Tuesday, July 01, 2003

[MOVIES] July & August at the indies

Okay, since I've just spent a good deal of time whining about the less-than-ideal experiences at some of Boston's mainstream theaters, let's counteract that with something I love: Looking over the programs for the next couple months at the "alternate" venues and commenting on them. My comments will be in blue. Also, note that films seperated by an ampersand are a single-admission double feature, but those on the same day but seperate lines are two seperate admissions.

Allston Cinema Underground ($8 admission)

Turn It Up! Music Meets Movies
5 July - 6 July: Fugazi: Instrument ($5)
11 July - 12 July: Tom Waits: Big Time
13 July: Wesley Willis: The Daddy Of Rock And Roll
18 July - 19 July: Shane McGowan: If I Should Fall From Grace
20 July: All Kindsa Girls: The Real Kids
23 July: Nobody Knows: Chronicle of An Unsigned Band
That's a lot of colons. Those $8 admissions for bands I don't know probably will keep me away.

The Hip Hop Film Fest
25 July - 26 July: Freestyle: The Art Of Rhyme
25 July: Word
26 July: Breath Control: History of The Human Beatbox
27 July: Soundz Of Spirit
27 July: Street Legends

Allston hasn't announced their August line-up yet, but apparently there will be more kung fu. Yay! I had great fun at the shows I went to, but attendance seemed to drop off between mid-May and late June.


Brattle Theater ($8.50, $5.50 for members)

Genre Films of The 50s (Mondays)
21 July: Bad Day At Black Rock & On The Waterfront
28 July: All That Heaven Allows & Pillow Talk
The films that inspired Far From Heaven and Down With Love, respectively. Meaning I may just take in Pillow Talk, especially with a good show at the Harvard Film Archive that night.
4 August: High Noon & Ride Lonesome
Haven't seen High Noon. Should fix that
11 August: The Thing & The Man From Planet X
18 August: Rear Window & The Sniper
I have seen Rear Window quite a bit, though. Still, The Sniper looks nifty.

From Panel To Frame: Comic Books In The Movies (Tuesdays)
Co-sponsored by Million Year Picnic, the local comic shop I patronize. I'm sort of surprised not to see many more conventional superhero movies; I'd like to see Batman in a theater again. Still, the "vertical" programs are short this time around, so I guess they went for the more highbrow stuff.
22 July: American Splendor
Opens at Coolidge Corner, and likely other theaters, a month later. Could easily sell out ahead of time
22 July: Ghost World
29 July: Barbarella
Saw it at SF/27, no need to do that again. Now, if it had been a double feature with Danger Diabolik...
5 August: Ghost In The Shell & Metropolis (2001)
Tempting... Metropolis was my favorite movie to come out (in the US) last year.
12 August: Crumb & Fritz The Cat
19 August: Blade

Recent Raves (Wednesdays)
23 July: Spider
30 July: Morvern Callar
6 August: The Good Thief & Bob Le Flambeur
The Good Thief is the only one in this series I got to in the regular theaters, so it'll be the one I skip. I'll probably check out Bob Le Flambeur, though.
13 August: The Man Without A Past
20 August: Ten

Chinese Period Drama Featuring The Films of Zhang Yimou & Gong Li (Thursdays)
31 July: Farewell My Concubine
7 August: Raise The Red Lantern & Ju Dou
14 August: To Live & The Story Of Qiu Ju
21 August: In The Mood For Love & Shanghai Triad
Masterpieces all, or so I'm told. Still, every trailer I've seen for this genre makes them look sumptuous but dull. I'm not saying they should mix Once Upon A Time In China 3 in or anything, but I can't get psyched for these

Special Engagements
27 June - 10 July: Le Cercle Rouge
This has a neat trailer, with a seemless blend of the original French theatrical trailer and stuff plugging the rerelease. I know this, because I've seen it a couple dozen times in the last month. Lots of opportunity to see it, apparently.
11 July - 17 July: Fellini: I'm A Born Liar
12 July - 13 July: 8½
11 July - 17 July: Versus
Apparently the print didn't get to Allston in time to actually be shown, which would have been a major bummer if I didn't know this engagement was coming. I'm all over this; the trailers before the other Ass-Kicking Asian Summer movies there are just cool as heck.
18 July: Cremaster 1&2 & Cremaster 3
19 July: Cremaster 3 & Cremaster 4&5
20 July: Cremaster 1&2 & Cremaster 3 & Cremaster 4&5 ($10 ticket)
Heh. The Museum of Fine Arts was charging $10 for each show. This could be tricky, though - the middle one is three hours, so if you're going to want to bail, it'll be during that. But once that's over, the last two apparently go quickly.
24 July: "Trailer Treats" ($12 for the 8pm "party" show)
25 July - 27 July: Lilya 4-Ever
Great reviews; I'll check it out.
26 July - 27 July: Microcosmos
1 August - 3 August: The Good, The Bad, And The Ugly (restored, full-length version)
8 August - 9 August: Roman Holiday & To Kill A Mockingbird
10 August: Cape Fear (1962)
15 August - 17 August: Tattoo
22 August - 4 September: The Weather Underground
5 September - 11 September: A Woman Is A Woman


Coolidge Corner Theater ($8; $5 members)

Coolidge Selects (Video screening room)
11 July - 24 July: Bonhoeffer
25 July - 7 August: On_Line
Looks the most interesting, but $8 is a lot to spend for projected video.
8 August - 21 August: What I Want My Words To Do To You
22 August - 28 August: OT: Our Town
29 August - 4 September: Boys Life 4

Summertime Blues (Mondays in July)
7 July: Bluesland: A Portrait Of Blues In America
14 July: John Lee Hooker: That's My Story
21 July: Ray Charles: The Genius Of Soul
28 July: Martin Scorcese Presents: The Blues (compilation reel)
I like the Blues, and always feel like I should know more about it, but these collide with the 50s Genre Films at the Brattle, so they'll probably lose out.

