DCist’s highly subjective and hardly comprehensive guide to the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week.

Indie: Romance & Cigarettes

John Turturro’s third film as a director is the sort that seems tailor made to become a cult classic. Not nearly polished or glamorous enough to be the sort of Broadway to big screen musical hit that Chicago or Hairspray was, it was too oddball to fit into the heads of most movie marketers. Not to mention the fact that while by now we’re used to seeing Christopher Walken in his song & dance man persona, it’s still a little jarring to watch Tony Soprano looking so light on his feet. The film floated around the edges of conversations between movie geeks who had heard about its festival screenings, or who had managed to obtain a copy of the European DVD release, but U.S. distributors backed slowly out of the room. As a result, it was buried after its festival premieres, and Turturro himself has had to distribute the film, in which James Gandolfini plays a New York bridge worker married to Susan Sarandon, but carrying on a torrid affair with a fiery redhead played with campy glee by Kate Winslet. There are left turns galore, as the film careens into crazy fantasies and subplots on a dime, with characters spontaneously breaking into mostly well-known songs from the ’60s to express their true feelings on the latest plot developments. It’s a manic and breathtaking ride, and doesn’t always work, but it’s a glorious mess to feast the eyes and ears upon.

View the trailer.
Playing from this Friday until November 29, at the Avalon Theatre.

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Special Event: Shyamam (Dark Clouds of Reality)

First-time Indian director Sreevallabhan Balan’s Shyamam has its D.C. premiere next week after screenings at festivals in New York, Brazil and Romania. The film examines the AIDS epidemic in India, and how stigma and prejudice about the disease cross the firmly entrenched class lines of the nation, as a rich family is stricken with the virus and forced to endure the cruel reactions of the society around them, even towards their children. Next week’s screening on the GW campus is sponsored by The Network of South Asian Professionals in the DC area (NetSAP-DC), Solidarity and Action Against The HIV Infection in India (SAATHII), and the university’s Indian Students Association, and proceeds from the event benefit the William J. Clinton Foundation and SAATHII, both of which work with HIV-positive populations in India.

View the trailer.
Playing on November 28 at George Washington University’s Marvin Center, 3rd Floor. Suggested donation is $10. To attend, RSVP to netsapdccommunity@gmail.com, and bring the confirmation email you receive in return to the screening.