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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Julianne Moore and Mia Wasikowska (Focus Features)

Maps to the Stars

The Weiss family live flashy, empty lives in Hollywood: Stafford (John Cusack) is a TV self-help personality; Cristina (Olivia Williams) manages the career of their son Benjie (Evan Bird), child star who, at 13 years old, has already done time in rehab. Agatha (Mia Wasikowska) is the family’s black sheep, fresh out of a psych ward and soon to become involved with a limo driver (Robert Pattinson) and troubled actress Havana Segrand (Julianne Moore). I didn’t get a chance to preview the latest film from director David Cronenberg, and the reviews are mixed. The New York Times’ A. O. Scott writes that it’s “suavely directed…from an elegantly waspish script by Bruce Wagner, it belongs to the venerable tradition of movieland self-loathing.” But Slate’s Dana Stevens cautions that “no performance seems to occupy quite the same tonal register as any other.” Worse, the film’s climactic conflagration is reportedly marred by terrible CGI. But it’s Croenenberg, and it’s the West End Cinema, and you want to support both, right?

Watch the trailer.
Opens today at West End Cinema.

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Ronit Elkabetz and Menashe Noy (Music Box Films)

Gett: The Trial of Viviane Amsalem

Viviane (Ronit Elkabetz) is an Israeli woman who wants to divorce (gett) her husband Elisha (Simon Abkarian), but is herself put on trial in this courtroom drama from co-directors Shlomi and Ronit Elkabetz. The entire film takes place in a rabbinical courtroom over the three years that Viviane seeks her freedom, and as titles announce, “six months later,” “three months later,” “two months later,” the viewer begins to feel the frustration of its characters. Gett‘s depiction of persecution has been compared to The Passion of Joan of Arc, which put me off the film at first. Dreyer’s silent masterpiece has a mystery and cinematic grandeur that still looks gorgeously radical today, while the Elkabetz’s created a dry, conventionally stark melodrama filled with grays and blues that suggest the most banal institutional photography. But like the case it depicts, the film is a slow burn, and when the color palette suddenly expands, the effect is startling. The performances are uniformly fine and the visuals of its single courtroom set are edited deftly enough to keep the trial moving.

Watch the trailer.
Opens today at Landmark Bethesda Row

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Boris Karloff will belong dead next time.

Frankenstein

This weekend, the AFI Silver presents three programs of classic films with live jazz accompaniment. Tonight, the Silver presents a 35mm print of director James Whale’s classic 1931 Frankenstein, starring Boris Karloff as the iconic blockhead. The film’s soundtrack will be augmented by Grammy-nominated composer-guitarist Gary Lucas, perhaps best known for his work on Captain Beefheart’s ’80s albums. Tonight, the AFI’s early show is director Oscar Micheaux’s 1920 silent The Symbol of the Unconquered, aka The Wilderness Trial, a melodrama which follows the stories of two light-skinned African Americans. Sunday, the Silver screens Micheaux’s 1925 film Body and Soul, about an escaped convict in Georgia who passes himself off as a preacher. Both Micheaux programs will be digital presentations, but more importantly, live musical accompaniment will be provided by jazz drummer-composer William Hooker.

Watch the trailer for Frankenstein, which screens tonight, February 27 at 9:30 p.m. The Symbol of the Unconquered screens tonight, February 27, at 7:15 p.m.. Body and Soul screens Saturday, February 28 at 3 p.m.

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Strange Brew

From Ingmar Bergman to Bob and Doug MacKenzie, actor Max von Sydow has followed the money throughout his career. Next week the Washington Psychotronic Film Society presents one of this versatile thespian’s most celebrated roles, Brewmaster Smith in this 1983 Dave Thomas and Rick Moranis vehicle.

Watch the trailer.
Monday, March 2 at 8 p.m. at Acre 21, 1400 Irving Street NW #109.

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Also opening this week: from Argentinian director Damián Szifron, the Oscar-nominated anthology film Wild Tales. We’ll have a full review today.