Strong Acting at Method Fest

The second annual Method Fest, devoted to independent films with an emphasis on performances, once again offers the pleasures of some splendid acting as it unspools Friday through June 23 at the Playhouse 7, 673 E. Colorado Blvd. in Pasadena.

As it turns out, two of the strongest films previewed are inspired by stage dramas, yet in their very different styles both work as movies and not just as filmed plays.

Jordan Walker Pearlman’s “The Visit” (Sunday at 6:45 p.m.), adapted from Kosmond Russell’s play, opens with a successful party drawing to a close. It leaves its host, Tony (Obba Babatunde), a prosperous African American businessman, with a sense of well-being spoiled the instant he realizes that 10 months have gone by since he last visited his younger brother Alex (Hill Harper), in prison for a rape he swears he did not commit. Their father Henry (Billy Dee Williams) is a self-made man who won’t let his family forget it for a second; pride prevented Alex from going to his father for a good lawyer he couldn’t afford himself.

Henry not only has refused to visit his younger son in prison but also prevented his wife (Marla Gibbs) from visiting. But now Alex is dying of AIDS and demands of Tony that he help effect a family reconciliation. This exceedingly tall order triggers much emotion but, most important, propels Alex on a spiritual odyssey, undertaken at the urging of a childhood friend (Rae Dawn Chong). Although “The Visit” raises some unanswered questions along the way, it unfolds with absolute conviction with an acting ensemble, which includes Phylicia Rashad as a tough-minded, dedicated prison psychiatrist. Pearlman and cinematographer John Demps’ use of evocative close-ups, exceptionally succinct and tightly integrated flashbacks and fantasy sequences give the film a terse, powerful impact.

Loosely inspired by Wolfgang Bauer’s 1969 play “Magic Afternoon,” Catherine Jelski’s “The Young Unknowns” (Saturday at 7 p.m.), a stylish and acutely knowing mood piece, charts a deceptively languid day in which Hollywood wannabe Charlie Fox (Devon Gummersall), the neglected but spoiled son of a London-based TV commercial director and an alcoholic mother, faces the unraveling of his life. Amid an escalating haze of drugs and alcohol he’s confronted with the breakup of his relationship with a caring production coordinator (Arly Jover), who has reached the limits of her endurance with his immaturity. One catastrophe after another befalls Charlie, who finds himself absolutely alone at a critical turning point. Performances are formidable.

Another grabber is Marc Lazard’s “Stanley’s Gig” (Monday at 6:30 p.m.). William Sanderson, slight and reedy, plays Stanley, an alcoholic loser beginning to get his life together with the kind yet firm support of Leila (Faye Dunaway), who runs a Venice mission. His lifelong dream is to become a ukulele-playing singer on a Hawaiian cruise ship, but his new gig is entertaining the residents of a Hollywood retirement home.

There’s a sentimental, contrived aspect to the film around its edges, but at heart it rings true as to how two people, in the later stages of their lives, can have an unexpectedly redemptive impact on each other. Dunaway, Stephen Tobolowsky and Paul Benjamin lend crucial support. Ian Whitcomb, who provided Stanley’s singing voice in the film and wrote the vintage-sounding Hawaiian pop songs, also will perform Monday evening.

The Method Fest opens with “Poor White Trash” (Friday at 7 p.m.), a lively trailer park epic with humor broader than a barn door, and closes with “The Hiding Place” (Friday, June 23 at 7 p.m.), in which a decent middle-aged man (Timothy Bottoms) is caught between two bossy women: his widowed mother (Kim Hunter), descending swiftly into senile dementia, and his unsympathetic wife (Kim Greist).

More engaging than either of these films is the German romantic comedy “The Wedding Cow” (Saturday at 2 p.m.), in which a burly young plumber gives a lift to a stranded, uptight young librarian. Method Fest: (310) 535-9230; Playhouse 7: (626) 844-6500.

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The American Cinematheque’s “Down Under Wonders: Features and Short Films From Australia” gets underway Tuesday at the Egyptian with a 7:30 p.m. program of shorts. At 7 p.m. Wednesday, there’s a double feature composed of the mainstream 1996 romantic comedy “Dating the Enemy,” in which a TV music show host (Guy Pearce) and a newspaper science writer (Claudia Kerven) undergo a body switch when their relationship deteriorates; and the more rewarding 1991 “Hammers Over the Anvil,” an Outback drama set in 1910 in which a boy (Alexander Outhred), struggling against lameness caused by polio, happens upon his macho hero (Russell Crowe), a horse-breaker, in a romp in the hay with his coolly elegant married employer (Charlotte Rampling), on whom the boy has a crush. (323) 466-FILM.

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As seductive as it sounds, Ferzon Ozpetek’s beautiful, contemplative “Steam: The Turkish Bath” (Outfest at the Village at the Ed Gould Plaza, Wednesday at 7 p.m.) stars Alessandro Gassmann as an Italian interior designer who goes with his wife to Istanbul to claim an inheritance, only to be confronted with his true sexual identity. (323) 960-9200.

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Cine Cubano continues Saturday and Sunday at 11 a.m. at the Monica 4-Plex, (310) 394-9741, with Humberto Solas’ 160-minute 1969 masterpiece “Lucia,” composed of three episodes exploring the lives of three Cuban women, all named Lucia, who lived in different historical eras. Repeats June 24 and 25 at 10 a.m. at the Sunset 5, 8000 Sunset Blvd., (323) 848-3500; and July 1 and 2 at 11 a.m. at the Playhouse 7, (626) 844-6500.