Popcorn & Candy: Secrets & Lies
DCist's highly subjective and hardly comprehensive guide to the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week.
Opponents of Kirby Dick's new documentary — we covered one earlier today — will say that people's private lives should remain private. The subjects of the documentary are closeted elected officials who actively legislate against gay rights. So how much claim to privacy do they have when they push laws that block equal rights for people who engage in the same behavior they themselves are engaging in secretively? The real subject of Outrage is hypocrisy, of course. There's no shortage of that on Capitol Hill, so Dick's film focuses on this one particularly heinous manifestation.
Perhaps most surprisingly, it's not a very partisan picture. Dick gives a great deal of screen time to openly gay Republicans (D.C. Council member and former GOP'er David Catania gets a lot of screen time), many of whom seem to feel even more betrayed by their closeted brethren than those on the left side of the aisle. Despite the potentially titillating subject matter, Dick isn’t interested in gossip or tabloid journalism, and doesn't talk about anyone unless they both have an anti-gay record and there is significant evidence to suggest they're doing so despite being gay themselves. And while the number of closeted gays in government may be no secret to those of us who live and work here, this has the potential to be a truly shocking documentary for those outside the beltway. More than just pointing fingers, the film serves as a compelling motivation for those in the closet to come out: a number of politicians who have done just that talk on camera about how liberating the experience was. It's a powerful film, both in topic and in impact.
View the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at E Street.
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A year after the passing of Charlton Heston, the AFI offers up this 10-film retrospective of the actor's work. The series hits all of the Heston archetypes. There's Heston in classical and biblical epics like El Cid and Ben Hur. Heston in westerns like Will Penny and The Big Country, the latter one of the titles being screened this weekend, along with the classic Orson Welles noir, Touch of Evil. And, of course, there's a trio of films from his late 1960s/early '70s dystopian work (Planet of the Apes, The Omega Man, and Soylent Green), highly political allegories that in addition to having broad appeal by virtue of their being great pieces of pure entertainment, also were well loved by left wing audiences who identified with their "man is his own worst enemy" messages—the same audiences who would later deride Heston for his dedication to the NRA. Whatever you thought of Heston's politics, either in mid-life or in old age, there's no denying the commanding presence he was on the screen, no matter what kind of film he was in.
The Heston retrospective starts on Saturday at the AFI and runs through the end of June.
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This 1980s cult classic is a frequent go-to reference on The Simpsons, and even more so in the comment section on this very website, where a certain segment of our commenters seem to be able to work in C.H.U.D. shout-outs on any subject, no matter how unlikely. So if ever there was a natural opportunity for a DCist commentariat meet-up, it would be next Tuesday at the Warehouse, where the Washington Psychotronic Film Society is screening the movie. Yes, it's kitschy, low budget, and features the most amazingly cheesy '80s synth soundtrack around, but it's actually a pretty solid message-laden monster movie about the dangers of hazardous waste and of walking too near to manhole covers. In fact, it fits in quite well with many of the environmental catastrophe films Charlton Heston starred in during the '70s; had this been made 10 years earlier, it would be easy to see Heston in the role of either heroic photographer or the tough but heartbroken cop. One can almost imagine the most famous scene from Soylent Green working just as well inserted into this movie, with the word "C.H.U.D." replacing "Soylent Green." C.H.U.D. is also a great time capsule of the decay of mid-80s New York; SoHo, now a posh yuppie haven, looks nearly like a slum here, the filthy streets littered with empty beer cans. It was a time when the city felt so abandoned that it seems plausible that the government might be using their subway tunnels to dump toxic waste.
View the trailer.
Tuesday at 8 p.m. at The Warehouse. WPFS screenings are free, but a $2 donation is suggested.
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The king of detached cinematic cool is back with this story of a lone criminal traveling all over Spain on a job. Jim Jarmusch revisits some aspects of the quiet character study of Ghost Dog, with Isaach De BankolĂ© in the central role. Reviews for this one have been pretty mixed, but that's pretty much to be expected from Jarmusch: he's always been an acquired taste. Now at a stage in his career where actors are lining up for any role in one of his films, he's got an all-star supporting cast including Bill Murray, Tilda Swinton, Gael GarcĂa Bernal, and John Hurt among others. I have yet to meet a Jarmusch film that I didn't at least find fascinating to watch, and it's likely by now you've formed enough of an opinion of the director to already know whether you have any desire to see this.
View the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at E Street and the Avalon.
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The Bengies Drive In Triple Feature
There are obviously a ton of options for catching Star Trek this weekend. Though, rather disappointingly, the Uptown isn't one of them. But if you're looking for an experience a little more out of the ordinary than the nearest multiplex, you've got options. It's playing on the massive IMAX screen out in Chantilly, for one, and if you head up Connecticut Avenue to the Avalon, their snack bar is featuring an entire menu of Star Trek delicacies, from Klingon Blood Wine to Vulcan Raktajino. And then there's always the drive in.
D.C. proper may not have a decent drive in, but our fair neighbors to the north in Baltimore have a great one (with the biggest screen in the country) that's well worth driving an hour to get to for a long evening of movies under the stars. Well worth it as long as they've got a decent lineup, that is, but there's been a shortage of those so far this season; one recent weekend saw the eyeball-gouge-inducing combo of Hannah Montana, Race to Witch Mountain, and Fast & Furious. If someone had dragged me to that, I think I'd have turned on the engine and stuck a banana in the tailpipe by the time the third movie rolled around. But this weekend, they're starting with the kiddie-friendly Monsters vs. Aliens, followed by Star Trek, and then, in a real rarity, a movie that opened earlier this year but barely played in any theaters, the road movie tribute to all things geeky, Fanboys. Make sure to show up early to avoid the lines at the gate, and more importantly read and follow the rules. Bengies does not mess around when it comes to protecting the sanctity of the moviegoing experience. And for that — among many other things — we love them.
View the trailers for Monsters vs. Aliens, Star Trek, and Fanboys.
Friday through Sunday at The Bengies, starting at twilight.