AFI Fest, A to Y

SCREAMERS (U.K.) System of a Down are no Dixie Chicks — it’s hard to imagine anyone trying to tell Serj Tankian to shut up and sing. In the U.S., the band are the most visible spokespeople for the recognition of the Armenian genocide of 1915, which many of their grandparents lived through. (That some of them are still alive and healthy today may be a testament to the wonders of pomegranate juice, an Armenian staple.) So many documentaries about genocides play art-house theaters that it can be easy to get jaded, but combining one with tour footage from the most innovative metal band in the world is genius, banging the viewer’s head before he realizes it’s being filled with awareness too. (Thurs., Nov. 2, 9:45 p.m.; Fri., Nov. 3, 2:30 p.m.) (LYT)

THE SECRET LIFE OF HAPPY PEOPLE (Canada) College senior Thomas (Marc Paquet) is an inattentive dreamer who’s awkward with the ladies, but things change when he literally bumps into the gorgeous Audrey (Catherine de Lean), who appears to fall hard for him. The sad truth, however, is that she’s been secretly paid by his parents to serve as a muse until he graduates with an A average. This French Canadian “cruel and enticing dramatic comedy” (per the press notes) heads in some interesting directions, but favors conventional resolutions just when you hope it won’t. (Sat., Nov. 4, 9 p.m.; Sun., Nov. 5, 3 p.m.) (LYT)

SOMEBODIES (USA) A spiritual slacker comedy set in Athens, Georgia, mostly in the half-empty pews of makeshift churches. Writer/director/actor Hadjii’s first feature, about avoiding a DUI by doing the Lord’s work, is thoroughly amateurish and profane, but hard to dislike. Somebodies shows middle-class life in black suburbia as a seemingly endless series of sermons, which, thanks to a talented cast of Southern comedians, are often as amusing as they are crude and outrageous. (Fri., Nov. 3, 7 p.m.; Sat., Nov. 4, 1 p.m.) (JCT)

SPECIAL (USA)Pushover parking enforcer Les (Michael Rapaport) volunteers for a clinical trial for a drug that will supposedly make him more confident and fearless. Instead, it gives him superpowers... or so he thinks. Everyone else sees him crash into walls rather than phasing through them, falling on his face instead of flying, and so forth. Things get dangerous when he decides he’s going to fight crime. The concept would be more fun on a bigger budget — locations and supporting characters are in short supply here — but Rapaport’s utterly fearless and committed performance is, well, heroic. (Wed., Nov. 8, 10 p.m.; Thurs., Nov. 9, 2 p.m.) (LYT)

TIME Korean director Kim Ki Duk’s latest celluloid Möbius strip finds a jealous woman (Park Ji-yun) seeking out a plastic surgeon to alter her (quite lovely) visage so that she can reseduce her wandering-eyed boyfriend (Ha Jung-Woo). The debt to Hiroshi Teshigahara’s 1964 classic The Face of Another is obvious, but where that film used reconstructive surgery as a metaphor for Japan’s scarred post-Hiroshima consciousness, Time’s themes — the tyranny of self-image and the amorphousness of attraction — are no less lucidly realized. (Tues., Nov. 7, 10 p.m.; Wed., Nov. 8, 4:45 p.m.) (AN)TO PLAY AND TO FIGHT (Venezuela) Nearly a quarter of a million kids from all walks of life participate in classical youth orchestras across Venezuela. It’s an inspiring story, though Alberto Arvelo’s documentary gives us too little of how it came to pass, and arguably too much spiritual sales pitch. The program has been running for several decades now, so perhaps it transcends politics — at any rate, they go unmentioned . The film is handsomely shot though, and the quality of the music speaks for itself. With performances by Simon Rattle, Placido Domingo, et al. (Thurs., Nov. 9, 9:30 p.m.; Fri., Nov. 10, 4:30 p.m.) (TC)TV JUNKIE (USA) For those who didn’t get their fill of dysfunctional autodocumentation from Capturing the Friedmans, Tarnation and Grizzly Man, TV Junkie arrives to tell the tale of former television journalist Rick Kirkham, whose fast rise from local crime reporter to national anchor was matched by an even faster slide into alcoholism, drug addiction and spousal abuse. As it happens, Kirkham also had a yen for recording himself, and TV Junkie co-directors Michael Cain and Matt Radecki have been granted access to thousands of hours of his rambling, weirdly confessional home videos. While the concept is intriguing, the results are marred by Kirkham’s loathsome personality and the filmmakers’ downright creepy eleventh-hour attempts to turn their subject into a motivational hero. (Thurs., Nov. 2, 7 p.m.; Fri., Nov. 3, 1 p.m.) (SF)

2:37/TWO THIRTY SEVEN (Australia) After hearing a strange noise in a school utility closet, a high school teacher opens the locked room to discover a student suicide, but the viewer doesn’t see who it is. The rest of the film follows six likely candidates (gorgeous jock, beauty queen, gay boy, geeky outcast, etc.) from the day’s start to that final moment. Dark secrets are easily guessed, histrionics are substituted for emotional depth, and the offered psychology of the tormented is clichéd and flimsy. (Tues., Nov. 7, 9:30 p.m.; Wed., Nov. 8, 1 p.m.) (EH)