Popcorn & Candy is DCist’s selective and subjective guide to some of the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week.
Ryan Gosling and Emma Stone (Dave Robinette)
A struggling jazz musician (Ryan Gosling) meets a struggling actress (Emma Stone) in this musical romance from director Damien Chazelle (Whiplash). The movie is already an Oscar favorite, not least because Hollywood loves to celebrate itself. Chazelle clearly loves old musicals, and the mostly sung-through film is indeed sometimes magical in its homage to the films of Jacques Demy (Umbrellas of Cherbourg, The Young Girls of Rochefort). But a few weeks after I saw the film, I’ve already forgotten its songs, and I never felt an urgency in the film’s key romantic relationship. Chazelle originally wanted to cast Whiplash star Miles Teller and Emma Watson in the film, and while Stone improves on that casting, Gosling’s unaffected singing never finds the conversational ease that the role demands. La La Land has its breathtaking moments, but I have to wonder, where was all this musical love when Francis Ford Coppola’s consistently spectacular One from the Heart was released?
Watch the trailer.
Opens Friday at a theater near you.
Brownley Building, 1300-1304 F Street Northwest, Washington, District of Columbia, DC. Prints and Photogarphs Division, Library of Congress.
F STREET, THE PLACE ON THE RIDGE
This hour-long video documentary looks at the long history of a Washington thoroughfare that was once the area’s prime shopping corridor. Director Phil Portlock blends historic footage with street photography made in the bustling area in the early ’80s. The screening is held in conjunction with the National Building Museum exhibit District II, organized by the Historical Society of Washington, D.C. The exhibit looks at the growth and decline of downtown Washington as seen through the photographs of Bill Barrett, Chris Earnshaw, and Joseph Mills.
Thursday, December 15 at 6:30 p.m. at the Martin Luther King Memorial Library.901 G Street NW. Free.
(Jordan Freeman/Abramorama)
Co-directors Mari-Lynn C. Evans and Jordan Freeman, both of whom have made films in the Appalachians before, spent time among the coal-mining communities of West Virginia in this feature-length documentary about the economic and environmental struggles of people who feel abandoned by their leaders. RogerEbert.com writes: “The poetry of this fascinating film … comes from its seamless assembly of decades-spanning footage, which displays generations through various film formats. Whatever the time, the images of miners, their work environment and their families remain the same.”
Watch the trailer.
Opens Friday at West End Cinema
The AFI’s annual Holiday Classics series offers the usual suspects like It’s a Wonderful Life (December 17-22) and The Muppet Christmas Carol (December 17) as well as contemporary fare like Krampus (shown with Gremlins on December 19). But Christmas isn’t just about sentimental favorites. The AFI Silver is showing a digital restoration of director John McTiernan’s 1988 classic Die Hard, the first and best of a series that saw John McLane (Bruce Willis) develop from an heroic ordinary Joe trying to get home on Christmas to an arrogant hot dog to a washed up shell of a man to an actor who should know when enough is enough. See one of the great action movies on the big screen.
Watch the trailer.
December 20 and 22 at the AFi Silver.
Bistro Bohem’s monthly Film and Beer series continues next week with this 1957 Czech fairytale about a soldier who descends into hell to rescue the souls of two women. The soldier (Josef Bek) is challenged to a game of cards with Lucius, the devil—the same year that Max von Sydow played chess with death in The Seventh Seal. Coincidence?
December 20 at 7 p.m. at Bistro Bohem. Free, but reservations required. Call 202/735-5895 or email bistrobohem@gmail.com. Guests must arrive by 6:45 pm to keep their reservation.
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Also opening this week, a little movie called Rogue One. We’ll have a full review tomorrow.
