Popcorn & Candy: Keys to the Kingdom
DCist's highly subjective and hardly comprehensive guide to the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week.
There's a scene early on in The Apartment where Jack Lemmon's C.C. Baxter is talking to the object of his affection, a certain Miss Kubelik, an elevator operator at his office played by Shirley MacLaine. Baxter reveals that his position at the insurance company they work for allows him access to employee files, and he's been peeking in Kubelik's. He rattles off a bunch of personal information about Kubelik, who smiles, surprised and flattered. It's a scene that should come off, particularly to modern audiences, as kind of creepy and stalkerish, but somehow it doesn't. Which might be a function of Billy Wilder and I.A.L. Diamond's effortlessly charming script, or maybe Jack Lemmon's fantastic performance as the nice guy who always finishes last.
What does come off as creepy are his scummy bosses, led by a never-slimier Fred MacMurry, who take advantage of Baxter's unassertive nature to use his apartment for their extramarital trysts. Dangling the carrot of career advancement in front of him if he hands over the keys and wielding the stick of the pink slip if he refuses, Baxter's apartment becomes a regular revolving door of top-floor executives and ditzy mistresses. The movie is, yes, a romance, and also a comedy, but those two words together weren't always an indicator of cinematic saccharine. In this case there are more than a few bitter pills to go with the sweet laughs, all of which are richly earned. The Apartment is pretty close to a career best for everyone involved here, and considering this crew, that's saying a lot.
View the trailer.
Monday night at Screen on the Green, on the Mall between 4th and 7th Streets, NW, beginning at dusk.
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Elizabeth Farnsworth, a former correspondent and substitute anchor on the News Hour with Jim Lehrer, has been deeply involved in covering events in Chile for many years now. With producing partners Patricio Leverton and Richard Pearce, she has put together a new documentary for PBS on the prosecution of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet by judge (and former supporter) Juan Guzmán. While this might sound like a courtroom documentary, in Chile judges don't just try cases, they investigate and prosecute them as well. Guzmán gave the filmmakers a great deal of access to his investigative materials, and using them they've made a film that examines not only how Pinochet got away with his regime for so long, but also how he remained so popular with so many during that time. The documentary premieres on PBS on August 19, but is currently traveling to a number of cities, roadshow style, in advance of the television premiere. The film's first public showing in D.C. takes place next week.
View the trailer.
One night only, Wednesday, August 6 at 8 p.m. at the Avalon.
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John Carpenter isn't exactly known for trenchant political commentary in his films, but with They Live, the horror master managed to create a movie about media and government manipulation that is no less effective for its lack of subtlety. A film about a government run by aliens who embed our surroundings with subliminal messages to make us into docile and willing consumers sounds pretty humorless and stark, but They Live has many of the same tongue in cheek thrills that made Carpenter's Big Trouble in Little China such a cult hit. Part of that could be his casting; it's hard for any movie that casts a professional wrestler (Roddy Piper, rowdy as ever, in this case) in the lead. But the best encapsulation of the slightly goofy tenor that keeps things from getting too heavy can probably be found in Piper's line as he makes one of the big hero entrances in all of cinema: "I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass. And I'm all out of bubblegum."
View the trailer.
Friday and Saturday nights at 11:45 p.m. at the AFI.
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It's no secret what film director Nanette Burstein is trying to evoke with her latest film. One only need look at the poster. Pictured there are, more or less, a brain, an athlete, a basket case, a princess, and a criminal, as depicted in the John Hughes classic to which the poster is paying homage. Burstein's desire to make something dramatic out of her documentary has been the primary knock against it. In cherry picking five high school seniors fitting various profiles to follow around for their final year of school, and making little attempt to keep journalistic distance from her subjects, it seems pretty likely that the crew's presence helped steer things in a direction suitable for a narrative. Not that that's anything new in documentary filmmaking, and by all accounts it makes Burstein's feature a highly engaging watch. More than that, we suspect that no matter how much meddling was done with plot, the point of a movie like this is to give perspective on the conditions experienced by kids now that might be different than what those who've left our acne years behind us might have known. A little added drama might just bring those things to the fore, which is perhaps why Burstein scored the Documentary Directing prize at Sundance this year.
View the trailer.
Opens Friday at E Street, Georgetown, and Bethesda Row.
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If you missed the American History Museum's Jim Henson exhibit (or if you went but want more), the Smithsonian's got some extra treats coming up in the form of behind the scenes documentaries about and early filmed works by the late puppeteering pioneer. Starting this weekend and running through September, the museum's Discovery Theater will host a collection of three films covering the making of Henson's three most enduring contributions to kiddie culture: The Muppets, Sesame Street, and Fraggle Rock. Two of the films are anniversary celebrations: a 30th birthday party for Kermit the Frog thrown by his plush pals in 1986, and a 20th celebration for Sesame Street in 1989 introduced by Henson and hosted by Bill Cosby. The Fraggle Rock doc is a more basic behind-the-scenes look at the creation of that program.
Opens this Saturday, and screens every subsequent Saturday until September 6th from 10 a.m. to 2 p.m. at the Smithsonian Associates Discovery Theater.