DCist's highly subjective and hardly comprehensive new guide to the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week.

Foreign: The Umbrellas of Cherbourg
The Avalon is screening tonight, for one night only, this classic musical by Jacques Demy and Michel Legrand. Both bittersweet and endlessly charming, the film features the always enchanting Catherine Deneuve as an umbrella saleswoman in love with the local auto mechanic. Nothing works out the way anyone wants it to, yet everything seems exactly as it should be in the end. Instead of periodic musical numbers popping up amid dialog, the entire film is sung through, a novel approach to the movie musical that suited Legrand's formidable skills as a composer of film music. Umbrellas is essential viewing, a must for both hopeless romantics and film buffs.

Tonight only at the Avalon Theatre.

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Major Release: Hairspray
Washington Blade editor Kevin Naff has launched a well-publicized campaign to boycott the big screen adaptation of the musical adaptation of John Waters' cult classic on the basis of star John Travolta's membership in the homophobic Church of Scientology. We've always been of a mind that one has to separate the art from the artist, otherwise we might have to trash our Woody Allen collection. A better reason to boycott might be that Travolta is hardly fit to fill either Divine or Harvey Firestein's pumps, but the film has Waters' stamp of approval, so if you're not busy this weekend either watching or reading Harry Potter, Hairspray might be worth a shot.

View the trailer.
Opening this weekend at a number of area theatres.

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Indie: Broken English
Yet another child of independent filmmaking legend John Cassavetes has followed in her father's extremely intimidating footsteps, as Zoe Cassavetes makes her feature debut with this thoughtful relationship comedy. Just as with most of brother Nick's work, Broken English seems to be receiving decidedly mixed notices, but an understated turn by Parker Posey as a single thirtysomething navigating tricky dating waters alongside the always excellent Justin Theroux and Gena Rowlands may be worth the price of admission despite any shortcomings.

View the trailer.
Opens this Friday at E Street Cinema.

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Repertory: Scarecrow
On Sunday the AFI kicks off an Al Pacino retrospective in conjunction with a lifetime achievement award for the actor. While they are screening many of the usual classics of Pacino's work, Dog Day Afternoon, Serpico, Scarface (along with the rather overrated ...And Justice For All), it's Scarecrow that is the underrated gem of the bunch. Winner of the top prize at Cannes in 1973, this introspective road movie is a dazzling showcase of Pacino and co-star Gene Hackman's acting skills, as the two characters, an ex-con and a sailor, travel across the country.

At the AFI Silver Theatre Sunday-Tuesday evening.

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Special Event: The Thing (From Another World)
It's unclear just how much of a hand director Howard Hawks had in the making of The Thing, or whether William Faulkner wrote some of the dialog, but regardless, the film is a classic of 50s alien paranoia fare. While probably best seen from the front seat of a car, seeing it outdoors on the Mall is a perfectly acceptable substitute. John Carpenter's 1982 remake is probably more well known now, but the original is well worth a visit to Screen on the Green.

Monday evening at sunset on the Mall between 4th & 7th Streets.