You may have seen this trend coming, but in the second half of October it's fully arrived. Our fab Castro movie palace is now so eclectically programmed, the programming elves so moved by diverse spirits, that the result is a cross between its origins as a 1920s vaudeville house and Ted Turner's Super Station.
Margaret Cho: The PsyCho Tour Hometown gal Cho was born to Korean-American parents in SF. Growing up near her dad's bookstore Paperback Traffic, she described her community as "old hippies, ex-druggies, burn-outs from the 60s, drag queens, Chinese people, and Koreans. To say it was a melting pot, that's the least of it. It was a really confusing, enlightening, wonderful time."
Cho's comedy rants range in subject from appearances on The View and an unsuccessful spinoff from The Golden Girls to hang-time with Jerry Seinfeld. She attended the SF School of the Arts, where she did improv comedy with actors Sam Rockwell and Aisha Tyler. Completing a kind of black belt in comedy, she appeared on a Bob Hope special, and was a frequent guest on Arsenio Hall's late-night gabfest. (10/15, 8 & 10:30 p.m.)
Arab Film Festival Opening-night film is Ali F. Mostafa's From A to B, whose protagonist Omar (Fadi Rifaai) embarks on a car trip through the Middle East from Abu Dhabi to Beirut in memory of a deceased friend. The trip is a series of comic misadventures, from highway breakdown to encounters with camels along the highway. (10/16)
Cleopatra This super Cinemascope 1963 treasure from studio vet Joseph L. Mankiewicz nearly destroyed 20th Century Fox upon its initial release. But it's the real deal in costume dramas, with Richard Burton and Rex Harrison dressed in togas as Marc Antony and Julius Caesar, and Elizabeth Taylor as Queen of the Nile.
The Phantom of the Opera House organist Bruce Loeb accompanies the 1925 76-minute silent version of this classic horror tale, with silent star Lon Chaney in the title role.
Carnival of Souls Director Herk Harvey's 1962 cult hit kicks off with a small-town Kansas woman experiencing a drag-car race and winding up as a Salt Lake City church organist. With apparitions galore, this is as B-movie a program as any on the calendar. (all three, 9/17)
My Fair Lady George Cukor presided over studio chief Jack Warner's last stab at Hollywood Golden Age grandeur with this highly entertaining version of the smash Broadway musical. Rex Harrison shines in his greatest role, George Bernard Shaw's crabby linguist who bets his fellow London clubman that he can pass a poor cockney flower girl (Audrey Hepburn) off as a society lady at a glamorous society ball.
The Jerk Steve Martin and Carl Reiner combine their Olympic-level comic skills in Martin's big-screen debut. With an all-star cast: Bernadette Peters, Catlin Adams, Mabel King, Bill Macy, Jackie Mason, Maurice Evans and M. Emmet Walsh. An anything-goes carnival of exotic sights and sounds. (both 10/18)
The Exorcist The original version of Peter Blatty's early-70s bestseller (directed by William Friedkin) about a child relieved of her demonic possession by a plucky priest. With Ellen Burstyn, Max von Sydow, Linda Blair and Lee J. Cobb. It's either one of the scariest mainstream horror films or a hilarious spoof of everything the Catholic Church has held dear.
The Devils British cinema trickster Ken Russell always felt that excess was best, and doubles down on every imaginable beat in this wild tale of 17th-century witchcraft. The fine ensemble: Oliver Reed, Vanessa Redgrave, Max Adrian and Murray Melvin. (both 10/20)
Back to the Future, Part II A modern in-house spoof of Marty McFly's time-travel adventures. (10/21)
3rd I's South Asian Film Festival Four films range from Haider, a reimagined Hamlet; to The Crow's Egg, an urban streetkids tale; to Tigers, the tale of a Pakistani baby-formula salesman who tries to warn about a bad batch; to PK, a Bollywood-style story of space aliens. (10/24)
The Godfather Al Pacino takes over the reins of his New York crime family in the first part of Francis Ford Coppola's brilliant trilogy based on Mario Puzo's pulp bestseller. Oscars for Best Picture, Actor (Marlon Brando) and Screenplay (Coppola and Puzo). Coppola is well-known for prodigious feats of ghost-writing for other filmmakers, but here we view a protean film genius out in the open getting all the credit he richly deserves for what amounts to an Italian American origin-myth epic.
Serpico Pacino is back with his signature turn as an embattled Gotham cop who seeks to rid the force of internal corruption. This masterpiece is must-see viewing for anyone naive enough not to understand the cause and nature of police corruption worldwide, from East Coast urban slums to complacent West Coast nirvanas. One memorable line comes from a rotten Brooklyn cop who, when Serpico is transferred from the Bronx to Brooklyn for his own protection, snarls, "All right, you cocksucker, you might get by with that shit in the Bronx, but down here, 8,000 a month is chicken feed. With that, you don't fuck around. You understand? Good. Now get the fuck out." (both 10/25)
Scream The openly gay TV/screenwriter Kevin Williamson, pioneer showrunner for the WB's teen soap Dawson's Creek, gets credit for the first installment of this intelligently creepy teen-massacre franchise. (Preceded by a host of scary trailers.)
Wes Craven's New Nightmare The postmodern horror continues. (both 10/30)
Night of the Living Dead George Romero's original zombie-killers-from-beyond-the-grave classic has lost none of its original flesh-crawling appeal.
The Texas Chainsaw Massacre This 4K restoration brings back to the big screen Tobe Hooper's spine-tingling thriller about the fate of a band of hitchhiking teens who encounter a goon who hasn't learned the basics of good woodshed safety.
The Evil Dead Evil cult master Sam Raimi offers his original cabin-in-the-woods college-student-massacre masterpiece. With the debut of his leading man, Bruce Campbell. (all three, 10/31)