Pete's weekend round-up: Film Noir fest, where to see the Oscar noms

My favorite film festival of the year starts tonight at San Francisco's spectacular Castro Theatre

Looks like it’s going to be a drizzly weekend—perfect for going to the movies. I’m particularly pumped for NOIR CITY 7 at the Castro Theatre in San Francisco. Alameda resident Eddie Muller—known in film circles as the Czar of Noir—puts this event together every January and it is, quite simply, my favorite film festival of the year. Muller schedules double features of rare crime films from the 1940s and ‘50s, always black and white and spectacular when projected on the Castro’s giant screen. This year's theme is "Newspaper Noir," which sounds like fun—journalists and publishers mixing it up with grifters and femme fatales and hit men. Click here to see the schedule of movies and find out more about the Festival!

Oscar Nominations came out yesterday, and the biggest surprise was the holocaust drama The Reader (which I still need to see) knocking the box-office dynamo The Dark Knight from the running in the Best Picture and Best Director categories. That’s kind of too bad, because Warner Brothers just re-released its spectacular The Dark Knight in IMAX theatres, which is well worth the extra few dollars if you can see it in that format—its mindblowing in that format. Heath Ledger is a shoe-in to win the best supporting actor for his role as the Joker, so if you are among the four people on the planet wo have not had a chance to see this Batman crime epic, skip Blu-Ray and go straight to the Dublin IMAX, where The Dark Knight opens today for a limited engagement.

The CineArts in Pleasant Hill is the place to catch up on many of the nominees. They have The Reader, The Wrestler, Doubt, Milk, Frost/Nixon, and Slumdog Millionaire, the favorite for Best Pic, is showing in the giant Dome. It's like one-stop Oscar shopping! For Tri-Valley residents, the charming Vine Cinema in Livermore has The Reader and Slumdog Millionaire. Also, both the Orinda Theater and the Grand Lake in Oakland have added The Wrestler in the main auditorium—it's great, and make sure to stay through the end credits to hear Bruce Springsteen's excellent title song, which certainly should have been nominated for an Oscar but was snubbed. The Grand Lake also has The Curious Case of Benjamin Button (13 nominations) and Revolutionary Road (best supporting actor nominee Michael Shannon) and  offers free popcorn with every admission from Monday-Thursday. If you’re looking for a good restaurant near the Grand Lake, check out Camino, which Diablo reviewed, enthusiastically, in the December issue.

Finally, my colleague Martha Ross wrote a touching blog yesterday about Prayers For Bobby, a Lifetime movie that airs Saturday night. The gay-themed movie is based on the of Bobby Griffiths, a former Walnut Creek resident who had a difficult time in our community when he came out. It sounds like a worthwhile movie (although I usually avoid made-for-television message films), and reading about the movie reminded me of a similarly-themed film from the early '90s, Doing Time on Maple Drive. The reason I remember that movie is that Bennett Cale, a guy I went to Monte Vista High School with, had a role in it. So did a then-unknown actor named Jim Carrey.

Posted at 10:36 AM in Pete's Popcorn Picks | Permalink