DCist’s subjective and selective guide to some of the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week.
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Teenagers tired of joy-riding joy-burgle a corpse from the Centers of Disease Control, stumbling upon a military conspiracy, grisly hijinks and a zombie poodle. Robert Vaughn, Bianca Jagger, Larry Linville and June Lockhart are among the actors kidnapped and forced to perform at gunpoint in this 1989 horror comedy. Rock journalist-turned-screenwriter Ed Naha used the pseudonym M. Kane Jeeves for this misguided sequel, yet he used his real name to pen the 1984 Canadian sex-comedy Oddballs. Which leads one to conclude that the screenwriter considers C.H.U.D. II a worse film than Oddballs. As someone who owns a copy of Oddballs, this makes me quake in fear. Naha’s most recent screenplay credit is the 2012 animated Noah, featuring the voice of Michael Keaton as the ark-builder. Who among us can boast of a career like this? Thanks to the Washington Psychotronic FIlm Society for once again pushing Washingtonian’s limits of cinematic fortitude and career opportunity.
View the trailer.
Monday, January 27 at 8 p.m. at McFadden’s. Free
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Butch MorrisJazz Film Fridays continue at the Library of Congress this week with director Vipal Monga’s 2010 documentary about trumpeter, composer, and conductor Lawrence “Butch” Morris, who passed away a year ago this month. Morris created a method of structured free improvisation that he called “conduction” that is considered “a revolutionary approach to music making.” WPFW’s Rusty Hassan will introduce the program.
View the trailer.
Friday, January 24 at 7 p.m. at the Mary Pickford Theater, 3rd Floor, James Madison Building, Library of Congress. No tickets or reservations needed. Limited seating begins at 6:30 p.m.
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Ciné-Concert :Be My Wife
The National Gallery of Art’s Max Linder Restored series concludes this week with the French silent comedian’s second American film, screened in DCP with live piano accompaniment by Andrew Simpson. Linder wrote, directed, and stars as Max, engaged to Mary (Alta Allen) against the wishes of her formidable Aunt Agatha (Caroline Rankin). Actress Allen lived to the ripe old age of 93 and died in the town of Boonsboro in the Maryland panhandle, but her leading man met an early and tragic fate. Linder suffered from a depression that stemmed from his experience in World War I and was exacerbated by the relative failure of his American films. In 1925 Linder killed himself in Paris, a suicide pact with his wife. He was 41.
Saturday, January 25 at 1 p.m. at the National Gallery of Art. Free.
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The Embassy of the Czech Republic and Bistro Bohem launch the third season of their popular beer and film series with this 1932 comedy about an instrument maker hoping to win his town’s sharp-shooting medal. Director Martin Frič made over 85 features and was best known for his comedies, but he met a sad end, killing himself in 1968 after the Warsaw Pact invasion of Czechoslovakia. Bistro Bohem’s series runs all year on the third Tuesday of every month. Screenings include a free beer and will be introduced by a representative from the Embassy of the Czech Republic
Tuesday, January 28 at 7 p.m. at Bistro Bohem, 600 Florida Avenue NW
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Director Atiq Rahimi’s film tells the provocative story of a young woman who watches over her older husband as he lies paralyzed by a bullet wound to the neck. The Freer Gallery’s 18th annual Iranian Film Festival continues this weekend with a film that the Boston Globe calls “a startling fantasy of Muslim feminist empowerment that allows the Iranian-born actress Golshifteh Farahani to put on what amounts to a one-woman show.”
View the trailer.
Friday, January 24 at 7 p.m. and Sunday, January 26 at 2 p.m. at the Freer. Free.
