Americana

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After last year's revelry along the East River, Rooftop Films' annual Fourth of July blowout goes west — to the Chelsea Museum. Indeed, the museum's rooftop provides a felicitous setting to say cheers to the US of A, not only for its wondrous view of the city fireworks, but for its proximity to the piers that once inducted the foreign-born into democracy. Preceding the tricolor pyrotechnics is a lively bill headlined by New Zealand's Bachelorette (aka Annabel Alpers), whose multilayered electro pop explores personal communication in the age of computerized reproduction. Closing out the night is a program of rousing shorts, with equal opportunity for comedy and politics.

Lori Goldston scores The Passion of Joan of Arc

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Carl Theodor Dreyer's 1928 opus of close-ups, The Passion of Joan of Arc was meant to be witnessed in a sort of monastic silence — after all, as the legendary embodiment of the French martyr, Renée Falconetti's expressive, unmade face alone cued a litany of emotions. But as one of cinema's forever-ever titles, Passion has, over time, been subject to musical embroidering. Dylan may have had Falconetti's sad-eyed visage in mind when he penned, "the peasants call her the Goddess of Gloom," and many others have articulated her heavy-duty faith through clefs, from Cat Power's acoustic accompaniments to Richard Einhorn's oratorio. Tonight, cellist Lori Goldston presents her lovely accompaniment to the film, balancing the medieval and liturgical aspects with improvised spells.

Paper Moon

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At first blush, the "bone structure" of Paper Moon seems common — list Peter Bogdanovich's 1973 piece under the put-wise road movie — but, my, how it blooms into something consummate. Ryan O'Neal plays Moses Pray, a Depression-era swindler persuaded to transport an orphan who might be his daughter; O'Neal's own, adorable Tatum (in an Oscar-claiming debut) personates the wily and willful nine-year-old. While the odometer tips upward, the endearing twosome become thick as thieves through increasingly risky get-rich schemes. Laszlo Kovacs' sharp black-and-white shots of Kansan skies and plains embellish this lovely joy ride, and Madeline Kahn appears midway as the bawdy delight who puts out like a gum machine.

A Musical Marathon

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Lincoln Center marks a half-century of existence with this three-day paean to the musical, America's most fanciful contribution to the arts. The 20 films on slate represent six decades of gotta-dance pageantry, with no bagatelles to be seen. Singin' in the Rain jump-starts a TGIF schedule that includes Bob Fosse's Weimar-era masterwork Cabaret and another midnight opportunity to memorize Purple Rain. Come Saturday, Busby Berkeley's madcap flair is on full-scale display in The Gang's All Here, while luck delivers twofold for Frank "Pal Joey" Sinatra with Rita Hayworth and Kim Novak. And Sunday is simply hubba-hubba worthy, with Marilyn Monroe in Gentlemen Prefer Blondes — or, if you prefer, Gene Kelly, as he goes balletic in New York and Paris.

Hola Mexico Film Festival

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To the common channel-flipper, Mexico onscreen is either some "aye-dios-mio" melodrama or an epic starring a few trim Zapata moustaches. Founded in Australia, of all lands, this festival clues us in on the cinematic variety now offered south of the border. While the hugely popular Tear This Heart Out is indeed a post-revolutionary epic (and Mexico's entry for this past foreign-language Oscar), there's also fare like The Old Thieves, in which jailed desperados recount their schemes during the free-for-all '60s; and Meet the Head of Juan Perez, a comedy about a circus' latest attraction — a cursed guillotine. Peso-magnet Guillermo del Toro produces Insignificant Things, a polished story that addresses personal entanglements via emblems, while "Mexico's Sweetheart" Angélica María nets a two-film tribute.

