New Beverly rolls with the Coens

By Susan King

Aug. 2, 2007 12 AM PT

Times Staff Writer

AFTER the sudden death of New Beverly Cinema owner Sherman Torgan at age 63 on July 18, his son Michael announced that he and his mother had decided to close the theater until further notice. The news of the revival theater ringing down the curtain after three decades sent a shiver up the spines of film buffs, for the New Beverly was the last vestige of the great L.A. revival theaters of the 1970s, which included the Fox Venice, the Sherman, the Vagabond, the Encore, the Tiffany and previous incarnations of the Nuart and the Rialto.

But the Torgan family has decided to keep the theater open after all. And this week’s offerings include a Coen brothers double bill -- 1998’s cult classic “The Big Lebowski” and 1994’s “The Hudsucker Proxy,” which features Anna Nicole Smith, on Friday and Saturday; two 1982 teen comedies, “Fast Times at Ridgemont High” and “The Last American Virgin,” Sunday through Tuesday; and two Steven Soderbergh crime films, 1998’s lighthearted “Out of Sight” and 1995’s rarely seen “Underneath,” on Wednesday.

Meanwhile, the UCLA Film and Television Archive’s “Hot + Bothered” series concludes with Cecil B. DeMille’s “Samson and Delilah” on Friday. In this 1949 Technicolor epic, Victor Mature makes the cast of “300” look like 40-pound weaklings as Samson, and Hedy Lamarr is at her vixen best as the temptress who gives him the fateful haircut.

Also this weekend, the unique comic mind of writer-director Tom DiCillo will be feted by the American Cinematheque at the Aero Theatre in Santa Monica. A former director of photography on the early films of Jim Jarmusch (“Stranger Than Paradise”), DiCillo made his directorial debut with the quirky comedy “Johnny Suede,” starring a young Brad Pitt sporting a serious pompadour. Screening Friday is a sneak preview of his latest comedy, “Delirious,” starring Steve Buscemi as a small-time New York paparazzo who wants to be a serious photographer and Michael Pitt as a homeless young man he picks up and makes his “unpaid” assistant. DiCillo will be on hand to discuss the film, as he will be for Sunday’s double feature: his acclaimed 1995 look at independent filmmaking, “Living in Oblivion,” starring Buscemi as a director in crisis, and 1996’s “Box of Moonlight,” starring John Turturro and Sam Rockwell.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences’ “Great to Be Nominated” series continues with 1990’s “The Godfather Part III,” Francis Ford Coppola’s uneven conclusion to his “Godfather” trilogy, on Monday evening at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater. The film received seven Oscar nominations, including best picture, director and supporting actor (Andy Garcia). A panel discussion after the screening includes actors Joe Mantegna, Don Calfa, Franc D’Ambrosio and Al Ruscio, co-producer Fred Roos and stunt coordinator Buddy Joe Hooker.

Elsewhere: American Cinematheque’s monthlong Seventh Festival of Fantasy, Horror & Science Fiction at the Egyptian pays tribute to the late, great novelist and playwright Kurt Vonnegut on Wednesday evening with a double bill of features adapted from his works: 1972’s well-received “Slaughterhouse-Five,” directed by George Roy Hill and starring Michael Sacks and Valerie Perrine, and the 1971 rarity “Happy Birthday, Wanda June,” starring Rod Steiger, William Hickey and Susannah York.

susan.king@latimes.com

Screenings

New Beverly Cinema

• “The Big Lebowski” and “The Hudsucker Proxy”: 7:30 p.m. Friday, 3:05 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday

• “The Last American Virgin” and “Fast Times at Ridgemont High”: 3:50 and 7:30 p.m. Sunday, 7:30 p.m. Monday and Tuesday

• “Out of Sight” and “Underneath”: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday and next Thursday,

www.newbevcinema.com

‘Hot + Bothered’ series

• “Samson and Delilah”: 7 p.m. Friday, Hammer Museum, www.cinema.ucla.edu

Tom DiCillo tribute

• “Delirious”: 7:30 p.m. Friday

• “Living in Oblivion” and “Box of Moonlight”: 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Aero Theatre, www.american