A Hero Larger Than Life

As a prelude to the dog days of summer, Disney’s direct-to-video animated musical sequel to “Aladdin”--”Aladdin & the King of Thieves” (1996)--gets a special screening Friday in Huntington Beach.

Aimed at kids, of course, it also will have to satisfy the adults among us, since there’s nothing else on the horizon next week in the way of special screenings except “Bedknobs and Broomsticks” (1971), another Disney offering in Brea, this one a musical feature about a witch who helps the victorious British cause during World War II.

The humongous worldwide gross of $500 million for “Aladdin” in its theatrical release pretty much guaranteed a sequel. But at least “Aladdin & the King of Thieves” has what the first sequel, “The Return of Jafar,” did not have: Robin Williams, the rapid-fire man of a thousand voices, playing the shape-shifting blue Genie with his lightning-fast impersonations.

You may remember that Williams, angry over Disney’s use of his Genie voice for merchandising, declined to make “The Return of Jafar.” But then Williams and Disney made up.

Even adults may appreciate the clever gallery of vocal riffs and improvisations that Williams conjures with the help of the animators. While he free-associates from Sylvester Stallone to Woody Allen, Bing Crosby, Ozzie Nelson and Bob Hope, with a bit of Mrs. Doubtfire tossed in, the animators provide clever visual equivalents. He morphs to the eye as well as the ear in a collage of clever references that recall “Dumbo,” “Cinderella” and “Steamboat Willie.”

The collaboration “makes this festival of animation a triumph,” reviewer Malcolm Johnson of the Hartford Courant wrote in The Times. Though the score is not as satisfying as that in “Aladdin,” he added, this sequel “packs plenty of action, enough to keep the kiddies rapt. . . .”

It’s probably not giving away too much to reveal that this time out Aladdin and Jasmine finally get hitched, and Aladdin is also reunited with his long-lost father.

“Aladdin and the King of Thieves” screens Friday at 1 p.m. at the Huntington Beach Central Library, 7111 Talbert Ave. It is part of the library’s Summer Film Festival. $1. (714) 375-5107.

“Bedknobs and Broomsticks” screens outdoors Friday at 8:15 p.m. at Arovista Park, Elm and Sievers streets, Brea. It is part of the city’s free Family Films in the Park series. (714) 990-7100. Described by movie critic Leonard Maltin as an “elaborate Disney musical fantasy . . . no ‘Mary Poppins,’ but quite enjoyable,” the picture stars Angela Lansbury and features animated sequences and Oscar-winning special effects.

In L.A. and Beyond

Landmark Theatres has two major upcoming events: Orson Welles’ “Citizen Kane” opens a 16-day run at the Fine Arts in Beverly Hills on Wednesday, and the Nuart on Saturday and Sunday at noon will premiere an important documentary, “The Farm: Angola, U.S.A.”

“Citizen Kane” (1941) has long been widely regarded as the greatest of American films, and it is equally well-known that Welles’ ambitious but deeply flawed Charles Foster Kane is really legendary newspaper tycoon William Randolph Hearst. A tour de force of style and an ultimately tragic epic of a quintessentially American captain of industry, it is timelessly brilliant and incisive.

Yet it is useful to remember that Dorothy Comingore’s Susan Foster Kane, Kane’s failed opera star, alcoholic second wife, is not one and the same with Hearst’s longtime mistress, actress Marion Davies. Although Davies did develop a serious drinking problem, she was a greatly gifted comedian, one of the brightest talents of the silent cinema, despite Hearst’s tendency to steer her toward elaborate costume dramas. Susan Foster Kane was more clearly inspired by Polish prima donna Ganna Walska, who had a tempestuous relationship with Chicago newspaper magnate Harold McCormick, who backed her in a disastrous 1920 production of the opera “Zaza.” Director Henry Jaglom will speak before the 7 p.m opening-night screening of the film. Call (310) 652-1330.

Winner of the grand jury prize at Sundance earlier this year--and many other awards--Jonathan Stack and Liz Garbus’ “The Farm: Angola, U.S.A.” (Nuart, noon only Saturday and Sunday and again Aug. 1 and 2) is a great documentary on life and death at the Louisiana State Penitentiary at Angola, the nation’s largest. It’s a great work because of its remarkable blend of detachment and compassion, its breadth and depth, as it acquaints us with a cross section of inmates. We meet a 22-year-old newcomer facing life imprisonment, a man on death row, another man dying of lung cancer and long-termers hoping for parole.

Immaculately maintained, light, airy and spacious, Angola has clearly moved way beyond its familiar image as America’s bloodiest prison, and its canny, sagacious warden is eager to show us that. Indeed, we receive plenty of evidence that the institution has become a place where rehabilitation is possible, but it’s well-nigh impossible for most inmates ever to leave. Indeed, the warden himself says that 85% of his prisoners will die there.

What hasn’t changed is that, according to the filmmakers, Louisiana maintains the harshest sentencing in the country and has a governor loath to sign pardons.

Working with co-director Wilbert Rideau, inmate editor of the unique and prestigious Angolite magazine, Stack and Garbus know they don’t have to preach, but only to take us into Angola to remind us of the enduring role racism plays in ensuring that poverty, ignorance and injustice continue to nurture crime. “The Farm” is in every way an important work. (310) 478-6379.

On 9 p.m. Monday, the Palms, 8572 Santa Monica Blvd., West Hollywood, will screen two amusing shorts: Sundae’s “Harley’s Angels,” a spoof in the form of a trailer of “Charlie’s Angels” that features drag performers, and Todd Corgan’s “Have You Seen Patsy Wayne?,” a vignette written and starring Jamie Tolbert as a wacky young woman convinced she’s the child of John Wayne and Patsy Cline. (310) 652-6188.

The Midnight Special Bookstore, 1318 Third Street Promenade, Santa Monica, will present on Saturday “Documental,” its documentary and experimental film and video series, comprising two different shows at 7 and 9 p.m. (310) 393-2923.

Note: The fourth annual Palm Springs International Short Film Festival will present more than 200 entries from 25 countries July 23-Aug. 4 at the Springs Theater, 277 N. Avenida Caballeros, (760) 778-4100.