DCist’s subjective and selective guide to some of the most interesting, jaw-dropping, terpsichorean movies playing in town in the coming week.
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The Nicholas Brothers, ca. 1934 (Photofest)The Nicholas Brothers: Born to Dance
Fred Astaire called their “Jumpin’ jive” routine in Stormy Weather one of the greatest musical numbers he had ever seen. It’s a sequence bursting with grace and propulsion, a feat of physical daring that normal humans could not attempt without breaking every bone in their body. The acrobatic routines of Fayard and Harold Nicholas put them in ranks of the greatest dancers of the 20th century. This weekend the National Gallery of Art hosts an illustrated talk by Bruce Goldstein, director of repertory programming at New York’s Film Forum and a friend of the Nicholases. The program will include clips from the Nicholas Brothers’ long film career, which spanned from the early 1930s to well into the 1990s — check out Harold Nicholas’ bit part in 1995’s Funny Bones, a wistful homage to vaudeville.
View the Nicholas Brothers with Cab Calloway in the scene that wowed Astaire.
Saturday, February 9 at 2:30 at the National Gallery of Art. Free.
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Scarface (1932)
It doesn’t have mountains of coke or my little friend, but it does have a blistering performance by Paul Muni, and a monkey smoking a cigarette. The AFI’s Howard Hawks series continues with Scarface, one of the great gangster movies. Muni stars as Tony “Scarface” Camonte, with Ann Dvorak as the sister he’s a little too fond of. With a screenplay by Ben Hecht, whose play The Front Page was frequently adapted for film, including one of Hawks’ finest hours, His Girl Friday, coming to the AFI next weekend.
View the trailer.
Friday, February 8&endash;Monday, February 11 at the AFI.
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Klaus KinskiA mute gunman (Amour’s Jean-Louis Trintignant) befriends a group of Mormons to battle a group of bounty hunters led by Loco (Klaus Kinski) in the middle of the great Utah blizzard of 1899. The AFI presents a rare 35mm print of this landmark spaghetti western from director Sergio Corbucci, whose 1966 film Django was one of the blueprints for Quentin Tarantino’s latest epic pastiche. With a score by Ennio Morricone, Note: the AFI will be showing a dubbed print.
View the trailer.
Saturday, February 9 and Sunday, February 10 at the AFI.
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The Freer’s Iranian Film Festival continues with a meta film starring director Ali Mosaffa and his real life wife, A Separation‘s Leila Hatami. When her huband (Mosaffa) dies unexpectedly, actress Leila (Hatami) finds herself caught in a love triangle and a murder mystery.
View the trailer.
Friday, February 8 at 7:00 pm and Sunday, February 10 at 2:00 pm at the Freer. Free.
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Yaphet KottoA wealthy Beverly Hills couple (Joyce Van Patten and Andrew Duggan) are met with a mysterious but helpful stranger (Homicide‘s Yaphet Kotto). But nobody is what they appear to be: stranger becomes villain and bourgeois comfort becomes a living hell. Bone, aka Housewife, was the first feature film directed by Psychotronic favorite Larry Cohen, and as in later films like The Stuff he tempers horror with social commentary. But that doesn’t mean it’s enlightened: in the unfortunate tradition of arthouse home invasions like Straw Dogs, the housewife falls for her rapist. With a blistering jazz soundtrack by Gil Melle, who played baritone saxophone on a series of classic Blue Note records before going on to compose dozens of film and TV scores (The Six-million Dollar Man) performed on electronic instruments he built himself. (Note: rescheduled from a program originally planned for last May).
View the trailer.
Monday, February 11 at 8 p.m. at McFadden’s. Free, suggested donation $5.
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Also opening this week, the psychological thriller Side Effects, director Steven Soderbergh’s idea of a swansong. We’ll have a full review tomorrow.
