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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(WEllGoUSA)Woo-jin (a role performed by more than 21 actors) is a young and successful designer, with a brand of furniture custom made, according to customer’s measurements. The problem is with his own measurements. Or hers. Ever since he was 18, Woo-jin wakes up in a different body—a different age or gender, and sometimes a different color. What will he do when he falls in love? The premise seems cobbled together from movies like 50 First Dates, Holy Rollers, and I’m Not There, for starters, and there are many ways that it could have gone wrong. But despite the tag line, “love has many faces,” this won over my initial skepticism. The Beauty Inside doesn’t use its conceit for identity politics (we see a black Woo-jin for a split second, but he usually turns into another Asian), which itself may be a political choice, but it won me over as a sweet and smart romantic comedy. This is the first feature from director Jong-Yeol Baek, and anyone hoping for an example of Korean extreme cinema will be disappointed, but then, they wouldn’t go near a movie called The Beauty Inside either. Not that I’d blame them, but this movie is charming, well-made fluff.
Watch the trailer.
Opens today at Angelika Mosaic.
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Ghost Dog: The Way of the Samurai
Director Jim Jarmusch is a frustratingly inconsistent filmmaker, and I don’t count the atmospheric but name-dropping vampire movie Only Lovers Left Alive as a return to form. But when he hits his marks (Stranger than Paradise, Dead Man), he puts his hipster finger on some real cinematic mystery, and this 1999 post-modern gangster movie is one of his best. Forest Whitaker stars as a wonky-eyed mob hitman who follows an ancient Japanese code. The film features a strong supporting cast that includes Henry Silva, a rich score by The RZA, and cinematography by Robby Müller—best known as the man who made Wim Wenders’ films so gorgeous. This is all the more reason to thank the AFI for showing a 35mm print.
Watch the trailer.
Saturday, September 12 and and Tuesday, September 15-Wednesday, September 16 at the AFI Silver.
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Courtesy PhotofestThe National Gallery of Art continues its retrospective of Italian production house Titanus this weekend with this 1960 drama from director Vittorio de Sica (The Bicycle Thief). Based on a novel by Alberto Moravia (whose work has been adapted into arthouse favorites like Contempt and The Conformist), Two Women stars a 26-year-old Sophia Loren, who won an Oscar for her performance as a young mother trying to protect her teenage daughter during World War II. Co-starring Jean-Paul Belmondo as a young intellectual who falls in love with Loren.
Sunday, September 13 at 4 p.m. at the National Gallery of Art, East Building Auditorium. Free.
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In conjunction with Sonic Circuits, local promoters of experimental electronic music, the AFI is screening this 2013 documentary about the history of Russian electronic music. You already know the sounds of the Theremin (whose inventor is featured here in one of his last interviews), but avant-garde musicians have taken a shine to the unpredictable results of other Russian-made instruments like the Polyvox, ESKO, Yunost and the ANS Photo-Electronic Synthesizer, which translates abstract drawings into sound. Followed by a screening of new experimental films with live music by local filmmakers Chris Lynn, Patrick Caine, Margaret Rorison, Walter Forsberg, and John Klacsmann.
Watch the trailer.
Saturday, September 12 at 7:30 p.m. at the AFI Silver.
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Based on a true storyMexican wrestling women; gorilla brain transplants. Either of those elements would make for an evening’s entertainment, but both!?! This must be the Washington Psychotronic Film Society. The movie’s alternate titles tell you all you need to know: Las Luchadoras Contra el Médico Asesino (Wrestling Women vs. the Murderous Doctor), Rock ‘n’ Roll Wrestling Women Vs. The Aztec Ape, and Sex Monster. Directed by René Cardona, auteur behind such films as the 1959 Santa Claus, Night of the Bloody Apes, and Wrestling Women vs. the Aztec Mummy, the movie stars Mexican screen queen Lorena Velázquez (Ship of Monsters, Santo Versus the Vampire Women).
Monday, September 14 at 8 p.m. at Acre 121, 1400 Irving St. NW #109.
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Also opening this week, four Guatemalan teens head for the Mexican border and the American dream in La Jaula de Oro. We’ll have a full review later today.
