DCist’s highly subjective and hardly comprehensive guide to the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week.
The life of Venezuelan terrorist Carlos the Jackal is just too big to fit into one film. That was the conclusion reached by director Olivier Assayas upon researching what would become a five-and-a-half hour epic about the man, which was first shown as a miniseries in Europe before showing as one massive film at Cannes earlier this spring. For the convenience of those with more modest attention spans, there is a more streamlined two-and-a-half-hour version of the film. But for the truly ambitious, the mammoth full cut is on a roadshow tour that hits the AFI this week.
What those not prone to numb posteriors will get is a two-decade epic look at the remarkable life story of a man who was the architect behind numerous bombings, hijackings and other assorted mayhem — on behalf of a diverse array of organizations and causes — from the mid-70s through the mid-90s until his eventual arrest at the hands of the French equivalent of the CIA, in concert with the Sudan. And if you’ve got the patience, the AFI has some nice incentives to check it out on the big screen. The screening, while the length of three features, is a mere $15 — for that price, you get the movie, a free box of popcorn and a 40-page commemorative program.
The AFI also has a few other series getting underway now that the European Union Showcase is over, with one series covering New Spanish Cinema, as well as a month-long series of the films of Victor Fleming (The Wizard of Oz, Gone With the Wind). And, starting Friday, the theater celebrates the 50th anniversary of Alfred Hitchcock’s Psycho with a week long run of a brand new 35mm print of the film.
View the trailer.
Carlos opens today with one daily showing through Saturday, at 1 p.m. each day, at the AFI.
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German choreographer Pina Bausch is a household name — that is, if your household happens to follow modern dance. But even if that’s not where your interests lie, many cinephiles have at least seen her and her work via the dance sequences in Pedro Almodóvar’s masterpiece, Talk to Her. Bausch passed away last year, and this film by Anne Linsel and Rainer Hoffmann is the last document of her work, as she leads a troupe of teens on a new project. The film is being shown at the Hirshhorn as a tie-in with their current exhibit of the paintings of Guillermo Kuitca, who took inspiration from Bausch in a number of his works.
View the trailer (German language, no subtitles).
Next Wednesday at 8 p.m. at the Hirshhorn. Free.
