Highly Recommended: 1-1 to 1-7

One will be able to spend all day, if so desired, in cinematic bliss! First, at:

SFMOMA: 1p.m.: Saute ma ville, La Chambre, and Hotel Monterey 3p.m.: Je, tu, il, elle

This program begins the long awaited retrospective of the great Belgian filmmaker Chantal Akerman. The first three are shorts of assorted lengths. Saute ma ville translates as "Blow Up My Town", and was made when she was 18-or-so years old, so perhaps you get the flavor of this delightful, talented, and unvarnished piece. Hotel Monterey is one of the maestra's more forbidding works--absolutely worth seeing, but don't say I didn't tell you... Je, tu, il, elle is one of the great debut feature films. Deliberately slow, humorous, sweet, and sexy, this masterpiece of ravishing Academy-format Euro-black and white really separates the men from the boys, or at least the men from the girls. You'll have to attend to make heads or tails... Warning! Some years ago, a dear friend of mine, after experiencing the first half hour of this work, in which Chantal rearranges her bedroom and downs numerous spoonfuls of sugar, took off in a huff. As soon as the door closed behind him, Chantal was on the road, and all the action began. Avoid huffs!

Full disclosure--I'm scheduled to project this program.

CASTRO: Breakfast at Tiffany's and A Shot in the Dark

After the museum, some entertainment please! Blake Edwards, as always, provides. This double feature is strangely analogous, for no other modern filmmaker gives Akerman a run for her money in the sexually ambiguous dept. than the Great Blake. These two films are well known, so I won't do much poetic waxing at their instance, but will venture to suggest a public debate on the great Mickey Rooney controversy. I'll tip my hand: I'm decidedly pro! I don't know about that Clouseau fellow, however. How can you defend lines like: "Cato, you little yellow fool!"? Or "I don't believe in the women's libs. Man is the master! A woman's place is in the hooooooommme!!!" (Shrieked while running from Tanya, the Lotus Eater, who follows with bullwhip squarely in hand as her Chinese procurer ritually and joyously proclaims to herself: "And another round-eye bites the dust!")

CASTRO: Experiment in Terror and Charade

Edwards's deepest and strangest entry into sexually ambiguous territory (for this weekend, at least) is Ross Martin's character in Experiment in Terror, who metamorphs from old lady with cane to psycho-killer, and then back again. Gorgeous black and white cinematography by the brilliant Philip Lathrop (Point Blank, among many others), featuring many terrific location shots of San Francisco in the early 60's. Last, but definitely not least, Lee Remick, who finally answers that pressing question: can straight-arrow bank-clerks be charming, even sexy? (Yes!!) Experiment is excellently paired with the excellent Charade by His Excellency Stanley Donen.

RED VIC: The 400 Blows (Also plays Mon, Jan 5th)

Usually worth seeing. Only once in cinema history was there featured a stocky Jean-Pierre...

CASTRO: Touch of Evil

What more can be said about this most ripely brilliant, ecstatic, mind-blowing nine-ring circus? This movie is like downing a Mexican Martini while having fantastic sex with Zsa-Zsa Leigh, while a Shakespearean professor dictates a ten-cent pulp novel to a well-stacked secretary nearby, his words filtering into your consciousness, unease slowly creeping over one's spine... (So much for avoiding rock-critic syndrome) Some trivia: the above-mentioned Lathrop operated the camera for this film, Universal executives had no idea Marlene Dietrich was going to appear in their production, and Welles re-wrote the original script in two weeks, then launched into shooting. THIS FILM CAN NEVER BE SEEN ENOUGH!!!