Anthology Film Archives
32 Second Ave at 2nd St (212-505-5181). Subway: F, V to Lower East Side–SecondAve; 6 to Bleecker St. $8; students, seniors and members $5.

•Thu 6:30pm 13 Lakes Dir. James Benning. 2004. 135mins. See Now Playing.
•Thu 8pm Personal Archive: Steve K. Approx running time: 90mins. This semiregular series invites local film obsessives to present a mix-tape of sorts, consisting of their favorite odds and ends. Steve K. is a former guest editor for Grand Royal magazine; expect lots of oh-so-ironic trash from the ’70s and ’80s.
•Thu 9:15pm Ten Skies Dir. James Benning. 2004. 101mins. See Now Playing.
•Fri, Mon–Wed 27 at 7, 9pm; Sat, Sun 5, 7, 9pm Longing Dir. Valeska Grisebach. 2006. 88mins. See Reviews.
•Fri 7:30pm Improvised TV: Rev. 99 Approx running time: 90mins. Audio-visual collective Rev. 99 takes old TV commercials and talk-show bits and edits them live into various bits of random imagery. Hooray for post-postmodernism.
•Sat 6pm Christopher Maclaine Shorts Approx running time: 65mins. Maclaine, a sad casualty of the Bay Area Beat scene of the ’50s, died in a mental hospital in 1975 at age 52. His unforgettable short films carry a tremulous sense of dread, especially The End (1953), about six individuals living the last day of their lives before a nuclear holocaust hits.
•Sat 7:30pm Rice/Richter/Sharits Shorts Total running time: 85mins. That would be Ron Rice (“Chumlum,” 1964), Hans Richter (“Everything Revolves, Everything Turns,” 1929) and serial punctuator Paul Sharits (N:O:T:H:I:N:G and “T, O, U, C, H, I, N, G,” both 1968).
•Sun 4:30pm Reminiscences of a Journey to Lithuania Dir. Jonas Mekas. 1971–72. 82mins. A four-part essay from Anthology’s artistic director focuses on his early years in America, a brief trip to Lithuania, his unfortunate tenure in a hard-labor prison and a later waltz through Vienna.
•Sun 6:30pm Diaries, Notes & Sketches (Walden) Dir. Jonas Mekas. 1964–69. 3hrs. More of Mekas’s personal movies, these from the turbulent ’60s. Sadly, despite the parenthetical, Ralph Waldo Emerson fails to drop by for a visit.
•Wed 27 at 8pm Novel Romance Dir. Emily Skopov. 2006. 92mins. We don’t know much about this indie dramedy set in the horn-rimmed world of struggling literary types. But Traci Lords as an esteemed books editor? That almost sounds awesome.

BAM Rose Cinemas
30 Lafayette Ave between Ashland Pl and St. Felix St, Fort Greene, Brooklyn (718-636-4100). Subway: B, Q, 2, 3, 4, 5 to Atlantic Ave; D, M, N, R to Pacific St; G to Fulton St. $11; seniors, students (Mon–Thu only) and children (on weekdays) $7.50; BAM Cinema Club members $7.

Click here to see other movies and showtimes at BAM Rose Cinemas

Bryant Park Summer Festival
Bryant Park Summer Film FestivalFREE Bryant Park, between 40th and 42nd Sts and Fifth and Sixth Aves (212-512-5700). Subway: B, D, F, V to 42nd St–Bryant Park; 7 to Fifth Ave.•Mon sunset The Thing from Another World Dir. Christian Nyby. 1951. 87mins. A group of men come across an alien life form frozen in the arctic tundra, and a sci-fi classic is born. Christian Nyby is credited as the film’s director, but it’s widely acknowledged that producer Howard Hawks was calling the shots around the set.

