DCist’s highly subjective and hardly comprehensive guide to the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week.
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Courtesy Film Movement.What it is: A riveting drama of injustice and adventure in a Norwegian reform school for boys.
Why you want to see it: Based on a true story, director Marius Holst’s King of Devil’s Island crosses well-trod territory of rebellion and revenge at the hands of brutal schoolmasters. But the stark Nordic landscape and a strong ensemble cast make this a thoroughly compelling addition to the reform school rep. The film is carried on the shoulders of strong work by young actors Benjamin Helstad and Trond Nilssen, as the new blood and the “governor’s galley boy” respectively. Stellan Skarsgard lends gravitas to a draconian governor not absent of compassion, but just when you think this may be a tale not of broken souls but of rehabilitation, along come the machinations of Housefather Bråthen (Kristoffer Joner), echoing the recent sexual abuse scandal at Pennsylvania State University. An American re-make would find solace and renewal in springtime, but in this barren moral landscape winter will not break.
View the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at West End Cinema, 2301 M Street NW. Stellan Skarsgard will answer participate in a question-and-answer session via Skype following Sunday’s 2 p.m matinee.
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The Punk Rock Movie
What it is: A look at the London punk rock scene circa 1978.
Why you want to see it: Aka The Punk Rock Movie From England, this documentary of the early days of British punk combines sensationalistic audience shots of safety-pinned youth with vintage club performances from the Sex Pistols, X-Ray Spex, The Slits, Generation X (Billy Idol’s old band) and others. Look for a young Shane McGowan pogoing in a Union Jacket (okay, he’s in the trailer).
View the trailer.
Monday, Dec. 19 at 8 p.m. at McFaddens, 2401 Pennsylvania Avenue NW. Suggested donation $2.
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What it is: The fiftieth anniversary of the Berlin Wall—and Billy Wilder’s comic sendup of the Iron Curtain.
Why you want to see it: Mid-career Coca Cola salesman C. R. MacNamara (James Cagney, who wouldn’t get in front of a movie camera again until 1981’s Ragtime) used to helm the Coca-Cola interests of nine countries, but finds himself down to West Berlin. Can he crack the Iron Curtain, *and* handle his boss’s wayward daughter? If it already sounds dated, it is. Screenwriter I.A.L Diamond collaborated on some of Wilder’s greatest mid-career successes—Some LIke it Hot and the devastating holiday picture The Apartment, to name a couple), but this is not one of them. Based on a Hungarian play and inspired by Ninotchka. the cast of heel-clicking, obedient Germans and ditzy Southern belles unfortunately frees this from the cynical observations of human frailty that inevitably break through the cool surface of a Billy Wilder comedy. But the great Cagney does his best, his rapid-fire timing impeccable even on second-rate script. It’s not very often you get to see black and white 35mm scope on the big screen, and even sub-par Wilder (like the much-maligned Kiss Me, Stupid) is leagues better than New Year’s Day.
View the trailer .
Dec. 17, 20, and 22 at the AFI Silver Theatre, 8633 Colesville Road, Silver Spring. $11.
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What it is: A devastating study of small town Japan circa 1940.
Why you want to see it: A soldier returns from the Sino-Japanese war, having lost his hearing and both arms and legs. The horrifying scenario recalls Dalton Trumbo’s Johnny Got His Gun, but with a difference. His wife remembers too well his brutality before the war. Can this piece of flesh, a war god to the villagers, continue his abuse from his helpless state? Maggie Lee of Hollywood Reporter calls Caterpillar “A matserpiece … [with] the blunt force of a tank rolling over naked flesh.”
View the trailer.
Friday, Dec. 16 at 7 p.m. at the Freer Gallery of Art, 1050 Independence Avenue SW. Free.
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Ed Hennessey, Eric Andersen, Dorothy Dean, and Norman Levine in Space. Courtesy Warholstars.org.Afternoon and Space
What it is: A double bill of 16mm films by Andy Warhol at the National Gallery of Art.
Why you want to see it: According to Warholstars.org, Afternoon was originally intended as part of a twenty-four hour film based around a day in the life of Edie Sedgwick.” Warhol had other marathon subjects in mind, but filmed an awful lot of Sedgwick, and on Saturday the Gallery screens two of her Warhol films, Afternoon and Space, the latter of which also stars Greenwich Village folkie Eric Anderson. Those perplexed by the Sedgwick mystique are encouraged to check out Jean Stein’s biography Edie: An American Girl, edited by Bill Plympton from a series of interviews with the people who knew her.
Afternoon screens Saturday, Dec. 17 at 10:30 a.m, followed by Space at 12:15 p.m. At the National Gallery of Art East Wing, 4th Street and Constitution Avenue NW. Free.
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There’s a lot more opening this week, including the new adaptation of John LeCarré’s Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy starring Gary Oldman as George Smiley, and David Cronenberg’s look at the rivalry between Sigmund Freud and Carl Jung, A Dangerous Method. We’ll have full reviews of both tomorrow. David Fincher’s adaptation of The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo hits theaters on Tuesday, and we’ll have a review of that next week.
