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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Michael Angarano, Jesse Carere, Brett Davern, Tye Sheridan, Johnny Simmons, Ezra Miller, and Chris Sheffield. Courtesy of Steve Dietl. Copyright STANFORD PRISON, LLC. An IFC Films Release.

The Stanford Prison Experiment

What would you do if you were suddenly placed in a position of authority? Director Kyle Patrick Alvarez reenacts a 1971 study in which 24 college students participated in a prisoner-and-guards scenario that went terribly wrong. Led by Stanford psych professor Philip Zimbardo (Billy Crudup), the experiment randomly placed students as “prisoners” and “guards” in what was to be a two-week trial, but conditions deteriorated so rapidly the experiment was called off after six days. If the proceedings occasionally come off like a high school play, that’s by design, and the film suffers from inconsistent performances, but its watchable thanks to standouts like Ezra Miller and Chris Sheffield as two of the more defiant prisoners, as well as Michael Angarano as the sadistic guard they called “John Wayne.”

Watch the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at E Street Landmark Cinema.

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Thorin Finch plays with Legos (Radius-TWC)

The Lego Brickumentary

If last year’s product placement blockbuster LEGO Movie was a surprising critical success, directors Kief Davidson and Daniel Junge cast a documentary lens on the iconic toy bricks for what is essentially a 90-minute infomercial hosted by a talking LEGO figure with an annoying voice. Don’t let the childlike wonder (BUY LEGOS) of the accompanying picture fool you—every second (BUY LEGOS) of this is designed to make you want to—shocker—BUY LEGOS. Its brief nod to company history (including the neat revelation that the creator’s grandson was on the cover of old LEGO boxes) quickly dispatched (BUY LEGOS BUY LEGOS BUY LEGOS BUY LEGOS BUY LEGOS BUY LEGOS BUY). That said, the film is best when it spends time with enthusiasts, and a little strange when you learn that “one by five,” dimension of a LEGO brick that the company doesn’t make, is adult LEGO fan slang for “hot girl into LEGOs.”

Watch the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at Angelika Pop-up and the AFI Silver

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You don’t wnat his trousers to fall off now, do ya? (Cinema 5/Photofest)

Gimmie Shelter

The National Gallery of Art’s East Building auditorium is one of the best repertory theaters in Washington, but their big screen has been dark for more than a year due to museum renovations. The theater reopens this weekend with three classic documentaries from directors Albert and David Maysles. From 1975, Grey Gardens (Saturday, August 1 at 1 p.m.), made with Ellen Hovde and Muffie Meyer, follows Big Edie and Little Edie Beale, the aunt and first cousin of Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, as they live in the shambles of their East Hampton estate; Salesman (Saturday, August 1 at 3 p.m.), made with Charlotte Zwerin, observes four traveling bible salesmen in 1968, one of them suffering a crisis of vocation; finally, Gimmie Shelter (Sunday, August 2 at 4 p.m.), also made with Zwerin, documents a ’60s rock festival turned deadly, as the Maysles’ cameras inadvertently capture a murder. Note: Grey Gardens will be a DCP, but the Gallery will screen 35mm prints of Salesman and Gimme Shelter.

Watch the trailer.
Gimme Shelter screens Sunday, August 2 at 4 p.m. at the National Gallery of Art. Free.

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The Midnight After

The Freer’s 20th annual Hong Kong Film festival continues this weekend with director Fruit Chan’s sci-fi comedy, awarded Best Film and Best Director of 2014 by the Hong Kong Film Critics Society. The film follows a group of travelers who emerge fro their minibus late at night to find they’re the only people left in Hong Kong. With Simon Yam Kara Hui, and Hong Kong indie-rocker Jan Curious, who performs a reportedly goofy version of David Bowie’s “Space Oddity.” Derek Elley of Film Business Asia writes that the film is “an intensely local but exhilarating comedy-horror that shows Chan firing on all pistons with his indie energy of old.” The gallery will be screening a DCP. Sunday, the Freer screens a 35mm print of a title from their very first Hong Kong Film Festival 20 years ago. Andy Lau stars as a motorcycle racer in Full Throttle (Sunday, August 2 at 2 p.m.).

Watch the trailer.
Friday, July 31 at 7 p.m. at the Freer. Free.

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Treat Williams and Joe Piscopo

Dead Heat

Next week the Washington Psychotronic Film Society offers a classic of supernatural law enforcement from 1988. Treat Williams (“Roger Mortis”) and Joe Piscopo star as cops who come back from the dead to battle zombies. Director Mark Goldblatt was a successful action movie editor and continues to work as a film editor today, but his skilled montage apparently didn’t translate to making a buddy-cop-zombie movie. Also starring Vincent Price as a rich industrialist who profits from the undead.

Watch the trailer.
Monday, August 3 at 8 p.m. at Acre 121.

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Also opening this week, director Joshua Oppenheimer returns to Indonesia in The Look of Silence, the sequel to the best film of 2013, The Act of Killing. We’ll have a full review tomorrow.