Popcorn & Candy is DCist’s selective and subjective guide to some of the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week.
Emilia Clarke (Momentum Pictures)
A young nurse (Emilia Clarke) is hired to help a mute heir (Edward Dring) in a remote castle in Tuscany in this atmospheric period piece from director Eric D. Howell, who got his start on special effects and stunts on films like The Mighty Ducks and Mallrats. Slant writes that the film spends so much time on “stylistic window dressing and inchoate narrative conceits that it loses all sense of emotional immediacy and compassion for those effected by grief.” But Comingsoon may be onto something when it compares this Gothic slow burn to pulpy marriages of Henry James with exploitation king Roger Corman.
Watch the trailer.
Opens Tomorrow at Angelika Pop-up.
(The Orchard)
JEREMIAH TOWER: THE LAST MAGNIFICENT
Chef Jeremiah Tower was an influential figure in the California cuisine of the 1970s, with successful restaurants in Berkeley and San Francisco. But he walked away from the scene for two decades only to resurface in the unlikely venue of New York City’s Tavern on the Green. Talking heads Mario Batali, Anthony Bourdain, Ruth Reichl, and Martha Stewart help chart the career of the first celebrity chef. Read a full review on SFist.
Watch the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at Landmark E Street Cinema
(India Today)
From director S. S. Rajamouli, whose 2012 musical fantasy Eega is the best reincarnated-as-a-fly film you will ever see on Netflix (and one of my favorite movies of that year) , comes this mythological Tollywood (the Telegu movie industry) blockbuster that has been compared to the Lord of the Rings, but awesomer, and Times of India calls it their “Ben Hur and Ten Commandments rolled into one.” Big-budget Indian films like this usually only play the far suburbs, but you can see this one just across the D.C. line at the Regal Majestic.
Watch the trailer.
Now playing at Regal Majestic, Regal Ballston, AMC Hoffman, Smithsonian Airbus IMAX, and other area theaters.
(Argot Pictures)
DON’T THINK I’VE FORGOTTEN: CAMBODIA’S LOST ROCK & ROLL
Politics and pop music often intersect, but in the aftermath of the Khmer Rouge, the stars of Cambodian’s golden rock ‘n’ roll era were particularly devastated—in fact, many of them were killed. The AFI brings back this powerful documentary that was one of my favorite movies of 2015. In my Spectrum Culture review of the film, I wrote that it’s “more than a music documentary. It preserves the memory of musicians who paid the ultimate price for making people dance.” Fortunately, Cambodian pop music may seem less lost than ever; last weekend’s Record Store Day release slate included a 7″ single by Sinn Sisamouth & Ros Serey Sothea, victims of Pol Pot’s rise to power whose music is now finding a second life.
Watch the trailer.
Saturday, April 29 and Sunday, April 30 at the AFI Silver.
Eggs (Faith and John Hubley, 1970). Courtesy Hubley Studio, Inc.
A UNIVERSE INSIDE OUT: HUBLEY ANIMATION
This weekend, the National Gallery of Art presents three programs of hand-drawn animation created by two generations of the Hubley family over the course of half a century. John and Faith Hubley built their worlds around classic jazz by Ella Fitzgerald and Dizzy Gillespie, but would also take as their starting point improvised dialogue of their children. Emily Hubley, who has produced animation for Nickelodeon, Lifetime, and John Cameron Mitchell’s Hedwig and the Angry Inch, will appear at all screenings.
Faith and John: Shorts from the Hubley Studio screens Saturday, April 29 at 2 p.m. Faith Hubley: Legends and Other Personal Stories screens Saturday, April 29 at 3:30 p.m. Continuity: Works by Emily screens Sunday, April 30 at 4 p.m. Free. At the National Gallery of Art’s East Building Auditorium.
(Horrorpedia)
The Man from U.N.C.L.E.‘s David McCallum and vicious dogs; what else do you need? The Washington Psychotronic Film Society offers the best in When Animals Attack entertainment with a screening of this 1976 film from Burt Brinkerhoff, who went on to direct episodes of Alf and Seventh Heaven.
Watch the trailer.
Monday, May 1 at 8 p.m. at Smoke and Barrel.
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Also opening this week, the documentary Finding Oscar looks at the aftermath of a 1982 massacre that wiped out nearly an entire village in Guatemala. Also stay tuned for a preview of a program on the Hollywood blacklist at the Avalon Theatre. And don’t miss our guide to FilmFest DC 2017, which wraps up this weekend.
