The Artist as a Young Guerrilla

In 1986, just three weeks before the Iran-Contra scandal broke, Venice-based artist Robbie Conal took four of his outsize, warts-and-all, black-and-white oil portraits of Ronald Reagan, Donald Regan, Caspar Weinberger and James Baker and turned them into a poster he called “Men With No Lips” and slapped 1,000 of them all over Los Angeles.

Conal and his work, which today appears in key cities all over the country thanks to his band of dedicated volunteers, are the subject of Clay Walker’s 57-minute documentary “Post No Bills” (screening tonight at 8 at Filmforum at LACE).

It turns out to be as disarming and low-key as Conal is himself; indeed, the film could use more of the sharp, tight, in-your-face impact of the posters themselves. Even so, there is a certain irony in the way Walker charts Conal’s rapid progress from guerrilla artist once fined for defacing property to recipient of a grant from the city of Los Angeles--and from anonymous satirist to media celebrity. The ultimate irony is that Conal has achieved both acclaim and notoriety without having to compromise himself.

“Post No Bills” will be followed at 10 p.m. by the Empowerment Project’s “Panama Deception.”

Japanese Films: Among the seven films in the Japan America Society’s Japan Today Film Festival at the Monica 4-Plex Friday through Nov. 10, is Jun Ichikawa’s darkly brilliant “No Life King” (Sunday at 7 p.m., again on Nov. 10 at 9:30 p.m.), a compelling cautionary tale about computer games and their ability to blur reality and fantasy for the children who become addicted to them.

Opening the festival Friday at 7 p.m. is Masayuki Suo’s good-natured comedy “Sumo Do, Sumo Don’t,” a rueful commentary on the decline of sumo wrestling as a college sport. “Sumo Do,” which also screens Saturday at 4:30 and 9:30 p.m., will be followed on Friday at 9:30 p.m. by Yasufumi Kojima’s “Rough Sketch of a Spiral,” a groundbreaking documentary on gay life in Japan’s oppressively homogenous society (it screens again next Monday at 7 p.m.) Although veteran director Kihachi Okamoto becomes so enamored of the cleverness of his “Great Kidnaping” (Saturday at 7 p.m., Sunday at 4:30 p.m.) that he overplays his hand, character actress Tanie Kitabayashi, now past 80, has the role of a lifetime as a kidnap “victim” as enchantingly resourceful and subtly witty as she is rich.

Information: (310) 394-9741.