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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(GKIDS)

April and the Extraordinary World

French scientists are on the verge of perfecting a powerful serum. Yet they only get as far as creating talking animals before Emperor Napoleon cracks down on any research that doesn’t serve the Empire. But young April (the voice of Marion Cotillard) and her talking cat Darwin (Philippe Katerine) may be on to something in this inventive animated feature. Adapting the graphic novel by Jacques Tardi, first-time directors Christian Desmares and Franck Ekinci create a darkly magical alternative history where the world’s great scientists disappear, leaving 1940s Paris stuck in the age of steam. The result is a steampunk Tintin in which pedal-powered dirigibles float over the city and the Eiffel Tower supports a cable-car system. This is bleak stuff, and the alternate history alone makes this a film I would not recommend for small children. But I totally recommend it for older kids and adults of all ages.

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

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(Film Colony)

Baskin

In conjunction with the Freer, Landmark’s E Street Cinema hosts two Turkish directors and their new films for Turkish Film Week. Tuesday’s film is director Can Everol’s fantasy-horror picture Baskin, about police officers who discover a Black Mass in an abandoned building. The film is getting some buzz as being truly disturbing, but the reviews are mixed. The Village Voice’s Bilge Ebiri writes that “Evrenol seems to be a filmmaker who understands character, tension, and terror. Now all he needs is some follow-through.” Everol will appear in person at the screening.

Watch the trailer.
Tuesday, April 12 at 7 p.m. at E Street Landmark Cinema.

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Kong and friend

King Kong in 35mm, hosted by Count Gore deVol

Dick Dyszel, aka Count Core DeVol, comes back to the AFI this weekend for one of his popular live Creature Feature programs—and this time he’s showing a 35mm print of one of the iconic monster movies. Director Merian Cooper’s film has become such a part of our cultural unconscious that it has been the subject of provocative and transformative art, like German artist Christophe Girardet’s video installation, “Release,” which showed a slow-motion clip from King Kong of Fay Wray writhing in terror. Still, there’s nothing like watching a print of the original on the Silver’s big main screen.

Watch the trailer.
Saturday, April 9 at 7:30 p.m. at the AFI Silver.

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No more wire hangers, Lonny.

The Unknown

Also at the AFI this weekend, AFI’s Leading Men of Hollywood’s Golden Age series continues with this Tod Browning-directed silent vehicle for Lon Chaney. The “Man of a Thousand Faces” stars as an armless sideshow performer who falls for a woman who’s afraid to be touched (a young Joan Crawford). The pair seem like a match made in circus heaven—but alas! All is not well. The AFI is screening a 35mm print with live accompaniment by pianist/composer Makia Matsumura.

Saturday, April 9 at 4 p.m. at the AFI Silver.

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The Unknown Comic and Jaye P. Morgan

Night Patrol

The Washintgton Psychotronic Film Society is settling into its new home at Smoke and Barrell this month with this 1984 police comedy starring that quintessential Psychotronic starlet, Linda Blair. In fact, this is a virtual Psychotronic all-star spectacular, co-starring Gong Show regulars The Unknown Comic and Jaye P. Morgan, Russ Meyer vixen Kitten Natividad, the salty dimunitive actor Billy Barty, and Andrew Dice Clay. WPFS programmers promise “kooky cops, gassy midgets, tough lesbians, sick humor, gross gags, gratuitous nudity: Class is dismissed.”

Watch the trailer.
Monday, April 11 at 8 p.m. at Smoke and Barrell, 2471 18th St NW.

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Also opening this week. Don Cheadle is the writer, director and star of Miles Ahead, a biopic of the volatile jazz musician Miles Davis. We’ll have a full review tomorrow.