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

Indie: Romance & Cigarettes

John Turturro's third film as a director is the sort that seems tailor made to become a cult classic. Not nearly polished or glamorous enough to be the sort of Broadway to big screen musical hit that Chicago or Hairspray was, it was too oddball to fit into the heads of most movie marketers. Not to mention the fact that while by now we're used to seeing Christopher Walken in his song & dance man persona, it's still a little jarring to watch Tony Soprano looking so light on his feet. The film floated around the edges of conversations between movie geeks who had heard about its festival screenings, or who had managed to obtain a copy of the European DVD release, but U.S. distributors backed slowly out of the room. As a result, it was buried after its festival premieres, and Turturro himself has had to distribute the film, in which James Gandolfini plays a New York bridge worker married to Susan Sarandon, but carrying on a torrid affair with a fiery redhead played with campy glee by Kate Winslet. There are left turns galore, as the film careens into crazy fantasies and subplots on a dime, with characters spontaneously breaking into mostly well-known songs from the '60s to express their true feelings on the latest plot developments. It's a manic and breathtaking ride, and doesn't always work, but it's a glorious mess to feast the eyes and ears upon.

View the trailer.
Playing from this Friday until November 29, at the Avalon Theatre.

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Special Event: Shyamam (Dark Clouds of Reality)

First-time Indian director Sreevallabhan Balan's Shyamam has its D.C. premiere next week after screenings at festivals in New York, Brazil and Romania. The film examines the AIDS epidemic in India, and how stigma and prejudice about the disease cross the firmly entrenched class lines of the nation, as a rich family is stricken with the virus and forced to endure the cruel reactions of the society around them, even towards their children. Next week's screening on the GW campus is sponsored by The Network of South Asian Professionals in the DC area (NetSAP-DC), Solidarity and Action Against The HIV Infection in India (SAATHII), and the university's Indian Students Association, and proceeds from the event benefit the William J. Clinton Foundation and SAATHII, both of which work with HIV-positive populations in India.

View the trailer.
Playing on November 28 at George Washington University's Marvin Center, 3rd Floor. Suggested donation is $10. To attend, RSVP to netsapdccommunity@gmail.com, and bring the confirmation email you receive in return to the screening.

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Major Release: I'm Not There

Todd Haynes takes the musician biopic, smashes it to bits, and then pieces together something entirely new in a refreshingly original take on the genre. Recognizing immediately that the most consistent aspect of Bob Dylan's persona is his own self-mythologizing, Haynes interweaves six stories, abstracted to varying degrees from the actual life of Dylan, casting six different actors, including a 13-year-old African American boy and a woman, as the songwriter. The most amazing thing? It works.

View the trailer.
Opens today at a number of theaters throughout the area.

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Foreign: Global Lens 2007

Hot on the heels of the EU film festival that just ended, the AFI presents another series of new foreign films. The Global Film Initiative, organizers of Global Lens, is an organization that seeks to raise cross-cultural awareness through film, and Global Lens 2007 isn't just a one-place, one-time festival. The organization presents series like this in dozens of cities across the country, year-round. This November visit is actually their second visit to the D.C. area this year, after a run at the AFI back in May. This month's series presents nine features from a diverse array of sources from Algeria to Indonesia to Croatia. There's even a joint French/Iraqi/Finnish production from Kurdish director Hiner Saleem's Kilometre Zero. And, tonight and Sunday, Global Lens screens a collection of seven international shorts to go along with the feature schedule.

Global Lens 2007 runs from tonight until November 29 at the AFI Silver. See the full schedule for dates, times, and descriptions of the films.

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Repertory: Show People

The tendency towards self-parody in the film industry goes back almost as far as the industry itself. King Vidor's 1928 film is from the tail end of the silent era, and with the movies in a time of transition, what better time to have a good laugh at the expense of all that had come before? In addition to the star turn by the now iconic W.R. Hearst paramour Marion Davies, the film included cameos galore by the likes of Charlie Chaplin, Douglas Fairbanks and the director himself. The film lampoons the two-faced and fickle nature of show business by following the fortunes of a young Southern ingénue who comes to California to become a famous movie star, only to leave behind those who made her a success in the first place. The more things change, etc., etc.

Playing at the National Gallery's East Building Concourse, Large Auditorium on Saturday at 1 p.m. Free.