DCist’s highly subjective and hardly comprehensive guide to the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week.
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Firat Tanis in Once Upon a Time in Anatolia (April 15 at E Street).Courtesy Cinema GuildWhat it is: Washington’s signature International film festival, now in its 26th year.
Why you want to see it: Tickets are on sale now for this year’s FilmFest DC. Featured themes include The Lighter Side, a selection of international comedies that somebody will probably find delightful; and Caribbean Journeys, a showcase for new work from Jamaica, Trinidad & Tobago, Cuba, and the Dominican Republic. A highlight of the latter is the DC premiere of Marley (April 16 at E Street), the new documentary about the life and music of the reggae pioneer. My personal picks include the meditative 2 ½ hour Turkish police procedural Once Upon a Time In Anatolia (4/15 at E Street), which only screens once during FilmFest but gets a commercial run at E Street Landmark in May; 38 Witnesses, (4/13 and 15 at Avalon), Lucas Belvaux’ (The Trilogy) look at the 1964 murder of Kitty Genovese, whose cries were heard by dozens who failed to come to her aid; and Ace Attorney (4/20 and 4/21 at E Street), a Victorian England/film noir mashup as only Takashi Miike (13 Assassins, Audition) can imagine it. Stay tuned for more detailed film fest coverage next week.
View the trailer for Once Upon a Time in Anatolia.
April 12-22 at venues around town. Check the festival website for details, and look for a print schedule in Friday’s Washington Post.
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Machiko Kyo and Masayuki Mori in UGETSU.What it is: The National Gallery of Art’s survey of the great leading ladies of Japanese Cinema.
Why you want to see it: The Gallery’s Japanese Divas program starts this weekend with what is effectively a crash course in Masters of Japanese Cinema. Ugetsu (1953), Kenji Mizoguchi’s classic tale of samurai and spirits, stars Machiko Kyo and Kinuyo Tanaka, who was only the second Japanese actress to go on to a directing career. Sisters of the Gion, Mizoguchi’s 1936 film about a pair of geisha siblings that features an early appearance by actress Isuzu Yamada, best known for her work with Ozu and Kurosawa (she was Lady Macbeth in Throne of Blood). Kyo stars again in Street of Shame (1956) is Mizoguchi’s look at the effect of anti-prostitution laws on Tokyo’s red light district. Yasujiro Ozu’s bittersweet Tokyo Story (1953) is one of the greatest of all Japanese films, and is on many list of all-time best films. It’s one of six Ozu films starring Setsuko Hara, known as “the Eternal Virgin” in Japan for her string of wholesome roles, an ideal solidified when she quit acting in 1963. Finally, Rashomon (1950), Akira Kurosawa’s iconic dramatization of the different stories we tell, is another showcase for Machiko Kyo, starring as the victim of a rape and murder in 12th-century Kyoto.
View trailers for Ugetsu and Tokyo StoryUgetsu, followed by Sisters of the Gion, screens Friday, April 6 at 2:30. Street of Shame screens Saturday, April 7 at 2:00. Tokyo Story screens Saturday, April 7 at 4:00. Rashomon screens Sunday, April 8 at 4:30. At the National Gallrey of Art. Free.
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Courtesy Leisure Time FeaturesWhat it is: Russian youth at the dawn of rock and roll.
Why you want to see it: Young communist Mels (Anton Shagin) is appalled by the new music and fashions of his peers &emdash; until he falls for one of them. “Every hipster is a potential criminal,” but they’re not talking about the local sneering class. This candy-colored musical, bursting with the energy of an Eastern Bloc Absolute Beginners, looks at the Moscow rebellion of 1955: popmpadours, zoot suits and jazz.
View the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at E Street.
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What it is: Beware the mad near-blind scientist in the Peruvian rain forest. He means no good.
Why you want to see it: The Washington Psychotronic Film Society sips from the goofy underbelly of old Hollywood with this 1940 sci-fi thriller from Paramount. Albert Dekker stars as Dr. Alexander Thorkel, who shrinks animals and his enemies. The tall, dashing actor had a long career that was cut tragically and luridly short after he finished working on The Wild Bunch. Dekker was found in his Hollywood apartment on May 5, 1968, dead by autoerotic asphyxiation.
View the trailer.
Monday, April 9 at 8:00 pm at McFadden’s. Free.
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Ava Gardner and Charlton Heston in 55 Days at Peking.What it is: Nicholas Ray’s epic staging of the Boxer Rebellion.
Why you want to see it: Major Matt Lewis (Charlton Heston) falls for a Russian Baroness (Ava Gardner) in the middle of a deadly siege. The AFI’s Nicholas Ray series wraps up this weekend with the director’s mid-career films produced by Samuel Bronston, including, just in time for Easter, King of Kings (April 8 and 12). Also screening next week are a pair of documentaries made with the help of his wife Susan Ray, We Can’t Go Home Again and Don’t Expect Too Much (April 6 and 11).
View the French trailer for 55 Days at Peking.
Saturday, April 7, Sunday, April 8, and Tuesday, April 10 at the AFI. The Saturday April 7 screening of 55 Days at Peking and the Sunday April 8 screening of King of Kings will be introduced by film historian Foster Hirsch.
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Also opening this week: Willem Dafoe in the eco-thriller The Hunter, and a rerelease of Terence Davies’ autobiographical film The Long Day Closes. We’ll have full reviews tomorrow.
