DCist’s selective and subjective guide to some of the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week.
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Willie is an energetic, sharp-dressed salesman. But the old-school Washington entrepreneur struggles in a difficult economy and the changing demographics of the H Street Corridor. Husband and wife documentary team Tessa Moran and Ben Crosbie’s half-hour documentary abut H Street’s Men’s Fashion Center and the decline of the mom and pop shop premieres on WHUT on October 17th at 8:00 pm, but you can see a preview of their lovingly crafted film tonight at the Atlas Performing Arts Center. Local group The Southern Gospel Singers will perform, and the filmmakers will appear for a Q&A after the film.
View the trailer.
Tonight at 7:00 pm at the Atlas Performing Arts Center. Free tickets available here.
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(eOne)A reclusive, dysfunctional family faces a dire crisis when their way of life is threatened. That way of life happens to be cannibalism. Based on a 2010 Mexican horror film that perhaps works better as a family character study than a cannibal movie, director Jim Mickle transplants the action to the Catskills. American remakes of foreign horror movies do not have a great track record, but NPR’s Ian Buckwalter writes that this remake “equal[s] and in many ways surpass[es] the dark, bloody beauty of [its] source material.”
View the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at Landmark E Street Cinema.
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Marcello Mastroianni in The OrganizerIn conjunction with the AFL-CIO and the Debs-Jones-Douglass Institute, the AFI presents new and classic films about the American and global workforce. The recent offerings include documentary crowdpleaser Brooklyn Castle (October 11 and 14), about one New York public school’s chess program; the sentimental Men at Lunch (October 12), the story of an iconic New York photograph (read my Spectrum Culture review of the latter here); and the self-explanatory Sign Painters (October 12) But the festival’s coup is probably a 35mm print of The Organizer (October 12 and 15), a 1963 vehicle for Marcello Mastrionni, who stars as a 19th-century labor leader.
October 11-17 at the AFI. See the festival website for a complete schedule.
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If you can’t make it to the Washington premiere of Bobcat Goldthwait’s found-footage Sasquatch movie WIllow Creek tonight at the AFI, the Washington Psychotronic Film Society gives you another chance to satisfy your Bigfoot fix next week. This 1980 feature, the only directorial credit for James Wasson, is one of the more notorious Bigfoot movies if only because its gore earned it a spot on the UK “video nasties” list. FYI, do NOT urinate in the woods with Bigfoot around.
View the trailer.
Monday, October 14 at 8:00 pm at McFadden’s.
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(Well GO USA)VOD Pick: Drug War
A man passes out in a wild car crash, and police captain Zhang Lei (Honglei Sun), realizes that the victim is drug lord Tian Ming (Louis Koo). Director Johnnie To’s complex ensemble film is full of rich characters, and despite its brutal drug world violence, has a sense of humor too. If only American action movies were as good as this. I wish I could tell you Drug War, one of my favorite movies of the year, was headed to Washington area theaters, but you can stream it online starting next week.
View the trailer.
Available October 15 on Amazon, Xbox, iTunes, Playstation, CinemaNow, Vudu, Google Play, Youtube, Cable VOD, and Blu-Ray / DVD (through Well Go USA)
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Also opening this week, Danny Trejo co-stars with Lady Gaga in Robert Rodrigeuz’ Machete Kills. We’ll have a full review tomorrow, as well as a preview of this year’s Spooky Movie Film Festival.
