Morning Roundup: Stairways to Nowhere Edition
Morning Roundup: Be Counted Edition
The Real World D.C.: The Morning After, Pt. 12
New Pennsylvania Ave. Bike Lanes Expected by May
National Marathon to Cause Roads to Close, Metro to Open Early
DCist's highly subjective and hardly comprehensive guide to the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week.
Indie: The Darjeeling Limited
By now, five features into his career, it's likely you already have a strong opinion on Wes Anderson. Despite his tendency to borrow liberally from his own film and literary heroes, from Kubrick to Fitzgerald to the entire French New Wave, a Wes Anderson film feels like a Wes Anderson film from the moment the meticulously constructed images hit the screen. Such distinctive stylization is bound to divide opinions. Critical reception for his latest follows this pattern. The usual watchwords are there: melancholy, whimsy, quirky, hip. Whether these qualities are strengths or weaknesses depends on who you talk to, but consensus seems to be that the film is indisputably a step up from the disappointment of The Life Aquatic.
The story follows three estranged brothers who take a trip on the titular train through India, at the behest of the oldest brother, who wants to iron out their differences and reconnect. The themes of family connections and failures is also, by now, a familiar idea in Anderson's work, and Darjeeling may succeed or fail largely on the strength of how deep he can delve into the brothers' relationships. What is certain is that audiences will be treated to Anderson's beautiful visual compositions, and a well chosen soundtrack, which this time around finds the director working without Mark Mothersbaugh for the first time, choosing instead to re-purpose compositions from earlier Satyajit Ray and Merchant Ivory films. Another significant change is the lack of affiliation with a major studio in the production of the film. While his previous efforts (including even Bottle Rocket) were all partially studio produced (by Columbia, and then by Disney, via Touchstone) Darjeeling was made only by independent producers before it came to Fox Searchlight for distrubution.
Additionally, Anderson made a short film, Hotel Chevalier, as a companion piece to Darjeeling. Set two weeks before the events of the feature, Chevalier gives some further, if somewhat cryptic, insight into Jason Schwartzman's character. Think of it as the Antoine and Colette to Darjeeling's Stolen Kisses. Considering Anderson's love for Truffaut, we're sure he'd approve of even that flimsy analogy. The short has also generated buzz for featuring a good deal of tasteful artsy nudity from Natalie Portman, who had previously vowed she'd never disrobe for the camera. Perhaps Anderson promised he'd make her look like a modern day Jean Seberg, casually oozing sensuality; that's what they've delivered anyway. We'd heard for a time the short was going to screen alongside the feature when it was released, but that's no longer the case. Fear not, for Apple has come to the rescue, and iTunes is offering Hotel Chevalier as a free download.
View the trailer.
Opens Friday at E Street Cinema, Bethesda Row, and the Loews Georgetown cinema.
---
Special Event: National Geographic's All Roads Film Festival
National Geographic presents the fourth edition of its All Roads Film Festival starting today, and running through the weekend. The festival, dedicated to movies focused on indigenous and under-represented minority cultures, features 20 films, both shorts and features, documentaries and narratives, from 14 countries. Highlights include: a Mexican documentary, Super Amigos, which should give audiences a more realistic version of the lives of Lucha Libre wrestlers than Jack Black was able to; Miss Navajo, a documentary on the Miss Navajo Nation competition; and Cocalero, about Evo Morales' fight against the U.S.-supported effort to eradicate the country's coca crops. The festival also features a photo exhibit and live musical performance by Balkan Beat Box.
All films screen at the National Geographic headquarters at 1600 M Street, NW. Call 202.857.7700. Full schedule of screenings and description of the films at the festival website.
Also worth mentioning as far as special events: Sigur Rós fans will want to be at E Street Cinema on Sunday evening for the local premiere of Heima, a UK documentary about the band's 2006 tour of Iceland. This will likely be your one and only chance to catch this on a big screen, as it's a preview not of a theatrical run, but of a DVD release. The screening is part of a series of "Taste of Iceland" events in D.C. and Baltimore this weekend. 7p.m., $7.
