DCist’s selective and subjective guide to some of the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week.
—
OldboyThe Freer Gallery, in conjunction with the AFI and Angelika Mosaic, launches the ninth annual Korean Film Festival this weekend with a preview of the first American film by provocative director Park Chan-wook. I can’t tell you what I think of Stoker before it opens commercially on March 15th, but Park’s fans will want to see it regardless, and the director will appear in person at the Saturday evening show. Also screening this weekend is Oldboy, the second part of Park’s Vengeance Trilogy and perhaps his most famous film. See it before Spike Lee’s remake comes out later this year. Other titles in the series include Kim Ki-duk’s Pieta (Marhc 22), which has created a lot of buzz on the festival circuit.
View the trailer for Oldboy.
Stoker screens Friday, March 1 and 2 at 7:00 pm. Park Chan-wook is scheduled to appear at Saturday night’s screening only. Oldboy screens Sunday, March 3 at 2:00 pm. At the Freer. Free.
—
Gael Garcia Bernal (Tomás Dittburn/Sony Pictures Classics)Can a dictator be brought down by an advertising campaign? This is the premise behind the Oscar-nominated No, set against the 1988 plebiscite on Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. The opposition is led by advertising agent Rene Saavedra (Gael Garcia Bernal), but Genaro Arriagada, director of the real life No campaign, told The New York Times that, “[t]he idea that, after 15 years of dictatorship in a politically sophisticated country with strong union and student movements, solid political parties and an active human rights movement, all of a sudden this Mexican advertising guy arrives on his skateboard and says, ‘Gentlemen, this is what you have to do,’ that is a caricature.” The Saavedra character was in fact invented by playwright Antonio Skármeta, who wrote The Plebiscite, on which No is loosely based. Skármeta defends the movie to the Times as “a work of art that uses reality to do something else that is provocative and interesting, that reflects the views of a different, younger generation.” Read more about the controversy here.
View the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at Landmark E Street Cinema and Landmark Bethesda Row
—
(Magnolia Pictures)If the goal of a documentary is to foment social change, then A Place at the Table is one of those films that everyone should see. Beautifully shot and artfully told, the film paints a heart wrenching picture of what it’s like to be one of the 50 million people going hungry in America. Filmmakers Kristi Jacobson and Lori Silverbush trace the experiences of three different families while simultaneously exploring the ramifications of our nation’s growing food insecurity, including the purchasing power of food stamps, rising obesity rates, and what it means to be in poverty in the richest country on earth. Jacobson and Silverfish are smart in their selection of subjects, profiling families who challenge popular stereotypes of the poor and hungry. Like Food Inc. or Waiting for Superman, the film relies on clever animation and interviews with activists, politicians, nutrition experts like Marion Nestle, and celebrities like Tom Colicchio and Jeff Bridges to help explain the impact of policy on the public’s health. The film explores both the causes and consequences of food insecurity, from the politics of agribusiness subsidies to the role of proper nutrition in childhood development. But the film’s real star is Barbie Izquierdo, a determined single mother whose struggle to feed her children ultimately breaks our hearts. A Place at the Table reminds us that the failure of the social safety net threatens everyone, whether we are hungry or well-fed. — Alicia Mazzara
View the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at E Street Landmark Cinema and on iTunes and On Demand everywhere.
—
Émilie Dequenne in Rosetta Responsible Realism: Belgium’s Dardenne Brothers
The Kid with a Bike (read my review here), directed by brothers Luc and Jean-Pierre Dardenne, was one of last year’s most powerful imports. This weekend the National Gallery of Art, in conjunction with the publication of Philip Mosley’s book, The Cinema of the Dardenne Brothers: Responsible Realism, screens two of the brothers’ early successes. In Rosetta (199), a teenage girl with an alcoholic mother ekes out a living out of a trailer park. In The Son (2002), a middle-aged carpenter takes on a new apprentice. Mosley will introduce Rosetta and sign books after the screening.
View the trailers for Rosetta and The Son.
Rosetta screens Saturday, March 2 at 2:00 pm. The Son screens Saturday, March 2 at 4:30 pm. At the National Gallery of Art. Free.1
—
Henri Cartier-BressonHenri Cartier-Bresson: The Impassioned Eye
The photographer known for “the decisive moment” is celebrated in this documentary, with cross-disciplinary appearances by Isabelle Huppert, the subject of one shooting; playwright Arthur Miller, who talks about a photo shoot with his then-wife Marilyn Monroe on the set of The Misfits; and fellow Magnum photographers Elliott Erwitt and Josef Koudelka. Part of the Goethe-Institut’s In Focus film series.
View the trailer.
Monday, March 4 at 6:30 pm at the Goethe-Institut.
—
Also opening this week, college comedy 21 and Over. We’ll have a full review tomorrow.
