DCist’s highly subjective and hardly comprehensive guide to the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week.
Humphrey Bogart was considered an unlikely romantic lead when he stepped up from an endless string of tough-guy roles to play Rick, the gin-joint owner unexpectedly reunited with an old flame played by Ingrid Bergman. But he pulled it off through sheer force of Bogart charisma, never allowing the audience to question for a moment what it was that the luminous Bergman (shot by Arthuer Edeson as if in a beautiful dream) might have seen in him. Casablanca has become one of the most enduring American classics, a film that smartly blends romance, politics, and thrills, wrapped up in a hugely quotable screenplay, and acted by an incredibly strong cast that went beyond just those two magnetic leads. The AFI is running this one for a week, and there’s no way you should pass up the opportunity to see one of Hollywood’s greatest achievements on the big screen.
View the trailer.
Opens tomorrow for one week only at the AFI.
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The National Gallery’s occasional, ongoing series, “New Masters of European Cinema,” highlights the films of critically lauded directors who have generally not had much exposure on this side of the Atlantic. The latest entry comes this weekend, as the museum screens Unspoken, the second film from young Belgian director Fien Troch, who will also be in attendance at the screening. The film follows, in painstaking, methodically paced detail, the daily lives of a couple dealing with the absence of their daughter (an absence the film doesn’t explain until near the end of the film).
View the trailer.
Sunday at 4:30 p.m. at the National Gallery of Art. Meet the Director reception prior to the screening sponsored by the Washington Film Institute requires membership and RSVP. The screening itself is open to the public and free.
