The Chronicle’s guide to notable arts and entertainment happenings in the Bay Area.

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Chronicle critics have a California conversation

Chronicle movie critic Mick LaSalle and The Chronicle’s former pop music critic Joel Selvin, who havemore than 80 years of critical experience between them, are scheduled to sit down with Chronicle pop culture critic Peter Hartlaub to discuss their latest books that deal with music, movies and culture in the Golden State.

Selvin is the author of “Hollywood Eden: Electric Guitars, Fast Cars, and the Myth of the California Paradise,” a book about the Southern California music scene in the 1960s that gave birth to a host of talent including Jan and Dean, the Beach Boys and the Mamas and the Papas.

LaSalle’s book, titled “Dream State: California in the Movies,” is about California concepts and myths that have shaped American culture over the past century.

The virtual Chronicle event is free, but registration is required.

Chronicle Live: California in Movies and Music: 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Oc. 26. Free, registration required. bit.ly/LASALLESELVIN

— Chronicle staff

Decibels Music Film Festival brings live music experience to theater and home screens

The Decibels Music Film Fest attempts to bring the live music experience to movie theaters, with a wide selection across a spectrum of musical tastes and cultures.

Its 2021 edition features a combination of live and streaming options. Twenty-five films will be available for streaming. Ten films will be shown theatrically at the Roxie Theater. The festival’s website has a list of all the films, as well as trailers and streaming instructions, so that you can watch the films on your television rather than a small computer screen.

Among the films is “Vinyl Nation,” a documentary about vinyl records and their resurgence. Tickets are available for individual films, but festival passes are also available.

Decibels Music Film Festival: Wednesday, Oct. 27. Through Nov. 7. Streaming online at https://decibels2021.eventive.org/welcome; $10-$150. In person screenings at the Roxie Theater, 3117 16th St., S.F. www.roxie.com. Festival lounge party 7:30 p.m., Wed., Oct. 27. $15. DNA Lounge, 375 11th St., S.F. www.dnalounge.com

— Mick LaSalle

Jan Lisiecki prepares a deep dive into Chopin’s piano music

Many pianists — perhaps most — include the music of Chopin somewhere in their regular performance repertoire. But there’s a separate breed of pianist, the Chopin specialist, who tend to delve more deeply into this music than most.

The young Polish-Canadian pianist Jan Lisiecki is in the latter category, an artist for whom even the work of other composers seems to be refracted through the lens of Chopin. His recital for San Francisco Performances is devoted entirely to the one composer, interleaving the 12 Etudes published as Op. 10 with a selection of Nocturnes.

Jan Lisiecki: 7:30 p.m. Wednesday, Oct. 27. $45-$70. Herbst Theatre, 401 Van Ness Ave. S.F. 415-392-2545. www.sfperformances.org

— Joshua Kosman

Relive ‘The War of the Worlds’ and its supposed panic at Stanford Live

Scary stories don’t always stay confined to their fictional containers, and their audiences don’t always sit passively and merely absorb.

Those are just some of the lessons of Orson Welles’ extraordinary 1938 radio adaptation of H.G. Wells’ novel “The War of the Worlds,” which allegedly fooled at least some listeners into thinking Martians had actually landed in New Jersey, sparking an interplanetary war.

That whole incident — the broadcast itself, its framing as a news bulletin and the panic it supposedly caused (the scale of which the era’s media exaggerated) — is the subject of an eponymous theatrical adaptation by Rhum + Clay, a London theater company, which now travels to Bing Concert Hall under the auspices of Stanford Live.

Eighty-three years after the broadcast, the divide between fact and fiction can still feel confusingly porous, albeit with alarming new political valences. “We remain just as susceptible to a convincing narrative,” Rhum + Clay said in a statement about the show, “even more so if that narrative seems to offer an explanation for our sense of unease.”

“The War of the Worlds”: 7:30 p.m. Thursday-Friday, Oct. 28-29. $15-$54. Bing Concert Hall, 327 Lasuen St., Stanford. 650-724-2464. https://live.stanford.edu/

— Lily Janiak

Doug Varone’s company to dance to music of Glass, Bernstein in San Jose

Many (perhaps too many) choreographers have worked with the pulsating music of Philip Glass, but few are as thrillingly suited to it as Doug Varone. A major presence in New York modern dance for three decades, Varone makes movement that is rushing, swirling and breathless — at the end of one of his ensemble finales, you might feel you’ve just survived a windstorm.

Having visited San Jose in 2018 and conducted a virtual residency with San Jose State University dance majors this spring, his company Doug Varone and Dancers returns in the flesh Friday-Saturday, Oct. 29-30. They’ll dance his most magisterial and uplifting Glass dance, “Lux,” and “Octet,” set to Glass’ Violin Sonata, and featuring San Jose State dance students. Add to this something completely different: “Somewhere,” Varone’s non-narrative treatment of Leonard Bernstein’s orchestral reduction of “West Side Story.”

Expect masterful choreography delivered by dancers with a distinct Varone flavor of ragged-yet-refined virtuosity.

Doug Varone and Dancers: 7:30pm, Friday-Saturday, Oct. 29-30. The Hammer Theatre Center, 101 Paseo De San Antonio, San Jose. $35-$45. 408-924-8501. hammertheatre.com

— Rachel Howard

‘Nightmare Alley,’ soon to be remade, is one sick movie from 1947

Guillermo del Toro’s adaptation of “Nightmare Alley,” starring Bradley Cooper, Rooney Mara and Cate Blanchett, will be opening in December. The original “Nightmare Alley” (1947) is set to screen Sunday, Oct. 31, at the Pacific Film Archive, and it’s a notorious film with a history to it.

Tyrone Power, a major star, insisted on playing the role of a charming louse, a carnival barker who takes advantage of anybody and everybody, until things get … really interesting. It is a famously disturbing and creepy film — far too creepy for its time.

Despite being a major studio release, and featuring a huge star in the lead role, the movie flat-out flopped in its time, because it was considered too disturbing. In fact, it’s still disturbing today. It’s just that today movie audiences rather enjoy being disturbed.

“Nightmare Alley”: 7 p.m. Sunday, Oct. 31. $10-$14. UC Berkeley Art Museum and Pacific Film Archive, 2155 Center Street, Berkeley. www.bampfa.org

— Mick LaSalle

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