Hey guys, happy Monday! I hope it's going as well as possible. Whatever the case, it's about to get better when you check out all the movies playing in the bay area over the next couple of days! The Castro Theatre is in full blown Noir City double feature mode all week, We Are the Flesh comes to the Roxie Theatre starting Friday, and the final installment of Resident Evil starts early screenings this Thursday, with a wide release Friday. And there's more!
Opening This Week
Early screenings Thursday 26th (1hr 46min)
Opens Friday 27th
Action/ Horror/ Sci-Fi (IMDB)
The human race's last hope against apocalyptic obliteration is super soldier Alice (Milla Jovovich), but she's been stripped of her psychic powers. She must form alliances and rally survivors in Raccoon City for the climactic battle against the Umbrella Corporation and its ravenous hordes of the undead. This sixth installment of the video game-inspired franchise is directed by Paul W.S. Anderson (AWP: Alien vs. Predator).
Terror Tuesday
Tuesday 24th @ 10:45pm (1h 41min)
International/ Horror/ Mystery (RottenTomatoes)
Despite the lurid slasher-movie trappings of his output, filmmaker Dario Argento has always been able to attract "name" actors to his projects. The Unsane (original title: Tenebrae) stars Anthony Franciosa as a man bedeviled by constant death threats. If Franciosa's unknown nemesis intends to drive his victim crazy, he's certainly doing a bang-up job. As with most of Argento's films, The Unsane concludes with a lovingly detailed bloodbath. Literate dialogue and excellent cinematography (courtesy Luciano Tovoli) elevate this film from the usual slice-and-dice syndrome.
Weird Wednesday
Wednesday 25th @ 10:30pm (1hr 45min)
Crime/ Thriller (Google)
Hal Hartley's fourth feature is a significant break from the quirky romantic comedy territory of his previous work -- though all of the deadpan idiosyncracies which make him such a singular filmmaker remain intact, here he tries his hand at the thriller genre, a move yielding typically unconventional and innovative results. Amateur stars Hartley mainstay Martin Donovan as Thomas, an amnesiac who, in the first scenes, wakes up in an alley, badly injured; he stumbles to a nearby coffeeshop where he meets Isabelle (Isabelle Huppert), a former nun and would-be nymphomaniac who now makes her living writing pornographic fiction. She takes him back to her apartment, where in time his past slowly begins to emerge -- a sharp contrast to the sweet, even naive soul that Huppert has befriended, it appears that the old Thomas was in fact a vicious pornographer whose attempted murder was at the hands of his wife, adult film star wife Sofia (Elina Lowensohn). Thomas is also the target of a nefarious European arms merchant whose hired guns are hot on his trail. ~ Jason Ankeny, Rovi
Noir City 15
The Killing (1956)
Monday 23rd @ 7:15pm (1hr 25min)
Crime/ Drama/ Noir (IMDB)
You'll think you've died and gone to hardboiled heaven. Or is it hell? Kubrick was only 28 when he unleashed this twisty and twisted masterpiece, studded with diamond-hard dialogue courtesy of pulp master Jim Thompson. Sterling Hayden arranges a clockwork racetrack robbery only to learn the hard way what happens to best-laid plans. Kubrick proved his noir bona fides by casting genre stalwarts Elisha Cook Jr., Marie Windsor, Coleen Gray, Ted de Corsia, Jay C. Flippen—and unforgettable wild man Timothy Carey.
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Cruel Gun Story (1964)
Monday 23rd @ 9pm (1hr 27min)
Action/ International/ Suspense (RottenTomatoes)
Japanese cinema's tough guy extraordinaire Joe Shishido coolly plays a thief who's released from jail and pulled into a tricky plot to hold up an armored car.
