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. 18): ATA's monthly "Open Screening" of your film epics, with advance submissions recommended. E-mail openscreening@atasite.org for submission info 8 p.m.

SATURDAY (Jan. 20): Eddy Falconer's "hybrid-genre film whose main ingredients are esoterica, poetry, ethnic pastiche, and camp humor," Iberia (2006). Filmmaker in person. $6 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: Where there's a Will, there's a Pursuit of Happyness (Gabriele Muccino, 2006) noon, 2:25, 4:45, 7:05, 9:30 p.m. In Theater 2, step into Charlotte's Web (Gary Winick, 2006) 11:45 am.; 1:55, 4:05, 6:20, 8:30 p.m.

STARTS FRIDAY: Call for films and times.

CALIFORNIA
2113 Kittredge (near Shattuck), Berkeley, 510-464-5980 and www.landmarktheatres.com. This Landmark Theatres multiplex occasionally hosts special programs. $9.75.

FRIDAY (Jan. 19): The Arab Film Festival presents a special screening of Palestine Blues (Nida Sinnokrot, 2006), a documentary look at the Israeli Security Wall 7 p.m.

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: The 12th annual Berlin & Beyond festival continues with Short Film Program 2 12:30 p.m. Monks: The Transatlantic Feedback (Post and Palacios, Germany/Spain) 3 p.m. The Fisherman and His Wife (Dorrie) with Closing Night Reception to follow. $15 7 p.m.

THURSDAY: Radio hosts Fernando and Greg host a Big Gay Movie Night double bill of Moulin Rouge (Baz Luhrmann, 2001; 7 p.m. ) and To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmar (Beeban Kidron, 1995; 9:40 p.m. ). $6.

FRIDAY & SATURDAY: Alejandro Jodorowsky's peyote western El Topo (Mexico, 1970) 7, 9:30 p.m.; also Sat 2, 4:30 p.m.

SUNDAY & MONDAY: A new print of Jodorowsky's surreal The Holy Mountain (Mexico, 1973) 7, 9:30 p.m.; also Sun 2, 4:30 p.m.

TUESDAY: A tribute to the late Robert Altman screens his noir spoof The Long Goodbye (1973; 7 p.m. ) and a shaggy dog tale of two gamblers, California Split (1974; 9:10 p.m. ), two films that with their rambling, improvistory riffs on genre conventions, matter-of-fact insights into daily life in Los Angeles, and classic goof acting from Elliott Gould comprise the core of Altman's achievement in the 1970s.

DARK ROOM THEATRE
2263 Mission (between 18th and 19th "between the pawn shop and the laundromat"), 401-7987, www.darkroomsf.com. Live cabaret, plus regular film screenings with audience cat-calling encouraged.

SUNDAY (Jan. 21): Dark Room's "Bad Movie Night" screens the first of a series that has yet to develop a cult following, Police Academy (Hugh Wilson, 1984). $5 8 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 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.

DAILY: Welcome the future with 2001: A Space Odyssey (Stanley Kubrick, 1968), through Jan. 28 "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: Absolute Wilson (Katharina Otto-Bernstein, 2006) 4:30, 7, 9:35 p.m.

FRIDAY THROUGH THURSDAY (Jan. 19-25): Romántico (Mark Becker, 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. 19): A "Sex and the City" series screens Eric Rohmer's moral tale Chloe in the Afternoon (France, 1972) — not at all like watching paint dry, Gene Hackman (in Night Moves) to the contrary 6:30 p.m.

PACIFIC FILM ARCHIVE
THURSDAY: Local historian David Thomson curates a weekly series of classics, "Decisions in the Dark," opening with Orson Welles' Touch of Evil(1958) — which only counts if he shows it in the pre-Walter Murch, unrestored version, for what is Touch of Evil without Mancini's opening theme? 7:30 p.m.

FRIDAY: An Ernst Lubitsch series screens his historical epic Madame Dubarry (1919), starring Pola Negri and with Emil Jannings as Louis XV 7 p.m. Lubitsch's stylized romance Angel (1937), with Marlene sublime 9:15 p.m.

SATURDAY: A family matinee screening of A Hard Day's Night (Richard Lester, U.K., 1964), with Wilfred Brambell as the clean old man 3 p.m. Pola Negri and Lubitsch himself, as a hunchback clown, star in the Arabian Nights-inspired Sumurun (1920) 6:30 p.m. Another Lubitsch classic, Trouble in Paradise (1932; 8:40 p.m. ), finds Herbert Marshall, Miriam Hopkins and Kay Francis debating honor among jewel thieves.