DCist’s subjective and selective guide to some of the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week.
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Arnel Pineda (Ninfa Z. Bito/Cinedigm)Don’t Stop Believin’: Everyman’s Journey
What is the balance between finding your personal voice and doing a job? Arnel Pineda laments that when his big break as a singer finally came, it was in a job that required him to be someone else: Steve Perry. Journey guitarist Neal Schon searched through dozens of cover bands and hours of YouTube clips looking for the band’s new singer when he stumbled upon clips from a cover band called Zoo. Humbly born Pineda passed the audition and became the lead singer for a rewired band that sells out arenas around the world. The rise from cover band obscurity to fronting a veteran rock act is the meat of this documentary, but that inspirational arc peaks 15 minutes into a two-hour film. The band is where the money is, and the marquee name threatens to derail the proceedings but never quite succeeds. Don’t Stop Believing is inspiring despite issues with pacing, which will be more pronounced for those not inclined to think about Journey. Fortunately, Pinoy director Ramona Diaz, whose previous film was a 2005 documentary about Imelda Marcos, brings it back to Pineda and his roots. (Condensed from my Silverdocs review.)
View the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at West End CInema.
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Leviathan (Cinema Guild), March 23 at the AFI.The 21st annual program features documentaries, including the DC premiere of the well-received Leviathan (March 23 at the AFI), an avant-garde look at a whaling ship, and a pair of docs about photographers Gregory Crewdson (March 17 at the National Gallery of Art ) and Sebastiao Salgado (March 17 at The Carnegie Institute). Other highlights include a repertory screening of the Bogart and Hepburn classic The African Queen (part of the program John Huston in Africa, March 16th at the National Museum of American History; the DC premiere of Terence Malick’s To the Wonder (March 23 at the AFI); classic documentaries like Pare Lorentz’s 1937 film The River (March 22 at the National Archives), about the exploitation of the Mississippi River; and things like Otter 501 (March 23 at The Avalon).
March 12-24 at locations around town. For a detailed schedule see the festival website.
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War WitchThe AFI’s ninth annual celebration of African cinema features a crime drama from Kenya (Nairobi Half Life, March 7 and 12), a Zimbabwean Sex and the City (Playing Warriors, March 7 and 12), a portrait of Egypt in the middle of the Arab Spring (After the Battle, March 8 and 10), a Nigerian war story (Relentless, March 8), a Malian craftsman winning the lottery (Swirl in Bamako, March 9 and 12), a Congolese girl who sees ghosts in the trees (War Witch, March 9), and more!
View trailers for Nairobi Half Life and War Witch
March 7-12 at the AFI. See the festival website for a complete schedule of films.
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Let There Be Light The DC Independent Film Festival
Since 1999, this festival has programmed independent films from all over the world, as well as home grown titles. Among this year’s local flavors is Let There Be Light (March 8 at Washington National Cathedral), a document of artists Rowan LeCompte and Dieter Goldkuhle as they make their last stained-glass window for the Cathedral. The festival casts its net further afield with the Filipino film Oros (The Coinbearer) (March 8 at the U.S. Navy Heritage Center), set in a world where my industrious country men turn wakes for the dead into centers for illegal gambling.
View trailers for Let There Be Light and Oros.
March 7-10 at venues around town. See the festival website for a complete schedule.
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WIlliam Eggleston (Palm Pictures)William Eggleston in the Real World
The Goethe-Institut’s In Focus series closes next week with a flawed documentary about one of the great photographers. Director Michael Almereyda spent several years following Eggleston on assignment around Kentucky and near his hometown Memphis, which Eggleston has so iconically photographed. Shutterbugs will be fascinated by shots of Eggleston at work, but the candid interviews suffer from audio problems, so this film about a meticulous craftsman comes off sloppy. The Eggleston aesthetic finds beauty and tension in scenes as ordinary as a tricycle in a driveway, and his influence can be seen not only in photography but in filmmakers like David Lynch. Almereyda is best known for features like the experimental Nadja and the Ethan Hawke Hamlet, but while he captures something of the character of Eggleston the personality, the director doesn’t entirely sell his work.
View the trailer.
Monday, March 11 at the Goethe-Institut
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(Zeitgeist Films)The late Ed Koch was mayor of New York during one of the city’s darkest periods. Neil Barsky’s documentary opens like a hagiography, with soaring helicopter shots of the world’s greatest skyline at night, narrated by Koch as if he were speaking from beyond. But footage of a hearing to determine whether to rename the Queensboro bridge after Koch (who was still living at the time) soon reveal his detractors. Koch has appeared as a something of a villain in recent documentaries like How to Survive a Plague and The Central Park Five, and Barsky’s film tries to find the colorful positives in the ex-mayor, while not glancing over his considerable shortcomings.
View the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at The Avalon.
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Also opening this week, Colin Farrell and Noomi Rapace star in Dead Man Down, the first American movie from Niels Arden Oplev, the director of the original Girl With the Dragon Tattoo. We’ll have a full review tomorrow.
