MONDAY: A week of real and fake samurai flicks, concluding with Kill Bill Volume 2, opens with Kill Bill Vol. 1 (Quentin Tarantino, 2003) 2, 4:20, 7, 9:20 p.m.
TUESDAY: Toshiro Mifune is a masterless samurai in Akira Kurosawa's masterful Yojimbo (Japan, 1961) 7:15, 9:30 p.m.
ROXIE
3117 16th St. (at Valencia), 863-1087 and www.roxie.com. $8 save as noted. Short-run repertory in one of the most adventurously programmed theaters in the USA.
WEDNESDAY: Outfoxed: Rupert Murdoch's War on Journalism (Robert Greenwald, 2004). See Ongoing for review 1, 2:45, 4:30, 6:15, 8, 9:45 p.m.
THURSDAY: City Lights offers a special screening of Outfoxed with a Q&A session to follow with anti-war activist Jeremy Glick, among others, in person 8 p.m.
FRIDAY THROUGH THURSDAY (Aug. 13-19): Tom Dowd & the Language of Music (Mark Moorman, 2004). See Opening for review 6, 8, 9:45 p.m.; also Sat, Sun, & Wed 2, 4 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.
WEDNESDAY: A weekly silent series, featuring Dennis James on the organ, screens William Wellman's aerial epic Wings (1927; 7:30 p.m.), with Clara Bow in support to male buddies Buddy Rogers and Richard Arlen. Bow entered the sound era as The Saturday Night Kid (A. Edward Sutherland, 1929; 9:30 p.m.), with Jean Arthur as her kid sister.
THURSDAY & FRIDAY: Tyrone Power's on trial in Witness for the Prosecution (Billy Wilder, 1957; 7:30 p.m.), but Charles Laughton and Marlene Dietrich are the real scene thieves. Alfred Hitchcock's Stage Fright (U.K., 1950; 5:30, 9:35 p.m.) would loom large in anyone else's filmography if only for another colorful turn by Dietrich.
SATURDAY THROUGH TUESDAY: Two 1953 films about show business by industry vet Vincente Minnelli, the musical The Band Wagon (7:30 p.m.; also Sat & Sun 2:55 p.m.) and the inside-Hollywood The Bad and the Beautiful (5:20, 9:50 p.m.). Chapter 8 of Superman (1948) precedes The Band Wagon.
YERBA BUENA CENTER FOR THE ARTS
701 Mission (at Third Street, in Yerba Buena Gardens), 978-2787, www.YerbaBuenaArts.org. $7, $2 for second feature, save as noted. This venue's Screening Room is a home for film and video programs of all sorts.
WEDNESDAY (Aug. 11): A Latino Film Festival screening of Helena Tabera's Yoyes (Spain, 1999), a profile of the first woman to assume a leadership position in the Basque separatist group the ETA. $8 6, 8:15 p.m.
FILM NOTES
The Danger and Despair Knitting Circle continues its "Mostly Pre-Code" series of 1930s proto-noirs, most featuring dangerous blonde Gertrude Michael. On Thursday, Aug. 12, the Circle screens a double bill of The Return of Sophie Lang (George Archainbaud, 1936), a post-Code comedy about a now-reformed jewel thief, at 8 p.m., and Witching Hour (Henry Hathaway, 1934), a courtroomer with Michael limited to a dream sequence, at 9:30 p.m. 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.
