Jake Gittes’ Big City

Tonight at 8, Chapman University’s film noir series continues with “Chinatown” (1974), an honorary and undisputed member of the genre most often attributed to the ‘40s and ‘50s.

Director Roman Polanski brings to life Robert Towne’s Oscar-winning original screenplay, a beautifully bleak and bitter vision of Los Angeles in the 1930s.

Jack Nicholson makes private eye Jake Gittes an unforgettable hero, in the best tradition of Hammett and Chandler. Faye Dunaway, strong yet frail, is compelling as the femme fatale who lures Gittes into a complex mystery. And John Huston is, simply, the ultimate villain. Once you know how it turns out, it’s the trajectory of doom that makes this movie so difficult, and so wonderful, to watch again and again.

* Tonight at 8 at Chapman University’s Argyros Forum, Room 208, 333 N. Glassell St., Orange. Rated R. Running time: 131 minutes. Free. Bob Bassett, dean of the School of Film and Television, introduces the film with a discussion at 7.

A Lens on the Carny Life

Competing with the modern classic tonight at 7 is what sounds like an equally dark and unique vision, an evening the UCI Film and Video Center is calling Over the (Big) Top. “Circus Ridickuless” (1998) will have its Orange County premiere as the final entry in UCI’s Underground and Over the Top series. The screening will be followed by a discussion with the filmmaker, Phillip Glau.

Glau’s documentary follows the disastrous national tour of Chicken John and his punk circus sideshow, a demimonde of carny courage and surreal showmanship. “Ridickuless” this year won the best documentary award at the New York Underground Film Festival.

* Tonight at 7 at the Film and Video Center, Humanities Instructional Building 214, Room 100, UC Irvine. Not rated, but suggested for mature audiences. Running time: 88 minutes. $4-$6. (949) 824-7418. Followed by a discussion with the filmmaker.

A Breakout Film

American independent filmmaker Jim Jarmusch described his third movie as “neo-bete-noire-comedy, part nightmare and part fairy tale.” “Down by Law” (1986) screens Friday at UCI. John Lurie and Tom Waits play a couple of sad sacks who wind up in jail together. Noted Italian actor Robert Begnini plays a hilariously guileless Italian tourist who leads his cellmates in an unlikely breakout inspired by the American prison movies he has seen.

The story is slight but entertaining, allowing for appreciation of Jarmusch’s minimalist style and the exquisite black and white cinematography (on location in Louisiana) of Robby Muller. Professional musicians Lurie and Waits provide the distinctive soundtrack.

* Friday at 7 and 9 p.m. at the UCI Student Center, Crystal Cove Auditorium. (949) 824-5588. Rated R. Running time: 107 minutes. $2.50-$4.50.

Marital Arts

UCI’s From Zen to Now series of Hong Kong action films concludes Saturday with Corey Yuen’s “The Legend of Fong Sai Yuk” (1993). Jet Li plays mythical martial-arts master Fong Sai Yuk in this ultraviolent and comedic farce. The plot centers around a martial-arts competition in which the prize is a beautiful young woman’s hand in marriage.

But relax, it’s not all sexism here. Fong Sai Yuk’s mother (played by Josephine Saio in a comeback performance) teaches him martial arts while his dad is busy being an antigovernment revolutionary.

As in so many Hong Kong movies, chaos and gender switching allow all the action stars to show what they’re made of.

* Saturday at 7 p.m. at Film and Video Center, Humanities Instructional Building 214, Room 100, UC Irvine. In Cantonese with English and Mandarin subtitles. Running time: 100 minutes. Not rated, but suggested for mature audiences. $4-$6. (949) 824-7418.