It’s all about the music

L.A.’s revival theaters are filled with the sound of music from cutting edge rock to vintage tunes from the 1930s. Over at the Silent Movie Theatre, British Invasion tunes will flow as the Don’t Knock the Rock 2009 festival continues tonight with “America’s Lost Band: The Remains,” a documentary about the short-lived rock group that opened for the Beatles on its last tour in 1966 and once played the “Ed Sullivan Show.” There will be a Q&A; with the filmmakers as well as Remains’ keyboardist Bill Briggs and frontman Barry Tashian. www.silentmovie theatre.org.

Musical mania

The American Cinematheque’s Aero Theatre gets footloose with its Can’t Stop the Musicals week, which begins Friday night with two hip, religious-based musicals from 1973: Norman Jewison’s glitzy version of the Andrew Lloyd Webber/Tim Rice musical “Jesus Christ Superstar” and “Godspell,” featuring a score by Stephen Schwartz.

Scheduled for Sunday night are two surreally fun Busby Berkeley musicals: 1934’s “Dames,” starring Dick Powell and Ruby Keeler and featuring the standard “I Only Have Eyes for You” and 1935’s “Golddiggers of 1935,” best known for its Oscar-winning tune, “Lullaby of Broadway.” www.americancinematheque.com.

Brotherly romp

The music doesn’t stop there. UCLA Film and Television Archive gets into the spirit with its Summer Musicals retrospective opening Sunday night at the Billy Wilder Theatre with 1954’s “Seven Brides for Seven Brothers,” directed by Stanley Donen and choreographed by Michael Bennett -- his barn-raising sequence alone is worth the price of admission. Jane Powell, Howard Keel, Russ Tamblyn and ballet great Jacques D’Amboise star. www.cinema.ucla.edu.

Candid camera

One of cinema’s most accomplished and outspoken cinematographers, Haskell Wexler, will be feted tonight at the Aero. In addition to screening the 1969 political drama “Medium Cool,” which he directed, and 1978’s “Coming Home,” for which he supplied the beautifully muted cinematography, Wexler will speak at the event.

The only anime film to receive the animation Oscar, Hayao Miyazaki’s 2002 fantasy, “Spirited Away,” screens Friday at the Samuel Goldwyn Theater. www.oscars.org

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susan.king@latimes.com