Next Stop Rain City

The ’80s were the cruelest decade for indie movies, yet Bainbridge Island’s Alan Rudolph was then one of the tough, true-to-himself survivors between the burnout of the New Hollywood and rise of Miramax. This six-film retrospective, “Next Stop Rain City,” begins in the ’70s shadow of Robert Altman, Rudolph’s mentor, and ends near the digital millennium. The series launches with a double-feature of Remember My Name (1978) and Choose Me (1984), which Rudolph is expected to attend. With a theme song by Teddy Pendergass, Choose Me is the sexier of the pair, starring Lesley Ann Warren and Geneviève Bujold as women looking for love in a shallow L.A. sea of unreliable men. In a long career that’s lately trailed off in Hollywood, Rudolph has consistently written sympathetic roles for women. Bujold, as a radio host dispensing romantic advice, proves incapable of applying that wisdom to her real-world dating encounters. Part of the film’s pleasure is seeing all her sagacity disproven—much to the tarty Warren’s amusement (though she, too, has to find a balance between head and heart). Also presented as double-features are the Seattle-shot Trouble in Mind and The Moderns (Sat.), and Afterglow and Breakfast of Champions (Sun.). (NR) BRIAN MILLER

Fri., April 23, 7:30 & 9:30 p.m.; Sat., April 24, 7:30 & 9:30 p.m.; Sun., April 25, 3 & 5:30 p.m., 2010