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DCist's highly subjective and hardly comprehensive guide to the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week.
SILVERDOCS is over, but the AFI just can't quit the documentaries. While they're returning to the retrospectives that were running before the festival interrupted, they're featuring limited runs of three documentaries as their prime offerings over the next week. Included among those is the fantastic 1984 documentary, The Times of Harvey Milk, a film that formed the basis of much of last year's excellent biopic Milk, and is even more moving than Van Sant's narrative version. And on Saturday, the theater is hosting the world premiere of a documentary on a local legend: Dick Dyszel, (aka Bozo the Clown, aka Captain 20, aka Count Gore De Vol).
If you grew up in the D.C. area in the 70s or the 80s, chances are you're familiar with at least one of those aliases. Dyszel got his start on local television on WDCA 20 as one of the many Bozos across the country, before moving on to long stints as children's programming host Captain 20 and, perhaps most famously, as Creature Feature host Count Gore De Vol (a subject DCist has looked into before). It was in this last incarnation that he had the most impact, serving as the gatekeeper to classic horror movies for a generation of Washingtonians, and becoming one of the most well-known horror hosts in the country short of Elvira. Always one to push boundaries and stay close to the cutting edge, Dyszel resurrected the Count a decade after his television run had ended to become the first host of a streaming web program, an online show that continues to this day. Director C.W. Prather's documentary charts Dyszel's career, from clown to count, and features interviews with other famous horror hosts, and commentary from local fixtures like Arch Campbell and Jeff Krulik (director of the iconic Heavy Metal Parking Lot). Krulik will also be on hand at Saturday's premiere to moderate a Q&A with Prather and Dyszel after the screening.
View the trailer.
Saturday at 8:20 p.m. at the AFI.
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Frank Capra's first hit film, which also won him his first Best Director statuette, seems to get mentioned a lot less in discussions of the director's work than later films like Mr. Smith Goes to Washington or It's a Wonderful Life. But It Happened One Night is still a gem, every bit deserving of the rare honor of winning all five of the top Academy Awards. Clark Gable is at his roguish best as a newspaper reporter who stumbles upon the story of his career when he runs into an heiress (Claudette Colbert) who has just escaped from a rich father who kidnapped her to prevent her from consummating her ill-advised marriage to a gold-digging dandy. The two meet on a bus, and when he recognizes her, she agrees to let him have the exclusive story providing he helps her get back to New York from Florida and doesn't turn her over to her father. What follows is part buddy road movie, part romantic comedy, from a time in Hollywood's history when neither of those genres were throwaways. Despite Colbert's hatred of the material and the working environment (or maybe because of it), she and Gable share a fiery onscreen chemistry that fits the material perfectly. And while it's not particularly risqué, it pushes the envelope farther than Hays Code, which began enforcement later that same year, would have allowed, making it one of the last mainstream films of that era free of the Code's restrictive fingerprints.
View the trailer.
Tonight at 6:30 p.m. at the Smithsonian American Art Museum
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Director Cyrus Nowrasteh is well acquainted with controversy, having previously directed The Path to 9/11, a TV movie that essentially blamed the Clinton administration for the September 11 terrorist attacks. He took fire from the left and the right for inaccuracies and fabrications in that one (though mostly from the left), and before that was assailed by conservatives (again for inaccuracies) in The Day Reagan was Shot. Despite all that, his latest film once again uses a real event for inspiration, though knowing Nowrasteh's history, viewers might want to consult multiple sources before taking the film as gospel. In this case, he tells the story of an Iranian woman who is stoned to death in 1986 after being framed for adultery when she refuses to grant her husband a divorce. Jim Caveziel plays a French reporter investigating the incident after being told the story by the girl's aunt. With the current focus on events in Iran, the film couldn't be more timely, and while it's being widely criticized for its sensationalistic tone, it's sure to provoke plenty of heated conversation.
View the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at E Street and Bethesda Row.
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The National Theater's summer movie series this year is focusing on the films of Elizabeth Taylor. And one of the star's first big roles, at the age of 12, has long since been the inspirational movie of choice for pony-obsessed young girls — at least until International Velvet updated the formula in the 70s. Taylor stars as the willful and ambitious dreamer, Velvet Brown, who saves a horse from the glue factory and trains him to be a champion steeplechaser. And when no one, not even the hired jockey, thinks the horse can win, little Velvet dons the silks herself and rides her underdog in the biggest horse race in England.
