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.
111 MINNA GALLERY
111 Minna (between New Montgomery and Second streets), 864-0660 and www.microcinema.com for information on this program. $5.
TUESDAY (May 27): The "May Flowers Edition" of the monthly Independent Exposure Screening Series offers 11 "highly visual short films and videos full of springtime-fresh creativity," including Ruby Gold's Visible World, Jason Woliner's Gardnener III -- Revenge, and from Spain, Laura Glines' Music for Perplexed People. All this and live shakuhachi (Japanese bamboo flute) music by Philip Gelb 8 p.m.
ALLIANCE FRANAISE
345 Bush (at Polk), 775-7755, www.afsf.com. French-language films shown on projected video. $5 donation.
WEDNESDAY (May 21): The murder of a young girl sparks small-town turmoil and a police inquiry in Bruno Dumont's L'Humanité (France, 1999) 7 p.m.
SATURDAY (May 24): L'Humanité 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 (May 22): An evening of eight student ethnographic videos from SFSU's Visual Anthropology Program includes work on Tibetan youth in the Bay Area, migrant motherhood and paid child-care, transgender issues, SFO airport screeners, Mexican farm workers in Napa Valley, a Death Valley father/son mining team, drum circles, and a Palestinian-American woman. Videographers in person. $3 7:30 p.m.
FRIDAY (May 23): The ATA's monthly "Open Screening" offers films by you, or maybe by that coffee shop guy. First come, first screened. $4, free for artistes. Reserve your spot at openscreening@hotmail.com 7:30 p.m.
SATURDAY (May 24): A program of "Medical Madness" from curator Noel Lawrence, including Abel Klainbaum's Heimlich-maneuver doc The History of Choking, Kerry Laitala's three-screen Breathing for Others, and from the U.S. Army, How to Give an Enema 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-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 7, 9:15 p.m.; also Wed 1, 5 p.m.
FRIDAY THROUGH THURSDAY (May 23-29): Great artist of our time? Or this year's fad? The Castro screens Matthew Barney's complete Cremaster Cycle here through June 5, beginning this week with its last-filmed episode, the three-hour Cremaster 3 (2002), the one that ends with a race up the ramp of the Guggenheim. See our review on Page 41 noon, 4, 8 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.
WEDNESDAY THROUGH SUNDAY: Ken Russell's knock-knock-joke version (Who's there?) of Tommy (1975) 8:15, 10:15 p.m.
MONDAY: Closed.
STARTS TUESDAY: Sandra Nettlebeck's tasty drama of a cook under pressure, Mostly Martha (Germany, 2002), screens through June 15 at 8:30, 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: Jennifer Read's Owned (2002) visits a hackers' convention and a trailer park where one Fuqrag "casually wreaks havoc on government websites." John Ashcroft will hear of this 8 p.m.
THURSDAY: Enjoy a visit to the planet of the Nose People in animator Bill Plympton's latest, Mutant Aliens (2002) 8 p.m.
FRIDAY: Three seek celebrity and/or dodge infamy in Jon Moritsugu's Fame Whore (1997) 8 p.m.
MONDAY: "Silent Monday" screens Buster Keaton's beauteous epic of a man, a train, and a feud, Our Hospitality (Keaton and Eddie Cline, 1923) 8 p.m.
TUESDAY: A coma allows Christopher Walken to see the future, which includes Martin Sheen as a war-mad president, in David Cronenberg's The Dead Zone (1983) 8 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 25): Anime fans who visit the Bandai shop by May 23 can vote for their favorites, which will be screened this "Fan Favorite Weekend," continuously from 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: Andrei Konchalovsky's House of Fools (Russia, 2002). See Ongoing for review. Call for times.
STARTS FRIDAY: No films on printed schedule.
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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