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"\"Bone Tomahawk\": What was the greatest Western of 2015? \"The Revenant\" was the biggest award winner. \"The Hateful Eight\" was a grandiose Quentin Tarantino 70mm epic. But ask Midnites for Maniacs programmer Jesse Hawthorne Ficks what the best Western was last year, and there's a clear winner: \"Bone Tomahawk.\" Like \"The Hateful Eight,\" it stars Kurt Russell, and the film is written and directed by rookie director S. Craig Zahler. \"I think it's the best first film by a director since 'Assault on Precinct 13,'\" said Ficks of John Carpenter's 1976 LAPD siege classic (which was Carpenter's second film, but first major feature). \"It's a combination not just of violence that we're not used to. It creates characters that you grow to love, like John Carpenter does. ... It's really interested in character development and takes its time building toward something. I'm so impressed with S. Craig Zahler.\" Ficks will present the first San Francisco theatrical screening of the film, which didn't get much of a release last year. It will be the back end of a double bill with Carpenter's sci-fi classic \"The Thing\" (1982) at 7 p.m. Saturday, May 28, at the Roxie Theater. Ficks calls it the \"I love Kurt Russell battling scary monsters\" double bill, or, Ficks, quipped, \"bearded Kurt Russell.\" \"Bone Tomahawk\" isn't a parody; it's not a revisionist Western. It has its roots in the classical style of John Ford or Howard Hawks Westerns. Russell is the sheriff of the small frontier town of Bright Hope, Richard Jenkins is his deputy (\"the Walter Brennan role,\" Ficks observed). When three townsfolk, including the town doctor (Lili Simmons), are kidnapped by mysterious cave dwellers, Russell organizes a posse that includes the doctor's husband (Patrick Wilson, excellent) and gunslinger Matthew Fox. Ficks thinks Patrick Wilson should have been nominated for an Oscar. \"He's doing exactly what DiCaprio was doing (in 'The Revenant'),\" he said. \"Same role: going through a tortured, battered heartbroken, physically broken (journey). I felt every step they took in this film.\" Zahler's script, which was nominated by both the Independent Spirit Awards and the Western Writers of America, is filled with great dialogue - and Zahler even co-wrote the music. \"This is one of the films that in 10 years people will look back on,\" Ficks said. On another note, the presence of \"The Thing\" is the first of a extensive Carpenter retrospective by Ficks unspooling this summer. 7 p.m. Saturday at the Roxie Theater, 3117 16th St., S.F. (415) 863-1087. www.roxie.com. Best of the rest: Not enough Kurt Russell? Catch him in the 1986 John Carpenter film \"Big Trouble in Little China,\" the \"Little China\" being a fantasy version of San Francisco's Chinatown. 9:30 p.m. Thursday, May 26, at the New Parkway Theater, 474 24th St., Oakland; (510) 658-7900; www.thenewparkway.com. The Stanford Theatre's two-month festival of Los Gatos High School graduate Olivia de Havilland's work, which is capped by \"Gone With the Wind\" from July 1-3, hits a sweet spot the next two weekends with William Wyler's haunting \"The Heiress,\" a 1949 adaptation of Henry James' \"Washington Square\" that has de Havilland, who won her second Oscar for the role, and Montgomery Clift at their best, Friday, May 27 through Sunday, May 29 on a double bill with \"The Snake Pit.\" Next weekend, de Havilland plays a double role in \"The Dark Corner.\" De Havilland, alive and well and living in Paris, turns 100 years old on July 1. Isaac Julien is being celebrated with a photography exhibit at the Jessica Silverman Gallery, and the Tenderloin Museum is co-presenting \"Vintage,\" a showing of three short films by the British photographer, installation artist and filmmaker. The reception is set for 6:30 p.m., with a 7 p.m. screening, Thursday, May 26, at the Tenderloin Museum, 398 Eddy St., www.tenderloinmuseum.org. The Jessica Silverman Gallery, 488 Ellis St., is \"just 300 feet from the Tenderloin Museum, so be sure to check out the photography exhibition before heading to the screening,\" says museum program manager Katie Conry. Good idea. G. Allen Johnson is a San Francisco Chronicle staff writer. Email: ajohnson@sfchronicle.com Twitter: BRfilmsAllen"
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