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FRIDAY
As if the first four films in Matthew Barney’s nonsequential pentalogy weren’t grandiose enough, Cremaster 3 runs more than three hours and adds Masonic lore, the Chrysler Building, and hardcore punk to such previously explored Barney obsessions as racing, Celtic lore, and Busby Berkeley-style musicals. The cremaster, in case you’ve forgotten, is the muscle that controls the contraction of the testicles, and these sumptuously appointed nonnarrative extravaganzas usually include some below-the-belt imagery. A connoisseur of overstated macho, Barney here riffs on phallic architecture, with sculptor Richard Serra as the mythic proto-Mason who supposedly built the Temple of Solomon. Shot in Manhattan, the Scottish Hebrides, and Ireland’s Giant’s Causeway, Cremaster 3 is nothing if not wide-ranging. So are reactions to it: the New York Times compared the film (favorably) to Star Wars; The Village Voice suggested (unfavorably) a resemblance to Led Zeppelin IV. It screens at 7 p.m. at the Hirshhorn Museum and Sculpture Garden’s Ring Auditorium, 7th and Independence Avenue SW. Free. (202) 357-2700. (Mark Jenkins)