DCist’s subjective and selective guide to some of the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week.
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Alan Rickman as Hilly Kristal (Beau Giann/XLrator Media)The death of Lou Reed on Sunday gave rise to dozens of tributes, but some tributes are better than others. A laughably fictionalized Reed plays a small part in one of the year’s (decade’s) most misguided biopics. Directed by Randall Miller, whose most high-profile film to date was a Kid ‘n’ Play movie, CBGB takes the fabled, gritty nightclub that shepherded great New York bands from the Ramones to Television to Blondie — and makes a slick, lip-synced comic book out of something raw and passionate. The casting is atrocious. Kyle Gallner looks and acts nothing like glam-era Lou Reed, and don’t get me started on the once reliable Alan Rickman, who plays New York-born Hilly Kristal with no discernible change to his accent. Read more of my ranting about this awful movie at Spectrum Culture. And if you want to remember Lou Reed at the movies, look at this clip from Allan Arkush’s Get Crazy. The movie has dated, but Reed gave one of his best 80s ballads to the soundtrack.
View the trailer.
Friday, November 1 at 9 pm at the AFI Silver. In person: co-producer (and Silver Spring native) Andre Danylevich
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(Warner Bros)The Exorcist with William Peter Blatty in person
You’ll have to deal with worse things than split pea soup — like Georgetown on Halloween night — to get there, but that’s what Capital Bikeshare is for, isn’t it? The AMC Georgetown opens a one-week engagement of William Friedkin’s horror classic with a special Q&A screening at 7:30 tonight. Author/screenwriter/producer WIlliam Peter Blatty will talk about the movie just a few blocks away from one of the most infamous staircases in movie history.
View the trailer.
Tonight at 7:30 pm at the AMC Georgetown.
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(Cohen Media Group)I remember seeing Costa-Gavras’s 1982 thriller Missing at the old Circle Theater on a hot day without air conditioning. I remember sweating through that tense drama of a right-wing dictatorship in South America, directed by a master of political intrigue. Thirty years later, Capital finds the director in a cold world defined by the shades of chilly blue that dominate his film. Marc (Gad Elmaleh) takes over as CEO of a European investment bank when an American company led by Gabriel Byrne navigates their own take over. “You had me at ‘European invenstment bank’,” is what I would say if it didn’t lose me at “European investment bank.” Capital is competent and timely but not very compelling.
View the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at E Street Landmark Cinema
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Pigsty (November 4 and 6 at the AFI)Pier Paolo Pasolini
This week the National Gallery of Art and the AFI launch a retrospective of work by this sometimes controversial director. The Gallery begins the festivities this weekend with Pasolini’s studies of Greek tragedy, including his 1967 version of Oedipus Rex (November 2 at 2:00 pm at NGA); the 1970 documentary Notes for an African Oresteia (November 2 at 4:00 pm at NGA); and his 1969 adaptation of Medea (November 3 at 4:30 pm at NGA), starring Greek-American soprano Maria Callas in the title role. Next week the AFI screens Pasolini’s 1969 film Pigsty (November 4 and 6 at the AFI). Starring Jean-Pierre Léaud and Anne Wiazemsky, fresh from Jean-Luc Godard’s La Chinoise, the film blends the director’s affinity for myth with the provocative political filmmaking he was working toward. All films will be screened in 35mm prints.
View the trailer for Pigsty
November 3-30 at the National Gallery of Art and the AFI Silver.
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In Search of Blind Joe Death: The Saga of John Fahey
Noted record collector Joe Bussard used to sell 78s by a blues artist who went by the name of Blind Thomas. Distributed on his own Fonotone label, Bussard’s catalog described the records as “authentic Negro folk music.” But they were actually the work of a then-20-year-old white kid who had recently graduated from Hyattsville’s Northwestern High School. Takoma Park native John Fahey was a towering figure of American folk music and a pioneer of what he called “American primitive guitar.” He was also a rabid record collector, canvassing remote neighborhoods in the Deep South looking for rare blues sides. This documentary combines archival footage and animation with interviews, including admirers like Pete Townshend and Dr. Demento. Read more about Fahey in Eddie Dean’s 2001 Washington City Paper obituary here.
View the trailer.
November 1-3 at the AFI. $5.
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Also opening this week, the men of Last Vegas and Kill Your Darlings and the women of Blue is the Warmest Color. We’ll have full reviews tomorrow.