View the trailer.
Monday at 6:30 p.m. at the National Theater. Free.
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After becoming a hot topic of health care conversation in the 70s, Lyme disease dropped from the public eye only to quietly surge to proportions described by some doctors as epidemic. As the disease, difficult to diagnose, and even difficult to define, became more widespread, it became the subject of medical controversy. Doctors were pitted against one another in noisy fights over just what Lyme is and what it's capable of, with government and insurance companies having plenty to add to the din. Lost somewhere in the fight are thousands and thousands of profoundly ill people who need treatment for ailments that some doctors refuse to believe are real, a position the insurers have a vested interest in promoting. This excellent documentary attempts to break down and organize a mess of research, accusations, heartbreak, debilitation, and death into the definitive document on Lyme, and in the process serves as yet another in a long line of damning looks at the American health care machine.
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Still no review from Dcist on Food Inc., why am I not surprised.
Is this a riddle? Why aren't you surprised?
When Food, Inc. opened last week, we were devoting all of our film resources to the Silverdocs festival. As a general rule, I don't include films in this column that were released during previous weeks, so if something gets passed over in favor of other items, I don't go back to it the following week to play catch up.
In all likelihood, had it been released any other week apart from Silverdocs week, it would have appeared in this space. Even if it didn't, though, that shouldn't be taken as a slight. Much as I'd like to remove the "hardly comprensive" caveat from that first line, there just isn't time in the day for me to cover as many movies as I'd like, either in this space or in longer-form reviews. I'm really interested in checking out Food, Inc.; the fact that I haven't mentioned it doesn't mean anything, though.
Perhaps I shouldn't look to DCist as a comprehensive guide to anything but what I like about this weekly column is that it covers the release highlights of a given week and provides insight as to what is worth seeing. The Silverdocs coverage was superb so it makes sense that there was little time to review anything else.
Thanks for the props on our Silverdocs coverage!
My views on what's worth seeing tend to be pretty all-inclusive, so if I wrote up everything I thought was worth seeing in any given week, I assure you you'd get bored of my rambling on before the column was halfway done. Glad to hear you enjoy the column...despite the occasional glaring omission.
Conversely, including a review of a movie that should be avoided at all costs would be worth it for sheer entertainment value. Although movies that horrible tend to have a pretty short shelf life, viz the Heather Graham "comedy" Baby On Board, which lasted in theaters mere hours before it was pulled, only to emerge days later on the Netflix Instant Watch queue. That must be some kind of record. Usually movies that craptacular go straight to DVD; this one was so bad it bypassed the DVD and went straight to the instant watch list, along with such gems as Terror at Blood Fart Lake.
Count Gore De Vol / Captain 20, you freaking kidding me, this is going to be the best movie of the year
Yeah, he'll always be Captain 20 to me, and I still have my Captain 20 Club Card to prove it. Any program that has monkey races is a program worth watching. So many great memories: coming home after school, pouring a big bowl of cereal, and watching Captain 20, the Banana Splits, Ultraman, Jonny Sokko's Flying Robot and, much later, doing massive bong hits and watching reruns of the Bug-a-loos and Liddsville. Then the Mcdonalds commercials would come on and we'd all freak out because we could never figure out WTF the Hamburgler's problem was and WTF was up with Grimace? Why would anyone think a huge purple buttplug would make people want to eat fast food? We'd scratch our heads to a raw, bloody pulp on that one.
Definitely seeing this documentary. I bet it'll be almost as good as the .25 cent happy hour buffalo chicken middle fingers at Cap'n Goatse's Poop Deck®. Be sure to wash it down with a $2 Rum Cockpunch, followed by the open buffet sodomy and cat-o-nine-tail lashings. What they lack in charm they make up for in ruthless efficiency. You will not be less-than-underwhelmed!
I was a member of his club too. Wish I still had my card.
Was Lancelot Link on Channel 20? I remember racing home from elementary school to watch it.
Also, Action Theater on Sunday afternoons. Usually Kung Fu movies featuring the legendary Bruce Lei.
I always wanted to see Captain 20 give Captain Chesapeake a beatdown.
I would have settled for a hot, oily three-way with Mondy the Sea Monster.
I would have settled for a hot, oily three-way with Mondy the Sea Monster.