Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 31 May - 6 June 2013

It seems like this is an extra week in the summer movie season - after Memorial Day, but (mostly) before June. Sort of threw the studios' rhythm off a bit. Or is that just me?

• For instance, The Purge and After Earth wound up switching places on the schedule as it got adjusted a few weeks ago. That puts the latter out this week, and it's kind of an odd duck - a big FX-driven thing where neither co-star Will Smith nor writer/director M. Night Shyamalan has been mentioned much by name in the advertising. Not sure what to take from that. It plays the Capitol, Apple, Fenway (including the RPX screen), and Boston Common.
  
  It seems like I've been seeing previews for Now You See Me forever, although it hasn't been the painful saturation of The Internship. It's got a nifty cast - Jesse Eisenberg, Isla Fisher, Woody Harrelson, Michael Caine, Morgan Freeman, Melanie Laurent, Mark Ruffalo - and Louis Leterrier from the Luc Besson action factory guiding the story of magicians who seem to be pulling off impossible heists from the other side of the world. It feels like it's bounced around the calendar, and hopefully landing here is a better sign than it landing in February or so. It plays Somerville, Apple, Boston Common, and fenway.
• Kendall Square picks up two documentaries. The "big" one is We Steal Secrets: The Story of WikiLeaks, in which Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room director Alex Gibney attempts to present a cohesive, even-handed view of the controversial website, its founder Julian Assange, and its most (in)famous source, Bradley Manning. A less momentous (but likely just as fascinating) subject is profiled in Deceptive Practice: The Mysteries and Mentors of Ricky Jay, in which director Molly Bernstein turns a camera on one of the greatest close-up magicians working and learning about those who inspired him. It's got the "one-week warning".
• The Coolidge opens Frances Ha, which opened at Kendall last week. In addition to playing on a bigger screen in 35mm, star and co-writer Greta Gerwig will do a remote Q&A after Friday's 9:45pm show. Friday (and Saturday) night also features the 1958 remake of The Blob on 35mm. Otherwise, it's a quiet week for special presentations, with the only other one being Gregorio Smith presenting his Jehovah's Witness documentary Truth Be Told in the screening room, with another guest or two on-hand for post-film discussion.
• As I noted walking through Harvard Square last night, the eponymous university's Commencement and Reunion is going on this week, and as usual the Brattle Theatre contributes to the festivities with anniversary screenings. Friday has single features of 1963's Beach Party and 1988's Earth Girls Are Easy; Saturday a double feature of 1938's The Adventures of Robin Hood and 1963's From Russia With Love with a late show of 1988's They Live; and Sunday pairs 1938's Holiday with 1963's The Pink Panther and also has 1988's Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown at 9:15.
  
  On Monay, the DocYard brings director Ben Nabors in to screen and discuss his SXSW award-winning documentary William and the Windmill, featuring a young man who build an electricity-generating turbine out of scraps and spare parts. The theater is closed to the public on Tuesday, but re-opens Wednesday for the start of The Tarantino Chronicles, which pairs a QT film with one of its inspirations. On Wednesday the 5th, Reservoir Dogs shows with Stanley Kubrick's The Killing (the latter screening digitally), while Thursday has Kiss Me Deadly lead into Pulp Fiction.
• Speaking of Harvard, the Film Archive completes their Raoul Walsh Encore with The Cock-Eyed World and Dark Command on Friday; a four-film marathon of Salty O'Rourke, The Enforcer, Jump for Glory & The Horn Blows at Midnight on Saturday (the last, appropriately, at about 12am) on Saturday; and The Big Trail and Gentleman Jim on Sunday. After that, they close up shop for the rest of June before the summer program starts in July.
• The Regent Theatre finishes the "Boston Surfs!" Film & Music Festival on Friday with a combination of movies and live music. On Tuesday, they screen the next film in Gathr's Preview Series: The Attack, in which a Palestinian doctor living in Tel Aviv loses his wife to a terrorist action - and then learns she may be responsible for it. I've got four or five free tickets, for anybody who wants one. And Thursday the 6th, they have two screenings of "Ain't in It for My Health": A Film about Levon Helm; the documentary on the Rock & Roll Hall-of-Famer will also play Sunday the 9th.
• The MFA's program continues what it started a few days earlier, screening documentaries Becoming Traviata and One Track Heart: The Story of Krishna Das once each on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Wednesday, and Thursday. Times vary.
• The iMovieCafe screen at Apple Cinemas is (mostly) playing an English-subtitled Bollywood film this week. Yeh Jawaani Hai Deewani features Deepika Padukone and Ranbir Kapoor in a musical that follows them from their meeting at 21 through a lifelong romance. Telugu-language film Iddarammailatho fills in the other timeslots.

My plans? Well, I think you've got to pair Now You See Me and Deceptive Practices somehow, then work in After Earth, We Steal Secrets, The Attack, and maybe Wiliam and the Windmill. Oh, and I haven't seen Stories We Tell or Mud yet. Should get on that. And the 35mm classics at the Brattle and HFA look good too...

Oh, and seriously - I've got extra tickets for The Attack. Leave a comment or an email or something if you want them.