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 Caine and Harvey Keitel (Gianni Fiorito/Twentieth Century Fox Film Corporation)A composer (Michael Caine) and a filmmaker (Harvey Keitel) are two old friends on vacation in a posh resort in the Swiss Alps, contemplating the nature of art and mortality while a younger generation of artists (including Paul Dano) struggles with their own grasp of art. Director Paulo Sorrentino (This Must Be the Place, The Great Beauty) gets great performances out of his august leads and even gets Dano to step out of his tired mooncalf persona. But fine acting and gorgeous cinematography doesn’t keep Sorrentino’s script from going off the rails. Unpredictability is one thing, but maudlin sentimentality (which may have sounded better in his native Italian than in English) is another. Keitel is especially heroic in his attempts to make stilted language sound like normal conversation, but this is a movie that’s better off without dialogue.
Watch the trailer.
Opens today at Landmark E Street Cinema and Landmark Bethesda Row.
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François Truffaut and Alfred Hitchcock (Philippe Halsman/Cohen Media Group)It’s taken for granted today that Alfred Hitchcock is one of the great directors. But there was a time when the master of macabre was considered a mere lightweight entertainer. His reputation as an artist grew thanks to the auteur theory espoused by the critics of Cahiers du Cinema, chief among them Francois Truffaut, whose 1966 book of interviews Hitchcock/Truffaut has been considered a practically sacred text by generations of filmmakers from Scorcese to David Fincher (both of whom are interviewed here). Sure, this may be a documentary about a book, but it’s a no-brainer for the cinephile. Thanks to more than just the clip reels, it is lively enough to keep the casual moviegoer interested. Director Kent Jones (who-co-wrote Scorsese’s essential survey of Italian cinema, My Voyage to Italy) includes audio and photographs (by the great Philippe Halsman) of the original interviews. Even better, he delivers a well-edited master class in Hitchcock’s films, making even makes the widely dismissed Topaz look interesting.
Watch the trailer.
Opens today at Landmark E Street Cinema.
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Géza Röhrig (Sony Pictures Classics)A Jewish prisoner (Géza Röhrig) at Auschwitz is charged with preparing corpses for incineration when he finds what he believes to be the body of his own son. First-time director László Nemes’s film won the Cannes Grand Prix Winner and is one of this year’s top Oscar contenders for Best Foreign Film (an honor it’s already won from the Washington Area Film Critics Association). I haven’t brought myself to watch it yet, but before this reportedly harrowing film opens commercially on January 15, you can get a sneak preview thanks to the year-round programming from the Washington Jewish Film Festival.
Watch the trailer.
December 15 at 7:30pm. at the DCJCC, 1529 16th Street NW.
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(Big World Pictures)In 19th century Romania, two men hunt down a runaway gypsy slave. The AFI’s annual European Union Film Showcase continues with a period piece from director Rada Jude, but don’t expect your typically polite costume drama. The characters of Aferim! are ribald and politically incorrect in a way that makes the film come off as if a horny Archie Bunker rode on horseback into an Andrei Tarkovsky film. Hilarious and brutal, this obviously isn’t for everyone. But the stark black and white photography should be seen on the big screen to be appreciated, and this will be your only chance to see it in a local theater. Also screening in the next week: director Ulrich Seidl’s mock-doc about Germans and their basements, In the Basement (December 13 and 14); director Lucie Borleteau’s feature debut Fidelio: Alice’s Odyssey (December 13 and 16); and a sneak preview of the domestic drama 45 Years (December 13, opening commercially in the new year) (starring Charlotte Rampling and Tom Courtenay).
Watch the trailer.
Friday, December 11 and Monday, December 14 at the AFI Silver.
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I’ll let the curators of the Washington Psychotronic Film Society handle this: “Oh my sweet patooty! Let’s see…uhm…OK..yeah. It starts off in a castle with betrayal and sex. There is a big fight and a baby is born. Insert some stock footage of some lions. A baby is lost in the woods and is raised by lions. It turns out that he is of royal blood. Now sporting fake lion claws, he returns to beat the bejezus out of the peeps who made him an outcast.” Directed by prolific filmmaker Natuk Baytan, who gave Fassbinder a run for his money, directing 71 feature films in his 25-year career.
Watch the trailer.
Monday, December 14 at 8 p.m. at Acre 121.
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Also opening this week, Michael Fassbender and Marion Cotillard star in director Justin Kurzel’s gory adaptation of Macbeth. We’ll have a full review this afternoon.
