Boulevard of Broken Dreams

Tonight one of Hollywood’s best, “Sunset Blvd.,” screens at 8 as part of Chapman University’s film noir series.

The 1950 film of a faded, deluded silent-film star plotting a comeback won Golden Globes and Oscar nominations for William Holden, who had to be ordered to take the role, and Gloria Swanson, who got the role of Norma Desmond after Mae West, Mary Pickford and Pola Negri turned it down.

Director Billy Wilder won an Oscar for his writing, and it sizzles:

Holden: “You used to be in silent pictures. You used to be big.”

Swanson: “I am big! It’s the pictures that got small.”

And the film’s most famous line, uttered by Swanson as she faces newsreel cameras after murdering Holden: “All right, Mr. De Mille, I’m ready for my close-up.”

Argyros Forum, room 208, Chapman University, 333 N. Glassell St., Orange, 8 p.m., free.

On Friday night, “The Man Who Left His Will on Film” screens at UC Irvine. The 1970 Japanese film (shown with English subtitles) questions the post-’60s euphoria through the device of a film left behind by a radical who leaps to his death while fleeing police.

Student Center, Crystal Cove Auditorium, UC Irvine, 7 and 9 p.m., $4.50 to $2.50.

Out of Hong Kong

One of the most acclaimed films from Hong Kong, a giddy period comedy titled “Peking Opera Blues,” plays Saturday at 7 p.m. as part of UCI’s Hong Kong film festival.

The film, released in 1986, follows three young women--”scrumptious camera subjects and deft comedians,” according to the Washington Post--who, though from differing backgrounds, share a craving for feminist liberation.

The frantic pace of the film, described by one critic as “an action adventure that plays like a Marx Brothers comedy,” makes it hard to follow the subtitles.

Nonetheless, the film is “irresistible,” wrote Times critic Kevin Thomas, and though it’s more farce than anything else, “it’s also surprisingly poignant and bursting with a witty feminist spirit.”

Room 100, Humanities Instructional Building, UC Irvine, 7 p.m., $4-$6.

Student Film

Unique among the weekend showings is Saturday night’s world premiere--in Orange--of “Danny’s Deathumentary,” an 81-minute, 16-millimeter film produced by Orange Coast College film students with the help of some Hollywood pros.

Under the supervision of OCC cinema instructor Larry Riggins, about 30 students worked on the film last year, shooting on the Costa Mesa campus and other locations in Orange County.

Technicians from Paramount and Warner Bros. studios offered help and facilities for post-production work.

In the film, a satire of teenage splatter movies, a bullied and resentful high school student sets out to murder his tormentors and market videotapes of the action.

“I think it’s pretty hilarious,” Riggins said. “It makes fun of the horror movies. It’s so bloody you start laughing. It’s just impossible for anyone to bleed that much.”

Captain Blood’s Village Theatres, 1140 N. Tustin Ave., Orange, 8 p.m. (and 10 p.m. if demand warrants), suggested donation $5, to benefit the OCC film prgram.

Cold War Fable

Monday’s selection for Chapman University science-fiction series is “Colossus: The Forbin Project,” another Cold War fable foretelling disaster for humanity.

This time, the threat comes from computers, one in the United States and another in the Soviet Union, each with control of its nation’s nuclear retaliation.

When the the two computers are foolishly linked, they become Colossus, the super computer, which attempts to--you guessed it--rule the world.

Argyros Forum, Room 208, Chapman University, 333 N. Glassell St., Orange, 7 p.m., free.

Genesis Documentary

Tonight at 7 p.m., Bowers Museum, 2002 Main St., Santa Ana, will show a 52-minute documentary, “As It Was in the Beginning,” exploring the roots of the Book of Genesis. Free with museum admission.