Popcorn & Candy is DCist’s selective and subjective guide to some of the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week.
—
Royalty Hightower (Oscilloscope)Toni (Royalty Hightower), an 11-year-old tomboy who boxes at a Cincinnati gym, starts hanging out with older girls who are part of a frenetic step-dance group. While the film seems headed to a familiar and inspiring coming-of-age arc, the tense score by Danny Bensi and Saunder Jurriaans suggests otherwise, and director Anna Rose Holmer takes it in a thrillingly unexpected direction. Holmer comes from a documentary background, and The Fits is an intriguing blend of non-fiction and psychological horror, studying the girls’ dance routines with the exhilarating formal precision of cinematographer Paul Yee. Hightower, in her acting debut, turns in a remarkably restrained performance, and there isn’t a wasted frame in the movie’s taut 72 minutes. Don’t miss this one.
Watch the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at Landmark E Street Cinema.
—
Louis Koo and Wallace Chung (WellGoUSA)During a botched police sting, a would-be jewel thief (Wallace Chung) shoots himself in the head, leaving a police officer (Louis Koo) and an overworked brain surgeon (Zhao Wei) to wait out his recovery. For most of the film, prolific director Johnnie To builds great tension that to some degrees plays out like a violent hospital chamber drama, with steady handheld camerawork elegantly weaving in and out of tight emergency room spaces. Unlike To’s superb 2012 thriller Drug War, his latest falls apart in a bloody and ridiculous final act, which is too bad. For the first hour, this is the platonic ideal of the action drama. For more Johnnie To, don’t miss the upcoming Made in Hong Kong Film Festival, which includes a 3D screening of Office, To’s 2015 musical remake of Design for Living starring Chow Yun Fat.
Watch the trailer
Opens tomorrow at AMC Loews Rio
—
(Drafthouse FIlms)Filipino comedian Joey de Leon and his son Keempee star as the caped crusaders in this 1991 buddy comedy musical that Alamo Drafthouse programmer Joseph A Ziemba describes as “an alternate dimension version of the 1966 tv show with the added bonuses of foot-long mullets, ‘Paenguin’ shooting people in the face, and power ballads that help Robin to express love for his girlfriend.” Thanks to the Washington Psychotronic Film Society for bringing the best in Filipino exploitation cinema to the Nation’s Capital.
Watch the trailer.
Monday, June 27 at 8 p.m. at Smoke and Barrel.
—
Agata Kulesza and Gabriela Muskała (Kino Świat)Next week the Avalon Theatre, in conjunction with the Embassy of the Republic of Poland, launches the CinePolska film series, a showcase for recent and classic films from Poland. These Daughters of Mine stars Agata Kulesza, the striking lead from the 2013 drama Ida, as a telenovela actor who has a volatile relationship with her sister (Gabriela Muskała) that is further tested when their parents fall ill. Director Kinga Dębska based this comedy drama on her attempts to cope with her parents’ illness.
Watch the trailer.
Wednesday, June 29 at 8 p.m. at the Avalon.
—
Michael Jai WhiteSongByrd Music House gets into the cult movie spirit next week as it hosts the monthly party from Shaolin Jazz, which fosters the connection between hip-hop and martial arts. Tuesday night’s feature is a 2009 straight-to-DVD picture starring Michael Jai White as an ex-con who gets involved with the underground fight scene in Los Angeles and runs afoul of a mob boss (Eamonn Walker) and a black market arms dealer (Julian Sands).
Watch the trailer.
Tuesday June 28th at 7 p.m. at SongByrd Music House.
—
Also opening this week, Elle Fanning is young and vulnerable fashion model in The Neon Demon, a stylish new film from Nicolas Winding Refn, director of Drive. We’ll have a full review tomorrow. Don’t miss our guide to AFI Docs, running through this weekend, and stay tuned next week for the DCist interview with director Werner Herzog.