Cinema Village
22 E 12th St between Fifth Ave and University Pl (212-924-3363). Subway: L, N, Q, R, W, 4, 5, 6 to 14th St–Union Sq. $10, students $7.50, seniors $5.50.
Click here to see current movies and showtimes

Amu • Beyond Hatred • Grindhouse • Lady Chatterley • Ten Canoes • Unborn in the USA

Clearview’s Chelsea
260 W 23rd St between Seventh and Eighth Aves (212-777-FILM, #597). Subway: C, E, 1 to 23rd St. $6.50.

•Thu 7pm What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? Dir. Robert Aldrich. 1962. 132mins. She devoted her life to whipping up culinary delights involving dead rodents, of course. Psychobiddy horror at its campiest and finest.

Film Forum
209 W Houston St between Sixth Ave and Varick St (212-727-8110). Subway: 1 to Houston St. $10.50 for the general public and $5.50 for members and seniors(Mon-Fri shows starting before 5 pm).

•Thu–Wed 27 at 1, 2:45, 4:30, 6:20, 8:10, 10pm Manufactured Landscapes Dir. Jennifer Baichwal. 2006. 90mins. See Reviews.
•Thu–Wed 27 at 1, 2:45, 4:30, 6:15, 8, 10pm 12:08 East of Bucharest Dir. Corneliu Porumboiu. 2006. 89mins. See Now Playing.
•Thu–Wed 27 at 2, 4:30, 7, 9:30pm. Let’s Get Lost Dir. Bruce Weber. 1988. 119mins. See Now Playing.

French Institute
Florence Gould Hall, 55 E 59th St between Madison and Park Aves (212-355-6160). Subway: N, R, W to Fifth Ave–59th St; 4, 5, 6 to 59th St. $9, seniors and students $7, members free.

•Tue 12:30, 4, 7:30pm Le Million Dir. René Clair. 1931. 83mins. Clair lends an extraordinarily light touch to this quasimusical about a group of young people searching for a lost lottery ticket. It’s the rare film that gives cinematic whimsy a good name.

IFC Center
323 Sixth Ave at 3rd St (212-924-7771). Subway: A, C, E, B, D, F, V to W 4th St. $10.75, seniors and children 12 and under $7.

•Fri–Sun noon The Flowers of St. Francis Dir. Roberto Rossellini. 1950. 75mins. Federico Fellini cowrote this surprisingly respectful portrait of St. Francis of Assisi, who, while depicted as a wide-eyed innocent, still manages to achieve small miracles. (The actual Italian title translates as Francis, God’s Jester.)
•Fri, Sat midnight Drawing Restraint 9 Dir. Matthew Barney. 2005. 135mins. As with Barney’s multipart Cremaster opus, this film operates primarily on a poetic visual plane. So much depends on a giant electric-blue feather pulled down a white road by Japanese fan dancers. Cock your eyebrow and call it illogical, but that’s how this contemporary art rolls, spaceman.

New York Asian Film Festival 2007
Yes, it’s that time of year again—when yakuzas kick ass, schoolgirls rock the gymnasium and giant robots avail themselves handily. (Okay, that last one was just a dream we had.)

