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 (Jan. 12): International ANSWER activist Gloria LaRiva relates 1960s European-style art-film Memories of Underdevelopment (Toms Gutiérrez Alea, Cuba, 1968) to the state of affairs in Cuba today. $6 7:30 p.m.

FRIDAY (Jan. 13): Bike Night at the Movies screens Peter Yates' charming film of Steve Tesich's autobiographical screenplay about four Bloomington buddies, Breaking Away (1979) in honor of "our friend Spencer's birthday." $3 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. A Food Bank drive continues — bring in canned and packaged foods for a movie prize.

WEDNESDAY & THURSDAY: It's back — and Daniel Craig still looks like Vladimir Putin on steroids in Casino Royale (Martin Campbell, U.K., 1997) noon, 2:45, 5:30, 8:15 p.m. Where there's a Will, there's a Pursuit of Happyness (Gabriele Muccino, 2006) 12:05, 2:25, 4:40, 7, 9:10 p.m.

STARTS FRIDAY: Call for films and times.

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: Eating Out 2: Sloppy Seconds (Phillip J. Bartel, 2006), a sequel to the "trisexual farce" which played here in 2005

THURSDAY: The Opening Night program of the 12th annual Berlin & Beyond German-language film festival features a Reception 6:30 p.m. Andreas Dessen's romantic Summer in Berlin (Germany, 2005) 8 p.m.

FRIDAY: Berlin & Beyond — All films from Germany save as noted. Lapislazuli — In the Eye of the Bear (Murnberger, Austria) 1 p.m. Winter Journey (Stirnbichler) 3:30 p.m. Tough Enough (Buck)7 p.m. Zeppelin! (Maug) 9 p.m.

SATURDAY: Berlin & Beyond — Wild Chicks (Naefe) noon The Kick (Veiel) 2:30 p.m. Audience Award Winner Here We Come (Raschick) 4:30 p.m. A Friend of Mine (Schipper) 7 p.m. The Free Will (Glasner)9 p.m.

SUNDAY: Berlin & Beyond — Rascals on the Road(Steiner) 11 a.m. Short Film Program 1 features Mozart Minute in which 26 filmmakers present a one-minute film inspired by the composer 1 p.m. The Boy Without Qualities (Stiller) 3:30 p.m. 2007 Best First Feature Award Winner Valerie (Möller) 6:30 p.m. Combat Sixteen (Borscht) 9 p.m.

MONDAY: Berlin & Beyond — The Short Life of José Antonio Gutierrez (Specogna) noon Living With Hannah (von Moeller) 2:30 p.m. :Lumbers Kings (Keilich) 4:30 p.m. Pingpong (Luthardt) 7 p.m. Four Minutes (Kraus) 9 p.m.

TUESDAY: Berlin & Beyond — Going Private (Werenfels, Switzerland) 3:30 p.m. Nathan the Wise (Noa) 6:30 p.m. Wholetrain (Gaag) 9:15 p.m. A concert film from the Berlin musicians Einstérzende Neubauten 11 p.m.

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: Backstage (Emmanuelle Bercot, France, 2005) 4:15, 7, 9:35 p.m.

FRIDAY THROUGH THURSDAY (Jan. 12-18): Absolute Wilson (Katharina Otto-Bernstein, 2006). See Opening for review. Call for 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. $10. This cultural asset of long standing concludes a summer film series this week. Shown on projected video, with salon-style discussions to follow.

FRIDAY (Jan. 12): A "Sex and the City" series finds Julie Christie a 1960s free spirit in Darling (John Schlesinger, 1965). Local historian David Thomson will introduce the film 6:30 p.m.

MEZZANINE
444 Jessie (at Mint), 820-9669 and www.mezzaninesf.com for venue, www.sffs.org for event. Reserve tickets at info@sf360.org. $5

TUESDAY (Jan. 16): The San Francisco Film Society's monthly SF360 FilmClub screens extracts from the latest Wholphin DVD collection of short films (the disc supplement to the literary magazine The Believer), including Miguel Areta's Are You the Favorite Person of Anyone?, with John C. Reilly and Miranda July, a performance piece by Dennis Hopper, and Bob Odenkirk's The Pity Card. Live performances, interactive works and free beer are also promised 7:30 p.m.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE
2575 Bancroft (at Bowditch), Berkeley, (510) 642-1124 and www.bampfa.berkeley.edu, $8, double bills $12. 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: Film 50, a history of cinema course taught by Marilyn Fabe and open to the public as space permits commences its spring semester with her illustrated lecture, "An Introduction to Film Language" 3 p.m. A series devoted to "the appreciation of water" screens Switch Off (Manel Mayol, Spain, 2005), recording the fate of Mapuche Indians relocated in the face of a Chilean dam 7:30 p.m.

THURSDAY: A free "First Thursday" screening of "Intensive Care," a program of short films relating to violence, includes Vlatko Gilic's In Continuo (Yugoslavia, 1971), an allegory filmed in a slaughterhouse 5:30 p.m. Middle Eastern filmmakers study Education as a Site of Indoctrination in a program of shorts featuring Hatice Güleryüz's The First Ones (Turkey, 2000), recording the singing of the national anthem in schools 7:30 p.m.FRIDAY: The PFA doors swing open after its holiday hiatus with, bless them, an Ernst Lubitsch series, starting with Lady Windermere's Fan (1925), a witty adaptation of Oscar Wilde's play stripped of most of his witticisms 7 p.m.Lubitsch's holiday classic The Shop Around the Corner (1940), one of cinema's great romances 8:45 p.m.