Popcorn & Candy is DCist’s selective and subjective guide to some of the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week.
Menashe Lustig and Ruben Niborski (Federica Valabrega/A24)
Menashe (Menashe Lustig) always seems to be doing something wrong. He struggles to make ends meet as a grocery clerk. He mourns the death of his wife Lea and longs to regain custody of their son Reiven, who has been staying with Lea’s brother since his mother’s passing. Menashe is a single father screw-up in a very particular environment: the Hasidic community of Borough park, Brooklyn. The first film made in Yiddish in decades, this feature debut from director Joshua Z. Weinstein, who previously specialized in documentaries, is based in part on Lustig’s own life. Menashe immerses you in a culture that’s even more orthodox than that of The Women’s Balcony, and it’s quiet observation of old traditions is more engaging, thanks to Lustig’s sympathetic, naturalistic performance.
Watch the trailer.
Opens today at Landmark Bethesda Row, Cinema Arts Theatre, and AMC Shirlington 7.
Sadie Sink, Charlie Shotwell, Woody Harrelson, Ella Anderson, Naomi Watts, and Eden Grace Redfield (Jake Giles Netter/Lionsgate)
Jeannette Walls’ 2005 memoir about growing up poor comes to intermittent life in this drama from director Destin Daniel Cretton (who made the terrific Short Term 12). Woody Harrelson and Naomi Watts star as the wildly dysfunctional parents with a litter of kids, out of which rises a functional New York columnist (Brie Larson). Reviews are mixed; The Village Voice measures its praise, writing that the film, “just often enough bursts to raucous life.” But The Boston Globe warns that it “falls back on predictable storytelling beats and easy ironies.” Still, watching the versatile Harrelson play an alcoholic father sounds like it would be worth the price of admission .Stay tuned for a full review from SFist.
Watch the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at Landmark Atlantic Plumbing, Landmark Bethesda Row, ArcLight Bethesda, iPic PIke and Rose, and AMC Tysons Corner.
Omar Sharif (Collection Musée Gaumont)
The National Gallery of Art’s series Gaumont at 120: Twelve Unseen Treasures continues this weekend with a 35mm print of Polish director Andrzej Wajda’s 1988 adaptation of Dostoyevsky’s The Possessed (or The Devils). The movie’s impressive cast includes Omar Sharif and Isabelle Huppert, but Films de France writes, “although Wadja manages to capture—quite brilliantly—the sense of hysteria and self-deception which is so evident in Dostoyevsky’s writing, he is less successful at weaving a coherent narrative with credible characters.”
Watch a clip.
Sunday, August 13 at 4 p.m. at the National Gallery of Art, East Building Auditorium. Free.
(Universal-International, 1955)
Aliens kidnap human scientists to help them prepare for battle against bug-eyed monsters. In 1955, the New York Times wrote that, “the technical effects of … Universal’s first science-fiction excursion in color are so superlatively bizarre and beautiful that some serious shortcomings can be excused.” Still, the film went on to become a MST3K favorite. The Mary Pickford Theatre’s monthly repertory series presents a 35mm Technicolor print of this sci-fi classic, which means you can expect vividly colored monsters that will invade your dreams.
Watch the trailer.
Wednesday, August 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.
(Old Greenbelt Theatre)
To commemorate the 40th anniversary of the day that Elvis left the building, the Mid-Atlantic Regional Moving Image Archive combed through its recently acquired haul of footage from Baltimore television station WJZ-TV and picked out King-related material to digitize for this special one-night only event. As MARMIA explains, “these videos have not been seen since they were first aired in the 1970s and 1980s!” Celluloid junkies note, the event will kick off with a 35mm Technicolor trailer for the 1962 Elvis vehicle Follow That Dream, print courtesy of the National Archives.
Wednesday, August 16 at 8 p.m. at the Old Greenbelt Theatre, 129 Centerway, Greenbelt.
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Also opening this weekend, Annabelle: Creation looks at the origins of the creepy doll from The Conjuring…and it’s crawling down your back! We’ll have a full review tomorrow.
