Repertory Film Listings

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.

1751 SOCIAL CLUB

1751 Fulton (between Central and Masonic), 444-7263, www.1751socialclub.com. Site of the old Storyville club. $5; 21 and older.

FRIDAY (Dec. 9): S.F. IndieFest presents a "Rock 'n' Roll Horror Show" featuring the Hammer horror Kiss of the Vampire (1962) 8 p.m. , followed by the bands Stolen Babies and the Graves Brothers Deluxe at 10 p.m.

ACT I & II

2128 Center (at Shattuck), Berkeley, (510) 464-5980, www.landmarktheatres.com. $9.25 save as noted. One of this venue's two screens is a "calendar house" for Landmark Theatres. For additional screenings, see our Showtimes page.

WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY: Naked in Ashes (Paula Fouce, 2005) 7, 9:30 p.m.

FRIDAY THROUGH THURSDAY (Dec. 9-15): 39 Pounds of Love (Dani Menkin, 2005). See Opening for review. Call for times.

ALLIANCE FRANÇAISE

345 Bush (at Polk), 775-7755, www.afsf.com. French-language films shown on projected video. $6 donation.

WEDNESDAY (Dec. 7): Single mom Ariane Ascaride (Jeannette) steals paint from the abandoned cement factory guarded by Gérard Meylan (Marius); love and painting are the result in Marius and Jeannette (Robert Guédiguian, France, 1997) 7 p.m.

ARTISTS' TELEVISION ACCESS

992 Valencia (at 21st Street), 824-3890, www.atasite.org. $5 save as noted. This venue offers all manner of strange and unusual video and film.

THURSDAY (Dec. 8): The 59 Seconds Festival screens 59 videos and animations, each 59 seconds long, from, among other places, Finland, Slovenia, Romania, Belarus, Taiwan, and Japan 8 p.m.

SATURDAY (Dec. 10): A "Sid Davis Retrospective" showcases the oeuvre of "cinema history's most psychologically twisted educational-film producer," whose works screening tonight include Boys Beware, Dangerous Stranger, Seduction of the Innocent, and Alcohol Is Dynamite. Todd Southern's survey SidVision precedes the unveiling. $6.66 8, 10 p.m.

TUESDAY (Dec. 13): "Exquisite: This is what we are now," the senior show of California College of the Arts' film/video/performance department 8 p.m.

BALBOA

3630 Balboa (at 38th Avenue), 221-8484, www.balboamovies.com. $8.50 save as noted. This great neighborhood house shows films of all sorts. See our Showtimes page for additional listings.

WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY: "Samurai!," a festival of famous and little-seen Japanese martial arts classics, continues with Akira Kurosawa's splendid Macbeth adaptation Throne of Blood (1957; 12:50, 4:50, 8:50 p.m.), on a bill with New Tale of Zatoichi (Tokuzo Tanaka, 1963; 3, 7 p.m.), third in the series and the first color film featuring the blind swordsman. See Night & Day Friday for more. Also, on screen 2, A Touch of Spice (Tassos Boulmetis, Greece, 2003) 12:45, 2:50, 4:55, 7:10, 9:15 p.m.

FRIDAY & SATURDAY: "Samurai!" -- Genre master Hideo Gosha's debut, Three Outlaw Samurai (1964; 2:40, 7:15 p.m.), plus Kurosawa's epic The Hidden Fortress (1958; noon, 4:35, 9:10 p.m.).

SUNDAY & MONDAY: "Samurai!" -- Samurai Saga (Hiroshi Inagaki, 1959; 2:45, 7 p.m.) casts Toshiro Mifune as Cyrano in this big-nosed adventure, screening with Masahiro Shinoda's Assassination (1964; 12:40, 4:55, 9:10 p.m.), about a master politician/swordsman and his equally skilled stalker.

TUESDAY & WEDNESDAY (Dec. 13 & 14): "Samurai!" -- Bandits vs. Samurai Squadron (Gosha, 1978; 3:25, 8:15 p.m.), nearly three hours of all-star intrigue, screens with the peppy, 86-minute Zatoichi the Fugitive (Tanaka, 1963; 1:40, 6:30 p.m.).

CALIFORNIA COLLEGE OF THE ARTS

Timken Hall, 1111 Eighth St. (at Irwin), 703-9500, www.ccarts.edu. $7.

WEDNESDAY (Dec. 7): "Overdoing the Movies: A Big Band Covers the Standards" as Ted Brinkley and his ensemble play new music for scenes from films shot in San Francisco, "a reverse visual kino-karaoke." Stars glimpsed include Chaney, Crawford, Bogart, Hayworth, Stewart, Eastwood, McQueen, and Streisand; genres listed are "the newsreel, the film noir, the foot-chase, the car-chase, and psychedelic'" 7:30 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 on the Mighty Wurlitzer.

WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY: Three of Hearts (Susan Kaplan, 2004) 7, 9:15 p.m.; also Wed 1, 3, 5 p.m.

FRIDAY: A David Lynch series offers three double bills from the sultan of surrealism, or more accurately the hyperacute sensibility of lucid dreaming. His masterpiece to date, Mulholland Drive (2001; 7 p.m.), screens with the very-hard-to-see theatrical prequel to his television series, Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me (1992; 9:40 p.m.), unpopular in its day but blazing a trail for what would follow. Highly recommended. And let's not forget Lost Highway (1997); separate admission midnight.

SATURDAY: David Lynch -- Laura Dern puts herself out there as the good girl in Blue Velvet (1986; 2:15, 7 p.m.), a dossier of Lynchian obsessions, and as wild Lula in Wild at Heart (1990; 4:30, 9:15 p.m.), an overcooked self-parody. Lynch regulars Isabella Rossellini and Jack Nance also make their presence felt.

SUNDAY: David Lynch, inside the Hollywood system he'd later critique, directing the prestigious and quite good The Elephant Man (1980; 2, 7 p.m.) and the at once distended and compressed science-fiction epic Dune (1984; 4:20, 9:20 p.m.)

STARTS MONDAY: Call theater for program.

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.