Klimt (Austria/France/Germany/Britain, 2006)

John Malkovich sneers, mumbles and sleepwalks his way through a pretentious, incoherent, historically fallacious fantasia on the life of Gustav Klimt, the Viennese symbolist painter of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, whose erotically charged images helped define the art nouveau style — and whose famous painting "The Kiss" has adorned many dorm-room walls. The movie, rather than illuminating Klimt's art, strives to be artistic, with dizzying camera work and annoying attempts at David Lynch-like nightmare imagery. The boorish Malkovich is a terrible casting choice for a Viennese painter, especially one capable of creating works of fin de siecle elegance. The painterly cinematography, by Ricardo Aronovich, is the film's only saving grace, but it is scarcely enough to make it endurable. Cleveland Museum of Art Lecture Hall. At 6:30 p.m. Friday, Nov. 7, 1:30 p.m. Saturday, Nov. 8 and 1:30 p.m. Sunday, Nov. 9. H