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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Kristoffer Joner (Magnolia Pictures)The Norwegian town of Geiranger sits at the foot of a mountain, its base subtly shifting with the pressure of waters underneath. As if mocking the eternal human quest for leisure, this site of a potentially cataclysmic natural disaster is a popular tourist spot. Kristian (Kristoffer Joner, who looks like Norman Reedus crossed with Kevin Bacon) is a geologist who leaves his perch at the town’s seismic warning center, but he has a funny feeling that the latest data bodes ill. Norway’s entry into the Oscar Best Foreign Film race is eco-disaster porn for the arthouse set; it’s beautifully photographed, and when the inevitable disaster finally hits, you can forgive the unimpressive CGI tsunami (admittedly diminished by the online screener I watched). But there’s something to be said for American disaster movie tropes—as cliched and predictable as San Andreas was, it was a lot more entertaining.
Watch the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at E Street Landmark Cinema.
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The best gag in the movie.A few weeks ago I told you that the number one movie in China was about to hit the Washington area, but with nary a peep from its distributor. Thanks to popular demand, director Stephen Chow’s 3D eco-rom-com is coming to Landmark Theaters. Unfortunately, now that I’ve seen it, this production is better as a story about movie distribution than it is as an actual movie. Evil businessman Liu Xuan (Chao Deng) wreaks havoc on oceanfront property, creating a machine that emits sealife-obliterating sonar waves around an idyllic island paradise. (Maybe I don’t understand the real estate market in that part of China, but wouldn’t such natural wonders be considered an asset?) Anyway, quirky mermaid Shan (Jelly Lin) is sent to murder the businessman, but they fall in love. Chow’s last movie was the martial arts fantasy Journey to the West, which was insane and fairly wonderful. But the humans are unusually mean, and I didn’t find any of the half-man, half sea creatures appealing (in design or character), which makes it hard to root for their survival. Chow loves over-the-top CGI, and while it worked in his last movie, it doesn’t here. In fact, his best gag is the cheapest, when a pair of bungling police officers attempt an artist’s rendering of a half-woman, half fish.
Watch the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at Landmark Atlantic Plumbing
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Future television mainstays James Mitchell and Ricardo MontalbanThe Old Greenbelt Theater cranks up its 35mm projectors twice this weekend for very different fare. Saturday morning, the art deco venue screens a print of the 1937 family classic Heidi. Sunday, the theater launches a film noir series with a print of a film from director Anthony Mann. Although it was made in 1949, the film is as timely as ever. Ricardo Montalban, decades before Fantasy Island, stars as a federal agent who tries to break up a gang that exploits Mexican farmworkers, smuggling them into California and killing them before they can go home. Cinematographer John Alton was one of the greats of film noir. University of Maryland Professor Jonathan Auerbach will lead a post-show discussion.
Watch the trailer.
Sunday, March 6 at 3:30 p.m. at the Old Greenbelt Theatre.
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Renée Adorée and John GilbertThe AFI’s series Leading Men of Hollywood’s Golden Age continues this weekend with perennial favorites starring Humphrey Bogart (The Big Sleep and High Sierra on March 4), and this less frequently revived silent drama starring John Gilbert. King Vidor directed this epic of the Great War in which a businessman’s son (Gilbert) who fights in the European theater falls for a French woman (Renée Adorée). Gilbert was a silent movie idol who reportedly fell out of favor when talking pictures arrived due to a squeaky voice unbefitting of a silver screen hunk, but when you hear him speak in talkies like Queen Christina, you may suspect his voice got a bum rap. The film will be screened in a DCP with live musical accompaniment by Michael Britt.
Saturday, March 5 at 1 p.m. at the AFI Silver.
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MY NEIGHBOR TOTORO (March 5 and 6 at Landmark Bethesda Row)The Studio Ghibli Collection
It’s time for Landmark’s annual survey of films from Studio Ghibli, the Japanese animation studio founded by Hayao Miyazaki. While previous iterations of this program gave E Street Landmark a chance to get some regular use out of its 35mm projectors, this year’s offerings unfortunately include just one print (Pom Poko, March 19-20). Still, it’s a treat to be able to see these lushly animated films again (or for the first time!) on the big screen. This weekend’s features are Kiki‘s Delivery Service (1989) and Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind (1984) at E Street; and Castle in the Sky (1986) and My Neighbor Totoro (1988) at Bethesda Row. And don’t miss director Isao Takahata’s 1991 masterpiece Only Yesterday, still playing at E Street.
On weekends from March 5-April 10 at E Street Landmark Cinema and Landmark Bethesda Row.
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Next week, the Washington Psychotronic Film Society brings you vintage eco-horror with this 1971 sci-fi slimer. The Psychotronic curators write, “After marine biologists … discover a new type of octopus in Mexico, the locals spot a not-at-all camera-shy humanoid octopus creature co-designed by Rick Baker (Star Wars: A New Hope, Men in Black. [A] carny funds an expedition for the duo, intent on capturing the beast and making it a star! After bitch-slapping, strangling, and stabbing folk with its tentacles, Octaman gets the hots for Pier Angeli. Will their relationship survive? Or will it just dry up?”
Watch the trailer.
Monday, March 7 at 8 p.m. at 2471 18th St. NW
