DCist’s highly subjective and hardly comprehensive guide to the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week.
As the record-breaking first receipts roll in for advance sales and early screenings, it’s clear that 99.9% of you plan to spend your moviegoing time this weekend dressed up as golden snitches — or at least in the same movie houses as people who are. But there are surely a few folks out there looking for some alternative or additional programming to the adventures of The Boy Who Lived. (500) Days of Summer is one of the few movies brave enough to go up against the Potter juggernaut, hoping that the very specific niche market for quirky indie-esque romantic comedies with great soundtracks will be big enough for some modest success.
On the surface, the film’s pedigree doesn’t necessarily inspire confidence. “From the writers of The Pink Panther 2” doesn’t have a whole lot of cache in newspaper ads. What it does have going for it is casting. Zooey Deschanel — the face that launched a thousand indie fanboy crushes — plays the titular Summer, a girl who doesn’t believe in love. Which is a tough break for the guy who falls for her, played by Joseph Gordon-Levitt, who is quietly establishing himself as one of the finest actors of his generation (his upcoming turn as Cobra Commander in the reportedly awful G.I. Joe notwithstanding). Romantic comedies aren’t inherently bad; it only seems that way because they usually are that bad, and one need only look to classic rom-coms from Hollywood’s golden era to know that casting is key — a fact that seems lost on every person who keeps giving Matthew McConaughey’s abs starring roles. Summer looks to offer some light romantic summer pleasure, sans guilt.
View the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at Georgetown, Chinatown, and Bethesda Row.
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Gene Screen: A Night of Film on Health and Genetics
A little farther off the beaten path, there’s a free mini-film festival tonight at E Street. The Genetic Alliance, a locally based non-profit health advocacy group, solicited entries for short films based on health and genetics, and from those submissions selected five films that will all screen tonight at 6:30. The selected films range from basic genetics primers to films about people suffering from specific genetic maladies. After all the films have screened, there will be a moderated panel discussion/Q&A with filmmakers from two of the films.
Tonight only at 6:30 p.m. at E Street Cinema.
