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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(First Pond)Writer-director Benson Lee’s coming-of-age film begins with a sobering lament about the war that divided Korea and scattered its people around the world. The movie is set in 1986 at a summer camp developed to unify the children of Korean immigrants from around the world and help them reconnect to their homeland. Unfortunately, its first act is the most generic of teen comedies, populated with the usual ’80s types from Sid Vicious (Twilight‘s Justin Chon) to Madonna (Jessika Van), and even Run-D.M.C. Yet even mainstream Korean cinema can take a benign genre like the cute animal movie and turn it into something emotionally devastating like Sorry, Thanks (watch it on Hulu and try not to be horrifed). Seoul Searching eventually puts a national spin on its John Hughes template and turns into a moving drama about lost children and emotionally distant fathers. The tonal shift is so drastic it’s as if the American sex comedy tropes were an indictment of the Western influence on Korean kids around the world. Character development is played out as the kids break out of the easy stereotypes we see them in. I’m not quite sure how to parse a brawl between camp attendees and a group of tourist from Japan, set incongruously to “Hey Mickey.” But despite its flaws, there’s more to this movie than meets the mascaraed eye.
Watch the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at Angelika Pop-Up.
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The actor’s anxiety at the bus stop biddieThe Goalie’s Anxiety at the Penalty Kick
Goalkeeper Josef (Arthur Brauss) loses his way in a strange town after getting ejected from a game. The AFI launches a mini-retrospective of one of the great directors of the New German Cinema with a new DCP of Wim Wenders’ 1972 debut. The film is a Htichcockian adaptation of a novel by Peter Handke, and was shot by Wenders’ longtime cameraman Robby Müller. Upcoming titles in the series include the sprawling Kings of the Road (July 24); the Patricia Highsmith adaptation The American Friend (August 1), with one of Dennis Hopper’s finest performances; and the gorgeous American-made road movie Paris, Texas (August 22).
Watch the trailer.
Monday, July 11 at 7:00 p.m. at the AFI Silver.
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Come to Butthead (Courtesy UCLA Film & Television Archive)The National Gallery of Art’s series Recovered Treasure: UCLA Festival of Preservation with a 35mm print of director Victor Halperin’s pre-code horror classic from 1932. Bela Lugosi stars as a voodoo master who untimely rips a young woman (Madge Bellamy) from her wedding party. Shown with a 35mm print The Crime of Dr. Crespi, directed by Hungarian émigré John H. Auer and starring Erich von Stroheim as a mad scientist, which is all you need to know.
Watch the trailer for White Zombie.
Sunday, July 10 at 4:00 p.m. at the National Gallery of Art’s East Building auditorium. Free.
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Next week the Avalon Theatre’s Film in Focus series screens a thriller about a suicide at Niagara Falls that turns out to be part of a conspiracy to build an invention by Nikola Tesla. The film boasts a great cast, with Robert Forster, Matthew Broderick, Janeane Garofalo and even the original Man from U.N.C.L.E., Robert Vaughan. Director-cowriter Jenna Ricker and actor-co-writer Greg Stuhr will be on hand for a post-screening discussion.
Watch the trailer.
Wednesday, July 13 at 8 p.m. at the Avalon.
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Also opening this week: Louis C.K. and Kevin Hart are among the voice talent in The Secret Life of Pets. We’ll have a full review tomorrow.
