Friday, May 09, 2014

Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 9 May 2014 - 15 May 2014

Kind of a lull week for the summer season, with no big blockbuster action movies opening. Still interesting things to see, though.

  • The main event this week is Neighbors, with Seth Rogen and Rose Byrne as a young married couple who initially think it's cool to have a college fraternity move in next door, but it eventually becomes war. It's getting great reviews, and opening on a lot of screens: Two at the Somerville, Apple, Fenway (including RPX), Boston Common, Assembly Row, and the SuperLux.

    Not getting quite so many screens? Legends of Oz: Dorothy's Return, a 3D CGI-animated sequel to The Wizard of Oz, and, man, if this is responsible for John Boorman's version never taking off, that's just sad. It's at the Capitol (2D only), Apple (2D only), Fenway, Boston Common, and Assembly Row.

    Boston Common also picks up a couple of smaller releases: Mom's Night Out, in which three women try to have a nice evening but make the mistake of leaving the kids with their husbands. Sounds like it could be as raunchy as Neighbors, but it's PG-rated and actually produced by one of the faith-oriented companies. They're also getting Pang Ho-cheung's latest, Aberdeen, the day it releases in Hong Kong, and it's a bit of a break from the comedy and horror he's done over the last decade, although it's got some pretty fantastical imagery to it. (Note that it doesn't seem to have anything to do with the Hans Petter Moland drama from 2000 that many sites are showing in the listings). Oh, and they've also got Sunday & Wednesday screenings of Titanic, in original 2D.
  • The Coolidge opens IFFBoston opening film Beneath the Harvest Sky in the cozy GoldScreen, while Only Lovers Left Alive is pushed to the screening room by another IFFBoston selection, Belle. That one features Gugu Mbatha-Raw as a mixed-race woman in the 19th Century who has difficulty fiding a place in English society; it also plays at the Kendall and Boston Common.

    BUFF closing film Blue Ruin finishes out its nine-day run at midnight on Friday and Saturday - upstairs, because the main screen will be showing a 35mm print of Videodrome, one of David Cronenberg's best. Long live the new flesh! There will also be the monthly Open Screen on Tuesday.
  • One more IFFBoston selection, Locke, is making a quick return to the area, with Steven Knight's movie that follows Ivan Locke (Tom Hardy) through a tense, real-time car-ride where one phone call threatens to destroy his life playing Kendall Square, West Newton Cinema, and Boston Common.

    Also at the Kendall - along with Belle - are two documentaries: Fed Up is an examination of the food industry which seldom has its customers best interests at heart, while For No Good Reason visits artist Ralph Steadman, whose paintings, political cartoons, and caricatures - and reputation for being the crazy one when he hung out with Hunter S. Thompson - apparently belie a cheerful, gregarious man. The latter is the listed "one week only!" movie.

    West Newton, meanwhile, will also be opening The Jewish Cardinal, a film made for French television starring Laurent Lucas as Jean-Marie Lustiger, a Polish immigrant to France who converted to Catholicism and became a priest without ever losing touch with his Jewish roots.
  • The Brattle has a bit of this and a bit of that over the coming week, starting with a restored 35mm print of Marketa Lazarová on Friday and Saturday, widely described as the best Czech film ever made. Another classic runs on Sunday, when they cheekily celebrate Mother's Day with Psycho. The much anticipated (by me, at least) anime anthology Short Peace - which includes both Oscar nominee "Possessions" and Katsuhiro Otomo's striking "Combustible", along with two other animated shorts - plays Monday and Tuesday evenings. Monday also brings the return of the free Elements of Cinema screening with classic film noir Out of the Past in 35mm. Wednesday features another free screening, this one a preview of The Signal with the director on-hand for a Q&A, while Thursday is another one-off, the musical documentary Super Duper Alice Cooper.
  • The actual 100th birthday of the Somerville Theatre arrives this weekend, and they're going to be celebrating in 35mm style: A triple feature of Gimme Shelter, The Last Waltz, and Stop Making Sense on Friday; a double feature of The Dark Knight and The Departed on Saturday, and a Technicolor print of The Wizard of Oz on Sunday with vaudeville acts, shorts, and music so that you can make a night of it. Formal attire encouraged!

    Meanwhile, in the micro-cinema, Somerville Subterranean Cinema and All Things Horror are returning to present IFC Midnight's Proxy on Friday and Sasturday nights; it features Joe Swanberg as one of three parents drawn together by the loss of children (and don't forget that Somerville Subterranean will be showing The Machine next week!). Channel Zero will be using the room on Wednesday the 14th to screen 1970's This Is Al Capp, a television documentary on the popular cartoonist's second claim to fame, as a conservative firebrand.

    They're also keeping the original Godzilla around for one show a day at 7:30pm, although that gets bumped to 5pm on Thursday so that you can build a double feature with the new one.
  • The Harvard Film Archive is continuing their Frank Capra retrospective through the weekend with a lineup that includes some of the big guns: It's a Wonderful Life (7pm Friday), Platinum Blonde (9:30pm Friday), The Bitter Tea of General Yen (7pm Saturday), Arsenic and Old Lace (9pm Saturday), Lady for a Day (5pm Sunday), Pocketful of Miracles (7pm Sunday), and silent The Way of the Strong (7pm Monday) with piano accompaniment by Robert Humphreville.
  • The Museum of Fine Arts finishes Jewishfilm.2014 with The Wonders (Friday), Joe Papp in Five Acts (Friday), and Kidon (Saturday). As that festival ends, another one, The Boston International Children's Film Festival, begins, with a "Heebie Jeebies" shorts program (Friday, Sunday); Uruguayan animated film Anina (Saturday, Sunday, Wednesday); Jack and the Cuckoo Clock Heart (Saturday); another shorts program that includes a new "A Town Called Panic" episode (Sunday); and animated French film Aunt Hilda (Thursday). Note that many of the weekday screenings will be during the afternoon, so make the weekend entries if you can. The MFA will also be starting a series of Technicolor Musicals with West Side Story on Wednesday and The Band Wagon on Thursday, although I'm not sure if these are genuine Technicolor 35mm prints.
  • The ICA has two things going on this weekend: Saturday and Sunday will both feature screenings of Takashi Murakami's family-friendly monster movie Jellyfish Eyes and the New England Animation Film Festival, which includes Oscar nominee "Feral". Many of the local filmmakers will be on-hand for a post-film Q&A on Saturday.
  • The Studio Cinema brings back The Monuments Men for a week, which seems kind of random.
  • The Regent Theatre has Looking for Johnny: The Legend of Johnny Thunders on Sunday night, with the documentary on the New York Dolls guitarist also including a reunion performance by The Daughters, a Boston punk band that often opened for Thunders back in the day. They've also sort of got a return of Gathr screenings with the first monthly "Alive Mind" screening on Tuesday, Phie Ambo's documentary Free the Mind.


My plans? Woo, it's packed! Probably Proxy and Aberdeen, Neighbors, Short Peace, Belle, Locke, and some of the animation at the ICA and MFA

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