The Maine film scene has truly got it all this week. Maine’s indie film houses bring you everything from sexy gay bikers to end-of-the-world raves, would-be presidential assassins to technology run amok. Toss in an infamously subversive classic Humphrey Bogart flop, and there’s truly something for everyone. 

‘Suburban Fury’

Monday, Space, 534 Congress St., Portland, space538.org.

When an unassuming single mother named Sara Jane Moore attempted to assassinate then-President Gerald Ford with a handgun in 1975, people were shocked. This documentary from Robinson Devor suggests that Moore’s improbable story of murderous radicalization isn’t so much shocking as inevitable in a country where unfettered gun culture and ideological entrenchment run deep. With the elderly Moore granting full access to the filmmakers following her 2007 parole, the film offers up a fascinating portrait of a woman still haunted by her actions — but still filled with the misguided passion for justice that led to them. 

‘Sirāt’

Friday through March 26, PMA Films, 7 Congress Square, Portland, portlandmuseum.org/films.

“The Searchers” meets “Until the End of the World” in this film about a man and his young son searching for his runaway daughter in the Moroccan desert — at the possible end of the world. Setting out to track down his teen daughter amid the desert’s improbable underground rave culture, the desperate father follows vague hints about a secret rave on contested land, just as global tensions threaten to break out into WWIII.

With an unlikely group of rootless raver friends, the man and boy encounter spectacular vistas and dwindling hopes, all set to the incongruous thrash of blaring music and the hint of an approaching apocalypse. At once achingly human and strikingly strange, this film from Oliver Laxe is meant for the big screen. 

‘Pillion’

Opening March 29, Maine Film Center, 93 Main St., Waterville, watervillecreates.org.

In most ways, Harry Lighton’s film is a classic romantic comedy, complete with a Christmas meet-cute, an improbable couple, and plenty of sexy shenanigans. That the film is about a mismatched gay couple into dominance and submission is just part of the fun. Harry Melling (the Harry Potter series) is a meek parking attendant swept off his feet by an impossibly handsome biker (Alexander Skarsgård) with a taste for leather and BDSM. Alternately transgressive, sweet and hilarious, this self-termed “rom-dom-com” offers up a nuanced look at a subculture too often relegated to punch lines. 

‘Beat the Devil’

March 25 and 28, Kinonik, 12 Cassidy Point Drive, Portland. kinonik.org

Audiences for this 1953 caper film were baffled. You will be too, as director John Huston and screenwriter Truman Capote created the movie on the fly with their amazing cast (Humphrey Bogart, Gina Lollobrigida, Peter Lorre, Jennifer Jones, Robert Morley) getting script pages the day of shooting. A wildly loose adaptation of a novel about scoundrels scamming each other out of African mineral rights, the film was secretly the rascally Huston’s parody of his own hard-boiled hits like “The Maltese Falcon,” a fact that eluded moviegoers and Bogart alike. Stories of the film’s chaotic making are almost as wild as the film itself. (To pick just one, Bogart lost teeth in an accident and some of his lines in the finished film were dubbed by an unknown Peter Sellers.) All thanks to Kinonik for presenting a pristine print of this bananas crime flick, since lapsed copyright has flooded TV and home video with inferior quality dubs for decades. 

‘The AI Doc: Or How I Became an Apocaloptimist’

March 26, Strand Theatre, 345 Main St., Rockland, rocklandstrand.com.

So what’s the deal with AI? That’s the premise behind this eye-opening documentary from co-director Daniel Roher (“Navalny”). Following expectant father Roher as he delves into the controversial artificial intelligence industry in an attempt to figure out just what kind of a future his child can expect, the film is a thought-provoking examination of the place of us puny humans in a world increasingly turned over to thinking machines, the potential risks and rewards and how to navigate a technological landscape few understand. The first offering of the Points North Presents documentary series presented at the Strand this Spring. 

‘www.RachelOrmont.com‘

March 26, Nickelodeon Cinemas, 1 Temple St., Portland, patriotcinemas.com

Speaking of technology run wild, this un-categorizable film from controversial director and actor Peter Vack (we can’t print the name of his first feature in the paper) is a cult movie waiting to happen. A psychedelic portrait of a dystopia where online and “real” life merge, the film follows a young woman (Betsey Brown, Vack’s sister) raised in unwitting captivity by an advertising firm whose entire existence revolves around her obsessively parasocial relationship with a manufactured pop star named Mommy 6.0 — who may be the mother who sold her as an infant. Gross, thrilling, weird, hilarious, and did I mention gross, this one’s for the brave. And weird.

‘Dr. Strangelove: Or How I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb’

March 31, Opera House Arts, 1 School St., Stonington, operahousearts.org.
The world is run by unhinged, childish madmen while technology runs amok and ineffectual humanity flails to prevent the end of civilization. But enough about current events, as the Opera House Arts Film Club series presents Stanley Kubrick’s still as-hilarious-as-it-is horrifying WWII comedy. The Film Club is also offering other great films like “Casablanca,” “Annie Hall,” and “The Shawshank Redemption” coming up, all for one great price. 

Dennis Perkins is a freelance writer who lives in Auburn with his wife and his cat.