Movies: New People reopening, ‘Valentino on Valentine’s Day,’ ‘A Poet,’ ’Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die,’ ‘Dracula’  

Here’s some exciting community news: New People Cinema, an integral component of the cultural scene in San Francisco’s Japantown, is reopening this weekend. 

“Nippon Vibes,” presented in collaboration with the Roxie Theater, includes “Your Name” (2016), “Kokuho” (2025), “Godzilla” (1954) and “Throne of Blood” (1957) — all from Japan — are on already sold-out Saturday-Sunday bill. “Kokuho,” the highest-grossing Japanese live-action film ever, will begin a regular theatrical run, at the Roxie and elsewhere, on Feb. 20. New People Cinema is 43-seat theater on the basement level of the New People complex at 1746 Post St. Visit newpeopleworld.com for details on events happening down the line.  

The Niles Essanay Silent Film Museum in Fremont presents “Valentino on Valentine’s Day” at 7:30 p.m. Saturday. Honoring 1920s actor and heartthrob Rudolph Valentino, the program features a screening of “Cobra” (1925), starring Valentino as a broke, womanizing Italian aristocrat who experiences scandal and love in New York City. Greg Pane provides piano accompaniment. Two short silent films precede “Cobra.” Visit nilesfilmmuseum.org for details. 

Among the films in theaters this week are: 

“A Poet,” from Colombia, follows a Medellin man who’s the epitome of artistic integrity but a failure at everything else. Written and directed by Simon Mesa Soto (“Amparo”), the movie is an astute satire and a soulful dark comedy about being an artist in today’s commercialized world. Oscar, played by newcomer Ubeimar Rios, is a divorced, award-winning unemployed middle-aged writer who published poetry decades ago but has written nothing since. Rejecting job possibilities, he lives with his elderly mother, gets into drunken fights over authors, and sabotages every opportunity for improvement. His teen daughter Daniela (Allison Correa) is embarrassed by him. His redemption begins when he accepts a high-school teaching job and begins mentoring a student, Yurlady (Rebeca Andrade), who’s more interested in nail polish than poetry. But she goes along with Oscar because he helps her financially struggling family. Assisted by a pair of colleagues, Oscar helps Yurlady qualify for a prestigious poetry reading. In a scenario that brings Cord Jefferson’s “American Fiction” to mind, organizers encourage Yurlady to write about issues that will impress white international judges, like skin tone and poverty. With Oscar involved, it’s clear that the big event will not go smoothly. An outrageous attempt at damage control follows. Rios, whose slumped-shouldered Oscar could be a poster child for midlife failure, is extraordinary as an incorrigible but sympathetic mess. The bond Oscar forms with Yurlady is unaffected and poignant.  Soto, an effective and humane storyteller, has made a movie that is not only richly entertaining, but surprisingly moving. “A Poet” opens Thursday at the Smith Rafael Film Center and Friday at the Roxie. 

Director Gore Verbinski (“Pirates of the Caribbean,” “Rango”) goes all out, with mixed results, in “Good Luck, Have Fun, Don’t Die,” his wildly ambitious, sci-fi action comedy about the dangers of social media and artificial intelligence in theaters this week.   Suggesting a mix of “Everything Everywhere All at Once” and “Groundhog Day,” while sporting Verbinski and screenwriter Matthew Robinson’s own brand of gusto, the movie depicts a battle for the soul of humanity. The villain is AI-age technology. The hero, played by a crazed Sam Rockwell, is an unkempt “Man From the Future.” In the opening, he bursts into a Los Angeles diner, rants about how artificial intelligence and smartphones have zombified humankind, and claims that he has come to this restaurant, as he has done 117 times before, to form a crew of diners (Michael Pena, Zazie Beetz, Juno Temple, Haley Lu Richardson) to help him prevent the coming apocalypse.  Amid the raucous and nutty action are backstories for three characters. One vignette features a service that creates clones of school-shooting victims, with ad-supported options. While the movie smartly satirizes how technology warps our minds, some of its material isn’t particularly sharp or funny.  On the plus side is Rockwell, a compelling comic force as a leader who could be either a savior or a nutcase.  The film’s contemporary themes are relatable, and Verbinski and his company’s verve and originality are applaudable, even when misspent.  

Luc Besson’s “Dracula,” the latest movie adaptation of Bram Stoker’s vampire saga now in theaters, is ambitious and stylish, but has little passion. Caleb Landry Jones plays the title character, condemned to eternal life as a vampire after he renounces God for allowing his beloved wife Elisabeta (Zoe Bleu), to die.  The film follows bloodthirsty Dracula over several centuries as he searches for his reincarnated lost love. Christoph Waltz (who better for the role?) plays a Van Helsing–like vampire hunter pursuing him. Jones, complete with the requisite ridiculous Transylvanian accent, is a charismatic presence, whether in ancient, bewigged mode, a la Gary Oldman in Francis Ford Coppola’s “Bram Stoker’s Dracula,” or as a long-haired top-hatted dandy. Besson, meanwhile, presents colorful set pieces and puts a personal stamp on the story, setting much of it in Paris, or supplying outlandish elements like animated gargoyles. But spectacle eclipses character and feeling in the movie, which presents itself as an impassioned romance but is overall an emotionally lukewarm experience.