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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Cliff Richard and the Shadows and friends. Note: the color in this still is not accurate; come to the Pickford tonight for an accurate Technicolor treat.

Thunderbirds Are GO!

This month I’m hosting 35mm screenings at the intimate Mary Pickford Theater at the Library of Congress. The series Time Capsule: 1966 continues this week with director David Lane’s feature-length version of Gerry Anderson’s popular British sci-fi program. Thunderbirds are GO! includes an appearance by Cliff Richard and the Shadows as a space-age pop combo—in supermarionette form. My colleague Brian Taves, author of Hollywood Presents Jules Verne and a long-time Anderson devotee, will introduce the screening. Note that the screening of director Conrad Rooks’ impressionistic, semi-autobiographical feature debut Chappaqua has been rescheduled for Friday, February 12. Free tickets are already sold out for both Thunderbirds and Chappaqua, but standbys are encouraged to line up starting at 6:30 p.m. as available seats will be released five minutes before show time. For more information, call (202) 707-5502. Learn more about the Library of Congress’ 2015-16 concert season here.

Watch the trailer.
Thunderbirds are GO! Screens tonight, January 29 at 7 p.m at the Mary Pickford Theatre, third floor of the Madison Building, Library of Congress. Free. Tickets are sold out but a standby line forms at 6:30 p.m.

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Courtesy of the Freer.

Avalanche

While the Freer is closed for extensive renovations, the 20th edition of its popular Iranian Film Festival continues this weekend with a timely drama about a veteran nurse (acclaimed actress Fatemeh Motamed-Arya) “hired to care for a critically ill patient during a snowstorm.” The Freer writes that, “director Morteza Farshbaf, a protégé of Abbas Kiarostami, won accolades for the poetic style of his first feature, Mourning. Motamed-Arya appears in nearly every shot of this equally poetic film, delivering a riveting performance as a woman whose insomnia threatens to erode her sense of reality. ” Note: Fatemeh Motamed-Arya was originally scheduled to appear at the screening but, due to circumstances beyond the gallery’s control, she will be unable to attend.

Watch the trailer.
Sunday, January 31 at 4 p.m. at the National Gallery of Art’s East Building Auditorium. Free.

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“World of Tomorrow”

Oscar-Nominated Short Films 2016: Animation and Live Action

Oscar completists hoping to watch every nominated film before opening can bone up on short subject nominees this weekend with two programs at Landmark’s E Street Cinema. The animated shorts program includes the Pixar entry “Sanjay’s Super Team,” about an Indian-American boy enamored of Western pop culture; critics’ favorite “The World of Tomorrow,” about a little girl who has the chance to see her future; “Bear Story,” about a sad circus animal missing his family; the Russian film “We Can’t Live Without Cosmos,” about two young boys who dream of exploring space; and the Aardman Studios produced “Prologue,” an adult-themed film about an incident in the Spartan-Athenian War. The Live Action program includes “Ave Maria,” about nuns living in the West Bank who encounter a family of Israeli settlers; “Shok,” about two young boys living in Kosovo in the volatile late ’90s; “Everything Will Be OK,” a story of a divorced father and his eight-year-old daughter; “Stutterer,” about a lonely typographer; and “Day One”, about an Afghan-American woman who becomes an interpreter for the U.S. military in Afghanistan.

Opens today at E Street Landmark Cinema.

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Christopher Plummer

Remember

Zev (Christopher Plummer) is an elderly German Jew suffering from dementia. He promises his friend Max (Martin Landau) that he will hunt down and kill the Nazi commandant who ordered the deaths of their families. The Guardian calls the latest film from director Atom Egoyan (The Sweet Hereafter, Exotica) “a “Nazi revenge road movie as subtle as a swastika,” which frankly sounds intriguing.

Watch the trailer.
Tuesday, February 2, 7:30pm at the DCJCC, 1529 16th Street NW

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Vegas in Space

I’ll let the Washington Psychotronic Film Society describe this: “Three crewmen of the U.S.S. Intercourse undergo sex changes so they can go on an undercover mission to the all-woman, resort planet Clitoris. Disguised as showgirls from Earth they must Dance! Dance! Dance! and foil a plot to disrupt the stability of this Oasis of Glamour in a Sea of Mediocrity. Prepare for more wigs than Wigstock, more makeup than a Miss America pageant, more camp than Ed Wood. And remember: ‘Glamour first, glamour last, glamour always!'”

Watch the trailer.
Monday, February 1 at 8 p.m. at Acre 121.

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Also on screen this weekend, the 25th Annual Rosebud Film Festival. See my preview here for more info.