DCist’s selective and subjective guide to some of the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week.
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Richard Dormer (The Works Film Group)A Belfast record store biopic may not sound like your idea of a good time unless you go to a lot of record stores and have a charming brogue. But this is one of the best music films of recent years, capturing the musical energy and volatile politics of the punk era in a way that the CBGB movie could only dream of. Richard Dormer stars as big-eyed idealist Terri Hooley, whose response to the commercial wasteland that Belfast suffered in the wake of Northern Ireland’s Troubles was to open a record store and then a record label. The Good Vibrations label became home to a vital punk scene, their most famous band being The Undertones. Directors Lisa Barros D’Sa and Glenn Leyburn’s visually inventive film brims with musical fervor, led by Dormer’s infectious performance as the unflappable Hooley. The AFI Silver screens the film this weekend in honor of Record Store Day 2014, so before or after the show you may want to stop by one of the three excellent record stores in walking distance of the Silver. I would gladly have put Good Vibrations on my top ten list for last year if I had seen it sooner.
View the trailer.
Friday, April 18 and Saturday, April 19 at the AFI Silver.
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Steve Coogan (Magnolia)Radio politics turn into a volatile hostage crisis in the long-awaited big-screen debut of one of Steve Coogan’s most beloved characters. Coogan sought Hollywood respectability last year as star and producer of the Oscar-nominated Philomena. Fortunately, we are far enough away from awards season that American audiences can be reminded of the irreverent Coogan they know and love. The patronizing, dryly hilarious character of radio personality Alan Partridge made his first appearance on BBC Radio 4 in 1991. Coogan’s delivery isn’t always on the mark here, and the writing is inconsistent, but I laughed anyway.
View the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at Landmark Bethesda Row
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A motley crew of truck drivers (Roy Scheider, Bruno Cremer, Francisco Rabal and Amidou) haul explosives through treacherous South American jungle for a chance at money and freedom. Director William Friedkin followed The Exorcist with this remake of Henri-Georges Clouzot’s nail-biting classic The Wages of Fear. I haven’t seen Sorcerer but it has a reputation for being even more harrowing than Clouzot’s film — with a score by Tangerine Dream. The AFI is screening a new 4K DCP restoration. I’m sorry it won’t be a print, but this sounds like a must-see on the big screen. Be sure to check out the rest of the AFI’s new calendar, which includes part two of the Burt Lancaster and Raoul Walsh series, Masterpieces of Polish Cinema, a Shakespeare series (including a 35mm print of the excellent and rarely screened 1968 Midsummer Night’s Dream with Ian Holm and Judi Dench), Charlie Chaplin, Studio Ghibli, Jane Fonda, and more.
View the trailer.
Saturday, April 19, Monday, April 21, Tuesday, April 22 and Thursday, April 24 at the AFI Silver.
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A priest is called to an isolated convent where a group of nuns may be possessed by demons. The National Gallery of Art continues its ambitious survey of Polish cinema with a DCP presentation of director Jerzy Kawalerowicz’s 1961 film, based on the same 17th century case that inspired Ken Russell’s The Devils. The stark black and white cinematography and graceful camera work make this a must-see on the big screen. Also screening in the Masterpiece of Polish Cinema series this weekend is the 1965 film Salto (Jump) a cinematic anxiety dream in which a man jumps from a moving train and takes on the identity of a dead movie star.
View the trailer.
Sunday, April 20 at 2 p.m. at the National Gallery of Art. Free.
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This week The Washington Psychotronic Film Society presents a 1986 sci-fi exploitation flick starring an alien Christ figure who visits Earth to fight evil and protect the meek. As the Psychotronic curators put it, “A Herculean space god pleads with his father to let him go on a mission to Earth to save some ghetto folk, only he ain’t got lasers and junk. Just a cool hair doo and super strength which is not enough against punks with guns.” The single-minded space savior responds to a streetwalker’s solicitation with, “Do you know great evil?”
View a clip.
Monday, April 21 at McFadden’s.
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Also opening this weekend, Tilda Swinton is a vampire in director Jim Jarmusch’s Only Lovers Left Alive. We’ll have a full review tomorrow, as well as a preview of the final iteration of FilmFest DC.
