Cheryl Eddy

Rep Clock

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Schedules are for Wed/31-Tue/6 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features marked with a •. All times pm unless otherwise specified.

ARTISTS' TELEVISION ACCESS 992 Valencia, SF; www.atasite.org. $5-10. "Openscreening," Thu, 8. Struggle (Hill, 2012), Fri, 8. "Small Press Traffic: A Reading and Conversation with Dana Ward, Julian Brolanski, and Cynthia Sailers," Sun, 5. "Other Cinema:" Informant (Meltzer, 2012), Sat, 8:30. Read more »

Past lives

Startling family secrets come to light in 'The Flat'

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cheryl@sfbg.com

FILM When filmmaker Arnon Goldfinger's grandmother, Gerda Tuchler, passed away at 98, she left behind a Tel Aviv apartment crammed with a life's worth of objects. As The Flat begins, Goldfinger and his family — particularly his mother, Gerda's daughter Hannah — have just started clearing out drawers and closets, sorting through the possessions of a woman who apparently never threw anything away. The discovery of several vintage fox-fur stoles, complete with faces and paws, elicits much mirth.Read more »

'Cloud Atlas' and more new movies, plus one new-old movie ('Wake in Fright')

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A couple of potential Oscar contenders open this week: The Sessions, which could earn a nomination for John Hawkes' portrayal of a paralyzed man seeking to (finally) lose his virginity; and Cloud Atlas, an sprawling, interesting-yet-flawed epic from Tom Tykwer, Lana Wachowski, and Andy Wachowski that might win some technical notices, though probably won't earn any acting nods (however, the Many Faces of Tom Hanks could sneak in there). Short reviews of both films below.

In this week's Guardian, read up on unsettling 1971 Australian film Wake in Fright, finally hitting US theaters this week, and the San Francisco Film Society's "French Cinema Now" series, including a film starring Jane Fonda as an American expat in France (speaking flawless French, and looking pretty flawless, too).

Other new movies this week: Gerard Butler battles big (Bay Area!) waves in Chasing Mavericks; a teen (Nickolodean starlet Victoria Justice) chases her rascally little brother from one end of Halloween night to the other in Fun Size; a king (Korean dreamboat Byung-hun Lee) hires a lookalike actor to body-double him in Korean hit Masquerade; and people ... uh, run shrieking from spooky stuff in video-game sequel Silent Hill: Revelation 3D.

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Who needs candy? Get your Halloween fix with creepy crafts!

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Crafters! Ghouls! Two adorable books appeared in the mail recently: Chris Marks' Horrorgami: 25 Creepy Creatures, Ghastly Ghouls, and Other Fiendish Paper Projects (Running Press, 128 pp., $13) and Hannah Simpson's Knitmare on Elm Street: 20 Projects That Go Bump in the Night (Running Press, 127 pp., $17).

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Rep Clock

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Schedules are for Wed/24-Tue/30 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features marked with a •. All times pm unless otherwise specified. Read more »

Points of no return

Retro fear and loathing in 'Wake in Fright' and 'They Live'

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cheryl@sfbg.com

FILM Wake in Fright opens with a slow 360 degree pan across a dry, barren, isolated landscape. There are railroad tracks and two small structures, but the rest is filled with a whole lot of nothing.Read more »

Staunch characters

The leading ladies of 'French Cinema Now'

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cheryl@sfbg.com

FILM Last year's The Artist is still glowing months after its multi-Oscar triumph — its canine star just released a memoir, Uggie: My Story, and its human star, Jean Dujardin, will appear in Martin Scorsese's 2013 The Wolf of Wall Street.Read more »

Drunks, drugs, kung fu, and rock 'n' roll: just another week at the movies

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This week, get thee to the Roxie for "Not Necessarily Noir III" (Dennis Harvey's preview here), or the wind-whipped moors for Andrea Arnold's brutal new Wuthering Heights (my chat with Arnold here). Other new stuff we haven't reviewed yet: the not-screened-for-critics-because-let's-face-it-these-movies-are-critic-proof Paranormal Activity 4, and Tyler Perry's first Madea-free enterprise in some time, Alex Cross.

Read on for more new reviews!

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Rep Clock

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Schedules are for Wed/17-Tue/23 except where noted. Director and year are given when available. Double and triple features marked with a •. All times pm unless otherwise specified.

"ARAB FILM FESTIVAL" Various Bay Area and SoCal venues; www.arabfilmfestival.org. $10-25. 16th annual fest featuring films from and about the Arab world, through Sun/21.Read more »

Gimme Moors

Andrea Arnold offers a raw take on 'Wuthering Heights'

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cheryl@sfbg.com

FILM Emily Brontë's Wuthering Heights has inspired multiple films, as varied in quality as the 1939 Best Picture nominee starring Sir Laurence Olivier — and the 2003 made-for-MTV adaptation, in which "Heath" is a pouty, motorcycle-riding himbo. The source material may seem an odd choice for acclaimed British director Andrea Arnold, best-known for 2006's Red Road and 2009's Fish Tank, both gritty films about working-class people, unfussily shot using hand-held cameras.Read more »