Popcorn & Candy is DCist’s selective and subjective guide to some of the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week.
Keanu Reeves and friend (Niko Tavernise/Lionsgate)
Keanu Reeves is back as the unstoppable killing machine in this intensely violent, highly entertaining sequel to the 2014 film. Director Chad Stahelsk is a former stuntman, and in the latest installment of what one hopes will be a continuing franchise, he’s developed better pacing for this stylish one-man mayhem. Forget plot; this movie is largely stripped down to magnificent set pieces, features for brutally choreographed car chases, hand-to-hand combat, and gunplay that gets increasingly cartoonish but never lets up on thrills. Dialogue is at a minimum in a world were communication is mainly achieved through hot metal (and, oddly, rotary phones and typewritten missives), but Derek Kolstad’s script has an austere humor and a surprising muse in Reeves, who has developed a mid-career knack for delivering morally appalling lines with a dry hilarity. In The Neon Demon it was “Real Lolita shit.” Here it’s simply, “I’ll kill them all!” Like the first film, this blood-soaked opera features a dog, but —spoiler alert—this time he’s okay. The first John Wick was the best action movie of 2014; this one’s even better.
Watch the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at a theater near you.
From “Watani, My Homeland” (Shorts HD)
With the Oscars coming in a few weeks, moviegoers who want to catch up on all the nominees can see the nominated short films in four programs at Landmark Theatres this weekend. This year’s animated entries are for the most part visually strong, but with the possible exception of Disney’s “Piper,” the scripts are particularly maudlin and overwritten. More promising are the live action and documentary programs, the latter of which features “Watani, My Homeland,” about the Syrian refugee crisis. For even more shorts, check out DC Shorts Wins!, featuring the best of the annual film festival.
Animation and Live Action programs open tomorrow at Landmark E Street Cinema. Two different Documentary programs open tomorrow at Landmark West End Cinema
Ian Holm, Sigourney Weaver, Tom Skerritt, and John Hurt (Twentieth Century Fox)
ALIEN in IMAX
Last week the world mourned the loss of veteran stage and screen actor John Hurt, whose performances frequently gave him a chance to live up to his name. Hurt’s supporting role of Kane in Ridley Scott’s 1979 masterpiece may not have earned much screen time, but his vivid exit remains one of the most iconic scenes in science fiction. This weekend the National Air and Space Museum offers a double bill of Alien and its 1986 sequel Aliens to the huge screen of the Lockheed Martin IMAX Theater.
Watch the trailer.
Sunday, February 12 at 4 p.m. at The National Air and Space Museum. Buy tickets for the double feature here.
(Aga Khan Museum)
Reseeing Iran: 21st Annual Iranian Film Festival continues this weekend with this 1992 film from director Abbas Kiarostami. A father and son search for two young boys that may have perished in a 1990 earthquake. This is the second film in what is known as the Koker trilogy, after the Northern Iranian village where the films take place: the father and son are seeking two boys from the director’s 1987 film Where is the Friend’s Home?. Also screening this weekend, the third part of the trilogy, 1994’s Through the Olive Trees (February 12 at 1:15 p.m.), in which an actor playing Kiarostami casts amateur actors for a film called Life, and Nothing More…
Watch the trailer.
Life, and Nothing More screens Saturday, February 11 at 1:15 p.m. at the AFI Silver.
(Twentieth Century Fox)
The Mary Pickford Theatre at the Library of Congress continues its series of titles selected for the National Film Registry screenings with a new 35mm print of the 1940 swashbuckling classic directed by Rouben Mamoulian. Tyrone Power stars as the masked swordsman who lays waste to 19th century Spanish oppressors.
Thursday, February 16 at 7 p.m. at the Mary Pickford Theatre, third floor of the Madison Building, Library of Congress. Free. Seating is on a first-come first-serve basis. Doors open at 6:30 pm.
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Also opening this week, cinema hits what might be peak merchandising with The Lego Batman movie. We’ll have a full review tomorrow.