Gold Diggers of 1933

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Back in 1933, Warner Brothers made a pretty coin off a simple belief: In Busby We Trust. Indeed, the choreographer with the surname Berkeley turned out numinous routines for three of the studio's best backstage musicals, Gold Diggers of 1933 being the second. The plot focuses on three unemployed showgirls (including the adorable Ruby Keeler) as they pursue greenbacks to bankroll a new production; Dick Powell plays the aspiring songwriter with a moneyed but keep-mum past. The song-and-dance compositions within are simply wondrous: Berkeley arranges his many extras into elaborate, kaleidoscopic patterns, often gazing at their en-masse movements from above as if they were a supernal organism under the microscope.

The Killing

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By the numbers, The Killing breaks down as such: two million dollars up for ill-gotten grab; seven crooks tethered by a (im)moral code more binding than the Hippocratic Creed; and 85 minutes for the unseen Fates to spin an all-bets-off design. Sterling Hayden heads the motley, fey unit as the unflappable Johnny Clay, a just-released con who promises his gal to be on the up-and-up after one last elaborate robbery at the racetrack. With its polished noir standards — a femme fatale, rat-a-tat barbs, chiaroscuro cinematography, and a know-it-all narrator — this nonlinear caper introduced the world to its photographer-cum-auteur Stanley Kubrick, who accents the wry in an exhilarating get-rich scheme gone awry.

Conspiracy of Hope

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Twenty-three years ago, Amnesty International capped off its six-city, profile-raising Conspiracy of Hope concert series with an 11-hour kumbaya that featured the Police (who specifically reunited for this tour), U2, Yoko Ono, Joni Mitchell, Peter Gabriel, and another dozen or so in-demand acts. The FSLC recreates that high-spirited experience with a rare screening that observes the 1986 timetable — making 5:30pm (when Carlos Santana and Fela collaborate onstage with the ever-cool Miles Davis) and 7pm (Lou Reed) must-see slots. As a plus, Robert De Niro, Pam Grier, Muhammad Ali, Robin Williams, and Pat "Love Is a Battlefield" Benatar are among the many between-sets emcees.

A Dunderhead's Guide to Dada

Whatever Works

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Long ago, Woody Allen owned up: his one regret in life was that he was not someone else. Yet, for the better half of his artistic practice, Allen capitalized on that misanthropic, life-is-meaningless persona. In Whatever Works, his latest surrogate is none other than Larry David, here a carping string theorist who dots every other phrase with the thinking man's epithet: "microbe." He maintains his high-and-mighty m.o., even after dimwitted Southern waif Evan Rachel Wood moves in and, against all scientific reason, falls for the bastard — to entropic and farcical ends, of course. The filmmaker's return to a New York setting features some corned rehash (cf. '70s Woody), but there are plenty of hallmark one-liners, not to mention the charm of that irresistible Allen-David marquee.

La Nave de Los Monstruos

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As exotic as its español title, the 1960 Mexican camp fantasy La Nave de Los Monstruos materializes that best-selling saying: Women are from Venus. In this amusing mishmash of science fiction and Westerns, the last man on said planet (poor fellow!) has expired. The ultra-voluptuous rays of hope are Gamma and Beta (two would-be Miss Universes in one-pieces), who go intergalactic trolling for specimen — all space oddities — with their robot Tor, a Gort gone lucha libre. Earth itself is reduced to Chihuahua, where the two sirens come to a plot-altering impasse. Tonight, in lieu of the film's norteño soundtrack, the post-classical string quartet Ethel perform a splendid, long-incubated live score.

DJ Spooky's Rebirth of a Nation

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With its almighty title, The Birth of a Nation (1915) proclaimed a novel directive for then-nascent cinema: let there be narrative. But D.W. Griffith's revisionist epic about the South circa Reconstruction has long been pockmarked by plain-to-see racism and a whiteout of historical fact. For his acclaimed "remix," Rebirth of a Nation, DJ Spooky (aka Paul D. Miller) parses the actual story line along with its subtext, history, and tie-in to our interracial present. As performed by Kronos Quartet, Spooky's resonant score backs up the erudite search-and-deconstruct. Two screenings of Griffith's original also provide an opportunity for your own annotations.