Popcorn & Candy is DCist’s subjective and selective guide to some of the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week.
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The New AFI Program Guide is Here!
The AFI’s schedule for the rest of the summer is full of much-loved classics as well as rarely-screened gems. Upcoming series include Cinema and the Great War, Harold Ramis Remembered, Sergio Leone, centennial celebrations of Alec Guinness and Mario Bava (including a 35mm print of Danger: Diabolik on August 8 and 9) the continuation of the Raoul Walsh series, and annual returns of the 70mm Spectacular and Totally Awesome: Great Films of the 80s. The more rarely-screened titles scheduled include 35mm prints of the director’s cut of Andrzej Żuławski’s over-the-top Posession (July 12-14) and early SNL director Tom Schiller’s 1984 B&W fantasy Nothing Lasts Forever (September 13 and 15). This weekend’s offerings include a 35mm print of The Shining on a double bill with the divisive documentary about the movie, Room 237. Download a PDF of the full program guide here.
The Shining and Room 237 screen Saturday, July 5 at 7:45 p.m. at the AFI Silver.
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In the future, no one will tell you that HDR is tacky (Radius-TWC)Seventeen years after the new Ice Age, surviving humans live on the Snowpiercer, a train that continually circles the globe, its passengers locked in a brutal class system. But Curtis (Chris Evans) and with his mentor Gilliam (John Hurt) plan a revolution. This is the first English-language feature from South Korean director Bong Joon-ho (Mother, The Host), and though I didn’t get a chance to preview it, the buzz is good. The Weinstein Company threatened to chop 20 minutes from its running time, but unlike Wong Kar-Wai’s The Grandmaster, this survived with its length intact.
View the trailer.
Now playing at the West End Cinema, AFI Silver, Angelika Mosaic, AMC Shirlington and AMC Hoffman
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Gene Siskel and Roger Ebert (Kevin Horan/Magnolia Pictures）In 1994, Roger Ebert was one of the early champions of director Steve James’ three-hour basketball documentary Hoop Dreams. James returns the favor with this affectionate documentary largely based on Ebert’s 2011 memoir. The late movie critic felt that cinema was the art form that made it most possible for us to experience empathy with another human. James’ documentary, started in the months before Ebert’s death, doesn’t flinch from showing painful hospital procedures. But despite generous interviews with his wife Chaz, there’s a perhaps understandable distance between the director and the more intimate aspects of his subject. Still, it can be hard to watch the decline of a public persona you’ve followed for over thirty years, so much so that tears of happiness may well up when the film shows a brief clip of Russ Meyer’s Beyond the Valley of the Dolls, which Ebert notoriously scripted. Life Itself covers Ebert’s career with an emphasis on his fame as a movie critic and on his sometimes volatile relationship with longtime co-host Gene Siskel. The movie doesn’t offer any revelations, but this portrait of a man that talking head Werner Herzog calls a solider of cinema is essential viewing for cinephiles.
View the trailer.
Opens Friday at Landmark E Street Cinema.
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Ai Weiwei (Andreas Johnsen/International Film Circuit)From my Spectrum Culture review: “Dissident artist Ai Weiwei was arrested in 2011 on trumped up charges of tax evasion. He was detained for three months and released on the condition that he could not leave Beijing for a year. Even worse, in this probationary period, Weiwei’s freedom of speech was curtailed. Authorities would not even allow his name to be used on the internet in China, and the location of his studio compound was wiped from Google Maps. The Fake Case, which picks up where Alison Klayman’s 2012 documentary Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry leaves off, can be added to that small category of movies about artists whose freedoms have been compromised. This Is Not a Film was director Jafar Panahi’s attempt to make a narrative feature while he was under house arrest and forbidden to make a film. Panahi defied authorities by making art. Weiwei defied the authorities just by speaking. The Fake Case shares its subject’s sense of humor, and also his seriousness. He tells a reporter, “I think if I don’t show my voice, if I don’t act as I always believe, then I think I’m dead already.” This documentary is not a bold work of art, but it is a bold political statement, affirming the freedom of expression in a time when it can land an artist jail.”
View the trailer.
Opens Friday at Landmark E Street Cinema.
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Crusaders fall for Moorish royalty in this pseudo-historical middle ages romp. Staff at the Washington Psychotronic Film Society promise this 1983 romp will fill the void left by Game of Throne‘s hiatus. Director Giacomo Battiato went on direct a 2005 biopic of Pope John Paul II.
View a fan-made trailer.
Monday, July 7 at 8 p.m. at McFadden’s.