•Fri 10:50pm Retribution Dir. Kiyoshi Kurosawa. 2006. 103mins. Fans of cult director Kurosawa’s creepy Cure and Pulse have reason to celebrate, as he’s once again snout-deep in atmospheric dread—and Extremely Loud Noises. Perennial lead Koji Yakusho plays a mystified, possibly murderous detective.
•Sat 2pm Exiled Dir. Johnnie To. 2006. 110mins. Hong Kong’s last auteur standing, Johnnie To (Triad Election), whips up another maelstrom of bathos and bloody shoot-outs designed to exhaust adrenal glands. Two groups of rival hit men band together to protect a comrade; cue slo-mo gunplay, showstopping set pieces and the occasional harmonica solo. Michael Mann, you’ve been warned.
•Sat 10:30pm Hard-Boiled Dir. John Woo. 1992. 126mins. Perhaps only Chow Yun-Fat could successfully project a mien of unflappable cool while firing a gun with one hand and holding a squalling infant in the other. Woo’s best and bloodiest action flick; accept no substitutes.
•Sun 1:30pm After This Our Exile Dir. Patrick Tam. 2006. 2hrs 40mins. Tam’s celebrated return to the director’s chair after a 17-year absence marks the arrival of a magnificent petty-crime epic, shot by the unerring Mark Li Ping-Bin (In the Mood for Love, The Vertical Ray of the Sun). The Gotham premiere is one of the undeniable highlights of the festival.
•Sun 4:40pm Korean Short Films: Program 2 Total running time: 73mins. Sure, some of these titles are animated. But don’t go showing Jung Yu-Mi’s “My Small Doll House” (2006) to any stray kids you encounter, unless you want them obsessing about killer teddy bears.
•Sun 6:20pm I’m a Cyborg, But That’s OK Dir. Park Chan-wook. 2006. 105mins. It ought to be interesting to see where the highly buzzed director of Oldboy goes now that his “vengeance” trilogy is complete. Here’s the answer: a romantic psychodrama set at a mental institution. That title is not merely figurative.
•Sat 8:30pm Hula Girls Dir. Lee Sang-il. 2006. 108mins. Sort of a Japanese Dirty Dancing meets The Full Monty, this crowd-pleasing period piece—set during the Polynesian craze of the mid ’60s—has the residents of a dying coal town pinning their hopes on a new theme park and its swaying grass skirts.
•Mon 5pm Traces of Love Dir. Kim Dae-sung. 2006. 108mins. Sentimental title aside, this Korean drama is a serious examination of the aftershocks reeling a bitter lawyer ever since an urban disaster claimed the life of his fiancée.•Mon 7:20pm Miracle on First Street Dir. Yun Je-gyun. 2007. 113mins. A desperately poor community refuses to sell their land to callous land developers, in a movie that sounds like a tsunami of let’s-hear-it-for-the-little-guy populism.
•Mon 9:35pm Cruel Winter Blues Dir. Lee Jeong-beom. 2006. 118mins. Reportedly, this contemplative gangster film feels more like a Kim Ki-duk joint than any of your interchangeable action flicks from the Pacific Rim. Be the judge.
•Tue 7pm The City of Violence Dir. Ryu Seung-wan. 2006. 92mins. Brotherly love? Broad shoulders? Angels? Hell, no. This metropolis offers only pain. (Same with the film, but in an enjoyable fashion.)
•Tue 9pm Freesia: Bullets Over Tears Dir. Kazuyoshi Kumakiri. 2007. 103mins. Rage spins out of control in this slice of Japanese future schlock (based on a manga, natch) about a world where revenge has become a kind of currency.
•Wed 27 at 6:45pm Korean Short Films: Program 3 Total running time: 95mins. Not just another shorts program. Several of these explore the outer reaches of nightmarish behavior, including Shin Jane’s “A Talented Boy, Lee Jun Seop” (2001) and Park Soo-young’s “The Freaking Family” (2005), set on the eve of a nuclear attack on Seoul. Worth it.
The Boss of It All • Czech Dream • Killer of Sheep • Lights in the Dusk • Mala Noche • Pierrepoint

The ImaginAsian
239 E 59th St between Second and Third Aves (212-371-6682). Subway: N, R, W to Lexington Ave–59th St; 4, 5, 6 to 59th St. $10; seniors, students and children (before 4:30pm only) $7; matinees (Mon–Thu before 4:30pm) $5.

•Thu, Fri, Mon–Wed 27 at 3:30, 6:30, 9:30pm; Sat, Sun 12:30, 3:30, 6:30, 9:30pm Jhoom Barabar Jhoom Dir. Shaad Ali. 2007. 143mins. See Reviews.

Instituto Cervantes
FREE211–215 E 49th St between Second and Third Aves (212-308-7720). Subway: E, V to Lexington Ave–53rd St; 6 to 51st St.

