Friday, August 02, 2013

Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 2 August - 8 August 2013

Last one that doesn't much affect me! Well, until the next vacation, at least.

  • You know, until he died, I did not realize that Jonathan Winters was doing the voice of Papa Smurf in the new movies. Almost makes me want to see The Smurfs 2 just on that basis, but, ah, I'm busy seeing a bunch of other stuff instead. It's got Gargamel creating "Naughty" Smurfs, because this plan worked out so well when he made Smurfette. It's at the Capitol (2D only), Apple, Fenway, Boston Common, and the Superlux (2D/3D).

    It seems to be getting many fewer screens than 2 Guns, which kind of surprises me. Nice cast on that graphic novel adaptation of two undercover cops working together on a heist (Denzel Washington, Mark Wahlberg, Bill Paxton) and some big action in the trailers. It's at Somerville, Apple, Boston Common, Fenway, and the Superlux.

    Boston Common has the last of their cheap movie series from Monday to Wednesday, with G.I. Joe: Retaliation playing at 10pm for $3 (which apparently goes to charity) on those days. Fenway is doing a midnight screening of Sharknado on Friday.
  • But, c'mon, who needs manufactured cult shark hits when Cinema Slumber Party and The Somerville Theatre are having Jaws Weekend? Jaws plays on 35mm on the big screen Friday and Saturday, with Joe Dante's Piranha on 35mm at midnight on Friday and in the afternoon on Saturday, and Deep Blue Sea at midnight on Saturday. If you're looking for a somewhat earlier classic, the big screen also hosts Jeff Rapsis accompanying Buster Keaton's The General at 1pm on Sunday.

    The "Summer Rewind" movies at The Capitol is only really a rewind for the grown-ups this weekend, with the original Dirty Dancing at 10:30pm on Friday and Saturday, and The Lorax at 11am on Saturday and Sunday. Apple Cinemas has Shrek down as the free 11am movie (starting?) August 3rd.
  • Kendall Square opens Still Mine, a nice little film with James Cromwell as an old farmer trying to build a more manageable house as wife Genevieve Bujold finds her dementia worsening and is almost undone by local regulations and his own stubbornness. It's not bad. I've also heard good things about the one-week booking, Crystal Fairy, the more mainstream of the two movies Michael Cera did with Chilean director Sebastian Silva, with Gaby Hoffman playing the title character, an American hippy who winds up tagging along with Cera and his local friends as they look for a legendary drug high.
  • No new openings at The Coolidge this weekend, but they do offer their annual screenings of Wet Hot American Summer at midnight on Friday and Saturday. Also on 35mm and in the main theater: Annie Hall on Monday as part of the Big Screen Classics series. There are also two presentations of Helen Mirren in The Audience, Sunday morning and Wednesday evening.
  • This weekend's Special Engagements at the Brattle Theatre run from Friday to Sunday, with a new restoration of 12 Angry Men playing during the afternoon and evening and the latest collaboration between Michael Winterbottom and Steve Coogan, The Look of Love, at 9:30pm. That one features Coogan as 1970s nudie theater impressario Paul Raymond.

    The rest of the week looks a little different, with the Burt Lancaster double feature being Monday (The Flame and the Arrow and His Majesty O'Keefe), while Cattle Annie and Little Britches plays Tuesday afternoon (all 35mm). The single-screening documentaries are Tuesday and Wednesday evening: Hibakusha, Our Life to Live (about survivors of the atommic bombs at Hiroshima and Nagasaki) plays Tuesday with director David Rothauser and Professor Akihiko Kimijima doing a discussion afterward; while The Expedition to the End of the World appears to be the rare DocYard screening without guests, and on Wednesday night to boot. The Shintoho repertory series ends on Thursday with Death Row Woman and The Horizon Glitters.
  • The Harvard Film Archive continues to partner with the Brattle on the Burt Lancaster Centennial with From Here to Eternity Friday at 7pm, Twilight's Last Gleaming Saturday at 9pm, I Walk Alone Sunday at 5pm, and The Leopard Thursday at 7pm. The Complete Alfred Hitchcock features The Trouble With Harry Friday at 9:15pm, Downhill with live accompaniment by Donald Sosin Saturday at 7pm (last of the Hitchcock Nine), a double-feature of The Secret Agent and Rich and Strange at 7pm Sunday, and The Paradine Case at 7pm on Monday.
  • The MFA's film program continues its run of AndrĂ© Gregory: Before and After Dinner with screenings on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, Wednesday, and Thursday. The Films of Wong Kar-Wai play on the same days, including Days of Being Wild, As Tears Go By, Chungking Express, Ashes of Time, and Fallen Angels. I believe that's the original cut of Ashes, and (sadly) Eagle Shooting Heroes is not being included in the series.
  • iMovieCafe doesn't seem to be programming much until Thursday, when Chennai Express opens at Apple Cinemas. That one looks like a romantic comedy (in Hindi with English subtitles) about a man (Shah Rukh Khan) who meets an odd girl (Deepika Padukone) while traveling south to scatter his grandfather's ashes. Oh, and it's got a Rajinikanth cameo!
  • Free and outside: Tootsie at the Boston Harbor Hotel's Music & Movie Fridays, Madagascar 3 at the Hatch Shell's Free Friday Flicks (also at Martini Memorial Shell Park in Hyde Park on Tuesday and Pope John Paul II Park in Dorchester on Thursday); Muppet Treasure Island at the Prudential Center on Saturday night, The Karate Kid '84 at Christopher Columbus Park on Sunday; Chasing Ice at the Old Oak Dojo in Jamaica Plain and Miracle at Medal of Honor Park in Southie on Monday; Rise of the Guardians at Donnelly Field in Cambridge on Wednesday; The Princess Bride in the East Cambridge Bank parking lot (292 Cambridge Street) (with Jenny the Juggler) and Free Willy at Somerville's Harris Park on Thursday. (All from Joe's Boston Free Films


My plans? Fantasia for Thermae Romae all the way to Bad Film, kind of holding out hope for a surprise last-minute screening of Riddick (which filmed here and has featured pretty heavily in the sponsor reel from a local effects house).

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Go see FRUITVALE STATION.

Jason said...

Quite likely if it's still playing when I'm back in Massachusetts; for now, they didn't give me this press pass to see what's playing at the local 'plex.