- I'm pre-caught-up on what's playing at The Brattle Theatre, which is one of my favorites from this year's Independent Film Festival Boston. That'd be Slow West, an unusual western starring Kodi Smit-McPhee as a 16-year-old from Scotland who has come to the American West in search of his true love and Michael Fassbender as the gunslinger who hooks up with him but has an agenda of its own. Perfect casting, beautiful photography, and sly wit make for something pretty great. The only other film on the program this week is the "Reel Weird Brattle: 25 Years Weird" screening of Nightbreed, a Clive Barker-directed dark fantasy about a man who discovers monsters are real and maybe not as cruel as his shrink.
- As to what I haven't seen, there's Aloha, for a start. It's the new one from Cameron Crowe of Jerry Maguire and Almost Famous fame, featuring Bradley Cooper as a military contractor with an assignment in Hawaii, where he's got unfinished business with an ex-girlfriend (Rachel McAdams) and new romance with his military liaison (Emma Stone); there's a great supporting cast as well. It's at the Capitol, West Newton, Apple Fresh Pond, Fenway, Boston Common, Assembly Row, Revere, and the SuperLux.
Less prestigious-looking is San Andreas, which promises a Richter-9 earthquake in 3D (or 2D, if you prefer) with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson having to rescue his stranded daughter in the middle of it. That's at the Capitol, Apple Fresh Pond, the Embassy, Jordan's Furniture (Imax), Fenway (including RPX), Boston Common (including Imax 3D), Assembly Row (including Imax 3D), Revere, and the SuperLux. Some theaters are apparently also opening Entourage: The Movie on Wednesday (which means Tuesday night these days). - Kendall Square has three new movies opening this week. The biggest is IFFBoston selection Sunshine Superman, a documentary on Carl Boenish, the daredevil who created BASE jumping and seems to have been fortunate in finding a woman who loved adventure just as much as he did.
The other two are in French, though from different parts of the world. Montreal, QC is the source of Felix et Meira, a romance between a cut-off francophone and a Hasidic single mother. From France comes In the Name of My Daughter, in which Catherine Deneuve plays a mother who spends nearly three decades investigating the disappearance and presumed murder of her daughter (Adele Haenel) after a failed suicide attempt. The first is booked for one week, the second planned as a more open-ended run. - The Coolidge Corner Theatre and The West Newton Cinema pick up I'll See You in My Dreams, a nice senior romance with Blythe Danner that played IFFBoston and also opened at Kendall Square last week. The Coolidge also has a late-night "opening", with The Human Centipede III: Final Sequence playing midnight on Friday & Saturday; with any luck it's the end of the line for that one.
They also have Clue in 35mm for those nights; no word which ending(s) play which night. Monday night is "Big Screen Classics" night, and this week's presentation is the Maysles Brothers' documentary Grey Gardens, a cult classic look at former socialites in a decaying house. Thursday night's "Wine & Film" presentation is A Year in Champagne; no guesses what sort of wine will be paired with it for a tasting. - The Lav Diaz series at the Harvard Film Archive reaches its end this weekend, with one film of "normal" feature length - Hesus the Revolutionary on Friday night - and one last marathon, the six-hour Century of Birthing at 4pm Sunday. I'm ashamed that I didn't have the guts to try at least one of those monsters.
Also finishing up is the Wojiech Jery Has retrospective, which has its final screening Saturday night with a 35mm print ofThe Fabulous Journey of Balthazar Kober. The end of the calendar also brings an end to Ben Rivers' Midnite Movies, with Night of the Comet playing at 10pm on Friday and Requiem for a Vampire at the same time Saturday; both are on 35mm - The Museum of Fine Arts continues their run of Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Winter Sleep, with screenings on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Wednesday. On Thursday the 4th, they will be screening American Denial, an hour-long documentary on race in America that hearkens back to Gunnar Myrdal's 1944 study while also focusing on contemporary issues; director Llewellyn Smith will be on-hand for a Q&A afterward.
- The Institute of Contemporary Art has two film programs this week. Friday night is their annual "Fast Forward" screening, a presentation of shorts created by local teenagers in the museum's Teen New Media program; it's free for teens. Saturday and Sunday, there are a total of three shows of local film critic, director, and Archie fanatic Gerald Peary's new documentary Archie's Betty, in which he tries to track down the real-life inspirations for America's Typical Teen-ager and his friends.
- The Capitol wraps up "Mel Brooks in May" with Spaceballs at 11pm on Friday & Saturday; no word yet if they'll be having late shows in June as well. The Somerville Theatre has a special show on Thursday - I Need a Dodge - Joe Strummer on the Run, an off-beat documentary about the Clash frontman who, while spending time in Madrid, bought a car and forgot where he parked it, asking people to help him find it twelve years later.
- The Regent Theatre has its first screenings of this year's Spike & Mike animation programs on Friday, with the "regular" festival at 8pm and a 10pm show for the "Sick & Twisted" festival (which is what most people probably think of as "regular" for Spike & Mike, but since they're not calling the other "classic" this year it gets confusing!).
My plans involve silent movies in San Francisco through Sunday, air travel and baseball on Monday, and then we'll see just how crazy the rest of the week is looking at work before thinking about Aloha and San Andreas.
No comments:
Post a Comment