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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111 MINNA STREET GALLERY
111 Minna (between New Montgomery and Second streets), 864-0660 and www.microcinema.com for information on this program. A monthly "Independent Exposure Screening Series" offers a lineup of international works on the last Monday of each month through October. $5.
MONDAY: (Feb. 24): The "Love and Other Difficulties" edition of the series presents a program of romantic conundrums 8 p.m.
ALLIANCE FRANÇAISE
345 Bush (at Polk), 775-7755, www.afsf.com. French-language films shown on projected video. $5 donation.
WEDNESDAY (Feb. 19): A Juliette Binoche series continues with André Téchiné's Alice et Martin (France, 1996) 7 p.m.
SATURDAY (Feb. 22): Alice et Martin 2 p.m.
ARTISTS' TELEVISION ACCESS
992 Valencia (at 21st Street), 824-3890, www.atasite.org for most programs, www.othercinema.com for Saturday evening programs. $5 save as noted. This venue offers all manner of strange and unusual video and film.
THURSDAY (Feb. 20): Just in time for Gulf War II, Hidden Wars of Desert Storm looks back on background and results of the first mother of all battles 8 p.m.
FRIDAY (Feb. 21): The ATA's monthly "Open Screening." $4; free for filmmakers (who must contact Meg at openscreening@hotmail.com to reserve a spot) 7:30 p.m.
SATURDAY (Feb. 22): Activist Indian filmmaker Suma Josson, in person with her critiques of modern Hindu nationalism, the documentary Gujarat (2003; 2 p.m.) and a drama of two children trapped between the subcontinent's two worlds, Saree (1999; 3:30 p.m.). $10 for both programs. In the evening, video rebels Animal Charm in person with their latest subversive redubs of "infomercial culture," plus Marc Moscato's Compliance Culture, more shorts, and a live "scratch video rave-up" 8:30 p.m.
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 revival of Henri-Georges Clouzot's icy Quai des Orfèvres (France, 1947) -- recommended to cynics and film lovers everywhere 2, 4:30, 7, 9:30 p.m.
FRIDAY THROUGH WEDNESDAY (Feb. 21-26): A new print of David Lynch's dreamy tour of small-town nightmare, Blue Velvet (1986) 1:30, 4:15, 7, 9:35 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: Gérard Depardieu stars in the highly popular costumer Cyrano de Bergerac (Jean-Paul Rappeneau, France, 1990), screening through March 2 6:15, 8:30, 10:45 p.m.
JEZEBEL'S JOINT
510 Larkin (at Turk), 820-3907, www.sfindie.com. This "Rock 'n' Roll DJ Bar" offers an "S.F. IndieFest MicroCinema" Mondays through Fridays. All screenings are followed by DJ music at 10 p.m. Free.
WEDNESDAY: After her famed Decline of Western Civilization punkumentaries, but before she directed such Hollywood kids' fare as the Beverly Hillbillies and Little Rascals updates, Penelope Spheeris helmed a dramatic fiction film about teen runaways, Suburbia (1986) 8 p.m.
THURSDAY: A timely screening of Kevin McKiernan's documentary Good Kurds, Bad Kurds (2000), about the rebels in northern Iraq the U.S. government supports, and the rebels in Turkey we oppose 8 p.m.
FRIDAY: Listen With Pain: 20 Years of Einstürzende Neubauten (Christian Beetz, Birgit Herdlitschke, Germany, 2000) gives us the inside scoop on "Germany's great modern minimalist industrial band." Even the German title is painful: Hör mit Schmerzen 8 p.m.
MONDAY: This venue's silent Monday screens Charlie Chaplin's undated satire of depression, industrialization, and coke-sniffing prisoners, Modern Times (1936) 8 p.m.
TUESDAY: Hitchhiking lesbian vampires thin traffic around their castle in José Ramón Larraz's Vampyres (aka Daughters of Dracula, 1974) 8 p.m.
MECHANICS' INSTITUTE LIBRARY
57 Post (near Market), 393-0100 for reservations and information. $5. This cultural asset of long standing offers a "February Film Noir" series of projected video of classics, with salon-style discussions after the films featuring noir expert Eddie Muller.
FRIDAY (Feb. 21): In recent years, blacklisted Cy Endfield's low-budget noir Try and Get Me! (aka The Sound of Fury, 1950) has built up a cult following. It's based on a true story of robberies and a lynching in the California of the 1930s, here updated to a gray postwar era. Recommended 6:30 p.m.
OPERA PLAZA
601 Van Ness (at Golden Gate), 352-0810, www.landmarktheatres.com. 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: Alexander Sokurov's Russian Ark (Russia, 2002). See Ongoing for review. Call for times.
FRIDAY THROUGH THURSDAY (Feb. 21-27): Nils Tavernier's Etoiles: Dancers of the Paris Opera Ballet (France, 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.
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