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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Krsna Angulo, Jagadisa Angulo, and Mukunda Angulo (Magnolia Pictures)The six Angulo brothers, born of a Peruvian father and American mother, are a close-knit clan who don’t seem particularly out of the ordinary; they eat up pop culture and reenact Quentin Tarantino movies in their apartment on Manhattan’s Lower East Side. But shortly before director Crystal Moselle met them, the Angulo brothers almost never left the house. Moselle somehow earned the trust of the Angulo family, who would seem to be a fascinating documentary subject. But despite the inherent drama of a protective, controlling father (who nevertheless let his kids watch Quentin Tarantino movies), American adolescence and immigration, Moselle doesn’t quite immerse you in the brothers’ emotional stakes. Despite the behavioral damage done to them by being kept nearly prisoners in the great metropolis, they mostly come off as poised young men. How did they pull this off? Did the boys draw strength and confidence from each other, or from a father who, despite cherishing his privacy, clearly had an exhibitionistic streak? If the director had asked deeper questions, this could have been a fantastic profile of an American family, but it feels like a lost opportunity. The film had it’s local premiere at AFI Docs last night and begins a commercial run this weekend.
Watch the trailer.
Opens today at E Street Landmark Cinema.
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(Drafthouse Films)In my FilmFest DC roundup earlier this year, I wrote, “Ukranian director Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy is behind what may be sounds like the boldest film on this year’s Filmfest calendar. Grigoriy Fesenko plays a new arrival at a boarding school—for the deaf. The film’s performances are entirely in Ukranian sign language, and as a title card explains there are no subtitles. If anything, it’s too easy to understand what’s going on. Slaboshpytskiy favors long, uninterrupted takes that immerse you in the deaf world and follow a fairly conventional, if bleak, view of Deaf Teens Gone Wild, running in packs to commit robberies and even operating a prostitution ring. The Tribe comes off like a Romanian New Wave silent movie, with the most prominent sounds coming at times of trouble, as if that’s all sound is good for.” Ahead of its commercial run later this summer (it opens at the AFI on July 10), the film comes back for a one-night engagement at the AFI, followed by a Q&A with director Myroslav Slaboshpytskiy, whom I’d like to ask, “Dude, you’re Romanian—couldn’t you have made it a *little* harder to follow?”
Watch the trailer.
Opens Monday, June 22 at the AFI SIlver.
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The AFI’s Orson Welles Centennial continues next week with a 35mm print of a rarely revived melodrama. Welles plays a man presumed dead in the war, but returns under a new identity to find that his wife (Claudette Colbert) has remarried and adopted a daughter (seven-year old Natalie Wood). Director Irving Pichel was a prolific actor, best known for The Most Dangerous Game. Guy Maddin, no stranger to melodrama, wrote in the Village Voice that the film “lacks the plushly assertive insanity of Sirk,” but “true Orsonophiles will be delighted by the sheer size of the role assigned to their favorite, the commitment with which he attacks the job, and the strangely pleasing sight of him stealing scenes that were already his on the page. “
Watch the (faux) trailer.
Wednesday, June 24-Friday, June 26 at the AFI Silver.
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(Cineworx)Crossing the Bridge – The Sound of Istanbul
The Goethe-Institut’s summer series of music films continues this week with a 2005 documentary from Fatih Akin, the German-born Turkish director of intense arthouse melodramas like Head-On. Akin teamed with German musician Alexander Hacke, traveling with a mobile recording studio to explore the sonic landscape of the grand capital from traditional Turkish music to hip-hop. The New York Times’ Manohla Dargis wrote that, “if life were fair and film exhibition better, you could watch Fatih Akin’s musical mystery tour … while standing up, or, more ideally, while swaying, spinning and shimmying.” I’m sure the staff of the Goethe-Institut wouldn’t mind if the spirit moved you, but just in case, don’t tell them I said it was okay to dance.
Watch the trailer.
Monday, June 22 at 6:30 p.m. at the Goethe-Institut.
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Also this weekend AFI Docs. Go see a documentary!
