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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ALLIANCE FRANAISE
345 Bush (at Polk), 775-7755, www.afsf.com. French-language films shown on projected video. $5 donation.
WEDNESDAY (May 14): Poverty and race divide three friends in Hate (Mathieu Kassovitz, France, 1995) 7 p.m.
SATURDAY (May 17): Hate 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.
FRIDAY (May 16): Local animators offer their unscreened works, self-censored as "too weird," in "Involuntary Discharge." Filmmakers run from Todd Bever to Jud Yalkut. For more, see www.experimentalsynapses.org 8 p.m.
SATURDAY (May 17): A program of "Sonic Oddities" from curator Stephen Parr, including educational films, General Motors' Magic Ride, Soundies, Scopitones, and samplings of today's underground movie soundtracks 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: Jean-Pierre Melville's restored, rediscovered thriller Le Cercle Rouge (France, 1970), with Alain Delon, Gian-Maria Volonte, and Yves Montand. See Ongoing for review 2, 5, 8 p.m.
FRIDAY THROUGH THURSDAY (May 16-22): Jean-Luc Godard's third feature, A Woman Is a Woman (France, 1961), is a brightly colored slapstick musical about a wholesome stripper and would-be mother with two boyfriends. Easily Godard's most enjoyable film, on strictly movie-lover criteria, though hardly without the filmmaker's trademark digressions and asides 7, 9:15 p.m.; also Sat, Sun, & Wed 1, 5 p.m.
CLAY
2261 Fillmore (at Clay), 352-0810, www.landmarktheatres.com. For the rest of the Clay's schedule, see our Showtimes page. $5.
FRIDAY & SATURDAY (May 16 & 17): Blue pill? Red pill? The original The Matrix (Wachowski Brothers, 1999) gets screened at midnight.
EXPLORATORIUM
3601 Lyon (at Richardson), 563-7337, www.exploratorium.edu. Free with museum admission of $10. Screenings are in the center's McBean Theater, through the front doors and on the left.
SATURDAY (May 17): A "Traits of Life" film series offers Mira Nair's The Laughing Club of India (2001), about a Bombay club devoted to laughing 20 minutes a day, and Jessica Yu's Sour Death Balls (1992), a short short of face-pulling 2 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): Can you hear me? Ken Russell's Tommy (1975) screens through May 25 at 8:15 & 10:15 p.m.
JEZEBEL'S JOINT
510 Larkin (at Turk), 345-9832, www.jezebelsjointsf.com. This "Rock 'n' Roll DJ Bar" offers an "S.F. IndieFest MicroCinema" Monday through Friday (most weeks). Screenings are followed by DJ music at 10 p.m. Free.
WEDNESDAY: A band's progress is charted in The Rise and Fall of Black Velvet Flag (Sheldon Schiffer, 2002) 8 p.m.
THURSDAY: A slacker contemplates ending it all in the comedy Dropping Out (Mark Osborne, 2001) 8 p.m.
FRIDAY: Mods and (Japanese) bikers rumble in Jon Moritsugu's Mod Fuck Explosion (1994) 8 p.m.
MONDAY: "Silent Monday" screens D.W. Griffith's epic of the ages, Intolerance (1916). Note special starting time of 7 p.m.
TUESDAY: Women sprout monsters from their ids in David Cronenberg's The Brood (Canada, 1979) 8 p.m.
MECHANICS' INSTITUTE LIBRARY
57 Post (near Market), 393-0100 and www.milibrary.org for information; phone or e-mail rsvp@milibrary.org for reservations. $5. This cultural asset of long standing offers a May series of the films of Michael Powell. Shown on projected video, with salon-style discussions to follow.
FRIDAY (May 16): The Life and Death of Colonel Blimp (Powell and Emeric Pressburger, U.K., 1943), a comedy of war and preparedness starring Roger Livesey and the young Deborah Kerr 6:30 p.m.
METREON
Action Theater, Second Floor, 101 Fourth St. (at Mission), 369-6098, www.metreon.com. Sony hosts screenings of popular anime series from Bandai Entertainment this month. Free.
SUNDAY (May 18): Who's the high-tech defender of the Earth who scores with all the chicks? It's "the only thing standing between peace and the total destruction of Earth, a prototype ship known as Shaft." Shaft and friends are featured in Geneshaft -- Ring and Argentosoma, Volumes 1-3, screening continuously 11 a.m.-8 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: Abbas Kiarostami's Ten (Iran, 2002). See Ongoing for review. Call for times.
FRIDAY THROUGH THURSDAY (May 16-22): Andrei Konchalovsky's House of Fools (Russia, 2002). See Opening for reviews. Call for times.
PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE
2575 Bancroft (at Bowditch), Berkeley, (510) 642-1124, www.bampfa.berkeley.edu. $8, second show $2. 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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