The Magical and the Macabre

Among the films available for preview for the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival, which opens tonight at the Directors Guild of America, are three especially strong dramas, “Straightman,” “The Magic of Marciano” and “Straight Right.”

All are made in a realistic style, but “Straightman” has the edge in authenticity (Saturday, 11 a.m., at the Sunset 5, 8000 Sunset Blvd. ; Sunday, 5:30 p.m., Harmony Gold Preview House, 7655 Sunset Blvd.). Director Ben Berkowitz and his co-writer and co-star, Ben Redgrave, worked with their cast in the manner of Mike Leigh: The actors helped develop the characters they are playing. Berkowitz plays David, the paunchy young manager of a Chicago comedy club, a crude but effective womanizer. His main virtue is his staunch friendship with his neighbors Jack (Redgrave), a good-looking, self-educated construction worker, and Max (Butch Jerinic), the live-in girlfriend to whom Jack is quietly devoted.

Jack is stunned when Max announces she’s moving to take a job in California. David is stunned when Jack, who opts not to move with her, reveals that he is gay. “Straightman” at once becomes Jack’s quest for love as he comes out and a test of his friendship with David. Berkowitz, Redgrave and their entire ensemble seem to be living their roles.

Tony Barbieri made a deep impression at the 1998 LAIFF with his debut feature, “one,” about how two very different young men, friends since childhood, deal with adult life. With “The Magic of Marciano” (Saturday, 3:45 p.m., at the DGA’s Express Theater, 7920 Sunset Blvd.), Barbieri has created what are arguably the most challenging roles ever for his stars, Nastassja Kinski and Robert Forster. The most demanding part, however, is reserved for the pivotal figure, a boy named James, played with conviction by Cody Morgan.

Kinski’s Katie is a small-town waitress in a cafe, a loving but unstable single mother who has an intermittent affair with a no-good stud (Jason Cairns, co-star and co-writer of “one”). James wants to play Cupid for his mother and his new friend Henry (Forster), a widower and retired psychologist and businessman preparing for a long voyage on his yacht. Katie comes on way too strong for the perceptive and wary Henry, and James faces a tremendous test of spirit as his mother begins to disintegrate. Meanwhile, Henry must decide to what extent he is prepared to commit himself to James’ welfare.

“Straight Right” (Saturday, 11 a.m., Sunset 5; Sunday, 5:30 p.m., Harmony Gold) teams director P. David Ebersole, who made the memorable short “Death in Venice, CA,” and actor-writer Brent Smith, perfectly cast as a promising boxer whose career is in danger of being derailed. Witnessing an instance of child abuse triggers terrible memories of his own childhood, driving him to acts of vengeance. Taut and compelling, “Straight Right” has a film-noir look and feel that work well for its intentions (and budget).

Arthur Flam and Diane Doniol-Valcroze’s “Kill by Inches” (Saturday, 9:30 p.m., at the DGA) is an expertly directed and confidently stylish psychological thriller in which an oppressed young tailor (Emannuel Salinger) works out his rage in memorably macabre fashion. Both David Gordon’s “George Washington” (Saturday, 5 p.m., Harmony Gold) and David Feldman’s “Broke Even” (Sunday, 2 p.m., Harmony Gold) arrive with strong advance notice, and while such enthusiasm is understandable, both pictures are perhaps more valuable for what they augur for their gifted filmmakers than what they actually deliver. “George Washington” is a powerfully evoked mood piece centering on a small-city African American teenager (Donald Holden) with lots of dreams and imagination who, along with his friends, is confronted with an unexpected loss. Feldman reveals much wit, flair and perception in his blue-collar, Bronx-made “Broke Even” as he chronicles a young man (Kevin Corrigan) who is outgrowing his pals (Mick Cunningham, Michael Lowry) when he meets a free-spirited young woman (Elizabeth Berridge). The film builds so well, takes such a risk,] that you want a richer payoff.

While most all of these films have humor, Doug E. Doug’s “Citizen James” (Friday, 9:30 p.m., and Sunday, 11 a.m., Sunset 5) is an infectious all-out comedy about a young black man (Doug) who decides to make a movie with his friends. Armed only with naive determination, they settle on attempting a film bio of Angela Davis. The result is funny, touching and even uplifting. (By the way, that other “Citizen,” “Citizen Kane,” screens Saturday at 2 and 8 p.m. at the Alex Theatre, 216 N. Brand Blvd., Glendale. [800] 872-8997.)

There’s plenty of humor but also some seriousness in Steven Candor’s engaging documentary on New York nightclub bouncers, “Bounce: Behind the Velvet Rope” (Saturday, 11 a.m., Harmony Gold), which introduces a group of men similar in size and strength but who are highly dissimilar in intelligence and attitude.

The festival is studded with shorts, including Scott Saunders’ “This Close to Nothing,” a striking vignette about a misfired romantic rendezvous that is especially disastrous for the man. Saunders’ “The Headhunter’s Sister” was an LAIFF highlight two years ago.

“Red Dirt” (Saturday, 8 p.m., Harmony Gold; Monday, 10:30 a.m., DGA), though deeply felt, is too derivative to work. It benefits from Karen Black as a Southern aristocrat clinging to the past and from Dan Morgan as the nephew eager to escape her clutches. Morgan also brightens the overly talky and tedious “The Last Man” (Saturday, midnight, Sunset 5). Black also can be seen in a special screening of “Five Easy Pieces” (Sunday, noon, DGA). For full schedule and tickets: (888) ETM-TIXS.

The week’s top indie discovery, however, is not in LAIFF but at the Egyptian Theatre on Wednesday at 7:30 p.m. as an American Cinematheque Alternative Screen presentation. Marc Forster’s “Everything Put Together” is a dynamite movie, smart and pungently satirical, about a suburban housewife (Radha Mitchell) whose miscarriage makes her a pariah in her expensively tasteless tract community, a consumer’s paradise where everything is supposed to be perfect. (323) 455-FILM.

The Universal Studios Imax Theater at Universal CityWalk opens Friday with the new 45-min-ute Imax 3D “T-Rex: Back to the Cretaceous” and a reprise of “Everest.” Located within the CityWalk multiplex, the theater is splendid and its Imax technology state of the art. But as for “T-Rex,” you may want to drop off the kids and do a little shopping. It’s a corny blend of fiction and documentary that has teenager Ally (Liz Stauber) eager to follow in the footsteps of her paleontologist father (Peter Horton), but he’s a workaholic who insists she’s not ready to accompany him on digs. Feeling lonely and rejected, Ally has a fantasy experience in which she’s transported back to the Cretaceous period. It’s too bad that director Brett Leonard and his colleagues spend so much time in setting up such a contrived pretext, for once the dinosaurs appear they are quite convincing--and perfect for Imax 3D, thanks to the skilled artistry and technology of Blue Sky/VIFX. More dinosaurs and fewer humans would have been lots more fun. (818) 508-0588.

Entirely skip-worthy is “Tannabess,” a glum, ponderously philosophical tale about a young man in an Italian seaside town so enamored of a Danish woman that he’s prepared to ditch his wife and infant son and break the law to raise enough money to pursue her to Denmark. It screens Saturdays and Sundays at 11 a.m. at the Monica 4-Plex, 1332 2nd St., Santa Monica. (310) 394-9741.