Popcorn & Candy is DCist’s selective and subjective guide to some of the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week.
—
David Bowie in THE MAN WHO FELL TO EARTH (February 20 at 9 p.m.))The AFI Silver’s repertory calendar starts up again this weekend with several new series, including Leading Men of Hollywood’s Golden Age, an homage to legendary Hollywood production designer William Cameron Menzies, the continuation of the Iranian Film Festival, and a three-film tribute to the late David Bowie. Also new at the Silver this week, a one-time only screening of the street art documentary Wall Writers: Graffiti in its Innocence (February 19 at 7 p.m.), a special book event and Q&A with director Roger Gastman and graffiti artists Taki 183, Mike 171, SJK 171, Lewis, and more.
Watch the trailer for Wall Writers.
Check out the AFI’s new calendar here or look for it in today’s Washington Post Express.
—
Yun LinA businessman whose latest project has wreaked havoc on the ocean falls in love with the mermaid sent to kill him. Director Stephen Chow’s last movie was the insane martial arts fantasy Journey to the West, and despite the fact that The Mermaid is currently the number one movie in China, it’s rolling out stateside with nary a peep. The movie wasn’t available to preview, but sight unseen I bet it’s one of the most entertaining movies in town and the dedicated cineaste
Watch the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at AMC Loews Rio Cinemas, Gaithersburg, and Regal Rockville Center.
—
Katie Holmes and Luke Kirby (Roadside Attractions)Kay Redfield Jamison’s book Touched with Fire surveys the ages-old connection between the artist and the madman. Writer-director Paul Dalio, who has suffered from bipolar disorder, takes Jamison’s title for a movie that’s essentially a mental ward Nicholas Sparks joint. Katie Holmes and Luke Kirby star as bipolar poets who meet at a psychiatric treatment center and fuel each others’ manic episodes, Van Gogh’s “Starry Night” swirling around them. If that sounds maudlin, it is—and cloying, and precious, and borderline insufferable. The portrayal of mental illness can be a blessing and a curse for actors from The A Team to Infinitely Polar Bear, and if Holmes by her very nature manages not to overact, the same can’t be said for Kirby. Touched with Fire makes manic-depression look for the most part like a magical, romantic fugue state, which is a grave disservice to the struggles of the mentally ill artists that Jamison wrote about.
Watch the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at E Street Landmark Cinema and AMC Shirlington
—
Yor, The Hunter from the Future
Next week the Washington Psychotronic Film Society brings you this 1983 Italo-Turkish adventure-fantasy directed by Antonio Margheriti (Flesh for Frankenstein, Cannibal Apocalypse). The psychotronic programmers write, “Reb Brown (Space Mutiny, Howling II: … Your Sister Is a Werewolf), is Yor, a smug, strapping young warrior who seeks the secret of his identity, his only clue a golden medallion. His quest eventually leads him to an ill-advised Star Wars knockoff. Along the way, he fights robots, cavemen, mummies and dinosaurs, destroys entire villages, falls from a cliff, goes hang gliding, hooks up with Corinne Clery (Moonraker, The Story of O) and fulfills the standard-issue hero prophecy. Yor, he’s the man!” Note that this week’s screening will be downstairs at Smoke and Barrel.
Watch the trailer.
Monday, February 22 at 8 p.m. at Smoke & Barrel, 2471 18th St. NW
—
Also opening this week, two sets of exiles: former priests, in Best Foreign Language Film nominee The Club; and 17th century pilgrims, in the demonic horror movie The Witch. We’ll have full reviews tomorrow.,
