documentary War Photographer (Switzerland, 2001); 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 & THURSDAY: Theater closed.

FRIDAY: A monthlong tribute to the long collaboration of Japanese filmmaker Akira Kurosawa and star Toshiro Mifune continues with their last picture together, Red Beard (1965; 4:30, 8 p.m.), a medical drama.

SATURDAY: A young woman's misadventures in Moscow are the subject of the Soviet silent comedy The House on Trubnaya Square (1928), screening with an original score commissioned from Dennis James 7:30 p.m.

SUNDAY: Douglas Fairbanks Sr. essays nature's nobleman, Robin Hood (Alan Dwan, 1922). $4.50 3 p.m. Kurosawa and Mifune -- A superbly visual version of Macbeth, Throne of Blood (1957; 5 p.m.) screens with Hamlet reworked for a big corporation, The Bad Sleep Well (1960; 7:10 p.m.).

MONDAY: Kurosawa and Mifune set out to ascertain the likelihood of knowing the truth in Rashomon (1951) 4:30, 6:20, 8:10 p.m.

TUESDAY: Kurosawa and Mifune -- An old man goes mad obsessing over the atomic bomb in I Live in Fear (1955) 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.

FRIDAY (Dec. 6): Frank Sinatra, brainwashing, card games, assassinations, ladies' clubs, McCarthyism, and milk -- all part of John Frankenheimer's legendary black tragicomedy The Manchurian Candidate (1962) 8 p.m.

PARKWAY

1834 Park (at Lake Merritt), Oakland, (510) 814-2400, www.picturepubpizza.com. $5 save as noted. Pizza, beer, and movies on two screens. Call theater for programs, booked a week in advance.

THURSDAY (Dec. 5): Rob Reiner's film of William Goldman's popular revisionist fantasy The Princess Bride (1987) 6:30, 9:15 p.m.

MIDNIGHT SHOW (Saturday): The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Jim Sharman, 1975), with live performance by Barely Legal. $6.

RAFAEL FILM CENTER

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

WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY: Standing in the Shadows of Motown (Paul Justman, 2002) 6:45, 9 p.m. Heaven (Tom Tykwer, Germany, 2002) Wed 6:30, 8:45 p.m.; Thurs 9:15 p.m. Rivers and Tides (Thomas Riedelsheimer, Germany, 2001) Wed only 6 p.m. See Ongoing for reviews.

THURSDAY: A sneak screening of Denzel Washington's Antwone Fisher (2002) 7 p.m. A series devoted to the splendid comedienne Carole Lombard opens with William Wellman's popular screwball comedy Nothing Sacred (1937), with an early short in color, Matchmaking Mamas (Harry Edwards, 1929) 7 p.m.

STARTS FRIDAY: Call theater for programs and times.

SUNDAY: An archival print of the seldom-screened True Confession (Wesley Ruggles, 1937) shows with the early Mack Sennett-produced short Run Girl Run (Alfred E. Goulding, 1928) 7 p.m.

RED VIC

1727 Haight (at Cole), 668-3994, www.redvicmoviehouse.com. $6.50 save as noted. There's a spot on the couch for you at this collectively owned rep house.

WEDNESDAY: Robert Evans tells his side of his rise and fall and semi-rise again in The Kid Stays in the Picture (Brett Morgan and Nanette Burstein, 2002), a highly entertaining look at Hollywood in the 1960s-70s 7:15, 9:20 p.m.; also Wed 2 p.m.

THURSDAY THROUGH SATURDAY: Sam Jones' film about Wilco, I Am Trying to Break Your Heart (2002) 7:15, 9:15 p.m.; also Sat 2 p.m.

SUNDAY & MONDAY: This kid stays in the picture -- prep-schooler Aaron Stanford gets involved with his stepmom's best friend in Tadpole (Gary Winick, 2002) 7:15, 9:15 p.m.; also Sun 2, 4 p.m.

TUESDAY: The Robert Evans-produced Chinatown (Roman Polanski, 1974), a lush tale of universal corruption 7, 9:40 p.m.

ROXIE

3117 16th St. (at Valencia), 863-1087, www.roxie.com. $8. Short-run repertory in one of the most adventurously programmed theaters in the U.S.A.

WEDNESDAY THROUGH SATURDAY: Behind-the-scenes glimpses of Queen are proffered in Freddie Mercury: The Untold Story (Rudi Dolezal and Hannes Rossacher, 2002), a new documentary 6, 8, 10 p.m.; also Wed & Sat 2, 4 p.m.

SATURDAY: Scott Ritter's In Shifting Sands (2002) promises "the truth about UNSCOM and the Disarming of Iraq" every Saturday at noon.

SUNDAY: Stealing the Fire (John S. Friedman and Eric Nadler, 2002) traces the roots of Iraq's nuclear program to a German cartel and screens here weekly at noon.

SUNDAY THROUGH TUESDAY: Natural healing is promoted in Ayurveda: The Art of Being (Pan Nalin, 2001) 7, 9:15 p.m.; also Sun 2, 4:30 p.m.

SAN FRANCISCO CINEMATHEQUE

S.F. Art Institute, 800 Chestnut (at Jones), 822-2885, www.sfcinematheque.org. $7 save as noted. The San Francisco Cinematheque specializes in avant-garde, historical, and experimental films at venues around the Bay Area, including the Yerba Buena Center and its home base at the S.F. Art Institute.