Popcorn & Candy is DCist’s selective and subjective guide to some of the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week.
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(Gkids)Leo is an 11-year old cancer patient who has discovered an unusual way to cope with his illness: he can travel out of his body, navigating New York City by air. During a hospital stay he befriends an injured police officer who’s tracking down a disfigured gangster who threatens to destroy the city. With voice talent that includes Amelie‘s Audrey Tatou, this animated noir from directors Alain Gagnol and Jean-Loup Felicioli (A Cat in Paris) creates a far more vivid Manhattan than The Secret Life of Pets—and a more engaging story, too. Note: E Street will screen both subtitled and English-language versions of the film.
Watch the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at E Street Landmark Cinema.
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(The Freer)This weekend the 21st annual Made in Hong Kong Film Festival brings what for me is one of the most highly anticipated screenings of the summer. Sparks are guaranteed to fly with Hong Kong gangster movie legend Chow Yun-fat starring in a stylish film from director Johnnie To, whose 2012 film Drug War is one of the best action movies of the decade. Yet the pair teams up for a most unusual occasion: a musical comedy set among the staff of a financial firm during the 2008 economic crisis. Did I mention it’s in 3D? Based on the 2008 play Design for Living (not to be confused with the Ernst Lubitsch comedy of the same name), the film’s songs are reportedly lackluster, but if you’ve seen any of To’s other films you know he knows how to put together a thrilling entertainment. Variety’s Justin Chang writes that the movie, “charmingly mines humor, romance, and no shortage of eccentric lyrics from the world of spreadsheets and stock portfolios.”
Watch the trailer.
Saturday, July 30 at 2 p.m. at the American History Museum, Warner Bros. Theatre.
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Elliott GouldThis weekend the AFI Silver screens a 35mm print of one of Robert Altman’s greatest films. In this adaptation of the novel by Raymond Chandler, Elliot Gould stars as Philip Marlowe, a private investigator who hopes to clear a friend accused of murdering his wife. Leigh Brackett’s screenplay paints a picture of Marlowe that would appall his creator, but the pervading Los Angeles decay (including a brutally violent attack with a Coke bottle) makes this unsettling and even darkly comic film one of the finest, and darkest, Chandler adaptations. And to top it off, it features character actor greats Sterling Hayden and Henry Gibson. On August 2 and 3, the AFI will screen The Long Goodbye with a 16mm print of Altman’s rarely revived 1972 film Images, which I once walked out on. Next week’s Safe Track on the Red Line will make the screening a challenge as well, but how often do you get to see a double-bill of Robert Altman anymore? Also recommended at the AFI next week: Wim Wender’s Patricia Highsmith adaptation The American Friend (Monday August 1 at 7 p.m.) starring Dennis Hopper as Ripley, the criminal mastermind also played on screen by Alain Delon, John Malkovich, and Matt Damon. It’s one of Hopper’s greatest performances, and a high-water mark for Wenders.
Watch the trailer for The Long Goodbye.
Friday, July 29 at 2 p.m. and Saturday, July 30 at 1 p.m. Shown on a double-bill with Images on Tuesday, August 2 and Wednesday, August 3 at 7:45 p.m.
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(Janus Films)Sunday afternoon the National Gallery of Art hosts a ciné-concert of a silent film that the gallery calls “one of the great modernist portrayals of urban working-class reality,” Cast with non-professional actors, People on Sunday (1929) depicts 24 hours in the lives of young Berliners. The film was made by an all-star filmmakers’ collective that included Edgar G. Ulmer, Billy Wilder, Robert and Curt Siodmak, Eugen Schüfftan, and Fred Zinnemann. With a new score by Matthew Nolan and Rachel Grimes, who will accompany the film.
Sunday, July 31 at 4:30 p.m. at the National Gallery of Art’s East Building Auditorium. Free
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Maurizio NichettiVolere Volare (To Want to Fly)
Next week the Washington Psychotronic Film Society offers this Italian romantic comedy about a shy man (Maurizio Nichetti) who dubs cartoon voices. He falls for a hooker with a heart of gold (Angela Finocchiare) but to his horror discovers that he is turning into a cartoon character. The Washington Post’s Richard Harrington wrote that “Nichetti’s sense of slapstick and gentle self-mockery should serve as a primer for American comedians, not one of whom could be envisioned in this role.”
Watch the trailer.
Monday, August 1 at 8 p.m. at Smoke and Barrel
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Also opening this week: Matt Damon returns to espionage in Jason Bourne. We’ll have a full review tomorrow.