FREE 211–215 E 49th St between Second and Third Aves (212-308-7720). Subway: E, V to Lexington Ave–53rd St; 6 to 51st St.
•Wed 27 at 7pm Bulgarian Lovers Dir. Eloy de la Iglesia. 2003. 101mins. A rich attorney falls in love with an illegal immigrant who begins making demands of his new paramour—many of them highly illegal. Rough trade has rarely been so rough.

Landmark Sunshine Cinema
143 E Houston St between First and Second Aves (212-777-FILM, #687). Subway:F, V to Lower East Side–Second Ave. $10.75, seniors $7.

•Fri, Sat midnight Brazil Dir. Terry Gilliam. 1985. 143mins. Gilliam’s dystopic vision of the future is hilarious and chilling by turns; Jonathan Pryce, Robert De Niro and Bob Hoskins are among the superlative cast. Once seen, never forgotten. This is the final, ultimate, absolutely last director’s cut.
Black Sheep • Broken English • Chalk • Crazy Love • Eagle vs Shark • Once • Paris, je t’aime • You Kill Me

Lincoln Plaza Cinemas
1886 Broadway at 62nd St (212-757-2280). Subway: A, C, B, D, 1 to 59th St–ColumbusCircle. $10.50, seniors and children $7.

Away from Her • Broken English • Golden Door • Gypsy Caravan • Lady Chatterley • The Lives of Others • The Real Dirt on Farmer John • Strike • The Valet

The Morgan Library & Museum
225 Madison Ave at 36th St (212-685-0008). Subway: 6 to 33rd St. $12; seniors, students and children 12–16 $8; members and children under 12 free.

Museum of Modern Art
11 W 53rd St between Fifth and Sixth Aves (212-708-9480). Subway: B, D, F, V to 47–50th Sts–Rockefeller Ctr; E, V to Fifth Ave–53rd St.Film tickets free with museum admission; screenings-only admission $10, seniors $8, students $6, children under 16 free.

•Thu 5:30pm; Fri 6pm; Sat 2pm; Sun 4pm; Mon 8pm White Palms Dir. Szabolcs Hajdu. 2006. 102mins. See Reviews.

•Thu 7pm Phantom Love Dir. Nina Menkes. 2007. 87mins. Menkes’s films tend to be unwatchable for anybody who isn’t fascinated by “difficult” avant-garde cinema; this one is described by the director as “a young woman’s thoughts while making love, working in a casino, dealing with family and being alone.” Right.
•Thu 8pm Blackmail Dir. Alfred Hitchcock. 1929. 96mins. Hitchcock’s first talkie was shot simultaneously with a silent version (much better); this one’s inferior as art, but historically it’s of immense importance.
•Fri 8:30pm; Sun 2pm The AICP Show, 2007: The Art and Technique of the American Commercial Approx running time: 60mins. Not getting enough advertisements at home? MoMA feels your pain, phantom though it is. Check out this show reel of prize winners in 24 categories.
•Sat 4:30pm Richard Serra: Films Total running time: 70mins. The tempermental sculptor dabbled in the seventh art during the ’60s and ’70s, and MoMA has been nice enough to collect a few of his 16mm works: “Hands Scraping” (1968), “Railroad Turnbridge” (1976) and “Steelmill/Stahlwerke” (1979). Stick around for the Serra retrospective now happening in the museum’s galleries.
•Sat 6pm The Conversation Dir. Francis Ford Coppola. 1974. 113mins. In one of the most amazing feats in film history, Coppola filmed this stunning portrait of a lonely wiretapper (Gene Hackman, never better) in the same year that he shot The Godfather, Part II. Most directors don’t manage two masterpieces in an entire career.
•Mon 6pm Peg o’ My Heart Dir. King Vidor. 1922. 88mins. The 1933 version starring Marion “Rosebud” Davies is better known, but Vidor brings his usual deft touch to the original silent rendition of J. Hartley Manners’s stage melodrama.
•Wed 27 at 6:30pm The Marrying Kind Dir. George Cukor. 1952. 93mins. Judy Holliday and Aldo Ray engage in a pitched battle to determine which one has the most distinctive voice. Actually, the plot involves a couple on the brink of divorce reminiscing about their time together—sort of like The Story of Us, only you don’t want to retch every three minutes.

