Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 13 May 2011 - 19 May 2011

Not many movies for me this weekend, as I'm going to be spending a bunch of time traveling. Not to be too negative, but it's kind of a good weekend for it to work out like that. Not that the stuff opening is bad...

• ... in fact, my friends who went to SXSW quite liked Bridesmaids, a new comedy co-written by and starring Kristen Wiig, directed by Paul Feig, and produced by Judd Apatow. Everyone I've talked to says it's one of the funniest mainstream comedies they've seen in a while, especially considering that its sub-genre - the female-oriented comedy - has taken a lot of hits in the past few years for seeming to have an active disdain for its target audience, even when women are writing and directing.
  
  Priest, on the other hand, is not getting the same sort of love. It didn't screen for critics and the last time Paul Bettany worked with director Scott Stewart, the result was the much-reviled Legion. Folks who read the original manhwa about a priesthood fighting vampires in a dystopian future tell me it's good stuff, but it's not going to be available anymore because TokyoPop, the rights-holder and one of the companies producing the movie, shut down their publishing division. Even if it looked good, I might stay away just because this being a success might be said to validate Stuart Levy's decision to make his company nothing more than a rights-holder. If he doesn't want my money for the comics, I'm willing to not give it to him for the movie, either.



• Boston Common is keeping a surprising amount of it's boutique-y stuff around - Cave of Forgotten Dreams, There Be Dragons, and The Beaver are still playing, even though the latter has already left Kendall Square - and bolstering that line-up with a couple new ones. Everything Must Go is based upon a Raymond Carver story, and features Will Farrell as an alcoholic whose wife (Rebecca Hall) throws him out with his stuff, leading him to set up a yard sale to purge his old life. Not a big fan of Farrell, but he does his moments.
  
  Also opening is Hesher, which... Hey, it's about another guy setting up shop outside a house where he's not really wanted. This one's more metalhead the rummy, though, with Joshua Gordon-Levitt as the title thrasher who begins squatting in someone else's garage and teaching them life lessons. The movie also features Natalie Portman, Rainn Wilson, and Piper Laurie.



• Those two also open at Kendall Square, which also has the Canadian nominee for the Foreign Language Film category at this year's Academy Awards, Incendies. It's the story of two siblings who receive two envelopes at the reading of their mother's will, addressed to their father and brother - the thing is, they believe the former to be dead and had never heard of the latter. It sends them on a quest to the middle east to learn more about their family history. It looks excellent.
  
  Also on tap are Forks Over Knives, a documentary espousing a natural, vegetarian diet, and The Robber, a German film about a marathon runner who found a use for his unique talents in robbing banks. That one has the official one-week tag on it.



• Incidines also plays at the Coolidge Corner Theatre, which also opens Last Night. That one features Keira Knightley and Sam Worthington as a married couple whose relationship suddenly becomes complicated when Knightley's character sees that one of her boyfriend's colleagues is a beautiful woman and encounters one of her own exes soon after. I'm kind of curious to see how Worthington is in this; he's basically been a functional good-looking guy who doesn't mind working against a bunch of effects in his American career, but supposedly he showed himself capable of much more back in Australia, and this is a movie that perhaps demands a bit more. Just make sure you check the schedule; depending on the day and time, it may be playing on any of the Coolidge's screens, either on 35mm film or digital video.
  
  The special programs this week include Oldboy at midnight on Friday the 13th and Saturday the 14th. It's excellent, and you can't really go wrong with Park Chan-wook directing Choi Min-sik. (Yes, I know I gave Sympathy for Mr. Vengeance one star; I intend to re-evaluate that soon, considering I've loved absolutely everything else Park has done). Also playing at midnight on Saturday is the monthly screening of The Room.
  
  On Sunday evening, there is a special program Honoring Eleanor Roosevelt, to raise money to preserve the late First Lady's home. It includes a film, as well as guest speakers and awards presentations. Less pricey is Monday's specialPublic Speaking, a new Martin Scorcese documentary about New York writer Fran Lebowitz, who will be present to answer questions.



• The Somerville Theatre, in addition to their usual mix of first- and second-run movies, is having a Charlie Chaplin Weekend - from Friday the 13th through Sunday the 15th, their main screen will be showing City Lights, Modern Times, and Limelight, all classic movies that have recently had new 35mm prints struck.



• The Museum of Fine Arts and Brattle Theatre wrap up the 27th Annual Boston LGBT Film Festival; Sunday the 15th is the last day. It finishes during the afternoon at the Brattle, while running all day at the MFA.
  
  Afterward, the Brattle will be featuring a Mini Green Film Festival as part of Cambridge Climate Change Week. Panel discussions will be part of the screenings of PBS documentary Plan B: Mobilizing to Save Civilization and Food, Inc., while Winged Migration stands on its own. The screen will be dark much of the rest of the week, with an as-yet-unannounced screening Wednesday evening and "Best of Open Screen" on Thursday.
  
  The MFA, meanwhile, will be beginning its Global Lens Film Series on Wednesday afternoon with Dooman River, a Chinese film set along the border with North Korea, and The Invisible Eye, set in an Argentine private school during the military regime of the 1980s. The evening will feature a preview of The First Grader, about an old man who enters elementary school at the age of eighty to learn how to read.



• It's a relatively quiet week at ArtsEmerson's Paramount Theater, for film at least. West Side Story plays once again on Saturday night, while Friday night features two screenings of We Are What We Are. It's another one that may call for a re-evaluation; I wasn't very fond of it at Fantasia last year, but it got enough acclaim that I wonder if I missed something while trying to maintain that 25 film/week pace.



• The Harvard Film Archive runs a Berlin School Now series, showcasing a new wave of German filmmakers who are bigger on formal experimentation than melodrama. Notable directors included in the series are Christoph Hochhäusler and Isabelle Stever, who each have two films playing in the program; Hochhäusler will be there in person on Saturday to introduce and discuss The City Below. On Monday, the program switches to a series spotlighting two generations of Indian actresses, mother and daughter Sharmila Tagore and Soha Ali Khan, starting with Tagore's first appearance in Satyajit Ray's The World of Apu. That series will continue next weekend.



• That would be a great way to seque into the Indian movies playing at Fresh Pond, wouldn't it? Unfortunately, as near as I can tell, all three are unsubtitled, so unless you know Tamil (Ko) or Telegu (Mr. Perfect and 100% Love), you're out of luck.



• The Regent Theatre in Arlington has one film program this week, the 2nd Annual Family-Friendly Bike Film Festival, a program of short films about bicycle travel.



• The second-run scene is quiet, with Of Gods and Men opening at the Arlington Capitol. Something may be playing at the Stuart Street Playhouse, but their website has been ominously blank for the past week. Has anybody been by there since IFFBoston to see if the lights are still on?

My plans... Extremely light. I'm heading to New York on Saturday to see the Red Sox and Yankees at the new Yankee Stadium (pray for me!), and then up to Maine on Sunday for my brother & sister-in-law's babies (plural) shower. I refuse to even ponder the situation where the ballgame is rained out and rescheduled for Sunday. I refuse!

Around that... Maybe something Friday night - I really would like to give We Are What We Are another chance, but I'll probably just watch the game. In New York, I may catch True Legend, a martial arts flick directed by the legendary Yuen Woo-ping and starring Michelle Yeoh, among others. After I get home, hopefully at least The Robber and 13 Assassins, with Bridesmaids put off until next weekend when the big opening is something I really don't care about at all.