the screen

Sure, a city can tolerate long-running films, but 138 weeks is too much. For almost three years now, The King of Hearts has tied up Central Square Cinema II. Visitors to the Harvard Square and Brattle theaters are subjected again and again and again to the same promotional short for King of Hearts. At Harvard Square you can escape the ad by running off to the bathroom, but at Brattle that takes too long so you're forced to sit it out. Meanwhile, the selection of films at other Cambridge theaters grows slimmer.

The Orson Welles, which raised its ticket prices to $2.50 over the summer, now has its own cult film. The Harder They Come has occupied their Cinema I since last March. Its run was recently extended again. So two out of the six area theaters show the same two films every single day. So more and more people have to turn to Boston or TV to find a movie they want to see.

In Boston this week, see State of Siege if you haven't already. Costa-Gavras's factually-grounded film about American interference in Uruguay is not a thriller like his Z but a memorable portrait of dedicated revolutionaries hardened by their struggle against a police regime trained in torture and counter-revolution by the United States. Many of the film's details have been confirmed through smuggled documents and testimony of former Uruguayan police officials. Uruguay's military regime opposed the making of the film, of course, and it had to be made in Chile, where many of the film's most frightening scenes have doubtless since become reality.

In Cambridge, Play It Again Sam (Woody Allen's best film, with excellent parody inserts of film styles), Bad Company (a Western by the authors of Bonnie and Clyde), Bed and Board (a witty film by Truffaut), Exterminating Angel (pointed, vicious, yet entertaining surrealism at an upper class dinner party by Luis Bunuel), Yojimbo (a samurai Western by Kurosawa), The Hireling (a deficient companion piece to The go-Between), and finally, those two theaters wading in stagnant ponds.