Friday, August 09, 2013

Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 9 August - 15 August 2013

Back Sunday! Woo! It means vacation is over, but at a certain point one is, in fact, ready to get back home.

  • Crowded week at the multiplexes, with the studios opting to drop four features after a few thin weeks. The big one is Elysium, Neill Blomkamp's follow-up to District 9. He's got Hollywood money and stars for this one, with Matt Damon as a working-class man of Earth trying to break into the titular space station, where the ruling class live. It's at Somerville, Apple, Jordan's Furniture, Fenway (including RPX), Boston Common (including Imax), and the SuperLux. The other R-rated offering is We're the Millers, with Jason Sudeikis, Jennifer Aniston, Will Poulter and Emma Roberts as a group of small-time losers who impersonate a clean-cut family to smuggle dope in from Mexico. It's at Somerville, Apple, Boston Common, Fenway, and the SuperLux.

    Meanwhile, the kids get two in 3D. Disney's Planes is a spinoff of Cars, with Dane Cook as a crop duster who wants to race. Note that Pixar's not involved directly, although that hasn't necessarily meant a whole lot of late. It's at the Capitol, Apple, Belmont Studio (2D only), Fenway, and Boston Common. Those theaters (aside from Belomont) are also opening Pery Jackson: Sea of Monsters, although it's only Fenway and Boston Common have 3D screenings. Apparently the first did well enough for a sequel.

    Fenway also has a Rifftrax Live screening of Starship Troopers on Thursday, while Boston Common has $3 screenings of Oblivion at 10pm from Mondayto Wednesday.
  • Boston Common also opens Blue Jasmine, which also grabs three screens at Kendall Square and takes up residence of the main room at The Coolidge. It's the new Woody Allen movie, with Cate Blanchett as a socialite who moves back in with her sister (Sally Hawkins) when she suddenly finds herself with nothing but a closet full of designer clothes. Andrew Dice Clay has a supporting role in a Woody Allen movie, which seems like an unlikely combination. Also opening at both Boston Common & the Coolidge: Lovelace, featuring Amanda Seyfried as the star of Deep Throat. It's in the screening room.

    Special screenings at the Coolidge this weekend include Adventures in Babysitting at midnight on Friday & Saturday, as part of their August '80s series. Hints were dropped about a potential guest, but there's nothing indicating that on the site. There's also Big Screen Classic Sunset Boulevard on Monday, in 35mm.
  • One more multiplex-opener, and it's a surprise - Fenway has Chennai Express, a big Bollywood romantic comedy which reunites Shah Rukh Khan and Deepika Padukone from Om Shanti Om. iMovieCafe has it at Apple, as well. They've also got mostly late-night showings of Thalaiva, if you speak Tamil.
  • Kendall Square clears out a lot of screen space for Blue Jasmine, but they also need it for a one-week booking of Europa Report, a faux-documentary about an international team of astronauts who land on Jupiter's icy moon but lose communication with Earth.
  • The Gate is the Cinema Slumber Party midnight movie at The Somerville Theatre this Saturday, and word is that the 35mm print of the scary movie originally intended for kids is near-perfect. Their sister theater in Arlington, The Capitol, wraps up their "Summer Rewind" series with The Neverending Story; it has both late shows (10:30pm on Friday & Saturday) and matinees (11am Saturday & Sunday).
  • The Brattle Theatre opens In the Fog for a three day run from Friday to Saturday; it's a Russian film about a man accused of treason during World War II who must make a choice when all sides clash in the forest. It plays afternoons and evenings, while Sightseers is back for the 9:30pm shows. During the week, the Burt Lancaster tribute is just afternoon shows on Monday and Tuesday, with Sorry, Wrong Number playing in 35mm. There special events in the evening, with the DocYard hosting F--- for Forest producer Shane Boris, with director Michal Marczak joining in via Skype after the movie. Another documentary, Hey Bartender, screens Tuesday night with director Douglas Tirola and some of Boston's best bartenders in person for a Q&A afterward. The documentaries continue through the week, with Room 237 playing Wednesday & Thursday, although rather than bring guests, it plays as a double feature with a 35mm print of The Shining.
  • The Harvard Film Archive gives the new release of Jacques Rivette's 1981 film, Le Pont du Nord, a mini-run starting tonight; it plays Friday at 7pm, Saturday at 9pm, and Sunday at 4pm; there will be more screenings of this movie in which a pair of women make their way through a surreal Paris next weekend. The Complete Alfred Hitchcock continues with with Stage Fright at 9:30pm on Friday, a double feature of Sabotage and Number Seventeen on Sunday, and Rebecca on Thursday. The Burt Lancaster Centennial also continues, with The Killers at 7pm on Saturday and Atlantic City at the same time Monday.
  • The MFA's film program has one last screening of AndrĂ© Gregory: Before and After Dinner at 5pm on Friday, but will be replacing it on the schedule with Ulrich Seidl's Paradise Trilogy: Love and Faith play Wednesday the 14th, while Faith and Hope play Thursday the 15th. In between, more of The Films of Wong Kar-Wai, with Chungking Express, Ashes of Time, Happy Together, and Fallen Angels playing at various times Friday, Saturday, and Sunday. A preview screening of The Grandmaster is sold out on Thursday.
  • Free and outside: Rear Window at the Boston Harbor Hotel's Music & Movie Fridays; Rise of the Guardians at the Hatch Shell's Free Friday Flicks; and a group of animated shorts at the Robbins Farm Park in Arlington also playing Friday. Saturday has a sort of ocean double feature at Harvard Square, with the first half of Ocean Frontiers: The Dawn of a New Era in Ocean Stewardship playing before Free Willy, while the Prudential Center shows Mirror Mirror (that's the comedy take on Snow White by Tarsem Singh). Seabiscuit plays in Christopher Columbus Square Sunday night, while We Are Marshall plays Billings Fieldin West Roxbury Monday. Roxbury also has Jack the Giant Slayer on Tuesday, at the Melnea A. Cass Recreational Complex. On Wednesday, you can see Ghostbusters by the Clover food truck in Dewey Square, The Croods and the Condon Shell in Medford, or Casablana at North Point Park in Cambridge. On Thursday, there's another shot at Jack the Giant Slayer (this time at Pope John Paul II Park in Dorchester), along with Up in Kendall Square (55 Broadway, Cambridge), and the 1993 version of The Secret Garden at Seven Hills Park in Somerville. (All listings from Joe's Boston Free Films)


My plans? Well, I don't know how wiped-out I'll be on Sunday after the overnight bus trip back to Boston, but I'm definitely going to try and hit Elysium and Europa Report, plus the Hitchcock. Around that, there's some catching up to do.

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