1950s outsider-youth phenom the Beats were perhaps the most misunderstood cultural scab on American cultures malnourished body. The originating practitioners listened not to jazz or folk but, rather, classical music and were staunchly all about bleak depressive ennui — they were 'beat' as in exhausted, tapped out, burnt — yet the prevailing erroneous popular depiction and understanding of the scene centered on a some, dopey mythic carefree proto-hippy. The rage and frustration of Ginsburg's Howl was what they thrived upon and Cinefamily's Beats on Film, a series of screenings and events centered around the Sunday evening premiere of Walter Salles new version of Jack Kerouac's On the Road, will present a comprehensive dose of everything pertaining to the Beats. Ranging from the opening night with Kerouac-Ginsburg short film Pull My Daisy, documentary In Search of On the Road, along with a selection of other contemporaneous shorts (on Fri.) to the lurid exploitation of Roger Corman's classic A Bucket of Blood (on Sat.),. Monday's double bill of John Cassavetes' pioneering indie flicks Shadows and Johnny Staccato, and the rarely shown, mind-bending William S. Burroughs-Antony Balch hyper-maxi-experimental “cut-up films” Towers Open Fire and Cut-Up, billed with David Cronenberg's Naked Lunch (pictured, on Tues),. this guarantees more than enough philosophical provocation and passive-aggressive neurotic angst to reduce one's psyche to a gelatinous mound of glorious misery. ) Cinefamily at the Silent Movie Theater, 611 N Fairfax Ave.; Fri., Nov. 30-Tues. Dec. 4, times vary; $12. (323) 655-2510; www.cinefamily.org

Nov. 30-Dec. 4, 2012

Advertising disclosure: We may receive compensation for some of the links in our stories. Thank you for supporting LA Weekly and our advertisers.