Popcorn & Candy is DCist’s selective and subjective guide to some of the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week.
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Still from The End of the Line. Playing as part of this year’s DC Shorts Film Festival.DC Shorts Film Festival
Now in its 11th year, the DC Shorts Film Festival continues to prove why it’s one of the regions best festivals. It’s not an easy feat to get an audience to care about seeing films whose longest runtime doesn’t exceed the 40-minute mark, but festival director Jon Gann curates an exception collection of the best short films from around the world into a week of showcases. This year, the festival expands to the suburbs, with the Angelika Film Center in Fairfax, Va. And the crop of films in this year’s festival is no less admirable: more than 135 films screens throughout 17 different showcases, featuring comedies, dramas, genre films, animated films, and a special family-oriented showcase. Still not convinced? Check out the DC Short archives here and watch past festival favorites online for free. — Matt Cohen
The DC Shorts Film Festival kicks off tonight and runs until September 21 at E Street Cinema, and the U.S. Navy Memorial. For a full schedule, description of films, and to purchase tickets, click here.
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Hannah Murray, Olly Alexander and Emily Browning (Amplify)Belle and Sebastian’s Stuart Murdoch wrote and directed this adaptation of his album project of the same name. His songs would seem like a natural fit for a coming-of-age movie. But this is not that movie. In my Spectrum Culture review, I wrote, ” It’s a nice movie to listen to. Watching it is another matter. One of the problems is that the first-time director translates his music to film so goddamned literally. The dramatic build-up to “I’ll Have to Dance with Cassie,” for instance, becomes the frenzied hunt for Cassie (Hannah Murray) … so Eve can dance with her. “Pretty Eve in the Tub” is naturally illustrated by Eve in the tub, a queue forming down the hall as if a picture book is necessary to explain the lyrics about all the boys queuing up to scrub her. This lack of visual imagination might be forgivable if Murdoch had consistently shaped his actors’ performances. When I see a coming-of-age movie about sensitive, twee kids trying to find their voice in a sensitive twee pop band, I want some indication that these kids are awkward ugly ducklings who break out of their shells and find the confidence that eluded them; that they become who they are meant to be. The biggest problem with the movie is Emily Browning’s Eve, whose character is for the most part an irritating, smug little twerp, not a sympathetic girl whom we hope God helps usher gently to womanhood. Since Browning does convey vulnerability at sporadic moments in the film, the fault must lie squarely on Murdoch for failing to guide his charge through a realistic arc of finding her voice.” Read the rest of my Spectrum Culture review here.
View the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at the AFI Silver. Friday and Saturday evening screenings will be followed by a bonus featurette: Belle & Sebastian with the “God Help the Girl” singers filmed in concert at the August 16 Edinburgh premiere.
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Carla Juri (Strand Releasing)One of my favorite film books is Amos Vogel’s Film as a Subversive Art, but as much as I want to track down some of its more elusive titles, I know that movies like Salo or Macunamia might be harrowing to watch. What does this have to do with a coming-of-age movie? Director David Wnent’s adaptation of the popular novel Wetlands is the kind of coming-of-age movie made by and for fans of Film as a Subversive Art. Visually inventive and well-acted, its graphic portrayal of a young woman with hygiene issues and a history of child abuse brings new meaning to the words “infectious energy.” The film’s opening credits are an animated vision of the microscopic environment on a pubic hair hanging from the lip of a profoundly unwashed specimen of public toilet seat.The film revels in bodily excretions in what seems the most stylish of exploitation films. I can’t dismiss the level of craft at work, and the self-hatred of its mentally damaged protagonist. This week’s arthouse moviegoers have the choice between two diametrically opposed coming-of-age movies, and though I can’t wholeheartedly recommend either, the very brave may find Wetlands (which I like to call Frances Hoo-ha, and which really should have been called Asshole), er, provocative.
View the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at West End Cinema and Angelika Pop-Up
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Sabina Maydelle and Richard Chamberlain (Rex Features)The series, “Directed by Ken Russell,” presented by the Library of Congress in association with DCist and Brightest Young Things, continues this week with Russell’s lush 1970 film about composer Peter Ilyich Tchaikovsky. The director pitched his film to the studio as as “the marriage of a homosexual and a nymphomaniac,” but that sensationalism introduced the composer’s music to a legion of new fans. Starring Richard Chamberlain as Tchaikovsky and Glenda Jackson as Antonina Milyukova. Hosted by Music Division staff member and DCist’s chief film critic, yours truly. All films will be shown in the Mary Pickford Theater, third floor of the Library of Congress’ James Madison Building (101 Independence Avenue SE). Doors open 30 minutes before screening. Seating is very limited, but standbys are encouraged to line up starting at 6:30 p.m. In the likely event of a sellout, available seats will be released to standbys five minutes before show time. For information, call 202-707-5502. Note: the film will be projected from a DVD. More info about the Library of Congress’ 2014-15 concert season can be seen here.
View the trailer.
Friday, September 5 at 7 p.m. at the Mary Pickford Theater. Free, but tickets are recommended and are available from Ticketmaster here for a $3.00 service charge per ticket.
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Food and Film at the Freer: Headshot
The Freer Gallery launches its series, Dreams, Hallucinations, and Nightmares: The Films of Pen-ek Ratanaruang, co-sponsored by the Royal Thai Embassy, with a program of pre-film refreshments and a 2011 film that director Ratanaruang calls a “Buddhist film noir,” Pen-ek Ratanaruang will appear in person at the screening of his stylish thriller about a cop framed for a crime he didn’t commit. The Freer writes that Headshot, “moves back and forth in time with Hitchcockian double-crosses and intense action scenes.” Intended for mature audiences. Screened in D-Cinema format.
View the trailer.
Saturday, September 13 at 2 p.m. at the Freer. Refreshments will be served starting at 12:30 p.m. Free.
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Bill MurrayThe AFI Silver’s Totally Awesome ’80s series continues this weekend with a totally rare 35mm screening of this (mostly) black & white fantasy from 1984 about an artist (Zach Galligan) forced to direct traffic in the Holland Tunnel. Produced by Lorne Michaels, this is the only feature length film by Tom Schiller, whose short films appeared on early seasons of Saturday Night Live. The supporting cast includes SNL alumni Bill Murray (as a conductor on a bus to the moon) and Dan Aykroyd. The film was never released, shelved by MGM for reasons never divulged. Read more about the film here.
View the trailer.
Saturday, September 13 and Monday, September 15 at the AFI Silver.