---
Repertory: Saraband
It was a sad summer for film lovers, as we lost two giants of the medium on the same day in late July. Both had been largely inactive as filmmakers for the last couple of decades, dabbling in a project here or there when it suited them. In the case of Ingmar Bergman, he had concentrated largely on theater productions for the latter portion of his career. But in 2003 he made another film, his last, a sequel to his brilliant Scenes from a Marriage. Returning to the same characters 30 years on, Bergman is brilliant as usual at cutting deep into the inner workings of human relations, with his usual quiet and understated grace.
Saraband is screening as part one of a three part series at the National Gallery, Scenes from a Life: Ingmar Bergman. Immediately following Bergman's film on Saturday afternoon is Bergman Island, a documentary about the filmmaker directed by his close friend Marie Nyreröd. And on Sunday, it's Sunday's Children, directed by Bergman's son Daniel, based on Ingmar's own autobiographical screenplay about his childhood.
View the trailer.
Playing at the National Gallery of Art's East Building Auditorium, beginning at 2p.m. Saturday. Free admission, seating is first come, first served.
---
Major Release: The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward Robert Ford
Warner Brothers has taken their time rolling out Andrew Dominik's epic telling of the downfall of Jesse James. Some speculation had been that it was because the production got away from them and the result is an interminable mess. Now that it's been out for a few weeks in other cities, it seems likely that they're just not sure how to market a glacially paced western that trades shoot-'em'-up action for quiet character study, regardless of the presence of one of the world's biggest movie stars in Brad Pitt. But if you've got the patience for Terence Malick, a major influence on Dominik here, Assasination reportedly has many rewards, not least of which is a career-making performance by Casey Affleck as Ford. The film finally makes its way into D.C. theaters this weekend.
View the trailer.
Opens Friday at Gallery Place, Bethesda Row, Shirlington, and Fairfax Corner.
---
Foreign: Lust, Caution
Ang Lee's much anticipated follow-up to Brokeback Mountain returns the director to Chinese-language filmmaking for the first time since 2000's hit, Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon. The film, a WWII thriller about a student-led plot to carry out an assassination using a young woman as bait, has received an enthusiastic response at the Venice Film Festival, where it scored the Golden Lion, but is receiving mixed critical reaction, most complaints centering around the film's favoring of style over substance. A lot of ink has also been devoted to the film's NC-17 rating, which the producers declined to appeal. Sadly, that fact alone is likely to make its theater stay a short and limited one.
View the trailer.
Opens Friday at Bethesda Row cinema, expands to E Street the following weekend.
add to stumble upon
add to reddit
tweet this
post to facebook
i heart brad pitt
I thought The Life Aquatic was a great film, though I was a big fan of Anderson to begin with. I'm very excited to see his latest effort.
Since when was The Life Aquatic a disappointment? I thought it was brilliant. And I wasn't a Wes Anderson fan to begin with. I guess there's no accounting for taste.
Sorry, I should have been more clear. I enjoyed The Life Aquatic too, but it was widely regarded as a disappointment, and was the first film on which Anderson experienced a significant backlash.
I don't understand this feature. The reviewer doesn't tell us anything about the movies that couldn't be gleaned from a press release. Are they good? Are they bad? Has he even seen them?
So what's the budget criteria for an "indie" film nowadays, 5-10 million?
I really like this feature. It's not necessarily reviews, it's just a roundup of films that are playing at local theaters. I'm aware of most of the films on here, but a couple of times he's caught something I've missed.
I agree (with #7) - although, I rarely go to the movies anymore, this feature gathers a nice cross-section of current releases (and re-releases) in area theatres. In fact, I probably would not have gone to see Labyrinth during its one-week stay at E Street were it not for this feature...mainly because I would not have known about it.
I think The Onion pretty much nailed it when it comes to Wes Anderson's films.
Thanks, Monkey, I hadn't seen that. And, predictable as his themes and his means of conveying them are, just like another auteur with a similar penchant for immediate recognizeability, I can't help but love his movies.
#6- Sorry, I didn't realize that there was a spending cap. I should really renew my subscription to Indie Cred magazine. I've been missing arbitrary rules and sanctimonious posturing in my life.
Count me in with the people who didn't like the Life Aquatic at all. I just wanted it to be about Seu Jorge singing and playing guitar, and all this other boring stuff kept getting in the way. I did like Darjeeling Limited, though - saw it at a screening this week.