Vanya on 42nd St. (Thu., 8 p.m., free, The Rotunda, 4014 Walnut St.) While it's a strange fit for Andrew's Video Vault's sleaze-themed triple bill, Louis Malle's 1994 Uncle Vanya version does takes place in a moldering theater on the pre-Disneyfied Times Square. But any excuse to exhume Malle's overlooked masterpiece is a good one. The bare-bones Vanya is among the most electrifying of stage-to-film adaptations, precisely because there is so little adaptation involved. Directors approaching the theater too often proceed from the knee-jerk assumption that plays need to be "opened up," which generally means diluting the caged intensity of a stage set with pointless scene changes and extraneous action. Malle, following Robert Altman's exemplary early-'80s work, does the opposite: He brings the camera in close, merging it into the production as if we've wandered right up onto the stage.

In this case, though, there is no stage, and no set. The actors, a stellar group who include Wallace Shawn as Vanya, Julianne Moore as Yelena and Brooke Smith as Sonya, arrange themselves in the theater's seats, decked out in street clothes as if they've just gathered for a rehearsal. Which, in sense, they had, since permutations of this same group had been performing Vanya, sans audience, for the previous five years, directed by Shawn's My Dinner With André co-star André Gregory. Rather than exhuming dead drama or violently modernizing it, Malle slides effortlessly from the present into the past, deliberately hiding the transition from pre-show banter to Act 1, Scene 1. What might have been a gimmick seems, by the end, the only logical way to go.

Vanya is followed by Forty Deuce, which stars Kevin Bacon as a jittery hustler who tries to sell Orson Bean some juicy boy-meat (shown as a pan-and-scan bootleg), and Café Flesh, Steven Sayadian's post-apocalyptic porno. —Sam Adams

Banana Peel (Fri., July 14, 7 p.m., $7, International House, 3701 Chestnut St.) The director of The Sorrow and the Pity and Hotel Terminus isn't exactly known for his lightness of touch, and this 1963 curiosity will cause no one to lament that Marcel Ophüls gave up a career in featherweight crime thrillers for Holocaust documentaries. With Jean-Paul Belmondo as a raffish con artist and Jeanne Moreau as a wronged woman out to avenge her father's death, Ophüls' lumpy souffle shares a bloodline with the French New Wave, but the movie's desperate gear-shifting is more frantic than antic. Three years after Breathless, Belmondo is already coasting on ossified cool, walking through his scenes as if he's left a cigar burning in the wings. Whether he's cooking with a jazz combo or posing as a German scientist, he never alters his permanent sneer. Moreau isn't much better; it's hard to believe Peel hails from the same era as Jules and Jim and Bay of Angels.

Then again, what could they have done? Ophüls' main interest seems to be reinforcing his stars' effortless coolness, throwing them into a series of absurd schemes just so they can look unfazed by them. It's like It's a Mad, Mad, Mad, Mad World with the cast of thousands whittled down to two. Ophüls does his desperate best to inject laughs — at one point, Moreau's henchmen fool a mark into thinking they're calling from a construction site by thumping on a nearby radiator — but the movie's as light as lead. —S.A.

The Fall of Fujimori (Tue., 10 p.m., PBS stations) The idea of presenting a dictator in his own words naturally gives one pause, but Ellen Perry's documentary is no mere as-told-to transcription. True, the movie's meat is Perry's face-to-face with indicted Peruvian ex-president Alberto Fujimori, whose democratic election was followed by an autocratic "self-coup" which dismantled the country's congress and judicial system. But Perry presents enough other voices, from U.S. officials to Fujimori's ex-wife, to let you see beneath the surface of Fujimori's words. Naturally, The Fall of Fujimori works best as a portrait, a study in a self-proclaimed savior's self-presentation. Casting himself as Peru's best hope against the indiscriminate terrorism of Shining Path, Fujimori abolished civil liberties and started his own reign of terror. When asked point blank if he was aware of the tactics employed by his legal advisor and de facto state intelligence head, Fujimori draws out the question, and then issues a brief, almost offhand, denial, as if he doesn't expect to be believed, or to be asked again. Like this year's State of Fear, The Fall of Fujimori draws parallels between Peru's war on terror and our own, but the focus on a leader who believes he can break, or rewrite, any law in the service of fighting terror lends the comparison extra, and frightening, weight. (Note: Aired on most PBS stations on Tuesday night, The Fall of Fujimori will be broadcast by WHYY at 11:15 p.m., Sat., July 22). —S.A.

The Fall of Fujimori

The Phantom of the Paradise (Tue., July 18, dusk, free, Liberty Lands Park, Third and Poplar sts.) For years, I was convinced that avoiding The Phantom of the Paradise was essential to maintaining my sanity and, of course, my soul. Now, having finally viewed the film, my primary reaction is: This? This is it? This oddly paced, tonally divergent thing is the supposedly great, forgotten cult classic? Sure, writer-director Brian De Palma manages some fine set pieces and homages to Touch of Evil, Psycho and The Manchurian Candidate. But this horror-comedy about a wronged, hideously deformed songwriter (William Finley) seeking revenge isn't terribly scary or funny. And when called upon to deliver some swiftly lurid glam-rock thrills, De Palma pretty much drops the ball.

Then there's the film's villain, the Phil Spector-esque music mogul Swan, played by diminutive '70s songwriter Paul Williams. Here we have the main reason I've steered clear of Phantom all this time. Williams is nothing if not creepy, making it, I suppose, an effective performance, though I still can't figure out if Swan is supposed to be British. The less said about his canoodling with Jessica Harper, the better. Williams also wrote the songs for the film and, being the man behind "Rainy Days and Mondays" and "Evergreen," he provides a batch of piano ballads that manage to slow down the film even further. Don't miss the scene where he commands Finley to write "more love songs." More love songs?

Phantom of the Paradise also has a dated, no-brainer message, something about fame's all-consuming and corroding effects. The film's vision is pretty tame next to today's celebrity culture. Honestly, though, Phantom isn't a total train wreck; it's not as OTT as Rocky Horror or Ken Russell's Tommy — if that's your idea of a compliment. But they're screening it in a park? And they're letting children in there? —Michael Pelusi