Friday, October 08, 2010

Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 8 October - 14 October

Well, that unrated opening for Hatchet II was a thorough disaster last weekend, wasn't it? Except for whichever movies got a couple extra showings per day when Boston Common, like all AMC theaters, cleared it out even before Monday for reasons that aren't exactly clear (performance is a joke; I'm pretty sure movies with lower per-screen averages limped on until Thursday as usual). I now kind of idly wonder whether that disaster has anything to do with the remake of I Spit on Your Grave not opening anywhere in the Boston area.

But, let's spend our time on what is opening. It's kind of a quiet weekend.

  • With, I suppose, It's Kind of a Funny Story being the main notable release. It's not a great movie, but it's not a bad one, either, and it looks like it's got a bit of crossover appeal, as it's opening in both the Landmark boutique houses and the multiplexes. There's a bit more crossing-over going on, too, as AMC Boston Common also picks up screenings of documentary Waiting for Superman and Woody Allen's You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger, which had previously only been running on the boutique screens.

    More conventional multiplex fare opening this weekend is Life as We Know It, which looks harmless enough (one hopes; I like Katherine Heigl and Josh Duhamel despite their tendency to appear in terrible movies); Secretariat, which I suspect that even people who like horse racing will find unbearable, based on the trailers; and My Soul to Take, part of an unusually robust October horror season (although I gather the 3-D is pretty much just gouging, which annoys me, as it's pushing Resident Evil: Afterlife off screens before I've got a chance to watch my Blu-rays to get caught up).


  • Soul comes from Wes Craven, and those looking to see one of his more-respected works can hit the late show at the Coolidge this weekend, where The People Under the Stairs will be the "@fter midnight" selection of the week. They also pick up Tall Dark Stranger for (mostly) the upstairs film screen, with the pretty-good Last Train Home moving into the video room. The main special screening is Hackers with videogame designer Jesse Schell taking questions after the movie as part of the "Science on Screen" series. There's also a Talk Cinema screening Sunday morning, Arto Halonen's Princess.


  • Kendall Square is in a bit of a holding pattern until a bunch of releases next week. After Funny Story, the other two openings both have the one-week warning: First is South African comedy White Wedding, chronicling a road trip where the groom tries to get everything pulled together. The real blink-and-miss-it entry is Waking Sleeping Beauty; the documentary about Disney's revitalization of the feature animation division in the late eighties and early nineties is only playing matinees.


  • The Brattle has a bit of a cobbled-together schedule this weekend. Sold-out live music and comedy rule Friday and Saturday. Sunday has Looney Tunes in the morning - their traditional contribution to Harvard Square's Oktoberfest - and folks can come and go as they want between 11am and 1:30pm. More shorts will be on display at 5pm, as stuff is pulled out of the archives for a "Mini-Fest: Brattle Miscellanea" presentation. In between, they tribute to the recently departed Tony Curtis with a screening of Some Like It Hot at 2pm. 7pm brings a preview screening of Stone, the new film starring Robert DeNiro, Edward Norton, and Milla Jovovich, and 9:45 is a special surprise screening, as yet unrevealed (though I have a suspicion). To celebrate the 10th anniversary of the theater operating as a non-profit for 10/10/10, all screenings are free (how better to celebrate being a non-profit than giving stuff away, right?).

    Monday night is the bi-weekly CineCaché screening; this week the Brattle and Chlotrudis join forces with the last bi-weekly series, The DocYard, to present the Media That Matters: Short Documentaries program. It appears to have an international focus, and both one of the directors and a representative from the Media That Matters Film Festival will be there for a Q&A.

    The rest of the week is the Complete Millennium Trilogy: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo on Tuesday, The Girl Who Played with Fire one Wednesday, a matinee of the pair on Monday, and a triple-feature that finishes up with a preview of The Girl Who Kicked a Hornet's Nest on Thursday.


  • The Indian movies at Fresh Pond are working on a bit of a screwy schedule - Endhiran (The Robot) plays late on Friday and Saturday, not at all on Sunday, and all day Monday and Tuesday. Anjaana Anjaani played today, and will have single shows on Saturday and Sunday, with a pair of apparently unsubtitled Teugu-language films (one of which also appears to involve robots) filling in around them.


  • This weekend, the Harvard Film Archive has the awesomely-named Kenneth Anger presenting his "Magick Lantern Cycle". He won't be in town until tomorrow, but the screenings start tonight at 7pm. The MFA continues The Boston Palestine Film Festival
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