Repertory Film Listings

Commentary by Gregg Rickman (greggr2006@yahoo.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. For additional Reps Etc. listings, go to sfweekly.com.

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.

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 (Aug. 24): The ATA's monthly Open Screening for you film and video geniuses out there. Advance submission required (hey, they say that in Hollywood, too, but they mean a different kind of submission). $4 7:30 p.m.

FRIDAY (Aug. 25): A Cinematastic! program of five short films. $5 8 p.m.

SUNDAY (Aug. 27): 3rd I offers "Introducing Bollywood" a film class taught by Arti Jain. $7 2 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.

WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY: Little Miss Sunshine (Jonathan Dayton and Valerie Ferris, 2006; noon, 2:20, 4:40, 7, 9:20 p.m. ) and in Theatre 2, Woody Allen stars as the Great Splendini in Scoop (U.K., 2006; 1:15, 3:15, 5:15, 7:15, 9:10 p.m. ).

STARTS FRIDAY: Call for program.

CASTRO

429 Castro (near Market), 621-6120 and www.thecastrotheatre.com. $10 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 70 mm series continues with the massive all-star comedy It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad, World (Stanley Kramer, 1963) 1:30, 4:45, 9 p.m.

THURSDAY: It's not only big, it's 70 mm: Titanic (James Cameron, 1997) 8 p.m.

FRIDAY: A Digital Sex triple feature of 1980s oddities screens Andy Kaufman and Bernadette Peters as robots in Heartbeeps (Allan Arkush, 1981; 7:30 p.m. ), John Hughes' Weird Science (1985; 9:45 p.m. ) and the arcade gaming Joysticks (Greydon Clark, 1983; midnight).

SATURDAY & SUNDAY: A Beatles Anniversary weekend screens films, hosts guests, plays music. See www.bayareafilmevents for more.

MONDAY: Call for program.

TUESDAY: A double bill of the Robert Bresson classics Mouchette (France, 1964) and Au Hasard Balthazar (France, 1966), about a suffering little girl and a suffering donkey, respectively. Call for times.

FOREIGN CINEMA

2534 Mission (between 21st and 22nd streets), 648-7600), www.foreigncinema.com. Free with meal. This restaurant screens foreign films, usually in 35 mm, 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: Any year, we have since discovered, living with Mel Gibson is a Year of Living Dangerously (Peter Weir, Australia, 1982) "Starts at dusk."

STARTS MONDAY: Call for film.

LARK

549 Magnolia (at Post), Larkspur, 924-5111, www.larktheater.net. This single-screen art deco theater has reopened with a policy mixing new and repertory programming. $9 save as noted.

WEDNESDAY THROUGH MONDAY: And why exactly does Al Gore want to keep Florida from sinking under water? Oh, that's right — he actually won there. Just An Inconvenient Truth (Davis Guggenheim, 2006) 7, 9:15 p.m.; also Thurs 4:45 p.m.

TUESDAY (Aug. 29): "A Summer Lark" offers a wine reception 6 p.m. A preview of a forthcoming comedy, Keeping Mum 6:30 p.m. Dinner at local restaurants, all for $145. Call for reservations.

LUMIERE

1572 California (at Polk), 352-0810, www.landmarktheatres.com. This multiplex is only partly a "calendar house" rep theater. $9.50.

WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY: Lower City (Sérgio Machado, Brazil, 2005). 4:45, 7:15, 9:35 p.m.

STARTS FRIDAY: Call theater for films and times.

MECHANICS' INSTITUTE LIBRARY

57 Post (near Market), 393-0100 and www.milibrary.org for information; phone or e-mail rsvp@milibrary.org for reservations. $5. This cultural asset of long standing continues a summer film series this week. Shown on projected video, with salon-style discussions to follow led by Michael Fox.

FRIDAY (Aug. 25):When you're a Jet, you're a Jet all the way — . West Side Story (Jerome Robbins and Robert Wise, 1961). How pretty do you feel? 6:30 p.m.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE

2575 Bancroft (at Bowditch), Berkeley, (510) 642-1124 and www.bampfa.berkeley.edu, $8, second show $2. The East Bay mecca for film scholars, part of UC Berkeley's Art Museum, thrives at its on-campus location, up the steps on Bancroft between Telegraph Avenue and the Hearst Gym.

WEDNESDAY: A Frank Borzage series concludes with the stylized stunner Moonrise (1948). Highly recommended 7:30 p.m.

THURSDAY: "Beyond Bollywood," a series of recent Indian films, screens Masala (Srinivas Krishna, Canada, 1991), a Bollywood takeoff filmed amid the expatriates of Toronto 7:30 p.m.

FRIDAY: A Kenji Mizoguchi series screens his last film, Street of Shame (Japan, 1956; 7 p.m. ), a drama of the life of five Yoshiwara prostitutes, and his arguable masterpiece, Sansho the Bailiff (Japan, 1954; 8:50 p.m. ).

SATURDAY: A program of the short animation of John Canemaker: Marching to a Different Toon includes the 2005 Oscar winner The Moon and the Sun. Artist in person 5 p.m. Canemaker lectures and screens a presentation on Winsor McCay: His Life and Art, honoring the pioneer and showing such classics as Gertie the Dinosaur (1914) 7:30 p.m. ).

SUNDAY: Mizoguchi's painfully serene examination of the tragic The Life of Oharu (1952), with Kinuyo Tanaka 5:30 p.m.

MONDAY: Closed.

TUESDAY: aka Don Bonus (Sokly Ny and Spencer Nakasako, 1995) looks at the life of an 18-year-old Cambodian refugee in San Francisco (filmmaker Ny a.ka. Bonus). Nakasako in person 7:30 p.m.