Alumni Films Highlight USC Festival

As part of USC’s Imagination Revolution, a new collegiate arts festival to be held this weekend, there will be a two-hour program Friday at 8 and 10 p.m. in Norris Theater showing six student films made by alumni who went on to successful Hollywood careers. As a rule the work of those students of exceptional talent and promise stands out, and that is certainly the case with the films in this program. Each one is timeless and in some way special in regard to originality, style or quality of perception--or all three.

The evening commences on a light note with Kevin Reynolds’ hilarious “Proof” (1980), in which a nebbishy young man, petrified with fear, is strong-armed by his pals into taking a “lesson” in parachuting at a ramshackle “school” in the desert run by a spaced-out hippie type. Reynolds today is best-known for the decidedly eclectic but similarly good-natured and amusing “Robin Hood: Prince of Thieves” with Kevin Costner.

George Lucas’ “THX 1338 4EB” (1966), now called “Electronic Labyrinth” to avoid confusion with his subsequent 1971 feature-length “THX 1138,” announced the arrival of a brilliant talent when it was made, and it remains a harrowing “1984”-like vision of the future in which a man races through a maze of corridors in pursuit of freedom, all the while under surveillance by elaborate electronic devices.

Made the same year--a great one for USC’s cinema department--”Marcello, I’m So Bored,” by John Milius (and John Strawbridge) capped a collage of Southern California social life with a negative-exposure clip from “La Dolce Vita,” in which Anouk Aimee utters the title line to Marcello Mastroianni. In his 1971 “The Lift,” Robert Zemeckis cleverly catches a highly organized man in a lethal battle with an elevator that seems to take on a menacing life and personality of its own; like many filmmakers before him (and after), Zemeckis chose as his setting the landmark Bradley Building, and he put its cast-iron galleries and quaint cage elevators to good use.

Randal Kleiser’s deeply personal “Peege” (1973) looks even better than it did nearly 20 years ago. A vignette about a young man (Bruce Davison) trying to penetrate the barriers of severe infirmities of old age that imprison his beloved, once-vital grandmother (Jeanette Nolan, in a superb portrayal) is remarkable not only for its finely graded performances--Barbara Rush and William Schallert play Davison’s well-meaning but obtuse parents--but also in the acuteness of its perceptions and attention to revealing details. This notably rewarding program concludes with Phil Joanou’s 1984 “Last Chance Dance,” an impeccable account, funny and compassionate, of teen-age growing pains experienced by a pleasant young man whose dream of landing the high school beauty as a date for the final prom of the semester turns into a nightmare.

Sponsored by the USC Student Arts Council, the USC Imagination Revolution will also celebrate animated films, present a wide range of musical and theatrical events and exhibit all manner of work in the graphic arts. For more information: (213) 740-7111.

Gay Film Minifest: The Gay & Lesbian Media Coalition’s “Out on the Screen” weekend minifestival commences Friday at the Directors Guild, 7920 Sunset Blvd., with the West Coast premiere of controversial British filmmaker Derek Jarman’s “Edward II.” In his most accessible film to date, Jarman, who will be present, has imaginatively staged Christopher Marlowe’s 16th-Century tragedy in modern dress as a way of making it at once a timeless--and timely--indictment of homophobia. In the course of the weekend, the coalition will reprise a selection of past favorites plus the local premieres of Nigel Finch’s “The Lost Language of Cranes” (Saturday at 7 p.m.), a respectable rather than riveting drama of a gay father and son, and Genevieve Lefebvre’s lesbian drama “Le Jupon Rouge” (“Manuela’s Loves”), starring Marie-Christine Barrault, Alida Valli and Guillemette Grobon (Saturday at 9 p.m.). Information: (213) 650-5133.