Thursday, September 04, 2014

Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 5 September - 11 September 2014

It seemed to take the various sites/pages with movie times forever to update this week, and when they did, I sort of imagined that the reason was because the multiplexes were calling up the distributors, saying something along the lines of "really? these are our options?"

  • So, let's run with the independent cinemas. The Coolidge Corner Theatre gets Love Is Strange - as does Kendall Square and West Newton - which features Jon Lithgow and Alfred Molina as a couple finally able to get married, only for the Catholic school where one works to fire him now that what they've known all along is official. They wind up selling their apartment and living apart while trying to find a new one, which puts a lot of strange tensions on their lives. It's in the bigger rooms at the Coolidge, while No-No: A Dockumentary, has three shows a day on the small GoldScreen, telling the story of Dock Ellis, known for both claiming to have thrown a no-hitter while high on LSD and advocating for civil rights.

    The specials include a 35mm print of They Live! at midnight on Friday and Saturday, a Stage & Screen presentation of Jungle Fever on Monday with Todd Kreidler (who is opening an adaptation of Guess Who's Coming to Dinner at the Huntington Theater Company) and Open Screen on Tuesday.
  • In addition to Love Is Strange, Kendall Square and West Newton get The Last of Robin Hood, which features Kevin Kline as late-stake Errol Flynn, romancing a very young starlet (Dakota Fanning), enabled by her mother (Susan Sarandon). But, you know, they had me at "Kevin Kline". There's also a single show on Wednesday of Duran Duran: Unstaged, with David Lynch directing this concert film, so that should be something. That also plays at the Regent Theatre, Showcase in Revere, and the SuperLux.
  • West Newton Cinema (who have a spiffy new website) opens those two plus matinee showings of Thunder and the House of Magic, an animated movie about a stray kitten who finds shelter from a storm in a crazy inventor's house. It's being released in 3D, but I don't think it's screening that way in West Newton.
  • Apple Cinemas also has an indie opening, The Longest Week, which features Jason Bateman as a gentleman of leisure who suddenly loses access to his fortune, moves in with a friend (Billy Crudup), and falls for his girlfriend (Olivia Wilde). From India, their iMovieCafe opens Mary Kom, which features Priyanka Chopra as a young woman who takes up boxing and becomes a five time champion around challenges in her personal life; it also opens at Fenway. There's also something called Rabhasa, but you need to speak Telugu for that.
  • The Brattle has something close to a straight-up regular release this week, showing The Congress all week. It's a nifty science-fiction story featuring Robin Wright as a fictionalized version of herself, an actress who sells her likeness and later gets trapped inside an animated future. The only break from that is at 7pm on Wednesday, where the Irish Film Festival of Boston has a special premiere screening of A Terrible Beauty, a film about Ireland's 1916 Easter Revolution.
  • It's quiet enough on the mainstream front that a lot of places are keeping Ghostbusters around, while Forrest Gump gets a week on Imax screens at Jordan's, Boston Common, and Assembly Row. Other than that, there are two main choices: The Identical, which features Blake Rayne as identical twins separated at birth during the Depression, both of whom find their way into music as they grow up. Nice supporting cast, including Ashley Judd, Ray Liotta, Sseth Green, and Joe Pantoliano, whom it seems we haven't seen in a long time. It's at Apple, Fenway, Boston Common, Assembly Row, and Revere.

    There's also Innocence, which features Sophie Curtis as a transfer student who discovers that someone at her prep school is staying young by bathing in the blood of virgins. It also has some interesting folks in the supporting cast, like Kelly Reilly and Linus Roache, and plays at Boston Common, Fenway, and Revere. Boston Common will also have the Brian De Palma Scarface on Sunday & Wednesday for $6.
  • The Harvard Film Archive starts its fall program with a retrospective of Marco Bellocchio, the Moral Anarchist, including Fists in the Pocket (Friday 7pm), Devil in the Flesh (Friday 9pm), Good Morning, Night (Saturday 7pm), "Let's Discuss" & In the Name of the Father (Saturday 9pm), Henry IV (Sunday 5pm), My Mother's Smile (Sunday 7pm), and Victory March (Monday 7pm).
  • The Museum of Fine Arts finishes their runs of Exhibition (Friday) and Norte, the End of History (Friday & Saturday). On Wednesday, they begin a Documentary Spotlight, with screenings of The Kill Team - featuring Adam Winfield, who attempted to blow the whistle on war crimes his platoon was committing in Afghanistan - and Expedition to the End of the World, chronicling a Danish expedition to Greenland. Both screen on Wednesday and Thursday.
  • ArtsEmerson restarts their free Bright Lights series on Tuesday, with Chuck Workman's What Is Cinema? playing on Tuesday and American Arab on Thursday, each followed by discussions - Emerson faculty for the first and director Usama Alshaibi (via Skype) on Thursday.
  • In addition to the Duran Duran show, the Regent Theatre also has a presentation of short films from local student filmmakers on Thursday. Gathr still needs 50 tickets sold in the next week for a screening of Who Is Dayani Crystal? (co-directed by Gael Garcia Bernal) there on the 24th.
  • Joe's Calendar still shows a couple of outdoor screenings on Friday, with Jaws at the Frog Pond and E.T. at the Milk Bottle. They also list Joan Rivers: A Piece of Work showing at the Revere Hotel's Screen 1 (formerly the Stuart Street Playhouse) on Tuesday evening.


My plans? A couple Red Sox games, Last of Robin Hood, Mary Kom, The Longest Week, and maybe Innocence or The Identical.

No comments: