No Need to Wring Hands Over "The Ring"

Whether or not the L.A. Opera's overpriced staging of Wagner's Ring Cycle is as disappointing as some say, you can get a guaranteed exhilarating, certifiably artisitc interpretation of the German source legend, Die Nibelungen, at the County Museum of Art this weekend.
Fritz Lang's epic silent masterpiece "Siegfried" screens tonight at 7:30 and its lesser-known but in some ways even more impressive follow-up, "Kriemhild's Revenge," shows Saturday at the same time. Both films wed savage pagan action with high 1920s design ingenuity, and with the two of them Lang pretty much wrote the semiotic bible for all adventure movies to follow. Plus, since they were made in the pre-sound era, you won't have to listen to a fat lady sing.
Go early and check out the last weekend of the museum's "Renoir in the 20th Century" exhibition. That would be the late works of Impressionist painter Pierre-Auguste Renoir, not his filmmaker son Jean, who like Lang was one of cinema's greatest early auteurs. Tenuous connections aren't necessary, though, to ensure it will all add up to a weekend of unparalleled aesthetic pleasure.
Call (323) 857-6010 for tickets and information.