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Movies

*** 1/2 “A Bigger Splash.” Lagoon. $69.95.

Jack Hazan’s 1974 film is a captivating, shimmeringly beautiful and demanding experience in which David Hockney and his friends reenact an actual crisis in the painter’s life. Hazan and his co-writer-editor David Mingay accomplish much simultaneously; “A Bigger Splash” is at once the record of the artist’s painful loss of a lover (and its consequent effect on his work), and a witty observation of his milieu. In the process Hazan makes his film an homage to Hockney, emulating the artist’s direct, simple but finally enigmatic style. There is some casual male nudity, and a tender but fairly explicit love scene between two men, friends of Hockney. Information: (213) 823-4024.