Slackers gets their own film festival

If you’re a slacker and not afraid to show it, then the New Beverly Cinema has the film festival for you. The New Bev’s “Slacker Week” festival begins Sunday and Monday with Cheech and Chong’s 1978 stoner classic “Up in Smoke,” directed by Lou Adler, and another stoner favorite, 2004’s “Harold & Kumar Go to White Castle,” with John Cho and Kal Penn.

On tap for Tuesday is the 2001 Broken Lizard comedy “Super Troopers,” followed on Wednesday by the 1978 classic “Animal House,” directed by John Landis and starring John Belushi, and Judd Apatow’s 2007 blockbuster, “Knocked Up,” with Seth Rogen and Katherine Heigl. https://newbevcinema.com

The American Cinematheque’s Egyptian Theatre presents the rarely screened 1939 movie “Hollywood Cavalcade” on Thursday evening. The Technicolor tribute to the early days of motion pictures stars Alice Faye, Don Ameche and Buster Keaton and Al Jolson as themselves.
With the remake fizzling at the box office, the Egyptian is screening the far more entertaining 1990 original of “Total Recall,” Friday evening. Arnold Schwarzenegger and Sharon Stone star. Director Paul Verhoeven will be on hand to for a post-screening discussion.

The iconoclastic filmmaker Sam Fuller, who would have been 100 this month, is being feted at the Cinematheque’s Aero Theater this Friday through Sunday. The retrospective, “Underworld U.S.A.: The Pulpy Heart of Sam Fuller Cinema,” opens Friday with the 1963 noir “Shock Corridor,” starring Peter Breck as a reporter who goes undercover at a mental institution, and the 1957 subversive western, “Forty Guns” with Barbara Stanwyck.

Christa Fuller, the director’s widow, will be on hand Saturday evening for the double feature of the 1953 noir “Pickup on South Street,” with Richard Widmark, Jean Peters and an Oscar-nominated Thelma Ritter, and the 1961 crime thriller “Underworld U.S.A.,” with Cliff Robertson. Sunday’s offerings are the truly unique 1964 film “The Naked Kiss” with Constance Towers, and the influential 1951 Korean War adventure, “The Steel Helmet.”

The Aero is offering a special discount for senior citizens Monday for the Fritz Lang film noir double bill of 1953’s “The Big Heat” and 1944’s “The Woman in the Window.” https://www.americancinematheque.com

UCLA Film & Television Archive’s “The Two Faces of Jean” retrospective on Jean Arthur continues Friday at the Billy Wilder Theater with the little-seen 1935 comedy “The Public Menace” with George Murphy, and the 1936 romantic comedy “Adventure in Manhattan” with Joel McCrea, with whom she would appear in the1943 classic “The More the Merrier.”

The archive’s “Rod Serling: Other Dimensions” features the writer’s Emmy Award-winning 1970 “Hallmark Hall of Fame” drama “A Storm in Summer,” Sunday evening at the Wilder. Peter Ustinov and N’gai Dixon star. Also screening is “We Two,” the unsold 1972 pilot based on “Storm in Summer” with Herschel Bernardi and Damon Ketchens. Carl Reiner, who directed the pilot, may appear depending on his schedule. https://www.cinema.ucla.edu

The New Beverly’s “Films Shot on the Lot” (Formosa and Santa Monica), features Billy Wilder’s Oscar-winning 1960 best film, “The Apartment,” Friday and Saturday evenings. Jack Lemmon, Shirley MacLaine and Fred MacMurray star. Also screening is Joseph Mankewicz’s lavish 1955 adaptation of the Broadway hit musical “Guys and Dolls” with Marlon Brando, Frank Sinatra and Jean Simmons. https://www.newbevcinema.com

LACMA’s “Animation August” Friday evening at the Dorothy Collins Brown Amphitheater presents “Pixar Shorts Collection Vol. 1” and “The Best of the Los Angeles International Children’s Film Festival.” https://www.lacma.org

Cinefamily at the Silent Movie Theatre’s “Everything Is Festival III: The Domination” continues this weekend. Among the highlights: ”The Feline Gaze: The Art of the Cat Film” on Saturday afternoon and “Star Wars: Uncut,” early Sunday afternoon, a shot-for-shot re-creation of the 1977 classic told by 500 directors in 15-second “microchapters.” https://www.cinefamily.org
Cinespia at Hollywood Forever Cemetery presents Alfred Hitchcock’s 1963 chiller “The Birds,” with Tippi Hedren and Rod Taylor, Saturday evening. https://www.cinespia.org