Popcorn & Candy is DCist’s selective and subjective guide to some of the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week.
Finn Wolfhard and friends (Warner Bros. Pictures)
As last month’s disappointing adaptation of The Dark Tower proved, Stephen King does not always translate well to the big screen. The 1990 mini-series that first visualized King’s demonic clown (Tim Curry) already has a mixed reputation; could this version from Mama director Andy Muschietti be any better? Well, the buzz is mostly positive. Although The Chicago Tribune writes that this It, “while a marked improvement on the tedious 1990 TV miniseries, has the same shortcomings as King’s original material,” The New York Times’ A. O. Scott. fondly declares that, “the filmmakers honor both the pastoral and the infernal dimensions of Mr. King’s distinctive literary vision.” Stay tuned for a full review from SFist.
Watch the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at area theaters.
Manish Dayal and Huma Qureshi (Kerry Monteen/IFC Films)
In 1947, Lord Mountbatten (Hugh Bonneville) was appointed the final Viceroy of India, charged with overseeing the nation’s transition to independence and implementing the controversial partition that created the Pakistani state. Yet Mountbatten inherited a volatile conflict, with violence among Muslms, Hindus, and Sikhs reaching horrific levels. Director Gurinder Chadha (Bend it Like Beckham) tackles this volatile historical moment with a love story between a Hindu man (Manish Dayal) and a Muslim woman (Huma Qureshi) who work in the Viceroy’s residence. The movie’s all-star cast includes Indian film legend Om Puri, reliable sophisticate Michael Gambon, and The X-Files‘ Gillian Anderson, who has becomes the kind of character actress that you can easily imagine in a classic Ealing comedy. But although the actors handle the sometimes expository dialogue with enough grace, this sweeping material is too epic to squeeze into a 105-minute drama. Be aware that the film’s fictionalized romance isn’t in the Titanic vein of a love story gratuitously stapled onto history; as a series of end-credit titles explains, Chadha’s grandmother was displaced after India was split, and was only able to reconnect with Chadha’s grandfather after 18 months apart.
Watch the trailer.
Opens tomorrow at Landmark Bethesda Row Cinema.
Zuzana Ruzickova (Getzels Gordon Productions)
In the ’60s and ’70s, Czech-born harpsichordist Zuzana Ruzickova made a series of recordings that has never been surpassed, making her the only person to record Bach’s complete keyboard works. She turned 90 this year, and that milestone and her accomplishments defy years of struggle: she spent three years in a concentration camp and suffered for decades under a Communist regime. The Washington Jewish Film Festival screens this award-winning documentary as part of the series 5777: A Year in Review, which pays homage to Jewish artists that passed away in the Hebrew calendar year 5777. This diverse, idiosyncratic programming (the best kind!) includes tributes to Leonard Cohen (McCabe and Mrs. Miller, September 14), Gene Wilder (Silver Streak, September 17), and Debbie Reynolds (The Unsinkable Molly Brown, September 16-17).
Watch the trailer.
Wednesday, September 13 at 8:30 pm at Edlavitch DCJCC, 1529 16th Street NW.
Barbara Baxley (Academy Film Archive)
The National Gallery of Art begins a series of recent restorations from Academy Film Archive with a 35mm print of this “poetic portrait of Los Angeles culture in the 1950s.” The film was assembled from documentary footage made by such cinematographers as Haskell Wexler and noted street photographer Helen Levitt, and was intercut with a fictional narrative about a divorcée (Barbara Baxley) starting fresh in the big city. Shown with short films from directors Gus Van Sant and Paul Bartel. The Gallery will also be showing a program of shorts from the late director Les Blank (Saturday, September 9 at 2 p.m.), including “Spend it All,” his essential 1971 film about Cajun music and culture.
The Savage Eye screens Saturday, September 9 at 4 p.m. at the National Gallery of Art, East Building Auditorium. Free.
(shaunvsbmovies.com)
Next week, the Washington Psychotronic Film Society asks the question, “Ever wonder what would happen if Robocop had to take on Chinese hopping vampires?” (If you’re not familiar with the latter, stay tuned for the classic Mr. Vampire, part of the E Street series Riding the Waves: Chinese Cinema from the 80s & 90s later this month.) This 1988 Hong Kong thriller follows a narc who’s killed and comes back to life as a robot assigned to kill a drug lord named Edgar Allan Poe. The WPFS has more questions: “Can not-Robocop save the day? Will the DEA agents rescue Sophie from water torture? Was a second film hastily edited into our cyborg-cop-versus-vampires film? (Yes, yes it was.) Will any of this make sense? (Nope.)”
Watch the trailer.
Monday, September 11 at 8 p.m. at Smoke and Barrel.
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Also opening this week: the sexual coming of age drama Beach Rats. We’ll have a full review tomorrow. And stay tuned next week for a preview of the AFI’s Latin American Film Fest.
