Rambling Documentary on Peltier

Suzie Baer’s “Warrior: The Life of Leonard Peltier” (at the NuWilshire Tuesday through Thursday) is a textbook example of bad documentary filmmaking. Baer apparently believed that all that was required of her was to string together a bunch of talking heads (some quite eloquent) in asserting that Peltier, an American Indian activist, was wrongly convicted of killing two FBI agents in a shootout at Pine Ridge Reservation, S.D., in 1975.

Given the sorry history of American Indians over the last two centuries and the testimony of Peltier himself and many others, the film--despite itself--succeeds in persuading us that he most likely was railroaded. However, the bitter incident and events surrounding it are quite complex. Baer brings no sense of order to them or even a sense of topography--oh, for a simple map or diagram. What should have been clear, concise and urgent is instead tedious, rambling and unconscionably vague. See “Incident at Oglala” instead.

Information: (310) 394-8099.

Harrowing Broadside: In their harrowing, dynamic and very angry 1975 “Lost Honor of Katharina Blum” (screening Tuesday at the Goethe Institute at 7:30 p.m.) Volker Schlondorff and Margarethe von Trotta have hurled a broadside at the sensationalist press (and the excesses of a self-serving police) in telling of the dire fate of a young housemaid (Angela Winkler) who has had a brief affair with an anarchist.

Information: (310) 854-0993.

Lubitsch Retrospective: “The Lubitsch Touch,” a retrospective of the films of Ernst Lubitsch commemorating both the centennial of his birth and the movies themselves, opens Friday at LACMA’s Bing Theater with the 1926 “So This Is Paris” (1 p.m. and 8 p.m.) followed by “Lady Windemere’s Fan” (1925).

Gliding from one amusing incident to another, the first film sparkles like champagne as a chic, slightly bored Paris couple (Monte Blue, Patsy Ruth Miller) flirt with a dance team composed of Blue’s old flame (Lilyan Tashman) and her husband (Andre Beranger). There’s a dazzling, visually stunning Charleston number that epitomizes the giddy, brittle spirit of the ‘20s.

It may be hard to imagine watching an Oscar Wilde comedy of manners without hearing a single one of his famous epigrams, yet “Lady Windermere’s Fan” succeeds gloriously because Lubitsch possessed a visual wit every bit as formidable as Wilde’s. Poignant, elegant, acutely aware of the rigid, utterly merciless rules that govern high society, this triumph of style stars May McAvoy and Ronald Colman. Veteran art director Harold Grieve provided the elegant, understated settings for both films.

Information: (213) 857-6010.

Jack Smith Duo: The Filmforum and the Getty Center will present the late Jack Smith’s 1963 underground classic “Flaming Creatures” and Bob Fleischner’s portrait of Smith, “Blonde Cobra” (also 1963), Sunday at LACE at 8 p.m.