Movies: Sundown Cinema, Pride film, Stanley Kubrick, ‘Power Ballad,’ ‘Jinsei’

Movies in the park, a Pride series, and Stanley Kubrick highlight the film scene this week.  

Sundown Cinema, a series of free family-friendly movie screenings in parks and other outdoor public spaces in San Francisco, is back, launching its 2026 edition. Five screenings are set for 8:30 p.m. on Fridays:   
• June 12: “The Princess Bride” (1987), Dolores Park 
• July 24: “Inside Out” (2015), Presidio Civil War Parade Ground 
• Aug. 21: “The Parent Trap” (1998), Marina Green 
• Sept. 25: “School of Rock” (2003), Ferry Building 
• Oct. 16: “Beetlejuice” (1988), Crane Cove Park 
Sundown Cinema is hosted by San Francisco Standard. Visit sfstandard.com/sundown-cinema. 

CAFILM Pride, a series celebrating LGBTQ+ stories and voices, hosts its fourth edition Friday though Sunday at the Smith Rafael Film Center. Co-presented by CAFILM and Frameline, the event features three award-winning films and filmmaker appearances. “Fire Within” opens the series. The documentary follows four people whose lives converge at Glide Memorial Church in this documentary shot at Glide and on the streets of the Tenderloin. Saturday’s film is “Gugu’s World,” a Brazilian drama about a gay boy experiencing friendship and self-discovery in a small coastal town. On Sunday, look for “The Dads,” a documentary about fathers who have started a movement to support their trans and gender-expansive children at a time when hostile right-wing interests dominate policymaking.  Visit rafaelfilm.cafilm.org. 

Stanley Kubrick, creator of some of the most revered and influential movies ever made, is the subject of a tribute series coming up at Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive. The 11-week “A Complete Stanley Kubrick” offers all 13 of the genre-hopping Kubrick’s feature films. It begins Friday with “2001: A Space Odyssey” (1968), the sci-fi groundbreaker. Tickets are selling fast, and “2001” will show again, later in the series. On June 14, “Barry Lyndon” (1975), Kubrick’s adaptation of the Thackeray novel about an incorrigible social climber, screena. This program, too, may sell out, and “Barry Lyndon” will screen again, during the summer. The remaining titles range from lesser-known to iconic: “Fear and Desire” (1952), “Dr. Strangelove or: How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb” (1964), “A Clockwork Orange” (1971), “The Shining” (1980), “Spartacus” (1960), “Full Metal Jacket” (1987), “Lolita” (1962), “Eyes Wide Shut” (1999), “Killer’s Kiss” (1955), “The Killing” (1956), and “Paths of Glory” (1957). Completing the slate are short documentaries made by Kubrick and features scheduled to be directed by Kubrick but were instead directed by others: “One-Eyed Jacks” and “A.I. Artificial Intelligence.” Visit bampfa.org for a full schedule and additional information. 

“Trainspotting,” director Danny Boyle’s gritty 1996 tragicomedy about addiction and poverty, has returned to theaters, including San Francisco’s Alamo Drafthouse New Mission, in a 4K restoration. Based on the book by Irvine Welsh, the movie stars Ewan McGregor as an Edinburgh heroin addict who gets clean and moves to London but is lured back into his self-destructive former life when friends from that world appear at his door. Jonny Lee Miller, Robert Carlyle, Ewen Bremner, Kevin McKidd and Kelly Macdonald costar.  

“Power Ballad,” in Bay Area theaters, is Irish filmmaker John Carney’s latest upbeat dramedy in which people connect and shine making music. Paul Rudd plays Rick Power, a past-his-prime American rock musician who lives in Ireland with his wife (Marcella Plunkett) and teenage daughter (Beth Fallon) and plays in a wedding band, having shelved his songwriting aspirations. Nick Jonas plays Danny Wilson, a former boy-band star pursuing a solo career. After Rick and Danny meet at a wedding gig, the two spend a casual evening together, bonding and jamming. Rick shares with Danny a song he wrote that he’s proud of. Buddyhood becomes betrayal when Danny transforms Rick’s song into a polished global hit and takes full credit for composing it. Vowing justice, Rick, accompanied by bandmate Sandy (Peter McDonald, who also cowrote the screenplay), heads to Los Angles to confront Danny. Like Carney’s “Once” and “Begin Again,” “Power Ballad” isn’t edgy or profound. Rick could be taken to darker and deeper places; the capable Rudd could use something more substantial to work with in his portrayal of midlife disappointment. Still, the movie is nonetheless an engaging, humane charmer of a film about friendship, dignity and the moral problems of ambition. 

“Jinsei” is an offbeat, epic-scale work of independent animation, directed, written, edited and hand-drawn by Ryuya Suzuki. The Japanese filmmaker’s feature debut opening Friday at the Roxie Theater on Friday details the 100-year life of its protagonist (voiced by rapper Ace Cool). It begins in 1994 when he is a traumatized orphan and continues through his period of J-pop boy-band stardom and into the future as a leader and an oracle. Ten chapters, each referring to him with a different name, unfold. The journey is surreal and odd; Suzuki, who is loaded with talent and ideas, sometimes delivers more goods than he is able to manage efficiently. Clarity suffers. But Suzuki keeps viewers’ eyes intrigued, and imaginations stoked, and, even at its weakest, the story isn’t pat or predictable. The animation is restrainedly expressive, not show-offy, and the film has powerful emotional moments. It is particularly affecting when conveying the protagonist’s feelings of abandonment and being an outsider.