- After all, two of them - Anchorman 2: Supersized and Son of God, are other things re-edited, with the first being an R-rated extension of Will Farrell's movie from a couple of months ago and the latter piecing together the Jesus parts from The History Channel's The Bible miniseries. Basically, if you know the dedicated movie fans are going to be doing something else, you might as well not open really new stuff up. Anchorman 2 is at Apple, Fenway, and Boston Common; Son of God is at those theaters plus the Capitol in Arlington and Studio in Belmont.
Another, happier side effect of the Oscars is that best animated feature nominee The Wind Rises will be gaining a few more screens; in addition to being at the Kendall (alternating English and Japanese screenings), it expands to the Somerville Theatre (English-language only), Coolidge Corner (English matinees and Japanese evenings), and Boston Common (probably English only). It's Hayao Miyazaki's final film, so it merits a look. If you have other catching up to do, AMC Boston Common has the second half of their Best Picture showcase at noon, including Nebraska, Captain Phillips, Her, American Hustle, and Gravity.
And, in a move that has absolutely noting to do with award season, the new Liam Neeson action thriller Non-Stop, in which he plays an air marshall who must play cat-and-mouse with a serial killer holding the people on their flight hostage, opens on a bunch of screens (Julianne Moore appears to be getting a paycheck, too) - the Capitol, Apple, Fenway (including RPX), Boston Common, and the SuperLux. Boston Common will also be showing Rear Window on Sunday afternoon and Wednesday, while Fenway will be running both the original 300 and the new one back-to-back on Thursday. - The off-week also allows for something a bit unusual to pop up in the IMAX theaters, as they pick up Russian hit Stalingrad, a king-sized depiction of one of the most crucial battles of World War II shot in 3D and apparently getting an exclusively giant-format release here. It's at both Jordan's Furniture locations and Boston Common, although early screenings of 300: Rise of an Empire will likely bounce it on Thursday. That's three foreign films at the downtown multiplex, as Beijing Love Story is hanging around for a third week.
- Kendall Square is mostly moving showtimes around a bit this week, although they do pick up a one-week booking of If You Build It, a documentary about students in South Carolina who help design and build a new community center as part of an innovative school program. Producer Neal Baer will be at the 7pm show on Saturday to introduce and answer questions.
- Fenway and Apple Cinemas/iMovieCafe have some Bollywood opening up, with Shaadi Ke Side/Effects grabbing a screen at both locations. It's apparently a sequel to 2006's Pyaar Ke Side/Effects, only now "Sid" and "Trisha" are married, which has its own set of demands. They appear to be played by different actors, too, though writer/director Saket Chowdhary is still running the show.
- The Somerville Theatre are letting a couple of different groups use their Micro-Cinema this weekend: On Friday, Channel 0 will be showing Lemonade Joe, a 1963 Czechosolvakian comedy western satirizing Coca-Cola and capitalism (and, probably, sneakily getting some jabs in at Marxism as well), on Friday at 8pm. Then, on Saturday, Somerville Subterranean Cinema has Rhode Island director Richard Griffin's new movie Normal at 5, 8, and 10pm (just added, since the other two sold out!) on Saturday night, with an apartment superintendent cracking up as he considers his past.
(Aside: Anybody reading this who books a movie in this little room, let me know! I can't guarantee I'll come or that my mentioning it will get anybody else here, but it can't hurt!)
Upstairs in the main theater, the heavy hitters come out on Saturday and Sunday with a double feature of Citizen Kane and Casablana, and then The Third Man on Tuesday. All three are in 35mm. - In addition to picking up The Wind Rises, the Coolidge would like to remind you that before Liam Neeson was doing big hit thrillers like Non-Stop, he was Darkman, and they would like to do it in the form of a 35mm print screening at midnight on Friday and Saturday. They'd also like to help you out if you're facing Orson Welles withdrawal between the Somerville's Welles pictures, with the version of Touch of Evil that Walter Murch re-edited in accordance to Welles's wishes playing in 35mm on Monday as part of the "Big Screen Classics" series. And to round the week out, they'll have the return of the Francophone Film Series in the screening room on Thursday with Comme un Lion, in which a Senegalese kid comes to Paris to become a soccer player but soon finds himself in a much different situation than he imagined.
- The Brattle Theatre has what they are calling "An Almost but Not Quite Entirely Complete Wes Anderson retrospective this week, with three double features from the sometimes brilliant and sometimes too-cute filmmaker: The Royal Tenenbaums & The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou (35mm) on Friday, Moonrise Kingdom (35mm) & Fantastic Mr. Fox Saturday afternoon, and The Darjeeling Limited & Bottle Rocket (both 35mm) on Wednesday, with a free sneak preview of The Grand Budapest Hotel on Thursday. In case you're wondering, Rushmore is apparently just not available to screen right now.
In between, there are a number of special events: The Daley Screening ends a year-long quest to see a new movie every day with a double feature of Aliens and Miami Connection on Saturday evening; the annual Oscar party is on Sunday, and there's a "special premiere screening" of Our Vinyl Weighs a Ton: This Is Stones Throw Records with the labels founder Peanut Butter Wolf attending and doing on Q&A on Tuesday night. - Harmony Korine comes to the Harvard Film Archive as they wrap up their Harmony & Anarchy retrospective with julien donkey-boy on Friday, Mister Lonely on Saturday, Spring Breakers on Sunday, and Trash Humpers on Monday. All at 7pm, with Mr. Korine in person for the latter two. The rest of the weekend is filled out with more Fortunes of the Western: Gunman's Walk at 9:30pm Friday, Budd Boetticher's Seven Men From Now at the same time Saturday, and Terror in a Texas Town at 5pm Sunday.
- The Museum of Fine Arts has a quiet weekend, with Cousin Jules screening once a day on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Wednesday. It will continue into next week, overlapping with the fourth annual Hollywood Scriptures Film Series. This year's theme is "The Search for Meaning: Home, Hope, and Identity", with a panel discussion after each screening. The series kicks off on Wednesday with David Cronenberg's Cosmopolis.
- The Regent Theatre has three movies this week. The Gathr Preview Series entry is On My Way, which features Catherine Deneuve as a former beauty queen who goes on a drive to clear her head and just keeps going. It's Monday and it looks like it will be playing upstairs. The other two screenings are unusual events: Shadows of Liberty, a documentary on how corporate control is corrupting the news industry, plays Tuesday night with director Jean-Phillippe Tremblay on hand as well as comedians Jimmy Tingle & Matthew Filipowicz. And then on Thursday there's the Feature Film Project's Everyone's Going to Die, an indie from the UK with the ominous tagline that "the cinema-going public across the USA is going to decide this film's theatrical fate!" Ominous!
My plans? Well, geez, gotta find a way to see Her and The Wind Rises before Sunday night, and probably fit a trip to the furniture store for Stalingrad in there too. And then after On My Way, maybe there will be time for Non-Stop.