Popcorn & Candy is DCist’s highly selective and subjective guide to some of the most interest movies playing around town in the coming week.
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Tough guy Walker (Lee Marvin) is left for dead, which is bad news for every member of the criminal organization who owes him money. It’s the simplest of neo-noir plots, built with exquisite wide-screen style by director John Boorman and cinematographer Philip Lathrop, whose wide-screen compositions demand to be seen on the big screen. Boorman famously stated that he “wanted an empty, sterile world, for which Los Angeles was absolutely right.” The AFI screens a 35mm print of this 1967 classic as part of Overdrive: L.A. Modern, 1960-2000, a series presented in conjunction with the National Building Museum. The February 8 screening will be introduced by the National Building Museum’s Deborah Sorensen.
View the trailer.
Plays Saturday, February 8 to Tuesday, February 11 at the AFI Silver.
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Pug (Oscilloscope)Director Lotfy Nathan spent three years documenting Pug, a Baltimore teen trying to join the city’s notorious dirt-bike group. But this may not be the kind of coming-of-age documentary you were hoping for. First-time director Nathan puts the spotlight on Pug as a bright, if mischievous, 13-year-old struggling in an environment whose heroes storm Baltimore streets like modern-day outlaws. High-speed camera footage slows down the dirt bikers’ exploits to a poetic crawl that captures the awe of what Pug sees, but what happens over the course of the film is not just easy slo-mo heroics. By the end of the film, Pug is 16 years old, and the difference in his personality is chilling. Read Ian Buckwalter’s NPR review here.
View the trailer.
Opens today at West End Cinema.
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(Michael Snow)This weekend, Canadian artist Michael Snow visits the National Gallery of Art to introduce two programs of his films. Saturday’s program includes Wavelength (1966-1967), one of the most influential experimental films of the 1960s, which consists of a single meditative shot; a slow zoom in a loft. Shown with So is This (1982), a silent film in which every shot is a single word. Sunday’s program includes the films Back and Forth and One Second in Montreal. I can’t say I stayed awake during the screening of the latter film I caught in the ’90s, but I recommend Wavelength as a peaceful cinematic experience.
“Wavelength” and “So is This” screen Saturday, February 8 at 2:30 p.m. “Back and Forth” and “One Second in Montreal” screen Sunday, February 9 at 4:30 p.m. At the National Gallery of Art. Free.
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In the Shadow of the Sun (February 19)West End Cinema once again hosts this documentary festival, with a screening every Tuesday evening at 7 p.m. from February 12 – March 12. The series launches next week with director Yoruba Richen’s The New Black (February 12), about how African-American communities are dealing with gay rights issues. Festival highlights include In the Shadow of the Sun (February 19), filmed over six years in the livs of two Tanzanian men with albinism; and Rafea: Sola Mama (March 12), a new film from The Square director Jehane Noujaim.
February 12 to March 12 at West End Cinema. See the festival website for a full schedule.
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The Freer’s Iranian Film Festival continues with the story of a never-employed fifty-something man who has lived his whole life in his father’s house. Then one day Parviz’s father decides to remarry—and asks his son to move out. I shudder in anticipation of an American remake.
View the trailer.
Friday, February 7 at 7 p.m. and Sunday, February 9 at 2 p.m. at the Freer. Free.
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Also next week:
Time of the Apes.
The Washington Psychotronic Film Society presents a 97-minute feature edited down from a 26-episode Japanese television series.
Monday, February 10 at 8 p.m. at McFadden’s. Free.
“It’s time to rewind. Following the 30th anniversary of Sony Corp. v. Universal Studios and the U.S. Supreme Court ruling that deemed home video-recording a legal household pastime, playbackthetape is pleased to introduce a new VHS roadshow screening series—a monthly, feature-length program of curated videotape content (always free and all ages), hosted at alternating venues.”
Monday, February 10 at 7 p.m. at Furthermore, 52 O Street Studios
