Popcorn & Candy: Continental Drift

Posted by Tom in DC Life on 11 5th, 2009 | no responses

DCist’s highly subjective and hardly comprehensive guide to the most interesting movies playing around town in the coming week. Michelle Williams and Gael Garc�a Bernal in Lukas Moodysson’s ‘Mammoth’. 2009 AFI European Union Film Showcase Tonight is the kickoff of the AFI and the European Commission Delegation’s annual European Union Film Showcase. The festival, now in its 22nd year, collects some of the best European film from the previous year’s festival circuit, often screening some of the biggest and best foreign films of the year before they get theatrical distribution, which makes it a great opportunity to get a sneak peek at these films before they are released in the U.S. This year’s festival is no exception, with 39 films from 24 countries in the lineup. Some highlights: Lukas Moodysson’s Mammoth kicks the festival off tonight with the acclaimed Swedish director’s first English language film, a commentary on globalization starring Gael Garc�a Bernal and Michelle Williams. In one of the festival’s three Centerpiece positions is a documentary by Serge Bromberg about one of the most talked about unfinished films ever made, Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Inferno . Another centerpiece is Niels Arden Oplev’s adaptation of Stieg Larsson’s novel The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo . The last spot is occupied by Terry Gilliam’s The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus , the film that he was working on with Heath Ledger at the time of Ledger’s death. Johnny Depp, Jude Law, and Colin Farrell all stepped in to play Ledger’s role, after Gilliam rewrote it to accommodate a shape-shifting hero. And, on closing night, it’s Jean-Marc Vall�e’s British royalty period piece in which Emily Blunt plays The Young Victoria View the trailer for Mammoth , tonight’s opening night film. Opens tonight and runs through November 24 at the AFI. See the full festival schedule for details. — Found Footage Film Festival Remember that corporate training video during which you and your coworkers tried desperately not to laugh? The comically bad public access performer you happened upon while flipping channels late one night? Founded in 2004 by a writer for The Onion and a producer on The Late Show with David Letterman, the Found Footage Film Festival celebrates this kind of unintentionally hilarious video, which they discovered can be found in large quantities for low cost at flea markets, garage sales, and thrift stores across America. They’ve developed their clip collection into a touring show, with themselves as emcees and commentators, that sounds a little like a live version of America’s Funniest Home Videos if that show had ever been, you know, funny. View an example of the kind of footage they’ll be screening. Saturday at 7:15 p.m. at the Arlington Cinema & Drafthouse . $10. — Visual Acoustics Photographer

Julius Schulman passed away this past summer at the age of 98. Throughout his lengthy career, he displayed an unmatched talent for shooting buildings to showcase them in their best possible light. His work played a major role in making modernist architecture familiar to and aesthetically accessible for mainstream America. Eric Bricker’s film, narrated by Dustin Hoffman, is both a biography and a survey of Schulman’s career, and is only playing very briefly here in D.C. View the trailer . Opens tomorrow, for one week only, at E Street . — South Asian Literary and Theater Arts Festival This festival brings together authors, theater professionals and filmmakers together for a one day celebration of South Asian art. The film component of this year’s event includes screenings of two films. Harishchandra’s Factory is a new Indian film about the birth of that country’s now hugely prolific film industry in the early 20th century. The other, The Forgotten Woman , takes as its inspiration the 2006 film Water , which was a fictionalized look at the practice in India of families abandoning women after their husbands die, cutting all ties with them and even taking away their children. The Forgotten Women is a documentary treatment of the same subject, looking at the stories of real women who have been turned out on the streets of India. View the trailers for The Forgotten Woman and Harishchandra’s Factory . The festival is this Saturday at the Smithsonian’s Natural History Museum from 10 a.m. to 5:30 p.m., with a number of events over the course of the day including screenings of these two films. — The Men Who Stare at Goats By early November, Oscar season should normally be in full swing, with 8-9 weeks of prestige releases to get through before the new year. It’s odd, then, that this week’s wide releases encompass one kiddie Christmas flick , two horror/thrillers ( one I’ve seen — take my advice and stay far away; the advance reviews for the other seem to indicate that Donnie Darko director Richard Kelly’s downward spiral has no end), and this oddball comedy. The book on which The Men Who Stare at Goats is based is a non-fiction examination of over three decades of the U.S. Army’s dabbling in paranormal phenomena and psychological warfare techniques, right up to the present day. Director Grant Heslov pulls together an all-star cast, including George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges, and Kevin Spacey for a comedic take on the story of a reporter (McGregor) who stumbles upon one such psychic power experimentation operation. View the trailer . Opens tomorrow at a number of theaters throughout the area.