Upcoming Movie Dates in the Bay Area

There are some noteworthy events coming our way in the next couple of weeks, some more mandatory than others, but all potentially great nights out in San Francisco. I will dispense them by date, you can sort them by your own interest. 

As part of a Thursday Night classic screening series, the Balboa Theater will be screening Dr. Strangelove at 7:30 this week. This is a chance to see Kubric's dark satire on the big screen for those who never have, and it's also an excuse to visit the Balboa. You parooze the rest of the theater's calendar here.

Have you ever seen The Room? Have you seen it properly, at midnight in a theater full of people who love to throw their best lines and endless spoons in the air? Well it's that time of the month again and you have another chance to celebrate this mysteriously funded, miraculously completed Tommy Wiseau creation at the Clay Theatre next weekend. The Clay screens The Room every Saturday in the middle of every month at 11:55 PM, but this time is going to be a bit different. First, there will be 2 screenings this time, on Friday the 10th and Saturday the 11th. Second, the writer, director, and star of the movie Tommy Wiseau will be at both screenings, and he'll be premiering his new show Neighbors! I actually heard that he has showed it at other events already but I haven't tried to find it or anything. I think watching it for the first time with the creator and the perfect audience is much more exciting than just looking it up on YouTube on my phone. 

The Room is a very talked about piece of cinema, and it's not hard to imagine why if you've ever seen it. If you have not, chances are you have heard about it, especially with all the other projects it has inspired. There has already been a book about the making of the movie, courtesy of Greg Sestero (Mark in the movie). It's called The Disaster Artist: My Life Inside the Room and is going to be turned into a movie very soon. The Room will also be dissected in documentary form very soon. Room Full of Spoons recently had a successful crowd funding campaign and is being worked on as we speak. I imagine it will be a lot like the book, but from multiple points of view. 

Also sharing the 10th is a monthly movie nerd out event called Midnites for Maniacs, hosted as always by Jesse Hawthorne, a film history professor at the Academy of Art University in San Francisco. If you like hearing an outside-the-box opinion on movies, and insight that will make you think differently about what you have just seen, then this is the perfect event for you. We try to make it out to as many of these screenings as we can, and I know there are a couple of film fans who are at each Midnites for Maniacs screening, front and center. This month the movies are Rocky IV and The Rock.

This lineup was announced to a theater full of Cronenberg fans and there were more than a couple of groans. But there's usually a reason behind the pairings, and hearing the theory part of the presentation is always interesting in my experience. You can read more about Midnites for Maniacs, past and future, at its MidnitesforManiacs.com. The first of these movies will start at 7:20 PM and the second will be at 9:30. 

 The Castro Theatre will also be screening a double feature of some very artsy vampire movies on Tuesday the 14th. 

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night starting at 7pm and Only Lovers Left Alive which starts at 9pm.

The last movie I have to tell you guys about is going to be playing at the Roxie for only 3 days, starting on April 24th. I was struck by the poster, and now I must see it. 

Roar is an 80s cult classic that put 70 people in the hospital during its filming. It tells the story of a wildlife preservationist whose family joins him in Africa, just as the long building fight for dominance among the animals reaches its breaking point. You may recognize some of the names associated with this movie, most notably the on screen and real life wife, Tippi Hedren, who was still willing to do this film after her other experience with an animal attack movie.

I've never heard about this movie before, and I'm extremely curious. Especially when all of the images for it just add to the list of questions. Like this one:

You can find all the info you may need at the Roxie's site. Again, this movie will only be showing three times, on the 24th through 26th at 7pm. I don't imagine you'll get this opportunity very many times in the future. 

Hope you can make it out to some of these event and support your local theatres!

-Huntress