SCREENING ROOM

Joe Dante, director of the blockbuster “Gremlins” and the cult werewolf thriller “The Howling,” is the latest special programmer at the New Beverly Cinema. Screening tonight are the 1963 documentary “Mondo Cane” and the 1964 British war film “Zulu”; on tap for Friday-Saturday are “Hollywood Boulevard” and “Truck Turner”; and Sunday-Tuesday includes the Arch Hall Jr. thriller “The Sadist.” Dante, pictured, will appear at several of the screenings. His stint runs through April 22 (newbevcinema.com). . . . “La Roue,” a 1923 epic from pioneering French film director Abel Gance of “Napoleon” fame, screens Sunday at the Silent Movie Theatre. The digitally restored “La Roue,” starring Severin-Mars and Ivy Close, is an epic love story set against the backdrop of gritty railway yards. Film historian Kevin Brownlow once said the film “advanced the cinema further than any other single work since ‘Birth of a Nation’ ” (silentmovietheatre.com). . . . Helen Hunt began her career as a child actress and went on to win Emmy Awards for her work on the NBC comedy “Mad About You,” as well as an Oscar for lead actress for 1997’s “As Good as It Gets.” And now she’s the subject of an in-person tribute at Santa Monica’s Aero Theatre. Saturday evening Hunt will discuss her feature directorial debut, “Then She Found Me,” in which she stars with former real-life beau Matthew Broderick, Bette Midler and Colin Firth. Hunt and Broderick also star in the 1987 family film “Project X,” screening Sunday with “As Good as It Gets.” (aerotheatre.com)

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-- Susan.King@latimes.com