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TUESDAY

In the immortal words of the Ramones: “Hey Daddy-o/I don’t wanna go down to the basement/There’s somethin’ down there.” Joey’s cosmology didn’t entirely coincide with that of Dante Alighieri, another great vernacular poet, but both understood the abandon-all-hope dread of entering a hole in the ground. That’s seemingly the theme of tonight’s Library of Congress double bill: L’Inferno, a 1909 Italian silent film in which Dante and his guide, Virgil, tour hell, and Journey to the Beginning of Time, a 1955 Czech film that begins when four kids enter a mysterious cave in Central Park. If an excursion to watch such films seems just too spooky to contemplate, note that the Pickford Theater is on the third floor, not in the basement. At 6:30 p.m. at the Library of Congress’ Pickford Theater, 101 Independence Avenue NW. Free. (202) 707-5677. (Mark Jenkins)