Flaherty at MoMA: The Films of Mahamat Saleh HarounRobert Flaherty, legendary documentarian of Nanook of the North, lends his name to an annual seminar, which this year honors Haroun, a filmmaker devoted to Africa’s subtler truths.

•Fri 6:30pm; Wed 27 at 8:30pm Bye Bye Africa 1998. 86mins. Think Chad can’t produce its own metamovie about an African director (Haroun) returning home from France to make a film about his cultural dislocation? Breathe easy; it can.
•Sat 7pm Short Films Total running time: 52mins. Titles among these mostly light comedic sketches include “The Second Wife” (1994), “Goi-Goi (The Dwarf)” (1995) and “Tea in the Sahel” (1998).•Sun 2pm Kalala 2005. 52mins. Kalala Hissein Djibrine was an actor and close friend of the director’s. After his unexpected death from AIDS, Haroun sought to recall his comrade’s spirit in this cine-eulogy.
•Sun 4pm Abouna 2002. 84mins. Haroun’s unexpectedly sweet drama tells the tale of two young boys abandoned by their father near the border of Chad and Cameroon.
•Mon 6:30pm Daratt (Dry Season) 2006. 95mins. Haroun’s latest, which plays like a thoughtful revenge Western, may be his best. After the government grants amnesty to war criminals, a sullen teenager travels from his home village to the dusty capital city of N’Djamena to kill the man who murdered his father. But first, he takes a job with him as an apprentice baker.

John Wayne Centenary
The big guy would have turned 100 last month; the persona, meanwhile, is etched in eternity like Mt. Rushmore. No Red River here, but many of these are essential.

•Fri 8:30pm They Were Expendable Dir. John Ford. 1945. 135mins. Generally considered one of the greatest WWII movies made contemporaneously in Hollywood, John Ford’s epic account of a PT boat squadron’s adventures in the Philippines bravely undercuts traditional notions of military heroism, opting instead for detail, sobriety and underplaying (courtesy of a fine Wayne).
•Sat 2pm She Wore a Yellow Ribbon Dir. John Ford. 1949. 103mins. Good for her, you’re thinking, but the second film in Ford’s cavalry trilogy features one of the Duke’s best performances, as a too-old-for-this-shit officer on the verge of retirement who opts to stick around and fight one last battle.
•Sat 4:30pm The Searchers Dir. John Ford. 1956. 119mins. Many consider this dark, brooding masterpiece to be the greatest Western ever made. If nothing else, it certainly features Wayne’s most memorable performance, as a man obsessed with rescuing his kidnapped niece from Comanches so he can kill her himself.
•Mon 8:30pm Donovan’s Reef Dir. John Ford. 1963. 109mins. This final collaboration between Wayne and Ford is a relaxed, breezy affair, with the former lounging on a Pacific Island as its cock of the walk and the latter lending his yacht to the production.
•Wed 27 at 6pm El Dorado Dir. Howard Hawks. 1967. 126mins. One day, someone will remake this easygoing late-period Hawks with actual Cadillac Eldorados. Until then, enjoy Wayne, Robert Mitchum and a very young James Caan in Hawks’s own semiremake of Rio Bravo, which is still superior (but to just about everything).
•Wed 27 at 8:30pm The Big Trail Dir. Raoul Walsh. 1930. 121mins. Wayne played his first starring role in this picturesque travelogue oater, which suffers a bit from the then-recent transition to sound but still has moments of grace and good humor.