The Ladykillers (1955)
Tuesday 24th @ 7:15pm (1hr 31min)
Comedy/ Crime (IMDB)
Music professor Alec Guinness rents a London flat from sweet old lady Katie Johnson. He tells her that, from time to time, several other musicians will visit in order to rehearse. In truth, Guinness can't play a note, nor can his visitors: he's a criminal mastermind, holding court over a gang of thieves, including the likes of punkish Peter Sellers, homicidal Herbert Lom and punchdrunk Danny Green. The gang uses Guinness' flat as headquarters as they conceive a daring 60,000 pound robbery. After pulling off the job, the gang stuffs the loot in a railway station locker. To avoid detection, Guinness convinces the ever-trusting Johnson to pick up the money. Through a series of comic complications, Johnson returns home with a police escort, with neither the woman nor the bobbies suspecting that she's carrying a fortune in her suitcase. Mistakenly believing that Johnson has ratted on them, the gang reluctantly plans to eliminate her. The Ladykillers won an Oscar nomination for William Rose's screenplay, and a BFA award for veteran character actress Johnson. ~ Hal Erickson, Rovi
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The League of Gentlemen (1960)
Tuesday 24th @ 9:10pm (1hr 56min)
Crime/ Thriller (IMDB)
A disgruntled veteran recruits a group of disgraced colleagues to perform a bank robbery with military precision.
Once a Thief (1955)
Wednesday 25th @ 7:15pm (1hr 47min)
Crime/ Drama/ Thriller (IMDB)
French superstar Alain Delon's first leading role in an English-language film highlights this ultra-hip 1960s heist yarn, shot entirely on location in San Francisco. The debonair Delon plays an ex-con settled into domestic semi-bliss with wife Ann-Margret, but when dogged cop Van Heflin puts the finger on him for a job he didn't pull, Delon has no choice but to throw in with his brother Jack Palance (!!!) on an actual robbery. Based on a novel by local mystery man Zekial Marko, who also acts in the film and provides exceptional '60s-hipster dialogue.
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The Sicilian Clan (1969)
Wednesday 25th @ 9:25pm (2hrs 2min)
Caper Story/ Drama (Google)
Roger Santet (Alain Delon) is a convicted murderer sprung from prison by the Sicilian clan headed by the aging Vittorio Manalese (Jean Gabin). They conspire to steal a large cache of jewels from an exhibit in Rome. As they are preparing for the heist, the mobster's American friend Tony Nicosia (Amedeo Nazzarri) suggests that a better way to get the rocks would be to hijack the transport plane while it is en route to New York. The dogged inspector Le Goff (Lino Ventura) is using all the available resources to thwart their plans. Though the heist itself is successful, Santet finds himself trapped by the mob because of his fling with Manalese's daughter-in-law (Irina Demick). ~ Yuri German, Rovi
The Taking of Pelham One Two Three (1974)
Thursday 26th @ 7:15pm (1hr 44min)
Action/ Crime/ Thriller (IMDB)
In New York, armed men hijack a subway car and demand a ransom for the passengers. Even if it's paid, how could they get away?
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Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974)
Thursday 26th @ 9:20pm (1hr 55min)
Comedy/ Crime/ Drama (IMDB)
With the help of an irreverent young sidekick, a bank robber gets his old gang back together to organize a daring new heist.
Blue Collar (1978)
Friday 27th @ 7:15pm (1hr 54min)
Drama/ Crime (IMDB)
Three guys, two African-American and one Polish, work on the production line in a Detroit automobile factory, and they are fed-up with the conditions. It dawns on them that their workers' union is doing them no greater good than their screwed-up bosses. So the trio pulls off a clumsy robbery at union HQ, in which they only gain access to some suspicious documents that point to union links with organized crime. Suddenly they're out of their league: violence, paranoia, rivalry, and recrimination erupt around them.
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Straight Time (1978)
Friday 27th @ 9:30pm (1hr 54min)
Crime/ Drama (IMDB)
Paroled criminal Max Dembo is compelled to withstand the calculated cruelties of parole officer Earl Frank. The more Max tries to go straight, the more he is defeated by circumstance. It eventually becomes clear that neither Hoffman nor his fellow ex-cons will be able to survive looking for legitimate work.
The Shining (1980)
Thursday 26th @ 9pm (2hrs 26min)
Drama/ Horror (IMDB)
A family heads to an isolated hotel for the winter where an evil and spiritual presence influences the father into violence, while his psychic son sees horrific forebodings from the past and of the future.
Friday 27th @ 9pm (1hr 19min)
Drama/ Fantasy/ Horror (IMDB)
After wandering a ruined city for years in search of food and shelter, two siblings find their way into one of the last remaining buildings. Inside, they find a man who will make them a dangerous offer to survive the outside world.
-Huntress
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