This piece was written by DCist contributor Cynthia Rockwell.
Sure, you could bask in the seasonal spirit and check out the classics this weekend, but if you’re looking to escape the incessant holiday cheer, here are a few ideas for cinematic diversion:
>>Attention Cate Blanchett fans, we have not one but two films starring the willowy beauty opening this week. First is the slick black-and-white espionage thriller The Good German, Steven Soderbergh’s homage to film noir, which he shot and edited himself using the same equipment used by directors in the golden days the 1940s. George Clooney is Soderbergh’s Bogart and Blanchett is his Bacall, and we couldn’t imagine a more perfect femme fatale. Opens Friday at Bethesda Row. Next up is Notes on a Scandal, an adaptation of Zoe Heller’s novel about a young, married art teacher (Blanchett) and her affair with one of her teenaged students. There’s already early Oscar buzz for Judi Densch’s menacing performance as a fellow teacher at the school who befriends the adulteress and learns the scandalous secret. Opens Wednesday Dec. 27 at the E Street Theater.
>>On Saturday and Sunday the National Gallery is screening Joan the Maid, French New Wave director Jacques Rivette’s two-part interpretation of the story of Joan of Arc. Critical favor places Rivette’s documentary-like version of the much-told story with the likes of Carl Dreyer’s seminal The Passion of Joan of Arc (1928). A public screening of a Rivette film is rare, so run, don’t walk to this one, D.C.
>>What says Happy Holidays better than blood and gore? If you need a break from the cheer on Christmas Day, you could stop by your local multiplex for some blood and guts in the form of the horror flick Black Christmas. It’s a remake of a 1974 film about killer who terrorizes a sorority house, but not before calling first to announce his arrival. Another Christmas Day downer, if you’re into that, is Children of Men, a bleak portrait of humanity on the brink of extinction. Both opening Christmas Day at the stadium-seating googolplex near you.
>>Last Chance: Two slices of good liberal documentary are leaving town this week, so catch them while you can. Thursday is the last day you can catch Natalie Maines flipping the filmic bird to President Bush in the excellent Barbara Kopple-directed doc Shut Up & Sing, and also leaving Thursday is Black Gold, the film that will make you think twice every time you order that frothy cup of joe. Well, maybe not every time, if you are as zombified as we are before our first cup of the day.