Museum of the Moving Image
35th Ave at 36th St, Astoria, Queens (718-784-0077). Subway: G, R, V to SteinwaySt; N, W to 36th Ave. $10, seniors and students $7.50, children $5.

•Sat 6:30pm Revolution ’67 Dir. Marylou Tibaldo-Bongiorno. 2007. 87mins. Video. A trove of absorbing archival footage, this new documentary attempts to find some clarity in Newark’s 1967 race riots. The director will participate in a Q&A afterward.

•Tue 7pm Rescue Dawn Dir. Werner Herzog. 2006. 126mins. Herzog’s latest film dramatizes his own 1997 documentary Little Dieter Needs to Fly, an intensely gripping (and true) survival story about a downed German-American pilot who escaped Vietnam by sheer dint of his positivity. Christian Bale plays Dieter, and Steve Zahn turns in excellent supporting work as usual; Zahn will be on hand to introduce this special advance screening. It takes place at the Regal E-Walk (247 W 42nd St at Eighth Ave); tickets are $20, $14 for members. Call 718-784-4520 for reservations.

It’s Only a Movie: Horror Films from the 1970s and Today
Fans of things that go bump in the psyche, prepare for nirvana! The museum is hosting a monthlong program devoted to yesterday’s screen nightmares and the “splat-pack” horror they inspired. Just keep repeating to yourself: They’re only some movies…they’re only some movies… (See also “Shock and raw.”)

•Sat 2pm The Hills Have Eyes Dir. Wes Craven. 1977. 91mins. And those eyes have mutant cannibals attached to them. Woe to the all-American family whose Winnebago breaks down near the nuclear test site these freaks call home. Advertised with the tag line “The lucky ones died first,” Craven’s pic—from his earlier, scarier period—earns points for accessing a similar vein of domestic satire as The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
•Sat 4pm The Hills Have Eyes Dir. Alexandre Aja. 2006. 107mins. French director Aja broke through in a decidedly stylish fashion with 2003’s High Tension (see below). But apart from a few topical gags—the soon-to-be-torched dad (Levine) is a gun-toting Republican—this new Hills is a depressingly rote affair.
•Sun 2pm The Host Dir. Joon-ho Bong. 2006. 119mins. A huge tadpole terrorizes Seoul in the director’s ode to mutant-creatures-run-amok films—complete with the usual dollop of class consciousness and political paranoia.
•Sun 4:30pm The Bird with the Crystal Plumage Dir. Dario Argento. 1970. 98mins. Horror maestro Argento’s first film is more of a thriller, but his talent for widescreen compositions is already in evidence. The plot involves an American living in Rome who witnesses a crime and gets in over his head.
•Sun 6:30pm High Tension Dir. Alexandre Aja. 2003. 85mins. Comely college coeds, a rustic farmhouse besieged by a maniac, piles of sloppy gore:Watching this expertly calibrated entry in the series proves a truly enjoyable experience, assuming you’re okay with horror’s meat and potatoes. Aja, son of a director and a film critic, clearly knows his Dario Argento (arterial spray dripping down a white, slatted closet door is a particularly inspired touch), and how to use a pop song to thrilling effect.

New York Public Library
FREE Donnell Media Center, 20 W 53rd St between Fifth and Sixth Aves (212-621-0609).Subway: E, V to Fifth Ave–53rd St; 6 to 51st St.
Note: All films are screened in 16mm unless otherwise noted.

•Wed 27 at 2:30pm Le Bal Dir. Ettore Scola. 1983. 109mins. Scola’s unusual film, set entirely in a single ballroom, spans some six decades of Italian history, with all of the actors playing multiple roles as the years elapse. Oh, and there’s no dialogue. At all. Intrigued yet?

Paris
4 W 58th St at Fifth Ave (212-688-3800). Subway: F to 57th St; N, R, W toFifth Ave–59th St. $10.50, seniors and children $7.

