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.

Staunch!: The Ultimate Grey Gardens Festival

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Fans have been daft about Big and Little Edie Beale — cloistered aunt and cousin of Jackie O. — ever since Albert and David Maysles' verité touchstone, Grey Gardens, shed light on their batty, inter-reliant habits. Indeed, that documentary has entrained The Beales of Grey Gardens, a Broadway musical, and the oh-so-pretty HBO redux with Jessica Lange and Drew Barrymore. This three-day hallelujah for the damsels of the Hamptons merits its name with fresh returns to the raccoon-bitten manse — sure there are screenings of the original and the follow-up, but count the planned re-enactments, participatory cabaret, and rare audio outtakes as manna. The festival also features an elaborate, life-size diorama of the Edies' bedroom and a tell-all panel with Albert and several other Beale biographers.

Human Rights Watch International Film Festival

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For 20 years now, this festival has tirelessly recited those three little words: justice for all. This year's edition features dozens of such-minded directors, each striving to turn parchment phrases into actual social progress. Anne Aghion presents My Neighbor, My Killer, an unsparing outro to her trilogy about Gacaca (Rwanda's open-air version of Nuremberg) and its tangled wake. On a different note, Havana Marking's Afghan Star documents four entrants on the eponymous show — including two women — as they vie with 2000 hopefuls for pop supremacy. Other subjects include Chevron's Amazon "Chernobyl" case in Ecuador, the politics of Russian polymath Garry Kasparov, and, as the satiric closer, the corporate-strength shenanigans of The Yes Men Fix the World.

David Byrne

Not that tonight's free-for-all David Byrne performance at Brooklyn's Prospect Park needs more fuss, but here's his rapturous, boombox intro to Jonathan Demme's on-stage masterpiece about the Talking Heads, Stop Making Sense.

Rooftop Panorama

Rooftop Films’ four-day showcase features several remarkable personalities. On Wednesday, SF-based comics artist Lev brings his quirk and gloom to read from his latest book and to share some good-grief animations. The next night, the documentary No Impact Man relates author Colin Beavan and his family’s valiant undertaking: to make no environmental impact for a year. Saturday’s U.S. premiere of Persona Non Grata, meanwhile, dilates on Franz Wuytack, a Belgian missionary who went to the Venezuelan slums in the 60s and converted into a full-blooded rebel. This mini-festival also offers the annual favorite, “New York Non-Fiction,” panel discussions on independent film, live music curated by Sound Fix Records, and open-bar parties.

Summer Stroll & Strawberry-Picking

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This jaunt to Jersey caters to everyone's favorite seed-studded fruit, the ambrosial strawberry. Before the treat comes the trek though: a light, pepping three-miler through the arboreal splendor of the Watchung Reservation (for the etymologists, the Lenni-Lenape Indians called the area Wach Unks, or "high hills"). The rest of the afternoon is then spent picking (a reap-and-pay policy) and unwinding at a local farm — a welcome change of scenery from the dulcet clicks at Central Park's Strawberry Fields.

The Films of Rosa von Praunheim

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This four-day retrospective spotlighting Rosa von Praunheim, a stalwart figure in gay cinema, peaks with a red-letter performance of his life, I'm a Tomato — a fitting title, given how much catch-up there is (ha-cha!). For 40 years now, the full-tilt activist ("Rosa" stands for the pink that branded concentration-camp homosexuals, "Praunheim" for a Frankfurt district) has been a provocative, prolific chronicler of AIDS, transsexuals, cannibals, and his repressed brethren. Beside the seminal call-out of gay Uncle Toms, It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But the Society in Which He Lives, the enlightened program also shines on America's gay-liberation movement and women under duress, such as transvestite Charlotte von Mahlsdorf, who endured Nazis, neo-Nazis, and everything in between.