Faat Kin/Borom Sarret (Thu., Dec. 4, 7:30 p.m., $5-$6, International House, 3701 Chestnut St., 215-895-6542) Screenings of Sembene Ousmane's Faat Kiné have become something of an annual I-House tradition, but this appearance of the Senegalese master's 2000 feature is noteworthy for two reasons. One, it opens Reel Voices' monthly Africa film series, scheduled for the first Thursday of every month through May. Second, it's preceded by Sembene's 1966 short, Borom Sarret, considered the first film by a black African director. A portrait of an impoverished cart-driver trying to scrape out a living in newly independent Senegal, it's a caustic indictment of the "New Life." Thirty-four years later, Sembene's criticisms are undimmed; though Faat Kiné's gas station proprietress has climbed a link in the transportation food chain, economic freedom has brought no more happiness.

Just an American Boy (Thu.-Sun., Dec. 4-7, 7:30 p.m., $5-$8.50, Prince Music Theater, 1412 Chestnut St., 215-569-9700) Steve Earle is at his best kicking against the pricks, and Amos Poe's slavish documentary does him no favors by posing him on a pedestal rather than in the trenches. The unassuming title comes from Earle's most controversial hour: "John Walker's Blues," his portrait of "American Taliban" John Walker Lindh; Earle battled Bill O'Reilly over the importance of understanding Lindh rather than demonizing him, but all we get here is Earle giving his stump speech to a sympathetic DJ. Perhaps because the peripatetic Earle can't stand to be in the same place for more than a few hours, he's always been better live than in the studio, and American Boy's generous performance footage pays due homage to his onstage talents. But it falls woefully short where his offstage life is concerned: a snippet of his playwriting career, a canned story about his drug addiction, stage-tested patter about his political convictions. To be fair, Earle can be a moody, unforthcoming interview subject, but a good documentary filmmaker knows how to get subjects to reveal themselves through actions when they won't speak. Earle's spent years telling his audience to question authority; too bad that doesn't hold when the authority is him.

The Hebrew Hammer (Sat., Dec. 6, 8 p.m., Sun., Dec. 7, 2 p.m. and Mon., Dec. 8, 7 p.m., $8-$11, Gershman Y, 401 S. Broad St., 215-446-3033) "Who's the kike who won't crap out/ when there's gentiles all about?" Why, it's the Hebrew Hammer! A Semitic I'm Gonna Git You Sucka, Jonathan Kesselman's Jewsploitation flick stars Adam Goldberg as the "certified circumcised dick" who must foil Santa's plot to destroy Hanukkah. (Cleverly sidestepping Christmas-bashing, the film actually casts Andy Dick as Santa's evil son, Damien, who seizes power in a bloody Scarface coup.) It's a one-joke movie, but it's a pretty good joke: Goldberg gets to spit out would-be Mickey Spillane dialogue like, "It's your bar mitzvah, Jack -- I'm just reading the Torah portion." What makes The Hebrew Hammer more than an extended SNL skit is the sense that the comedy is just a thin skin over real feelings of alienation and self-doubt; when the Hammer's girlfriend asks him to talk dirty, he chokes up, then whispers that their children will go to Stanford, maybe Vassar. (It works.) Though the movie wears thin, Goldberg proves himself a mensch of action, charismatic in a too-rare leading role. Bit player Peter Coyote appears at Saturday's screening.

Angels in America: Millennium Approaches (premieres Sun., Dec. 7, 8 p.m., HBO) Tony Kushner's written-in-fire opus comes to the small screen virtually uncut, but it feels shrunken all the same. Kushner's flamboyantly theatrical conceits, so perfectly realized by George C. Wolfe in the original stage production, are replaced by Mike Nichols' workmanlike-as-ever direction. Though it's a rare pleasure to see Al Pacino underplay, Kushner's dialogue doesn't respond well to mumbling, and his intoxicating mix of divergent philosophies, religions and histories goes lumpy; we're jumping from one thing to the next, rather than seeing them all at once. Though Nichols can usually be trusted to draw good performances out of his actors while he's photographing them dully, many of Angels' leads (especially Justin Kirk as Prior Walter) just disappear, swallowed up by the contextual void. In all its expansive (but not excessive) glory, Angels positively ached with the desire to reach beyond the theater and into the world. This version just stays in the box.

Culloden/The Universal Clock (Wed., Dec. 10, 7 p.m., $5-$6, International House) Peter Watkins' 1964 account of the bloody defeat of Scottish rebels in 1745 makes even the most antiwar battle movie look gung ho by comparison. A fuller account of the unfairly overlooked director's work will follow next week, as International House's Watkins series continues, but this opening-night screening of Watkins' first feature presents an ideal introduction to his technique of mixing documentary and fiction, thereby questioning both. In classic You Are There style, Watkins treats the Culloden battle like a contemporary news event, with cameras on the battlefield to interview combatants on both sides, not to mention a historian perched uncomfortably behind a barricade, offering instant play-by-play commentary above the roar of cannons. Historical perspective comes from narration, which points out, for instance, that two years of a private's salary would not purchase "the wig and hat" of the lieutenant marching just ahead of him. Neither side comes off well in Watkins' account: The highland rebels are decimated under the inept command of Prince Charles Stuart, who keeps them standing in place while more than 800 are cut down by British cannons. But it's the victors who come off worst, especially since the movie goes on long after the battle is over. George II's troops, under the command of his son, The Duke of Cumberland, club wounded soldiers to death and cut down innocents in the street, not only crushing the rebellion but dealing a deathblow to the clan system. Watkins' true sympathies, though, lie not with the rebels, but the troops on both sides. Their commanders are overfed strutters, while the highlanders nurse empty stomachs and the king's troops long for a victory bath, their first in weeks. Though it lacks the double-edged sophistication of Watkins' later films -- the mock-documentary technique is still the bearer of truth, rather than a tool of power itself -- Culloden is a shattering grunt's-eye view of warfare, where victory is an illusion best viewed on horseback. The Universal Clock uses Watkins' work as a springboard for a general complaint about the limitations of television programming, but doesn't offer much insight into Watkins himself, though the footage of him directing La Commune will come in handy later in the series.

Misc. Picks Keep on Saving the Sameric with a benefit screening of The Philadelphia Story, starring Mawrtyr Kate Hepburn as a Main Line heiress (Fri., 8 p.m., International House, $15 includes post-film party). Relâche fires up a second evening of new music accompanying silent film. The program includes an improvised score to the poignant In the Street, a documentary of New York street life photographed by Helen Levitt and James Agee, as well a reprise of Erik Satie's score to René Clair's wonderful Entr'acte (Sat., 7:30 p.m. and Sun., 3 p.m., Prince Music Theater, $10-$20).