THE LAST DAYS OF SHISHMAREF (Netherlands) Thanks to global warming, the Alaskan village of Shishmaref is falling into the sea, leaving 500 Inupiaq Eskimo residents little choice but to move to higher ground. Documentarian Jan Louter is annoyingly neglectful of the politics surrounding Shishmaref’s plight — just where is the government in all this? — but, in lovingly tracking the daily lives of three village families, he captures the never-ending struggle between tradition and modernity. The Inupiaq spend their days in nature, and are reliant upon it; yet, on his down time, a teenage boy can be seen bobbing his head knowingly to gangsta rap, as if taking notes for a dreamed-of future far beyond Shishmaref. (Arclight Hollywood, Sat., Nov. 1, 7 p.m.; Wed., Nov. 5, noon.) (CW)
NILOOFAR (France/Iran/Lebanon) Inspired by an educated widow in her Iraqi village, 12-year-old Niloofar wants to become a doctor. But her father promises her hand in marriage to a wealthy sheik as soon as she “becomes a woman,” which leads her to hide evidence of her first period in order to stall her fate. Writer-director Sabine Gemayel doesn’t reveal much that’s new in her tale of the limited options afforded to poor Muslim women, although the inclusion of the wealthy, educated widow complicates cultural stereotype somewhat. But it’s the slow build of Niloo’s fear and hopelessness, and the way they connect to the tragic back story of her uncle that pull you in and rivet. (ArcLight Hollywood, Sat., Nov. 1, 9:30 p.m.; Mon., Nov. 3, noon) (EH)
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NIRVANA (Russia) Of course a Russian movie called Nirvana will be about heroin addicts; what were you expecting? Igor Voloshin’s first feature is a dose of fancy-dress nihilism for industrial club kids. A triangle of sorts between a nurse (Olga Sutulova), a blue-haired junkie (Artur Smulyaninov) and his bartender girlfriend (Marya Shalaeva), Nirvana has enough drugs, ODs, random killings, outré fashion and unmotivated violence to keep Bret Easton Ellis fans happy. St. Petersburg is transformed into a third-rate Luc Besson dystopia. It’s the kind of movie where terrible industrial music plays most of the time, somber choral music indicates a fall from grace, and Joy Division scores the end credits. Excruciating. (ArcLight Hollywood, Sat., Nov. 1, 12:30 p.m.; Sat., Nov. 8, 7 p.m.) (VR)
GO NOT QUITE HOLLYWOOD (Australia) The classy New Australian Cinema movement of the 1970s had an evil twin, a parallel flood of Aussie gore films and sex comedies that made more money but got no respect. That’s writer-director Mark Hartley’s claim in this lively documentary, bolstered with clips of geysering severed limbs and jouncing full-frontal appendages. The antihero of the piece is Brian Trenchard-Smith, a cheerfully crass Cinephile Dundee whose dystopian splatter film Turkey Shoot is a watchword among trash-cinema gourmets such as Quentin Tarantino, who is interviewed at length. (ArcLight Hollywood, Sat., Nov. 1, 7:10 p.m.) (DC)
GO OF ALL THE THINGS (USA) Singer-songwriter Dennis Lambert had a dazzling cross-genre three-decade run as a songwriter and producer (including Glen Campbell’s “Rhinestone Cowboy” and the Four Tops’ “Ain’t No Woman”) before retiring to raise a family and sell real estate. Convinced by his son Jody to finally accept an offer to perform in the Philippines, where he’s an icon on the basis of his lone early-’70s CD, Lambert lets Jody’s camera follow along as he stages a comeback he’d never envisioned. The result is a hilarious, hugely moving film that not only shines a much deserved spotlight on one of pop’s minor masters, but serves as a loving tribute to the devotion of fans. (ArcLight Hollywood, Sun., Nov. 2, 9:40 p.m.; Tues., Nov. 4, noon) (EH)
PARADISE (USA) The ethereal title is a gentle provocation in this earthbound new work by the consistently undervalued and chronically undistributed director Michael Almereyda (Hamlet, Happy Here and Now), comprising a couple dozen diarylike sketches recorded by the filmmaker as he traveled the world, A man adds anti-freeze to his car on a San Francisco street; a tourist woman browses the merchandise in a Tehran rug store; the actress Elina Löwensohn pays a visit to the studio of a Parisian abstract painter; and, in the wilds of Chickahominy, Virginia, Terence Malick is heard (and ever so briefly glimpsed) giving direction to Colin Farrell on the set of The New World. The constant is nothing more — or less — than Almereyda’s ability to ferret out the inimitable in the seemingly ordinary, the exceptional in that which appears to lack exception. (ArcLight Hollywood, Sun., Nov. 2, 7 p.m.; Thurs., Nov. 6, 3:45 p.m.) (SF)
PINDORAMA — THE TRUE STORY OF THE SEVEN DWARVES (Brazil) What could have been fodder for cheap freak-show exploitation, this documentary about Pindorama, a traveling Brazilian circus featuring a family of dwarves, never subjects these performers to ridicule or slack-jawed gawking. Unfortunately, the filmmakers’ insights are hardly groundbreaking: The circus life is a difficult one; little people aren’t that different from you and me. A recurring motif about audience members who decided to abandon their loved ones and join Pindorama raises interesting questions about the mythic pull circuses have on some people, but ultimately, Pindorama feels so respectful of its subjects that it forgets to make them compelling. (ArcLight Hollywood, Mon., Nov. 3, 9:30 p.m.; Wed., Nov. 5, 3 p.m.) (TG)
