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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Marcia McBroom, Dolly Read and Cynthia MeyersValley of the Dolls and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls
Young women’s dreams of stardom play out in two wildly different and highly entertaining classics on a special double bill at the AFI Silver Saturday night. Based on the novel by Jacqueline Susann, Valley of the Dolls (1967) stars Patty Duke, Sharon Tate, and Barbara Parkins as Broadway ingenues who fall victim to the usual industry vices of booze, pills, and exploitation movies that Duke rails against in a campy outburst of “Boobies! Boobies! Boobies!” Director Russ Meyer’s 1970 comedy Beyond the Valley of the Dolls was more spoof than sequel, following an all-female rock trio (Dolly Read, Cynthia Meyers and Marcia McBroom) taken under the wind of sideburn-donning impresario Ronnie “Z-Man” Barzell (John Lazar). I first saw BVD days after I turned 16 at the AFI in its Kennedy Center days (I passed up a chance to see David Bowie’s Serious Moonlight tour; it was the right choice for me). It was my first favorite movie. Its frenetic editing was the first time I noticed the craft of film-making, and Meyer’s decision to play Roger Ebert’s outrageous script completely deadpan ruined deliberate, winking camp for me forever. Note: Valley of the Dolls is a digital cinema package, but Beyond the Valley of the Dolls will be screened in a 35mm print.
Watch the trailers for Valley of the Dolls and Beyond the Valley of the Dolls.
Saturday, July 23 at 7:45 p.m. at the AFI Silver.
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Yang Zishan and Aaron Kowk (Cheng Cheng Films)A desperate gambler (Aaron Kwok) enlists a prostitute (Yang Zishan) to help him win enough money to save his life—or if not his, at least his teenage daughter’s. The first feature from Taiwanese director Matt Wu revolves around what seems to be a simple, sordid plot, but the movie’s gorgeous neo-noir visuals and constant shifts makes it play as if Wong Kar-wai had taken over the Fast and Furious franchise. It doesn’t all work, but Hong Kong pop star Kwok (a solid presence in the oddly flat Cold War 2) turns this sad sack into a compelling and sympathetic romantic crime hero.
Watch the trailer.
Opens today at AMC Loews Rio
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Yoo Gong (Well Go USA)The Walking Dead meets Murder on the Orient Express in his Korean horror-thriller about passengers stuck on a bullet train in the middle of a zombie outbreak. Director Sang-ho Yeon explains that “this is a genre that has not been fully explored in Korean cinema, and it has to contain elements of emotion and tone that aren’t felt in Hollywood films or those in the same genres.” The results sound like a mixed bag; IndieWire’s David Ehrlich writes that the film’s first 45 minutes are “genre heaven” but that “everything that made [it] so exciting begins to sludge into runaway nonsense at 200 MPH.” Still, it sounds like a perfect movie to watch while you’re waiting to find out who Negan killed.
Watch the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at Cinemark Egyptian and Rave Cinemas Fairfax
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According to NPR, One of the film’s segments is about a grocer whose son is ordered to report people selling local products, including eggs at his father’s shop. (Golden Scene)This weekend the 21st annual Made in Hong Kong Film Festival gives you a chance to catch up on the record-breaking 3D comedy The Mermaid (Saturday, July 23 at 2 p.m. at the National Museum of American History); but a better bet might be this low-budget sci-fi anthology that actually beat out Star Wars: The Force Awakens at the Hong Kong box office. Made for about $64,000, Ten Years consists of five short films by five directors, each imagining what Hong Kong will look like in 2025. It’s not pretty: the films depict indoctrination of children encouraged to spy on their parents, and a murder orchestrated by the Chinese government in order to promote toughened security. Authorities called the film “a thought virus” and banned it from mainland theaters, but executive producer Andrew Choi told NPR that, “A lot of people are saying, ‘You don’t have to wait 10 years, it’s already happening now.'”
Sunday, July 24 at 2 p.m. at the National Museum of American History’s Warner Bros. Theatre. Free.
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Robert Downey, Jr.If you’ve always wanted to see Robert Downey, Jr. play a puppy, the Washington Psychotronic Film Society has a Monday night program for you. Robert Downey Sr. directed this 1970 fantasy about 18 inmates waiting to be adopted from a dog pound. But this is no talking animal movie; the animals are played by human actors (including a brief appearance by a puppy-faced 5-year old Downey Jr.) Pound is a rarely-seen curio that isn’t up to Downey’s early successes like Putney Swope, but you may want to see it anyway.
Watch a nsfw clip.
Monday, July 25 at 8 p.m at Smoke and Barrel
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Also opening this week, Nicholas Hoult and Kristen Stewart fall in love in a world where emotions are forbidden in the sci-fi drama Equals; and one of television’s most celebrated figures is profiled in Norman Lear: Just Another Version of You. We’ll have full reviews tomorrow.
