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Photo of the Day: November 27, 2009
DCist's highly subjective and hardly comprehensive guide to the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week.
Major Release: There Will Be Blood
We should have held our tongues on our top 10 for the year until the actual end of the year. Paul Thomas Anderson's new film slipped in just under the 2007 wire in limited release last week, and the director channels John Huston, Stanley Kubrick, and his own wild-eyed imagination to craft what very well could be the best film of the year. Daniel Day-Lewis stars as Daniel Plainview, a turn of the century prospector in the California desert who strikes oil and fashions himself over the course of three decades into an oil tycoon who preaches the gospel of win-at-all costs greed just as passionately as Paul Dano's Eli Sunday does the gospel of the Lord. Both actors throw themselves into the roles with frightening commitment. But the film is much more than the great performances, or the stunning discordant beauty of the string soundtrack by Radiohead's Johnny Greenwood. Nothing Anderson has done previously quite prepares you for what he's accomplished here, a sprawling misanthropic epic that takes on religion, greed and the darkest corners of the American dream with such ferocity that it will leave you with chills for days after leaving the theater.
View the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at E Street, Georgetown and Bethesda Row, expands to more theatres next Friday.
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Repertory: Edward II
As we mentioned in today's theater preview, the Shakespeare Theatre Company's Marlow festival is drawing to a close this weekend. The National Gallery is offering a rare opportunity, in conjunction with the theater, to see both a stage production and a screening of Derek Jarman's film version of Marlowe's Edward II in the same week. Marlowe's play profiles the life of the 14th century monarch, paying particular attention to his alleged affair with an individual who was not only not part of the nobility, but also (*gasp*) a man. Edward was eventually deposed and murdered, and the scandalous tale is pretty racy stuff by Elizabethan standards. Modern readings tend to play up those elements even more, and Jarman's film may represent the pinnacle of that trend, adding in a fairly explicit love scene between the king and his lover, as well as recasting his army as gay rights protesters whose actions recall the Stonewall riots. Jarman also sets the film in an indeterminate time period that contains both modern and medieval elements. He'd done this sort of updating of classically themed material before, but perhaps never better than here.
View the trailer.
Plays tomorrow at 2:30 p.m. and Sunday at 4:30 p.m. in the National Gallery's East Building Concourse, Large Auditorium. Free.
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Foreign: The Orphanage
Forget about Freddy, Jason and Pinhead. Kids are far more frightening. If films like The Omen, The Exorcist and Home Alone have proved anything, it's that angel-faced youngsters have the power to be creepier than anything that can be dreamed up in some hellish netherworld. In The Orphanage, a couple and their young son move into an abandoned orphanage with the aim of re-opening it. But the boy picks up some "imaginary" friends, disappears, and then Mom must make contact with the other side to get him back. The film is the first from Spanish director Juan Antonio Bayona, and was executive produced by Guillermo del Toro, director of last year's Pan's Labyrinth. And while the premise might sound like horror-by numbers, the film was recently nominated in just about every category offered by the Goya Awards, the Spanish equivalent of the Oscars, and is the country's official submission for a foreign-language Academy Award. We say bring someone's hand to hold, because this one looks dark and thrilling.
View the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at a number of area theatres.
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IndieForeign Pt. 2: Persian Carpet
There's nothing new under the sun in the indie world this week, so we'll strike that category and give you a second worthwhile foreign pick. Tomorrow marks the start of the twelfth annual Iranian Film Festival at the Freer & Sackler Galleries, and the opening night (and Sunday afternoon) program features a collection of 15 short films about Persian Rugs. Details about the film on the web seem limited, but honestly the inclusion of a short by Abbas Kiarostami in the collection is probably worth the effort alone. The director is responsible for some of the most beautiful images ever put to film; Iranian film in general has a unique poetry in it that should make this (as well as the rest of the festival's programming) a treat.
Playing at the Freer Gallery's Meyer Auditorium tomorrow at 7 p.m. and Sunday at 2 p.m. Free, 300 seats available on a first come, first served basis; tickets can be picked up starting an hour before showtimes.
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Special Event: Star Wars
Who hasn't seen Star Wars at this point? Actually, it turns out that some of the folks who run Big Bear Cafe over at 1st and R Streets NW haven't. The coffee shop, which opened its doors last summer, is going to start showing movies; their first pick, George Lucas' little film that changed the movie industry forever, is showing a week from tonight. "I’m embarrassed to say," writes Big Bear owner Lana Labermeier, "that this choice for first film came about because neither Jessie nor I have seen it." It's OK, Lana, there are others among us who should perhaps be embarrassed by the number of times we have seen it. Whichever camp you're in, next Thursday will be an excellent opportunity to grab a hot cup of coffee and join together with true believers, new initiates, and anyone in between to watch the film that launched a thousand summer special effects extravaganzas.
View the trailer.
Playing at Big Bear Cafe, 1700 1st Street, NW. 7:30 p.m., free.
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Because I'm a Radiohead nerd: It's Jonny Greenwood. Not Johnny.
Thanks, Mike. My girlfriend, also a Radiohead nerd, may never forgive me.
I'm so excited to see There Will Be Blood that I just peed my pants.
TWBB is an amazing film, and I highly recommend it. What I have yet to see mentioned about this films is how deadpan hilarious it can be, in a dark sort of way. The two main stars are so insanely deluded that they have multiple laugh out loud lines. ( Highlight being the first preaching scene and the handkerchief on face scene).
I think the whole film was a bit whimsical, which a common trait in all of his films. What sealed the deal for me that the humor was intentional, was the uber ironic strings when the credit comes on.