WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY: The Cannes Film Festival Grand Prize winner Distant (Uzak, Nuri Bilge Ceylan, Turkey, 2002). See Ongoing for review 7, 9:15 p.m.; also Wed 2:30, 4:45 p.m.
STARTS FRIDAY: Michael Almereyda's This So-Called Disaster (2004), a record of the San Francisco production of Sam Shepard's play The Late Henry Moss, screens through May 18 7 p.m.
STANFORD
221 University (at Emerson), Palo Alto, (650) 324-3700, www.stanfordtheatre.org. $6. This handsomely restored neighborhood palace usually (but not always) screens pre-1960 Hollywood fare in the best available prints, with excellent projection. This spring's series emphasizes James Stewart, detective films, and Hollywood 1934-38. Closed Mondays and Tuesdays.
WEDNESDAY THROUGH FRIDAY: Shirley Temple is a Poor Little Rich Girl (Irving Cummings, 1936; 7:30 p.m.) in one of her biggest hits, screening with the musical On the Avenue (Roy Del Ruth, 1937; 5:50, 9 p.m.). Both films co-star Alice Faye.
SATURDAY & SUNDAY: James Stewart stars in Anthony Mann's meaty western The Far Country (1954; 4:20, 7:30 p.m.), billed with The Saint Strikes Back (John Farrow, 1939; 6:10, 9:20 p.m.), with George Sanders as the sharp-tongued detective.
YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS
701 Mission (at Third Street, in Yerba Buena Gardens), 978-2787, www.YerbaBuenaArts.org. $6 save as noted. This venue's Screening Room is a home for film and video programs of all sorts.
WEDNESDAY (May 5): A Goethe-Institut screening of Life Goes On (Carl Schmitt and Marc Alan Cairns, Germany, 2003), based on the true story of the making of big-budget Nazi propaganda films in the last days of the war. $7 7:30 p.m.
FRIDAY (May 7): A "Films From Along the Silk Road" series of Central Asian cinema opens with Darezhan Omirbaev's Kairatt (Kazakhstan, 1991; 7 p.m.), an autobiographical movie about his adolescence that's said to show the influence of Hitchcock and Bresson. Tolomush Okeev's The Fierce One (Kyrgyzstan/Kazakhstan, 1973; 8:45 p.m.), written by Andrei Konchalovsky, is about a boy who raises a wolf cub. Thirty-five millimeter prints, $7 admission for both.
SUNDAY (May 9): YBCA artist-in-residence Bill Daniel screens Roy Nolan's video The Last Free Ride (1975), a time capsule shot on Sausalito's houseboats. $7 2 p.m.
FILM NOTES
This Thursday the Danger and Despair Knitting Circle screens a rare 16mm print of The Flame (John Auer, 1947), about wealthy family members (who include John Carroll and Vera Hruba Ralston) trying to kill each other for money. Introduced by Marc Kagan. For more info, see www.noirfilm.com; to make a reservation and get directions to the screening locale, contact 552-1533 or e-mail darkmarc@msn.com.
