Capital Projections: Holiday love edition
Capital Projections is The DC Line’s selective and subjective guide to some of the most interesting arthouse and repertory screenings in the coming week.
IF BEALE STREET COULD TALK
In this sumptuous love story, young sculptor Fonny (Stephan James) is separated from his fiancée Tish (KiKi Layne) when he is sent to jail for a crime he didn’t commit. The timing could not be worse; Tish is pregnant with his child. Director Barry Jenkins (Moonlight) adapted James Baldwin’s 1974 novel for this exquisitely photographed tale of 1970s Harlem. With a gently swooning score by Nicholas Britell, If Beale Street Could Talk paints its central figures as tragic icons, but their love is painted with broad, all-but-mythological strokes. The less lovestruck characters who surround them, such as Fonny’s volcanic Bible-thumping mother (Aunjanue Ellis), are more practical — and frankly, more interesting. The movie’s primary concern is the injustice of Fonny’s lot, but the movie seems most true to life when it depicts the conflict that ensues when the young lovers’ families (particularly Tish’s mother, played by Regina King) get together to figure out what to do about their situation.
Watch the trailer.
Opens Monday, Dec. 24, at the Landmark E Street Cinema, Landmark Bethesda Row and Angelika Mosaic. $12.50.
AMATEUR ON PLASTIC
Wearing a stage outfit of snakeskin boots and big sunglasses, Byron Henry “Butch” Willis, born and raised in Beltsville, Maryland, looked like a rockabilly singer. But his unhinged music was so out of left field it made even his one-time roommate — local rock legend Foster MacKenzie III (aka Root Boy Slim) — seem like a stuffed suit. Local indie rocker and TeenBeat records founder Mark Robinson, one of Willis’ former managers, directed this loving homage to Beltsville’s homegrown outsider rock star. Robinson will premiere his film at The Black Cat next week, and he will appear for a Q&A afterward with members of Willis’ bands The Rocks and D Flat. Read more about Willis and the film at the Washington City Paper.
Watch the trailer.
Wednesday, Dec. 26, at 7:30 p.m. at the Black Cat. $10.
DIAL CODE SANTA CLAUS
With inventive, disorienting camera angles that cleverly evoke a child’s anxiety, this 1989 French thriller recounts the Christmas Eve misadventures of Thomas (Alain Musy), a Rambo-obsessed kid who lives in a fairy-tale-like mansion with his single mother and frail grandfather. Thomas uses a primitive form of an internet chat room to taunt a man he thinks is Santa Claus. Unfortunately, his electronic correspondent turns out to be an opportunistic psychopath, and with Thomas’ mother working late at the office, the boy is left to fend for himself when a white bearded intruder comes a-knocking. Made a year before Home Alone and a likely influence on its plot, this darkly violent holiday picture was frequently bootlegged but never got an official U.S. release until this year. Seeing this film — also known as Game Over and 3615 code Père Noël — is like discovering a previously unknown corner of the ’80s fueled by Sylvester Stallone, The Shining and synth drums.
Watch the trailer.
Friday, Dec. 21, at 10 p.m. at the AFI Silver Theatre. $13.
DIE HARD
‘Tis the season for annual arguments over whether or not Bruce Willis’ 1988 blockbuster breakthrough is a Christmas movie. Set on Christmas Eve, it follows NYPD officer John McClane (Willis), who’s trying to patch things up with his estranged wife (Bonnie Bedelia) and shows up at her company’s holiday party. When a group of German terrorists led by Alan Rickman take over the event — and the skyscraper where it’s being hosted — McClane gets a chance to earn more than just a domestic redemption. Die Hard has become a staple of holiday repertory screenings, and this weekend you have your choice of seeing a 35mm print at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History or a digital restoration at the AFI Silver Theater.
Watch the trailer.
Screens in 35mm on Saturday, Dec. 22, at 3 p.m. at the Smithsonian’s National Museum of American History in the Warner Bros. Theater. $10. Screens digitally on Friday, Dec. 21, at 9:25 p.m.; Saturday, Dec. 22, at 4:15 and 9:45 p.m.; Sunday, Dec. 23, at 9:25 p.m.; and Monday, Dec. 24, at 9:25 p.m. at the AFI Silver Theatre. $13.
GARRY WINOGRAND: ALL THINGS ARE PHOTOGRAPHABLE
This informative documentary about New York-based street photographer Garry Winogrand had a brief commercial run earlier this year. If you missed it then, the National Gallery of Art gives you another chance to catch it — for free. As I wrote in my Spectrum Culture review: “Winogrand (1928-1984) was an unusually physical shutterbug; he was known to run across the street, ignoring traffic just to line up a promising shot. He would jockey into position for his angled compositions, almost as if he were dancing with his prey, especially with wide-angle lenses that require one to get closer to a subject. As suits its own subject … [the movie] is more dynamic than your typical study of the still image. If the available film and video footage doesn’t quite show him dancing, his body of work attests to a mobility that was stilled all too soon.”
Watch the trailer.
Sunday, Dec. 23, at 2 p.m. at the National Gallery of Art in the East Building Auditorium. Free.
BAYAYA
Born to a family of toymakers, Czech artist Jiří Trnka (1912–1969) made films for a generation that was still familiar with a thriving, traditional theater scene that featured vividly designed marionettes. This 1950 film, based on a 19th-century fairy tale, is populated with Trnka’s fantastical designs of knights, damsels and dragons. The National Gallery of Art’s series of Trnka’s films, which runs through Saturday, Dec. 29, is another example of the gift this institution bestows on its patrons. This past spring, New York movie audiences were treated to Trnka’s complete works at a series of paid screenings at Lincoln Center; now, patient audiences in DC have the chance to see this animator’s work for free.
Watch a trailer for the series.
Saturday, Dec. 22, at 2 p.m. at the National Gallery of Art in the East Building Auditorium. Free.
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