DCist’s highly subjective and selective guide to some of the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week.
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Egyptian activist Ahmed Hassan (Noujaim Films)Washington-born Egyptian-American director Jehane Noujaim’s documentary immerses the viewer in the center of the the revolution in Tahrir Square. “It is the inspirational story of young people claiming their rights, struggling through multiple forces: from a brutal army dictatorship willing to crush protesters with military tanks, to a corrupt Muslim Brotherhood using mosques to manipulate voters.” The filmmaker has had to re-edit her film to keep up with the evolving crisis. The Square is nominated for this year’s Oscar for Best Documentary.
View the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at West End Cinema
35mm film returns to The Pickford Theater with a rare screening of director Arthur Penn’s 1965 film Mickey One. Warren Beatty stars in a role as a standup comic on the run from the mob. More than one writer has described the film as Lenny Bruce meets Franz Kafka. The film finds Penn embracing French cinema a few years before the New Wave-inspired breakout of Bonnie and Clyde. Eddie Sauter’s vivid score features tenor saxophone soloist Stan Getz. WPFW’s Tim Masters will introduce the screening. (Disclosure: I work for the Library of Congress)
View the trailer.
Friday January 17 at 7 p.m. at The Mary Pickford Theater, 3rd Floor, James Madison Building, Library of Congress. Free. No tickets or reservations needed. Limited seating begins at 6:30 p.m.
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Max LinderCiné-Concert: Seven Years Bad Luck
This month the National Gallery of Art showcases the work of silent film comic Max Linder with a pair of ciné-concerts. Saturday afternoon’s program offers two short features. Seven Years Bad Luck (1921) is Linder’s first and most successful Hollywood feature, a vehicle for the debonair persona that was Linder’s signature in his native France. Shown with Linder’s final American film, the Three Musketeers parody The Three Must-Get-Theres (1922). Pianist Andrew Simpson will provide live musical accompaniment for the digital presentation of these silent classics.
Saturday, January 18 at 4 p.m. at the National Gallery of Art. Free.
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The Bright Day
The Freer Gallery’s 18th annual Iranian Film Festival continues this weekend with the first feature film from Iranian television director Hossein Shahabi. “A kindergarten teacher sets out to save a student’s father accused of killing a coworker. With only hours before the trial, she tries to track down witnesses who can prove the death was an accident. At the same time, the dead man’s powerful family wields its money and influence in an attempt to keep the witnesses silent.”
View the trailer.
Friday, January 17 at 7 pm and Sunday, January 19 at 2:00 pm at the Freer. Free.
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In 1962 the Italian writer-director team of Gualtiero Jacopetti and Franco Prosperi introduced their yellow documentary style with the sensationalistic Mondo Cane. That film featured such human depravities as tribal dancing and body painting (featuring painter Yves Klein, who suffered a heart attack when he finally saw the movie). The filmmakers continued to push the boundaries of good taste, reaching their nadir in this shockumentary in which Jacopetti and Prosperi, playing themselves, travel back in time to document the worst of the Atlantic slave trade. Next week The Washington Psychotronic Film Society brings you a film that the late Roger Ebert called “the most disgusting, contemptuous insult to decency ever to masquerade as a documentary.”
Monday, January 20 at 8 p.m. at McFaddens.
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Also opening this week, Ralph Fiennes directs and stars as Charles Dickens in The Invisible Woman. We’ll have a full review tomorrow.
