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.

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: Breakfast on Pluto (Neil Jordan, U.K., 2005) 1:30, 4:15, 7, 9:45 p.m.

STARTS FRIDAY: Call for films and times.

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.

DAILY: The Balboa revives the hugely popular, six-hour Italian epic The Best of Youth (Marco Giordana, 2003), through Jan. 5. Two parts, separate admission. Call for times. On the Balboa's other screen, two characters from the Oz books compare fashion tips in The Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe (Andrew Adamson, 2005). Call for times.

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: A Busby Berkeley series continues with the choreographer's best-known work, 42nd Street (Lloyd Bacon, 1933; 3, 7 p.m.), and what may be the best overall film he was involved with, Footlight Parade (Bacon, 1933; 1, 4:45, 8:45 p.m.), which gains immeasurably from star James Cagney's vigor.

THURSDAY: Berkeley joins forces with Carmen Miranda in The Gang's All Here (1943; 3:15, 7 p.m.), screening with Dames (Ray Enright, 1934; 1:30, 5:10, 9 p.m.), a funny satire of puritan reformers made the year puritan reformers put in a stricter film production code.

FRIDAY: The Goldwyn production Roman Scandals (Frank Tuttle, 1930; 3, 7 p.m.) sends Eddie Cantor back to ancient Rome, which he finds very different than the HBO miniseries he expected. It features some early Berkeley production numbers, and screens with That's Dancing! (Jack Haley Jr., 1985; 4:45, 8:45 p.m.), a survey of dance on film from the dawn of sound through the disco era.

SATURDAY: Speaking of which, Saturday Night Fever (John Avildsen, 1978) rings out the old year 12:30, 3, 5:30, 8 p.m.

SUNDAY: Baz Luhrmann's hectic bohemian rhapsody Moulin Rouge! (2001) rings in the new 1:30, 4:15, 7, 9:45 p.m.

MONDAY: Dolly Parton is working 9 to 5 (Colin Higgins, 1980) in this popular feminist comedy, co-starring icons Jane Fonda and Lily Tomlin 7, 9:30 p.m.

TUESDAY: Mighty Joe Young (Ernest B. Schoedsack, 1949), with star Terry Moore in person. See Night & Day Tuesday, Page 25, for more 2:30, 4:45, 7, 9:15 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: 2005 only felt like the end of the world -- see Dr. Strangelove (Stanley Kubrick, U.K., 1964) for the real deal. Screens through Jan. 22. "Starts at dusk."

LUMIERE

1572 California (at Polk), 352-0810, www.landmarktheatres.com. This multiplex is only partly a "calendar house" rep theater; for the rest of the Lumiere schedule, see our Showtimes page. $9.50.

WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY: Breakfast on Pluto (Neil Jordan, U.K., 2005) 1:30, 4:15, 7, 9:45 p.m.

STARTS FRIDAY: Call for films and times.

NILES ESSANAY SILENT FILM MUSEUM

Edison Theater, 37395 Niles (near G Street), Fremont, (510) 494-1411 and www.nilesfilmmuseum.org. A weekly "Saturday Night at the Movies" series screens silent films in this historic theater. $5.

SATURDAY (Dec. 31): A hard-to-see western epic from the director of The Covered Wagon, The Pony Express (James Cruze, 1925), stars Ricardo Cortez, Betty Compson, Ernest Torrence, and Wallace Beery as "Rhode Island Red." It screens with two 1915 shorts directed by Mack Sennett, with the 21-year-old Charley Chase featured in both, Hearts and Planets, starring Chester Conklin, and Love, Loot and Crash, with Harold Lloyd in a bit part as an "Italian fruit vendor" 7:30 p.m.

PARKWAY

1834 Park (at Lake Merritt), Oakland, (510) 814-2400, www.picturepubpizza.com. $5 save as noted. Pizza, beer, and movies on two screens. Call theater for programs, booked a week in advance. The Parkway also offers occasional scheduled special programs.

MIDNIGHT SHOW (Saturday): The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Jim Sharman, 1975), with live performance by Barely Legal. $6.

RAFAEL FILM CENTER

1118 Fourth St. (at A Street), San Rafael, 454-1222, www.cafilm.org. $9 save as noted. This three-screen repertory theater, now officially the Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center, is operated by the California Film Institute. Programs are complex; check carefully and call for confirmation.

WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY: Jack Nicholson is Michelangelo Antonioni's The Passenger (Italy, 1975) 6:30, 9 p.m. Naked in Ashes (Paula Fouce, 2005) 6:45 p.m. Viggo Mortensen has A History of Violence (David Cronenberg, 2005) 8:50 p.m. The Squid and the Whale (Noah Baumbach, 2005) 7 p.m. Paradise Now (Hany Abu-Assas, Palestine, 2005) 9:15 p.m.

STARTS FRIDAY: Call for films and times.

RED VIC

1727 Haight (at Cole), 668-3994, www.redvicmoviehouse.com. $7 save as noted. There's a spot on the couch for you at this collectively owned rep house.

WEDNESDAY: Future Pentagon pinup Dennis Hopper directed Easy Rider in 1969, when he and the world were young(er) 2, 7:15, 9:20 p.m.