Special events salute San Francisco’s Balboa neighborhood theater, a queer cinema series kicks off in San Francisco, and Alfred Hitchcock movies screen in Palo Alto this week. Also: two arthouse releases.
San Francisco’s Balboa Theater, turning 100, is hosting fun and commemorative programs. The centerpiece event on Saturday is a fundraiser celebrating both the Balboa’s big birthday and the theater’s transition to nonprofit ownership under CinemaSFBay. The evening will include a soiree and the unveiling of a tile mural created by California artists Sandow Birk and Elyse Pignolet. Also on the bill is the presentation of the first Balboa Award to fashion designer Aggie Rodgers. “Return of the Jedi” (1983) and “American Graffiti” (1973), both featuring fashions by Rodgers, will show on the Balboa’s two screens.
The celebration’s core component is a weeklong tribute to Rodgers, featuring more than a dozen movies she has worked on — “Fruitvale Station” (2013), “Beetlejuice” (1988), and “The Conversation” (1974) among them. All programs will feature special guests. Located in San Francisco’s Outer Richmond area, the 1926-born Balboa Theater was designed by prominent local architects James and Merritt Reid in the Spanish Mission-Alhambra style.
Other San Francisco movie houses that have reached 100 are the Roxie, Castro, Vogue and (currently under renovation) Clay theaters. Visit balboamovies.com for more information.
LGBTQ+ filmmaking movements from the 1990s and today screen side by side in “New Queer Cinema x Trans New Weird,” a three-part series of double features at the Yerba Buena Center for the Arts presented by YBCA and Frameline.
Celebrating queer cinema’s rebellious and transgressive spirit, the series begins Saturday with “Who Owns Our Image?,” a program exploring enduring Hollywood genres through LGBTQ+ lenses. Todd Haynes’ New Queer Cinema classic “Poison” (1991), which reimagines the prison film, the monster film and the broadcast news magazine; and Vera Crew’s “Batman”-inspired “The People’s Joker” (2022), which features a trans woman superhero and wild and DIY Trans New Weird styles, screen.
Next up on May 16 is “Queer Vigilantes,” a program pairing Stephen Winter’s “Chocolate Babies” (1996) and Alice Maio Mackay’s “T Blockers” (2023). On June 6, “Teen Death Drive” is the theme. Gregg Araki’s “Totally F***ed Up” (1993) and Jane Schoenbrun’s “We’re All Going to the World’s Fair” (2021) screen. Visit ybca.org or frameline.org for more information.
The Stanford Theatre in Palo Alto presents more than six weeks of Alfred Hitchcock movies beginning Friday. “Hitchcock: The Master of Suspense” consists of 13 programs of double features that reflect six decades of filmmaking by the influential, unrivaled director. Viewers can expect horror, comedy, cliffhangers and lots of anxiety. A pairing of “North by Northwest,” Hitchcock’s 1959 mistaken-identity thriller starring Cary Grant, Eva Marie Saint and Mount Rushmore and “The 39 Steps,” the director’s 1935 spy drama with Robert Donat and Madeleine Carroll, opens the series, screening Friday through Sunday. Also this month: “Shadow of a Doubt” (1943) and “Young and Innocent” (1937) on April 23-24; “Rebecca” (1940) and “The Lady Vanishes” (1938) on April 25-26; and “Suspicion” (1941) and “Stage Fright” (1950) on April 30–May 1. Screenings continue through May 31. Visit stanfordtheatre.org.
Writer-director Nadav Lapid, known for criticizing his native Israel in films such as “Synonyms” and “Ahed’s Knee,” presents a scathing picture of post–Oct. 7 moral submission among Jewish Israelis in “Yes,” his new satire screening at Landmark’s Opera Plaza Cinema in San Francisco. The movie follows an Israeli couple — pianist Y (Ariel Bronz) and dancer Yasmine (Efrat Dor) — who, wanting a happy life for themselves and their infant son, pursue the favor of Israel’s elite. They sell their bodies to wealthy hedonists and, more plot-pivotally, sell their souls.
Y accepts a lucrative commission to write a new Israeli national anthem, which requires him, against his beliefs, to extol the annihilation of Palestine. Lapid delivers an avalanche of rage, absurdity, foolery and existential distress, and at times his blistering voice nearly overwhelms the characters. But fortunately, human material still satisfies. A segment in which Y and an old flame (Naama Preis) who is now a propagandist recall their more innocent days while driving toward the Gaza border, where Y screams his strident song lyrics into the desert air, is impressive, and saddening. “Yes” is an exhilarating, alive indictment of toxic patriotism and moral surrender.
Faithful to Albert Camus’ existential 1942 novella while considering it with fresh and current eyes, French filmmaker Francois Ozon’s “The Stranger,” now in theaters, is a visually seductive and insightfully political drama about ennui and colonialism. Archival footage transports viewers to 1930s French Algeria, where protagonist Meursault, played by Benjamin Voisin (from Ozon’s “Summer of 85”), is a taciturn, detached office clerk who, for no remotely justifiable reason, kills an Arab man. The apartheid system tolerates such a crime. It is Meursault’s lack of remorse that prompts the court to throw the book at him.
Ozon brings a personal and contemporary stamp to Camus’ 84-year-old classic. Gorgeous, New Wavy cinematography makes existential ennui look sunny and sensual. Ozon notably fleshes out of Camus’ Arab and female characters, and Voisin gives the movie the protagonist it requires. A charismatic enigma on the surface, the actor portrays Meursault with depth, as a deadened casualty of colonial existence rather than as a born monster.
The post Movies: SF’s Balboa Theater 100th anniversary celebration, LBGTQ+ film series, Hitchcock at Stanford, ‘Yes,’ ‘The Stranger’ appeared first on Local News Matters.