Critic's Pick — Holiday Classics: 'American Gangster'

The Belcourt’s upcoming screening of American Gangster pulls off the hat trick of being not only the latest Music City Mondays and Pizza and a Movie selection, but also a part of the theater’s current Holiday Classics series. After all, Ridley Scott’s fact-based 2007 crime epic — with Oscar winners Denzel Washington and Russell Crowe facing off as a Harlem drug lord and the cop who goes after him — has several scenes that take place during the holidays. Most of them go down around Thanksgiving, from Harlem gangsters giving out frozen turkeys to a Turkey Day montage that includes Josh Brolin’s dirty cop getting a live bird on his doorstep before his car explodes. Does that make it a Thanksgiving movie? Is there even such a thing? As always, it’s up for debate. But if you decide to make this nearly three-hour saga of power, drugs and bloodshed one of those seasonal comfort watches you get in this time of year, we won’t judge. 

8:10 p.m. at the Belcourt

2102 Belcourt Ave.