Sounds Great (New sound system on main screen - about time!)
24 July: Singin' In The Rain
Missed it at the Arlington Regent. Missed it at the Brattle. Didn't blink when the new DVD came out. And, really, even though it's some kind of classic, the trailer makes it look overstuffed with songs that stop the action dead. So, I'll probably miss it here, too.

BF/VF Meet The Director
8 July: Stonewalk
12 August: The Cloggers Of Putneyville

Kung Fu Madness (Friday/Saturday Midnites) ($6 tickets)
5 July: Dragon Fight
I'll probably be in Maine, so I'll miss Jet Li kicking triad ass. ::sigh::
11 July - 12 July: Mismatched Couples
Donnie Yen in a Kung Fu Breakdancing Spectacular? Sold.
18 July - 19 July: The Victim
Sammo Hung's best? Sold.
25 July - 26 July: Crippled Avengers (aka Mortal Combat)
Not quite as quick a sale as the others, but handicapped kung-fu could be good fun.

Crazy About Swayze (Saturday Midnites)
5 July: Red Dawn
12 July: Dirty Dancing
19 July: Road House
26 July: Ghost
Pass.

80s Scifi (Friday/Saturday Midnites)
1 August - 2 August: Goke, Bodysnatcher From Hell (actually, 1968, "lost" Japanese film)
Anyone who knows me knows I'll be unable to resist that title.
8 August - 9 August: Robocop
Never seen it; probably should.
15 August - 16 August: The Adventures Of Buckaroo Banzai: Across The 8th Dimension
22 August - 23 August: Spaceballs
29 August - 30 August: Krull


Harvard Film Archive ($7 admission)

Cinema A-Z: Treasures From The Harvard Film Archive
1 July: A is for American Tragedy - The Crowd & McCabe and Mrs. Miller
Piano Accompaniment by Yakov Gubanov on The Crowd. I'm sorely tempted, despite being broke.
2 July: B is for Behind Bars - Down By Law & Genera Della Rovere
3 July: C is for Children of War - Forbidden Games (Jeux Interdits) & Lacombe Lucien
4 July - 5 July: D is for Divine Intervention - A Matter Of Life And Death (aka Stairway To Heaven) & Au Hasard, Balthazar
6 July: E is for Exploitation! - Beyond The Valley Of The Dolls & Possession
45 minutes were apparently cut from Possession for its US release. If I'm back from Maine in time, this could be a good twin bill to see Sunday night.
7 July: F is for Forbidden Love - The Wedding March & Camila
8 July - 9 July: G is for Ghost Stories - Dead Of Night & Hour Of The Wolf
10 July: H is for Historical Revision - Arsenal & The Nasty Girl
Gubanov again, on Arsenal.
11 July - 12 July: I is for Insanity - Pierrot Le Fou & Betty Blue
13 July: J is for Jannings... At Last - The Last Laugh & The Last Command
Gubanov on both.
14 July - 15 July: K is for Kitchen Sink - Room At The Top & Saturday Night And Sunday Morning
16 July - 17 July: L is for Love Triangles - Two English Girls (Les deux Anglaises et le continent) & Un Coeur En Hiver
18 July - 19 July: M is for Mail Call - Jour De Fête & The Kremlin Letter
An interesting double feature - Tati and what looks like a pretty good spy movie. Say this for these HFA twin bills, they're not just showing you the same movie twice!
20 July - 21 July: N is for Nostalgia - Play It Again, Sam & Amarcord
22 July - 23 July: O is for Oracles - The Thief Of Bagdad & The Last Wave
24 July - 25 July: P is for Polanski - Knife In the Water & The Tenant
26 July - 27 July: Q is for Queer Renegades - Without You, I'm Nothing & Caravaggio
28 July - 29 July: R is for Roeg Images - The Man Who Fell To Earth & The Masque Of The Red Death
Hmmm... Good stuff at the Brattle these days, too.
30 July - 31 July: S is for Simply Sellers - The Ladykillers & I'm All Right Jack
I don't think I've ever seen a Sellers movie. I should rectify that.
1 August: T is for Trailers - Trailers, Trailers, Trailers
Wow, two trailer shows within a week of each other. Great planning, huh?
2 August: U is for UK Underdogs - High Hopes & Raining Stones
3 August: V is for Vitti Vignettes - The Phantom of Liberty & High Infidelity
4 August - 5 August: W is for Women's Pictures - The Women & Women On The Verge Of A Nervous Breakdown
6 August: X is for X-Rated In America - W.R.: Mysteries Of The Organism & Blue Shorts
7 August - 8 August: Y is for Youth Gone Wild - Zero For Conduct & If...
One of the few cases on this program where one film is a clear influence on the other.
9 August - 10 August: Z is for Zombies - Night Of The Living Dead & I Walked With A Zombie
One of these Zombie films is described as a "West Indian version of Jane Eyre." Guess which one.

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