DCist’s selective and subjective guide to some of the most interesting and shredding-est movies playing around town in the coming week.
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Courtesy of Jeff KrulikIn 2009, filmmaker Jeff Krulik invited area music fans to an event marking the fortieth anniversary of a concert that Led Zeppelin played at the Wheaton Youth Center on Georgia Avenue. Dozens of people showed up. But did the concert ever happen? There is no documentation of the 1969 performance, which allegedly occurred the same day President Richard Nixon was inaugurated. No ticket stubs or advertising or photos have surfaced, and the band’s official website will not confirm the date. Does a collective delusion surround local aficionados of the classic power trio? The potent combination of local interest and passionate obsession makes this a perfect subject for Krulik (Heavy Metal Parking Lot), who will appear at the AFI Silver Theatre Friday night to introduce the feature-length cut of a documentary he previewed earlier this year. “The Wheaton Youth Center (now called Wheaton Community Recreation Center),” Krulik told DCist, “is just as much a character in my documentary as any person; to me the building speaks volumes since it’s still basically intact, with its modernist curvy 1963 architecture and a gymnasium that looks the same as when Led Zeppelin did, or did not, play their first local concert on January 20, 1969.”
View a clip of Wheaton at its shredding-est.
Friday, August 30 at 9:15 pm at the AFI Silver Theatre. $5.
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Directors Paolo and Vittorio Taviani (Night of the Shooting Stars) document a production of Shakespeare’s Julius Caesar performed by a very specialized theater troupe: inmates of a maximum-security prison just outside Rome. The actor-prisoners of Caesar Must Die fuel their performances with personal experience of criminal behavior. “At first sight, we seem to be watching a documentary about a production of Julius Caesar, its text somewhat adapted. But early on there’s a hint that things aren’t quite so straightforward”—Philip Kemp.
View the trailer.
Saturday, August 31 at 4:00 pm and Sunday, September 1 at 2:00 pm at the National Gallery of Art, East Building Auditorium. Free.
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This weekend, the National Gallery of Art, in conjunction with the exhibit In the Tower: Kerry James Marshall, presents the film series Kerry James Marshall Selects. The artist chose three films that reflect themes relevant to the exhibit. In Nothing but a Man, a black railroad worker falls for a preacher’s daughter in a small Southern town in director Michael Roemer’s 1964 film. The independent production was not widely seen until a 2004 restoration. Fans of pulp novelist Jim Thompson may recognize the title; the author wrote a 1970 novelization of the film. Also screening in this series are 35mm prints of Marcel Camus’ 1958 classic Black Orpheus (September 1 at 4:30 pm) and Julie Dash’s 1991 film Daughters of the Dust (September 2 at 2 pm), on which Kerry James Marshall worked as production designer.
View the trailer.
Friday, August 31 at 2 pm at the National Gallery of Art. Free.
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Trucker Stacy Keach invents games to keep himself awake on long hauls through the Australian outback. But when he stumbles upon a highway serial killer, Keach gets framed for murder, and hitchhiker Jamie Lee Curtis suspects she thumbed the wrong ride. Screenwriter Everett DeRoche was behind several titles in the AFI’s Ozploitation series, including Long Weekend, Patrick and Razorback.
View the trailer.
Sunday-Monday, September 1 and 2 at the AFI Silver.
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A troubled young girl (Susan Penhaglion) becomes the victim of a sexually frustrated priest (Anthony Sharp) in a B-movie also known as House of Mortal Sin. Director Pete Walker made a series of B-movies like 1978’s Jack Jones vehicle The Comeback, which sounded better on paper than it looked on film. But like all the presentations of the Washington Psychotronic Film Society, you can make it better with beer.
View the trailer.
Monday, September 2 at 8 pm at McFadden’s.
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Also opening this week, director Wong Kar Wai’s martial arts epic The Grandmaster; and Short Term 12, a moving drama about life at a foster care facility for troubled youth. We’ll have full reviews tomorrow.