La Vie en Rose

Quad Cinema
34 W 13th St between Fifth and Sixth Aves (212-255-8800). Subway: F, V to 14th St; L to Sixth Ave. $10, seniors and children $7.

Away from Her • Black Book • Blood and Tears • Hollywood Dreams • The Real Dirt on Farmer John

Symphony Space
Leonard Nimoy Thalia, 2537 Broadway at 95th St (212-864-5400). Subway: 1, 2, 3 to 96th St. $10, students and seniors $8, members $6.

•Sun 5pm; Tue 6pm Into Great Silence Dir. Philip Gröning. 2005. 2hrs 42mins. Profound spiritual questions await you: Do you dare bring nachos into the theater? Do you dare chew anything at all? Even the vigorous swallowing of a beverage may drown out the nearly three hours of quiet French monkitude on display, ostensibly a fascinating portrait of spiritual commitment.
•Sun 8pm; Tue 9pm Two or Three Things I Know About Her… Dir. Jean-Luc Godard. 1967. 84mins. Godard’s invigorating amalgam of fiction and documentary follows a housewife (Marina Vlady) who moonlights as a hooker. Of course, it’s not that simple.

Two Boots Pioneer Theater
155 E 3rd St at Ave A (212-591-0434). Subway: F, V to Lower East Side–Second Ave. $9, members $6.50.

•Thu, Sun 7pm Orpheus + The Testament of Orpheus Dir. Jean Cocteau. Total running time: 2hrs 54mins. No The Blood of a Poet? What gives? Still, eat your heart out, Matthew Barney. Cocteau’s work is a peak of personal art expression in cinema, evolving from surrealist antigesture into allegory and finally opaque mysticism.

UFOs: The Culture of Contact (1947–2007)Break out the protective tinfoil hats and head down to Two Boots, where a consortium of alien abductees (they’re so not kidding) will be holding court for the weekend. Expect lectures between films. (See also “Visitation rites,” page 55.)

•Fri 8pm Earth vs. the Flying Saucers Dir. Fred F. Sears. 1956. 82mins. That’s right: When you want quality crazy, go to Sears. (Fred F. Sears, that is.) For the record, the Vegas odds are currently 7 to 2 in favor of Earth—due in large part to the home-field advantage.
•Sat 3:15pm Invaders from Mars Dir. William Cameron Menzies. 1953. 78mins. The director was a brilliant production designer (The Thief of Bagdad), and this chiller told from the perspective of one wide-eyed boy is often creeptastic. But dramatically speaking, it ain’t the most compelling of arguments.•Sat 5:45pm Stranger from Venus Dir. Burt Balaban. 1954. 75mins. Made for TV (and probably small, crappy ones at that), this shoddy knock-off of The Day the Earth Stood Still will only appeal to trash connoisseurs and those who actually believe they’ve been abducted. Wait, did I say that out loud?
•Sat 8pm Starman Dir. John Carpenter. 1984. 115mins. Jeff Bridges is an alien who makes a visit to Earth in the guise of Karen Allen’s dead husband. Bridges, who has inexplicably never won an Oscar during his long, distinguished career, received a Best Actor nomination for his completely unique turn. (F. Murray Abraham won the statuette that year for rocking Amadeus.)
•Sat 10:30pm Contact Dir. Robert Zemeckis. 1997. 2hrs 30mins. Call us nuts, but we figure that if one day we should discover incontrovertible evidence of life elsewhere in the universe, we’re not really going to care that much who gets credit for finding the signal first. Yet that’s what this disappointing drama, based on a novel by Carl Sagan, inexplicably chooses to focus on.

Walter Reade Theater
Film Society of Lincoln Center, 165 W 65th St between Broadway and Amsterdam Ave, plaza level above Alice Tully Hall (212-875-5600). Subway: 1 to 66th St–Lincoln Ctr. Box office opens 12:30pm; $10, students $7, members $6, children and seniors$5 (weekday matinees only)

The 2007 Human Rights Watch International Film Festival
Walter Reade hosts the 19th annual festival devoted to raising awareness of corporate malfeasance and political oppression across the globe. Don’t expect a lot of feel-good movies about puppies and rainbows, in other words.

