Mill Valley, New People Cinema and an inebriated East Bay film festival are places to be this week.
A big event on the local arts calendar, the Mill Valley Film Festival, launches its 49th edition on Thursday. The festival offers quality independent cinema, along with an opportunity to see awards-bound movies before they hit the theaters. It takes place at the Christopher B. Smith Rafael Film Center in San Rafael; Sequoia Cinema in Mill Valley; Lark Theater in Larkspur; and Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive in Berkeley. More than 170 films are showing, beginning with “Wild Horse Nine,” opening the festival Thursday. Martin McDonagh (“In Bruges”) directed this darkly comic thriller starring John Malkovich and Sam Rockwell. “The Debut” closes the festival on Oct 11. Directed by Jesse Eisenberg, the movie stars Julianne Moore as a shy housewife who has been unexpectedly cast in a stage play.
Other spotlighted films include “Paper Tiger,” directed by James Gray and starring Miles Teller, Adam Driver, and Scarlett Johansson; “Elsinore,” starring Andrew Scott as a real-life actor with AIDS who is determined to portray Hamlet; and new works by filmmaking giants Mike Leigh (“Tender Loving Care”), Hirokazu Kore-eda (“Look Back”), Cristian Mungiu (“Fjord”), Lee Chang-dong (“Possible Love”), and Pedro Almodovar (“Bitter Christmas”). Featured documentarians include Dawn Porter (“When a Witness Recants”), Barbara Kopple (“Union Town”), and Alex Gibney (“Musk”). The Mill Valley Film Festival is presented by the California Film Institute.
Visit mvff.com for more information.
The Roxie Theater and New People Cinema are presenting screenings of Japanese horror movies at New People Cinema in San Francisco’s Japantown at 1746 Post St.
Upcoming screenings include:
- “Hausu” (1977), directed by Nobuhiko Obayashi, at 6:30 p.m. Oct. 2 and 4 p.m. Oct. 3
- “The Last First: Winter K2” (2026), directed by Amir Bar-Lev, at 2 p.m. Oct. 4
- “Never After Dark” (2026), directed by Dave Boyle at 8:20 p.m. Oct. 9, 6 p.m. Oct. 10 and 4:30 p.m. Oct. 11
- “Jigoku” (4K restoration) (1960), directed by Nobuo Nakagawa at 6:15 p.m. Oct. 16, 6 p.m. Oct. 17 and 3 p.m. Oct. 18
- Visit roxie.com for more information.
The ninth annual Drunken Film Fest Oakland — free independent short-film screenings in popular Oakland bars — begins this weekend and runs through Oct. 9. The festival’s opening event on Oct. 3 offers a ticketed screening of the West Coast premiere for the documentary feature “What Comes From Sitting in Silence?” at Shapeshifter’s Cinema.
Six free nights of other short films, screening at 7 p.m., follow:
- Oct. 4 at Double Standard
- Oct. 5 at Stay Gold Deli
- Oct. 6 at Beeryland
- Oct. 7 at Temescal Brewing
- Oct. 8 at Eli’s Mile High Club
- Oct. 9 at Prescott Market
Visit drunkenfilmfest.com for more information.
“Primetime,” the narrative feature debut of documentarian Lance Oppenheim (“Some Kind of Heaven”), goes back to 2006 when a “Dateline NBC” project called “To Catch a Predator” was blurring the lines between news and entertainment while ascending in the ratings. Currently in Bay Area theaters, Oppenheim’s film is a media satire, character portrait and psychodrama. In none of those arenas does it wow, but the film is moderately entertaining throughout.
Robert Pattinson exudes creepiness in the role of “To Catch a Predator” host Chris Hansen, whose hit TV show is helping put child predators out of commission by luring them to sting houses. There, cameras ready, Hansen confronts the alleged perpetrators. The police, too, get involved. At one point, Hansen obsesses over a “whale” of a sting. Not all goes as planned.
It’s hard to know where Oppenheim is going with his tonally muddy material. The movie doesn’t gel into the astute, intelligent, suspenseful, and original movie it aspired to be. But Pattinson indeed impresses, in eerie and unraveling mode. Despite having an underdeveloped character to play, he holds attention. Merritt Wever, as a fictitious executive, and Skyler Gisondo, playing a decoy posing as an underage kid, provide key supporting performances. For a superior film about Chris Hansen and his TV project, check out last year’s documentary “Predators,” which examined issues of entrapment, public shaming, and the cheap appeal of vigilante justice.
Profound it isn’t, but “Ha-Chan, Shake Your Booty!” directed and cowritten by Josef Kubota Wladyka (“Catch the Fair One”) and currently in Bay Area theaters, is one of the warmest movies about grief and death. Japanese star Rinko Kikuchi plays Haru, a 40-something Tokyo woman who is a fixture on the ballroom dance floor, where she and her similarly flaunting husband, Luis (Alejandro Edda), enjoy showing off their moves.
When Luis dies unexpectedly, Haru retreats into isolation. In her confused loneliness, she becomes smitten with the studio’s new dance instructor Fedir (Alberto Guerra). Intrigued by reports that Fedir has a wife and an open marriage, Haru pursues romantic involvement with him. But the emotional thicket she’s navigating proves a sticky proposition. Delusion as a means of coping — as when Luis comes to Haru in the folkloric form of a Raven’s mascot — is a theme in the film, which contains surreal material along with dancing. Kikuchi delivers a passionate lead performance. By giving the movie a protagonist both entertaining and deserving, she inspires audiences to root for Haru’s happiness.
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