Showtime at the Bijou: A New Film and a Classic; “PBT Premieres” (CPs Sun. 3/8/15)

1) Maps to the Stars — is a dark inside-Hollywood ensemble piece starring Julianne Moore. Here, she teams up with director David Cronenberg and writer Bruce Wagner. The film is about has-been and would-be stars living the low life in L.A.—which is fitting since Wagner, as a novelist (and this film is adapted from one of his books), writes the blackest, saddest satires of Hollywood since Nathanael West. Moore plays the daughter of a dead movie star (she won Best Actress at Cannes for her work), and diving into the void with her are Mia Wasikowska, John Cusack, Olivia Williams, and Robert Pattinson. Check Fandango for screens and times.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kCIrT23Hef8

2) It Happened One Night  — One of the earliest screwball comedies made, and the first film to win all five Oscars in the major categories: Best picture, director, actor, actress and screenplay. Frank Capra directs Claudette Colbert as a spoiled rich girl who, while on the lam from her imperious pappa, runs into ne’er-do-well newspaper reporter Clark Gable. This hugely popular film was a favorite of Friz Freleng, the man who co-created Bugs Bunny (and, according to legend, based some of those early Bugs cartoons on this film.) Other fans of the flick reportedly include Joseph Stalin and Adolf Hitler – probably not something you’d want to put in a press release, but certainly a testament to this film’s world-wide appeal. (8 p.m., Regent Square Theater), 1035 Braddock Ave., Regent Square.

3) Pittsburgh Ballet Theatre performs a program of three modern pieces which, together, provide a fascinating overview of where this classical dance form is headed in our time. The dramatic Petite Mort is by Czech choreographer Jiri Kylian. The Concert, by Jerome Robbins, is a comic ballet that requires a corps of six ballerinas to perform the artful trick of doing a good job of dancing together badly. And Mark Morris’s energetic Sandpaper Ballet doesn’t spoof the craft but it does include some rather amusing effects. None of the works have been seen in Pittsburgh previously, and thus the show is titled PBT Premieres. 2 p.m. Ends today. Benedum Center, 237 7^th St., Cultural District.

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