Friday Happenings

Still from Lights, a short by Marie Menken, courtesy Harvard Film Archive.

Marie Menken, whom you might know better as the character Martha from Edward Albee's Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf?, was a doyenne of the New York art scene during the fifties and sixties. She was also a damn good filmmaker. Her shorts feature remarkably graceful handheld cinematography and a painterly approach to animation and montage that used light as a building block for poetry. Though her work inspired Kenneth Anger, Jonas Mekas, and Andy Warhol, among others, Menken has only recently attracted critical attention. The HFA's two evening retrospective should not be missed by anybody who is interested in cinema, its history and its possibilities. Harvard Film Archive, Carpenter Center, 24 Quincy St., 7 p.m. $8/$6

Animations

The Boston Underground Film Festival brings two underground New York animators to town. Patrick Smith's work sounds like pot-fueled thought experiments gone awry: rampaging sock puppets and a potion that allows you to explore your own insides. Ben Levin prefers the satirical mode, addressing "modern love, movies, role playing games, and Republicans run amok." It's a taste of the weirdness that the BUFF will bring to town when it unreels its festival in March. Space 242, 242 East Berkeley St., South End, 6 p.m. More information and link to required RSVP.

Proboscides, Pimples

Opera Boston presents the New England premiere of The Nose, the weirdest thing the company is going to do this year. Based on Gogol's short story, Shostakovich's farce concerns an Imperial bureaucrat who awakens to find that his nose his left his face—and is cavorting around St. Petersburg in full military dress. Through March 3. Cutler Majestic Theatre, 219 Tremont St., 7:30 p.m. Tickets

Great Adventures

Slick Rick might be the best storytelling rapper ever to grab a mic. MC Ricky D has finally gotten the INS monkey off his back, and life couldn't be sweeter for the British-born rapper. He performs in front of a live band these days, and his flow is just as bananas as it has ever been. There's a good chance that a third of the crowd will know every word to "Ladidadi," so brush up. Harper's Ferry, 158 Brighton Ave., Allston, 8pm. $20/$25.