There are many things I love about this city, and the amount of amazing and amazingly free repertoir movies is pretty high up on the list. In fact, EVERY SINGLE day of the week can be a free movie day in DC. So, in celebration of that here is a handy guide to the best free fun to be had this week:
Monday August 27th
Albert Lamorisse movies @ Library of Congress (6.30 pm)
This is a special treat across the board, and age groups: Albert Lamorisse (1922-1970) was a Parisian photographer turned writer and filmmaker best known for his 1956 film The Red Balloon , a gorgeous Technicolor fantasy set in the streets of Paris. This charming film was a children’s film staple for decades after its release. Although it is probably the most widely seen French film of all time, it has never received a proper video release, a fate shared by Lamorisse ’s other films. This evening is a rare opportunity to see three of Lamorisse’s groundbreaking works on the big screen. (the Red Balloon, White Mane, Sowaway in the sky)
Tuesday, August 28, 2007
Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid @ Smithsonian American Art Museum (5:00 pm)
Smithsonian American Art Museum
If I can be candid (and I can): I FUCKING LOVE THIS MOVIE. I do. I really, really do. Everything about it is perfect: William Goldman wrote one of the finest, most influential scripts ever (every western/buddy movie made since owes him some royalties, in my opinion), George Roy Hill did a great job with a highly stylized story, Henry Mancini wrote "Raindrops keep falling on my head" for it, and Robert Redford and Paul Newman are so goddamn hot and funny and amazing in it, that if I was Katherine Ross, I probably would have proposed a threesome the second I laid my eyes on them.
It goes on a 5 (no one knows why they schedule the Tuesday movies so early at the Smithsonian) but sooooo worth playing hookie from work for.
Wednesday, August 29th
5 Fingers @ The Library of Congress (7 pm)
James Mason's matinee-idol looks enabled him to become one of those rare character actors whose performance could sustain a picture. By the time he played the master spy Diello, who sold military secrets to the Germans in World War II, Mason had raised urbanity to a heightened level. With every move and gesture he's the perfect valet and the perfect scoundrel. His courtship of Countess Anna, a great schemer herself, is an example of what happens when a servant tries to rise above his station
Friday, August 31st
Shane @ Rosslyn park (starts at Dusk)
This is the bonus movie that ends this summer's Hang Them High outdoor movie series of all-badass-all-the time Clint Eastwood movies. Now this is not a Clint movie but still an ace gunfight between Jack Palance and Alan Ladd (who is very, very, VERY evil in this one). The tag line says it all: There never was a man like SHANE. There never was a picture like SHANE.
Sunday, September 7th
The Blue Angel (Der blaue Engel) @ National Gallery of Art (2 pm)
Marlene Dietrich in her first iconic role as a femme fatale plays a sensual singer at the Blue Angel café. Based on Heinrich Mann's novel Professor Unrat, the opposing values of the protagonists also become a critique of modern lifestyles. The film is introduced by Peter Rollberg, chair, department of Romance, German, and Slavic Languages and Literatures, George Washington University. (Josef von Sternberg, 1930, 35mm, German with subtitles, 106 mins.
and finally
(not free but worth it)
Tuesday, August 28th
Battleship Potemkin @ The Goethe Institut (6.30 pm)
This costs 6 dollars (4 if you are a student) but what is money when you have the opportunity to see one of the most influential movies of all time on the big screen? On a A screening of the newly restored 35mm version, with an introduction and follow-up remarks by Peter Rollberg (George Washington University)? This is like a film class just waiting to be attended.
You can thank us later.
God loves a cheerful giver.
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