Thursday, June 04, 2015

Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 5 June 2015 - 11 June 2015

Back in Boston, looking to catch up on some things and look in on others.

  • The Coolidge Corner Theatre is among several theaters opening Love & Mercy, a biography of Beach Boys songwriter Brian Wilson, which has Paul Dano playing him as a young man and John Cusack playing him later in life, with Paul Giamatti and Elizabeth Banks as people involved with his psychological care. It's at the Coolidge, West Newton, Kendall Square, Boston Common, and Revere.

    The other opening is The Nightmare, a sort of combined documentary and horror movie about sleep paralysis from the director of Room 237 - it plays at midnight in screen #2 on Friday and Saturday before moving to the GoldScreen for 9:30pm shows from Sunday to Thursday. The other midnight show on Friday & Saturday is a 35mm print of Heavy Weights, part of their annual summer camp series. They'll also have a 35mm screening of Wild Style, the first hip-hop feature featuring grafitti artist Lee Quinones, Fab 5 Freddy, and other artists from the early days of New York rap, with director Charlie Ahearn on hand for a Q&A as part of their Cinema Jukebox program. There's also Open Screen on Tuesday, and a "Wine & Film" presentation of Eric Rohmer's Autumn Tale.
  • The Entourage movie got a jump-start on the weekend, opening at the Somerville, Apple Fresh Pond, the Embassy, Fenway, Boston Common, Assembly Row, Revere, and the SuperLux. The other big-deal comedy opening this weekend is Spy, featuring Melissa McCarthy as a CIA desk jockey suddenly thrust out into the field, with an interesting supporting cast of Rose Byrne, Jason Statham, and Jude Law. We don't see outright-funny Jason Statham often enough. It's at the Capitol, Apple Fresh Pond, the Embassy, Fenway (including RPX), Boston Common, Assembly Row, and Revere.

    Those opting for something scary can choose Insidious 3, a prequel to the other two movies which has co-writer Leigh Whannell taking over as director. It's at Apple Fresh Pond, Fenway, Boston Common, Assembly Row, and Revere.
  • In addition to Love & Mercy, Kendall Square has a couple more things worth catching, and it may be worth making sure you catch the right show. When Marnie Was There, for instance, will be screening in both an English-dubbed version (11:10am, 1:55pm, and 7:10pm) and in the original Japanese with subtiltes (4:25pm and 9:40pm). It is quite possibly Studio Ghibli's final film - nothing else is in production - and only booked for one week.

    They also get the new Andrew Bujalski film (and IFFBoston alum) Results, with Kevin Corrigan as a nouveau riche slacker who finds himself tangled up with dueling athletic trainers played by Guy Pearce and Cobie Smulders. Producers Paul Bernon and Sam Slater will be there for the 7:05pm show on Friday.
  • Felix and Meira ended its one-week booking at Kendall Square on Thursday, but gets a couple of shows per day at The West Newton Cinema
  • Bollywood's Dil Dhadakne Do opens at both Apple Cinemas Fresh Pond/iMovieCafe and Fenway; it's got an impressive cast - Anil Kapoor, Priyanka Chopra, Ranveer Singh, among others. I am reasonably sure that one plays with English subtitles; less so about Unfreedom, a terrorist thriller split between New York and New Delhi.
  • The Brattle Theatre anchors a Sunshine Noir series with Paul Thomas Anderson's Inherent Vice, an exceptonally entertaining Thomas Pynchon adaptation starring Joaquin Phoenix that plays Friday to Sunday. Oddly, it's the only thing in the series not on 35mm, as opposed to double-feature-mates The Big Lebowski (Saturday), Robert Altman's The Long Goodbye, Monday night's Harper, Tuesday's The Oustide Man and Repo Man (single features), Wednesday's Chinatown, and the Thursday night QT double feature of Jackie Brown & True Romance.

    The "Reel Weird Brattle: Class of 1990" show on Saturday night is The Spirit of '76, a time-travel comedy widely considered interesting but not very good. It's also on 35mm
  • Speaking of Robert Altman films playing in 35mm the Harvard Film Archive begins a retrospective on Friday with Nashville, followed by Kansas City at 9pm Saturday and Short Cuts on Monday. The also start the summer's other major retrospective, this one focused upon Italy's Titanus Studio; the first three entries being The Fiancés (Saturday 7pm), Days of Glory (Sunday 5pm), and Violent Summer (Sunday 7pm).
  • The Somerville Theatre has their monthly silent-film presentation at 2pm on Sunday, a 35mm deep-dive double feature of Play Safe and Show People. The latter is the more prominent, directed by King Vidor with Marion Davies and William Haines.
  • The Museum of Fine Arts will begin a series of The Films of Roy Andersson on Wednesday with Songs from the Second Floor. It also plays Thursday, as does You, the Living. They play in advance of his new, much-lauded film A Pigeon Sat on a Branch Reflecting on Existence, which opens next Friday (the 12th).
  • The Regent Theatre has two film events this week: Sunday night they premiere locally-made comedy DJ Stan Da Man, with Chace Carson as a one time king of the clubs now reduced to the wedding business. Then on Tuesday, Goodbye Gauley Mountain: An Ecosexual Love Story with guest speaker Abe Ryneck.


Spy, Love & Mercy, and When Marnie Was Here look to be the new releases worth catching; I've also got San Andreas and Aloha to catch up with. The Sunshine Noir and Altman series merit a drop-in, as well.

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