DCist’s subjective and selective guide to some of the most interesting movies playing in the coming week.

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Besdeka Johnson and Dree Hemingway (Music Box Films)

Starlet

Jane (Dree Hemingway, daughter of Mariel and great-granddaughter of Ernest) is an aspiring actress who shares a San Fernando valley apartment with a couple of video game playing slackers. She hits yard sales to cheaply dress up her room, and this simple act of making a home leads her to a fateful and unlikely homie, cranky octagenarian Sadie (Besdeka Johnson) The plot seems like a cross between a Lifetime movie and, when you realize what the young woman does for a living, an Adam Sandler movie. But writer/director Sean Baker guides his actors away from formulaic potential to become real people. Hemmingway’s Jane may be vapid and lost but is well-meaning and sincere despite surface prejudices. This is the first feature film role for 85-year old Johnson.

View the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at E Street Landmark Cinema.

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Angelo Jannotti, Kathee Collier, Y.K. Kim, and Vincent Hirsch. (Drafthouse)

Miami Connection

Film archivists dream of unearthing the lost reels of Greed or the director’s cut of The Magnificent Ambersons. But a few years ago, Drafthouse Films archivist and programmer Zack Carlson discovered a less prestigious but equally lost film. Carlson paid $50 on eBay for a 35mm print of an unreleased film, and is now celebrating its earnest, low-budget virtues in a midnight tour. Tae Kwon Do instructor W.K. Kim made the film and cast himself as as a martial arts rock star who takes music and justice to the streets of a 1980s Miami overrun by motorcycle ninjas. Carlson takes pains to point out that he champions the film not out of irony, but of a genuine appreciation for the movie, whose director/producer mortgaged his house to get it made, before letting it languish in obscurity. Movies like this and The Room – and the majority of what the Washington Psychotronic Film Society programs – are routinely dismissed as so bad they’re good, but Carlson defends the pure entertainment value of such movies, much as I defend The Room for Tommy Wiseau’s singular, strange vision. And if you’re in the mood for more rarefied late-night cinema, E Street is also showing Fellini’s Amarcord at midnight this weekend.

View the trailer.
Friday and Saturday at Midnight at E Street Landmark Cinema.

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(TECRO)

Lust, Caution

Taiwanese-born director Ang Lee’s adaptation of Yann Martel’s best-selling novel Life of Pi arrives next week in the heart of prestige film season. I’m personally worried about comparisons to Avatar, but the Freer and the AFI team up to remind us of the director’s diverse work. The sexually charged espionage thriller Lust, Caution (2007) marked a return to Chinese themes after the Oscar-Winning Brokeback Mountain. But the best thing about the Freer’s program may be that sponsor TECRO, the Taiwanese Economic and Cultural Representative Office, will serve pineapple cake, a specialty of Taiwanese hospitality, after the screening.

View the trailer.
Friday, November 16 at 7:00 pm at the Freer. Free.

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America Eats

Blood Freak

Herschel (Steve Hawkes, who co-directed and co-wrote the film) is a homeless Vietnam vet who comes to the aid of Angel (Heather Hiughes) when her car breaks down. What begins as a story of the good Samaritan becomes a disturbing saga of drugs and transformation. What makes this appropriate Thanksgiving programming? A turkey farm that turns our hero into the very beast he would carve in thanks. Let us give thanks to the Washington Psychotronic Film Society for this timely feast.

View the trailer.
Monday, November 19 at 8:00 pm at McFadden’s. Free, suggested donation $5.

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(Doc & Film International)

The Minister

The AFI’s European Union festival continues this week with movies that will get a commercial release, like Bill Murray’s FDR in Hyde Park on Hudson (Saturday, November 17 at 8:00 pm, scheduled for wide release on December 14). But combing the schedule for gems unlikely to get distribution can be a challenge. The AFI’s blurb for this political neo-noir from France sounds intriguing enough, with promises of an erotic dream sequence and a horrific bus accident. The film’s unlikely credentials may seal the deal: The Minister is co-produced by neo-realists the Dardenne Brothers. But the crocodile could be a bigger selling point.

View the trailer.
Sunday, Nov 18 and Monday, Nov 19 at the AFI.

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Also opening this week, the final installment of the Twilight franchise, Breaking Dawn, Part 2; and David O. Russell’s family drama of rehabilitation, Silver Linings Playbook. We’ll have full reviews tomorrow.