Popcorn & Candy is DCist’s selective and subjective guide to some of the coming-of-age movies playing around town in the coming week.

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Quentin Dolmaire and Lou Roy-Lecollinet (Magnolia Pictures)

My Golden Days

Director Arnaud Desplechin revisits characters he introduced in his 1996 film My Sex Life…or How I Got into an Argument with this prequel set during the 1980s when French kids reaaally liked “Atomic Dog.” Mathieu Amalric, who starred in the 1996 film, returns as Paul Dedalus and frames the new film. But the movie belongs to newcomers Quentin Dolmaire and especially Lou Roy-Lecollinet, who play younger versions of the Desplechin’s vivid romantic foils as they try to find love and their voice. Desplechin navigates this period coming-of-age melodrama with what may be surprising cultural signposts (did French kids really like “Atomic Dog” that much?), but what makes the movie so compelling is its young actors, whose travails you’ll be happy to follow.

Watch the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at Landmark Bethesda Row.

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Ursula Parker and Logan Miller

Take Me to the River

Ryder (Logan Miller) is a gay California teen who is reluctantly dragged to an extended family reunion in Nebraska. He wants to come out to his backwoods clan, but mom (Robin Weigert) urges silence. Yet Ryder’s Nebraska cousins can’t stop teasing him about his short red shorts, and when his 9-year old cousin Molly (Ursula Parker) is injured in his company, the girl’s father (Josh Hamilton) blames the red West Coaster. Writer-director Matt Sobel’s feature debut seems to mean well (though maybe not when it comes to its Midwest villains), and it has the naturalistic look of good indie cinema. But his characters’ motivations range from simply misdirected (are Nebraskans really that scandalized by red shorts? seriously?) to completely incongruous as when Molly’s hostile father suddenly learns to accept Ryder for no discernible reason. It may all make sense in Sobel’s head, but it doesn’t help that he guides his actors through barely two dimensions; Hamilton convincingly plays both intolerance and tolerance, but why?

Watch the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at E Street Landmark Cinema.

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Cary Grant

North by Northwest

This film addresses the existential crises of identity and challenges sacred American icons; it’s also one of the most entertaining movies ever made. The AFI’s homage to film composer Bernard Hermann gives you another chance to see Alfred Hitchcock’s mid-career masterpiece on the big screen (albeit in a DCP). Cary Grant stars as Roger O’ Thornhill, who by typical Hitchockian contrivance is mistaken for a man who may not really exist. Thornhill is pulled into a cross-country scheme of intrigue with cool blonde Eve (Eva Marie Saint), as this anxious road movie sends Grant through one of Hitchcock’s signature scenes—running a cornfield gauntlet from a crop duster. As many times as I’ve seen it, once I start watching North by Northwest, I can’t stop, and Hermann’s circular, neurotic score gives it the perfect air of modern unease.

Watch the trailer.
Saturday, April 2, Sunday, April 3, Tuesday April 5 and Thursday, April 7 at the AFI Silver.

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Anne Baxter and Joseph Cotten

The Magnificent Ambersons

A magnificent Midwestern family falls on hard times at the dawn of the Industrial Age. And so did the man who envisioned it. Orson Welles’ 1942 adaptation of the Booth Tarkington novel is one of the great tragedies of cinema, its original two-hour edit probably lost forever. But even in its compromised form, it’s still a masterpiece; the hobbled resolution is a cautionary metaphor for Welles’ great themes of hubris and the passage of time. The AFI celebrates Bernard Hermann with 35mm screenings of this mangled greatness (and a DCP screening of Citizen Kane on Friday night).

Watch the trailer.
Saturday, April 2 and Sunday, April 3 at the AFI Silver.

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(20th Century Fox/Photofest)

The Day the Earth Stood Still

The National Gallery of Art is also celebrating Bernard Hermann in April. This weekend, the gallery screens a 35mm print of one of the most iconic Washington films in which the city is attacked by the now seemingly-innocent appearance of a flying saucer. Hermann’s score for this 1951 film uses what was then a relatively novel electronic instrument: the theremin, which leant its eerie timbre to dozens of horror movies as well as to the Beach Boys’ anthemic single “Good Vibrations.” Musicologist Neil Lerner will appear at the screening to discuss the film and demonstrate the theremin.

Watch the trailer.
Sunday, April 3 at 4 p.m. at the National Gallery of Art, East Building Auditorium. Free.

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Also opening this weekend, Michael Shannon’s son has unusual powers in director Jeff Nichols’ sci-fi thriller Midnight Special. We’ll have a full review tomorrow.