•Thu 1:30pm; Sun 3:30pm Lumo Dirs. Bent-Jorgen Perlmutt and Nelson Walker III. 2007. 76mins. A Congolese woman loses everything after soldiers threaten her ability to have children. Only the loving care of a local clinic’s female staff can help her regain her self-respect.
•Thu 4, 9pm; Fri 6:30pm White Light/Black Rain: The Destruction of Hiroshima and Nagasaki Dir. Steven Okazaki. 2007. 86mins. This new documentary about the atomic bombings imparts both the colossal ruination visited upon the Japanese and a sense of ominous world-bullying that’s both timely and appropriate.
•Thu at 6:30pm Banished Dir. Marco Williams. 2006. 86mins. After the Civil War ended, many newly freed African-Americans living in small towns were given a choice: Leave immediately or suffer endless harassment. Marco Williams returns to a number of these burgs and looks at whether their legacy of racism has had an effect on the current residents’ lives.
•Fri 1:30pm; Sat 6:30pm; Sun 8:30pm Cocalero Dir. Alejandro Landes. 2007. 94mins. Your moral relativity will be stretched to the breaking point watching this profile of Bolivia’s pro-labor president Evo Morales, a staunch defender of his countrymates’ right to grow coca.
•Fri 4pm; Sat 9pm; Sun 1:30pm Suffering and Smiling Dir. Dan Ollman. 2007. 65mins. Afro-pop icon Fela Kuti spoke up for the dark continent’s underclass, especially once Nigeria’s oil industry became a corporate hot spot. Dan Ollman’s film starts with the elder Kuti’s fight for the everyman’s rights and ends with the singer’s son, Femi, taking up the struggle after his dad’s passing.
•Fri 9pm The City of Photographers Dir. Sebastián Moreno Mardones. 2006. 80mins. While Augusto Pinochet terrorized Chilé, a small group of photojournalists risked life and limb to document the atrocities; this doc praises both their bravery and the power of images to shed light on repressive regimes.
•Sat 1:30pm; Mon 4pm; Tue 6:30pm A Lesson of Belarusian Dir. Miroslaw Demibinski. 2006. 51mins. His academic father in jail, a young man commits himself to Belarus’s hopes for a free press and open expression, as do his activist peers.
•Sat 4pm; Sun 6pm; Mon 1:30pm The Unforeseen Dir. Laura Dunn. 2007. 93mins. Dunn’s roller-coaster ride through the tumultuous land-development history of Austin, TX, follows its entrepreneurs, environmentalists and a then-young Texas governor with a gleam in his eye.
•Mon 6:30pm; Tue 1:30, 9pm Hot House Dir. Shimon Dotan. 2006. 89mins. Several Palestinians doing serious time in Israel’s jails are given a platform for their views, guilt and rage in Dotan’s complex documentary.
•Mon 9pm; Tue 4pm; Wed 27 at 9pm We’ll Never Meet Childhood Again Dirs. Sam Lawlor and Lindsay Pollock. 2007. 75mins. After many babies were accidentally infected with the AIDS virus in Romania’s hospitals in the late ’80s, a surprising number of foster parents rose to the occasion and took them in. This documentary chronicles their saintly commitment and varying rationales.
•Wed 27 at 1:30, 6:30pm Election Day Dir. Katy Chevigny. 2007. 84mins. Still not tired of hearing sob stories from 2004’s American presidential election? Wait! Come back! It’s important.
•Wed 27 at 4pm The Devil Came on Horseback Dirs. Annie Sundberg and Ricki Stern. 2006. 85mins. Perhaps that title is ironic, in that this devil is an ex-Marine who comes to care deeply about the genocide in Darfur, raising awareness and getting involved personally. Sounds positively angelic to us.