Opportunities to see The Cremaster Cycle—Matthew Barney’s five-part, astoundingly audacious art-film fantasia—are few and far between, but SIFF Cinema screens the whole glorious thing today. Among Cremaster‘s themes: Celtic myth, gothic Americana, and the impending descent of testicles. Throughout the six-and-a-half-hour cycle, the level of pretension is matched only by the meticulousness of the execution, adding up to a ravishing, occasionally maddening experience. (If you can see only one installment, make it 3, a three-hour dreamscape of choreographed cars, amputee muses, and Masonic ritual.) (SIFF Cinema, 321 Mercer St, www.siff.net. April 9–15.)

David Schmader—former weed columnist and Stranger associate editor—is the author of the solo plays Straight and Letter to Axl, which he’s performed in Seattle and across the US. His latest...