Apart from 3-D and those massive soda machines with 50 drinks available all at once, the moviegoing experience has lost many of its qualities of spectacle and alchemy. Yet occasionally a film comes along and provides that transformative experience. Case in point: tonight's premiere of the one-week run of Beyond the Black Rainbow. In the “strange and oppressive emotional landscape” of 1983 — let's face it, that's when David Niven died, so that year was pretty much a write-off anyway — the enigmatic Arboria Institute plays host to a mysterious doctor tormenting a young girl he keeps captive in his quest for inner peace through the scientific method. Insinuating itself throughout this dystopian techno-fear is the mesmeric and sinister analog synth soundtrack by composer Jeremy Schmidt (of Sinoia Caves and Black Mountain), written especially for the debut film by writer-director Panos Cosmatos. Panos is the son of director George P. “I Don't Know Why Anyone Would Actively Use Rambo: First Blood Part II as a Calling Card” Cosmatos, and the psychedelic phantasmagoria of Beyond the Black Rainbow makes one hell of a cinematic splash — if by “splash” you mean someone wrapped in peyote soul-kissing a Kool-Aid Man filled with liquid LSD. See review in Film. Cinefamily, 611 N. Fairfax Ave.; Thurs., June 21, 10:30 p.m.; $12. (323) 655-2510, cinefamily.org.

June 21-27, 10:30 p.m., 2012

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