Return of the wild and weird

DAVID LYNCH has always marched to a different drummer. His films have been perplexing exercises in the off-kilter and surreal. One doesn’t so much watch a Lynch movie as bask in its eccentricities and nonlinear story lines. This weekend, American Cinematheque at the Aero Theatre and New Beverly Cinema offer three courses of demented Lynch delights.

Last year’s “Inland Empire,” Lynch’s most recent film, will be shown tonight through Sunday at the Aero. Shot on digital video over 2 1/2 years, it stars the filmmaker’s muse, Laura Dern, as an actress whose latest role begins to overtake her life. But is that what it’s really about? And what do those melodramatic scenes with the giant rabbits mean?

Lynch won best director at the Cannes Film Festival and was nominated for an Oscar for his enigmatic “Mulholland Dr.,” Friday and Saturday at the New Beverly. Naomi Watts and Laura Harring star in this 2001 mystery thriller set in the City of Angels. Preceding it is 1997’s “Lost Highway,” starring Bill Pullman and Robert Blake.

The Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences is also going psychological with its Friday double bill: “Persona” and “Being John Malkovich.” The films complement the exhibition “Movies on the Mind,” on the history of psychology in films. Directed by Ingmar Bergman, 1966’s “Persona” revolves around a nurse (Bibi Andersson) taking care of an actress (Liv Ullmann) who has become mute.

Director Spike Jonze and screenwriter Charlie Kaufman were Oscar-nominated for 1999’s “Being John Malkovich,” starring John Cusack as a failed puppeteer who takes a boring office job, only to find a portal into the mind of Malkovich.

The Los Angeles County Museum of Art’s monthlong “The Late, Great Kate: A Centennial Tribute to Katharine Hepburn” begins Friday with the 1940 romantic comedy “The Philadelphia Story” and 1933’s “Morning Glory,” for which Hepburn received her first best actress Oscar. Saturday, there’s 1942’s “Woman of the Year,” the first film she made with her longtime companion and frequent costar Spencer Tracy, as well as their 1957 collaboration, “Desk Set.”

The Mods & Rockers festival continues tonight at the Egyptian with “Monterey Pop,” D.A. Pennebaker’s documentary on the 1967 rock festival. Pennebaker will present the film, and performers including Michelle Phillips, Eric Burdon and Grace Slick are scheduled to appear.

Saturday night, there’s the new documentary “Respect Yourself: The Stax Records Story,” from Morgan Neville, who will appear. And Sunday evening is the U.S. premiere of “Stax Revue 1967,” the only full-length film of the European tour.

Note: The Art Directors Guild Film Society presents visual effects wizard Ray Harryhausen after the 1964 sci-fi classic, “First Men in the Moon,” Saturday at the Egyptian.

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Screenings

David Lynch films

* “Inland Empire”: 7:30 p.m. tonight-Sunday, Aero Theatre, www.americancinematheque.com

* “Lost Highway” and “Mulholland Dr.”: 7:30 p.m. Friday; 2:10 and 7:30 p.m. Saturday, New Beverly Cinema, www.newbevcinema.com

‘Movies on the Mind’

* “Persona” and “Being John Malkovich”: 7 p.m. Friday, Samuel Goldwyn Theater, www.oscars.org

Katharine Hepburn tribute

* “The Philadelphia Story” and “Morning Glory”: 7:30 p.m. Friday

* “Woman of the Year” and “Desk Set”: 7:30 p.m. Saturday, LACMA, www.lacma.org

Mods & Rockers

* “Monterey Pop”: 7:30 tonight

* “Respect Yourself”: 9 p.m. Saturday

* “Stax Revue 1967”: 7:30 p.m. Sunday, Egyptian Theatre, www.modsandrockers.com

Art Directors Guild Film Society

* “First Men in the Moon,” 2 p.m. Saturday, Egyptian Theatre, www.americancinematheque.com