Capital Projections: Working-class 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.
SUPPORT THE GIRLS
Lisa (Regina Hall) is the general manager at Double Whammies, a Texas sports bar that evokes Hooters in everything but the name. She’s the beloved boss of a group of women in their 20s, including star employee Maci (Haley Lu Richardson) and single mother Danielle (Shayna McHayle). When a former employee injures an abusive boyfriend, Lisa recruits the girls for a car wash to raise money for legal fees, but the restaurant’s owner (James LeGros) may put an end to that. In other hands, this would be a cheap exploitation comedy, but director Andrew Bujalski — who outgrew his mumblecore roots with the dry 2015 comedy Results — pulls off a character study that feels like something out of ‘70s independent American cinema. Hall holds down the fort as Lisa, remaining as steady as she can in such a difficult work environment. Meanwhile, Richardson’s role seems to play off her breakthrough performance in last year’s Columbus, as a high school senior ready to make life and career choices (what if that character had chosen this life?). Bujalski sensitively depicts working-class struggles and domestic strife, letting relationships unfold naturally and resisting the easy triumphant moment for a wonderfully observed drama.The trailer reduces the movie to beats and slogans (that’s what trailers are for), but the patient and generous way it all plays out is so real that you’d be happy to set Bujalski loose anywhere in America and see what drama he finds.
Watch the trailer.
Opens today at Landmark E Street Cinema.
JULIET, NAKED
In his 1995 novel High Fidelity (and later in the popular film adaptation), Nick Hornby related the misadventures of a 30-something record store owner, marking the author as the conflicted conscience of music obsessives and arrested adolescents everywhere. So it makes sense that the leading men of this new comedy-drama, adapted from Hornby’s 2009 novel, seem like they have been forcibly dragged into adulthood out of that vinyl-obsessed milieu. Rose Byrne stars as Annie, a museum curator stuck in an unfulfilling relationship with Duncan (Chris O’Dowd). Duncan, you see, runs the fan page for singer-songwriter Tucker Crowe (Ethan Hawke), who has become a recluse since releasing his last album more than 20 years ago. Annie has long been overshadowed by Duncan’s fanboy obsession with Tucker, but when Annie strikes up an unexpected correspondence with the musician, sparks fly. In my Spectrum Culture review, I wrote that the movie “would seem to be the latest chapter in a series of rom-com bad relationship choices, but its leads are winning enough to make you want these two lost souls to get together.”
Watch the trailer.
Opens today at Landmark E Street Cinema, Landmark Bethesda Row and Angelika Mosaic.
THE THIRD MURDER
Director Hirokazu Kore-Eda (Like Father, Like Son) opens this legal thriller with elements familiar to fans of his heart-wrenching domestic dramas: patient, graceful camerawork and a haunting score. But the brutal murder it depicts is a far cry from such favorites as After Life. Misumi (Koji Yakusho of The Eel), who was convicted of a double-murder 30 years before, confesses to this crime, and what follows is an uncharacteristically dry slog that only occasionally lends itself to the director’s favored themes of loss and family conflict. Well-crafted as always and with a strong cast, The Third Murder just doesn’t resonate like Kore-Eda’s best work, but not to worry — he won the Palme D’Or at Cannes for his latest, Shoplifters, so all will be well and bittersweet before long.
Watch the trailer.
Opens today at Landmark West End Cinema.
THE SERPENT’S EGG
The AFI Silver’s celebration of Ingmar Bergman’s 100th birthday nears its home stretch with rare screenings of this 1977 drama set in post-World War I Berlin. The director’s second English-language production starred David Carradine as an unemployed circus acrobat living in Germany and Liv Ullman as his widowed sister-in-law. Notwithstanding the director’s pedigree, the movie does not have a good reputation. Roger Ebert wrote, “Bergman strains for impact, giving us scenes obviously meant to be forewarnings of the Nazi genocide, the death camps, and their witch doctors. … He hurls himself at this material, using excesses of style and content we’ve never seen from him before, but the subject defeats him.” Still, completists may have to wait a long time before they get another chance to see this on the big screen.
Watch the trailer.
Saturday, Aug. 25, at 11 a.m. and Wednesday, Aug. 29, at 7:05 p.m. at the AFI Silver. $10 to $13.
(UCLA Film and Television Archive)
THE PLASTIC DOME OF NORMA JEAN
The proliferation of streaming movie services can make it seem like we live in a cinematic dreamworld in which everything is available on demand, but that is simply not the case. Fortunately, dedicated film archives work diligently to rescue forgotten films from oblivion, and the repertory film screenings at institutions such as the National Gallery of Art offer not only established classics but also rare titles that are unlikely to turn up online. In that spirit, the series “From Vault to Screen: UCLA Festival of Preservation” presents a 35mm print of director Juleen Compton’s 1966 Ozark indie. The film was the first feature for Sam Waterston, the only recognizable name in a cast of unknowns. Norma Jean (Sharon Henesy) is a clairvoyant girl who falls in with a rock band that turns her abilities into a roadside attraction. If you want to know how the polar bear suit factors in, you won’t want to miss this screening. The National Gallery will also screen Compton’s 1965 feature Stranded (Aug. 25 at 2 p.m.).
The Plastic Dome of Norma Jean screens Saturday, Aug. 25, at 4 p.m. at the National Gallery of Art’s East Building Auditorium. Free.
(Lowndes Prods/Kobal/REX/Shutterstock)
TOOMORROW
Before she became the star of Grease and Xanadu — and even before the string of ‘70s hits that inspired the heartfelt tribute album by Juliana Hatfield — English-Australian singer Olivia Newton-John starred in this science fiction rock musical about a pop group whose music causes vibrations that may save an alien race. Co-producer Don Kirshner, the impresario responsible for The Monkees, was hoping for a repeat of that fabricated magic, but upon its 1970 release the movie played for only a week and was shelved, not to be seen for more than 40 years. Read more about Toomorrow at The A.V. Club, and thank the Washington Psychotronic Film Society for the screening.
Watch a clip.
Monday, Aug. 27, at 8 p.m. at Smoke and Barrel. Free.
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