- The thing I'm most excited for, though, is Office, which is, I believe, the first time that Johnnie To has directed Chow Yun-fat, and they are two of the biggest names in Hong Kong cinema over the past decades. The all-star cast also includes Sylvia Chang, Tang Wei, and Eason Chan, and the film has To dealing with familiar satiric themes. Oh, and it's also a musical. This should be interesting, eh? It's at Boston Common and Fenway.
Because it seems we're getting both new Chinese and Korean movies every week, Boston Common also gets Veteran, a fun but kind of bloated action movie by Ryoo Seung-wan that features Hwang Jeong-min as a cop trying to take down a psychopath from a wealthy family played by Yoo Ah-in. Some nifty fight scenes, at least.
Of course, India has been sending their movies across the Pacific quickly for years, and the one that arrives at Apple Cinemas Fresh Pond this week is Katti Batti, a romantic comedy starring Kangana Ranaut and Imran Khan as a couple who are together for five years until things are turned upside down. They also have Telugu-language action-comedy Courier Boy Kaylan and Tamil-language horror movie Maya, and though not actually in a foreign language, they'll be showing The Rocky Horror Picture Show at midnight on Friday with the Teseracte players doing whatever the heck it is people do during that movie. Whether they do it better, worse, or just differently than the Full Body Cast doing their regular show at Boston Common on Saturday, I have no idea. - Locally, the biggest opening is almost certainly Black Mass, starring Johnny Depp as Whitey Bulger and a pretty terrific cast as the cops after him and his allies (Joel Edgerton, Kevin Bacon, Benedict Cumberbatch, Corey Stoll, Peter Sarsgaard, and others). You want to see it in the main theater at The Somerville Theatre, which is one of only ten locations with an actual 35mm print, because local theaters are awesome and if that screen does incredibly well, maybe studios will give them prints more often. Sure, it's also playing at Apple Fresh Pond, the Lexington Venue, the Embassy, Boston Common, Fenway, Assembly Row, Revere, and the SuperLux, but, seriously, the Somerville has an actual print and the best prices.
Everest gets an early release on premium 3D screens, including the newly-reopened Imax screen at Jordan's Furniture in Reading, which has 4K laser projection and upgraded sound. This spectacle film about an ill-fated trek to the top of the world's tallest mountain also plays on the Imax screens at the Natick Jordan's, Boston Common, and Assembly Row and the RPX screen at Fenway.
The other big opening is Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials, which apparently picks up right where the previous one left off, so if that made more of an impression on you than it made on me, you're in good shape. It's at the Capitol, Apple Fresh Pond, the Embassy, Boston Common, Assembly Row, Fenway, and Revere.
Boston Common also gives War Pigs, a WWII action movie that stars Luke Goss,Doph Lundgren, Mickey Rourge, and Noah Segan, two shows a day. Revere, meanwhile, triples down on faith-oriented stuff with Captive, featuring David Oyelowo as a fugitive who holds a recovering addict played by Kate Mara hostage in her own apartment, although apparently her sharing The Purpose-Driven Life is going to set him on the road to redemption. - It's housecleaning time at Kendall Square, with four of the nine screens getting new movies, and it's a pretty interesting group. The most mainstream is Sleeping with Other People, with Jason Sudeikis and Alison Brie as two people who can't stay faithful and, realizing this, decide to be just friends despite being perfect for each other; it also plays Boston Common. The other romantic comedy is actually a documentary, Meet the Patels, about an Indian-American actor who opts to film his parents' matchmaking on his behalf.
They've also got the new François Ozon film, The New Girlfriend, in which a woman who, after her best friend dies, starts acting on her attraction to said friend's husband, and discovers he cross-dresses. There's also a one-week booking for Brazilian film The Second Mother, in which a live-in maid's daughter shows up and wreaks havoc on the implicit class system at the estate.
They've also got a couple of single screenings: Arcade Fire: The Reflektor Tapes on Wednesday and an anniversary screening of Nashville on Thursday. - The Brattle Theatre has two new releases, including Güeros, an award-winner from Mexico about slackers who discover a legendary folk singer is dying and journey across the city to play their last respects. It plays Friday through Sunday, while Cooties has 9:30pm shows for the whole Friday-to-Thursday week; it's a fun zombie comedy in which only little kids get inected and a substitute teacher on his first day must fight his way out of an elementary school.
They've got a number of special events, too - the new "Reel Weird Brattle" series is "Animated Weirdness", and kicks off late Saturday night with a 35mm print of A Scanner Darkly. There's a special presentation of The Business of Recovery on Sunday afternoon, while Bill Murray's birthday is celebrated on Monday night with Ghostbusters. Thursday is DocYard night with directors Josh & Benny Safdie on-hand to present Heaven Knows What, which is actually a fictional feature although one based on the life of star Arielle Holmes.
The Battle will also be presenting the North Alston Outdoor Film Festival - take the 66 or 86 buses to the point where their routes diverge - with Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Saturday night and A Fistful of Dollars on Sunday. - The Coolidge Corner Theatre opens Kurt Cobain: Montage of Heck, but only for a week and only in the 14-seat Goldscreen, so if you want to see it that way, get your tickets early. Contracted: Phase II also counts as a new release, although what I gather is an impressively gory horror movie will only be playing midnights on Friday & Saturday. A 35mm print of Kevin Smith's Mallrats also plays those midnights, on the main screen. Monday's "Science on Screen" presentation is also in 35mm, with human development researcher Joshua Hartshorne introducing Harold and Maude.
- The Harvard Film Archive starts a new retrospective this weekend, Not Growing Old - Maurice Pialat's Cinema of Immediacy. It starts off with two single features Friday night - Naked Childhood at 7pm and We Won't Grow Old Together at 9pm - and then continues on Sunday with Under the Sun of Satan. The "Filmmakers' Nightmares" series continues on Saturday with David Lynch's Mulholland Drive (preceded by a 16mm print of George Kuchar's short "I, an Actress"). A "Five O'clock Shadow" series of noir programs started last week, and this week continues with Sunday's The Locket (at 5pm, naturally). Monday's "Furious and Furiouser" 1970s movie is Saturday Night Fever. All are in 35mm.
- The Museum of Fine Arts continues to show 35mm prints from the UCLA Festival of Preservation, with this week's selections including Men in War (Friday & Saturday), Spring Night, Summer Night (Friday & Sunday), My Best Girl (Saturday), and White Zombie (Sunday). They also begin two runs come Wednesday: Paul Taylor: Creative Domain is an all-access look at the work of a somewhat secretive choreographer, while Fidelio, Alice's Odyssey is the next "New French Cinema" selection, with Ariane Labed playing a sailor who leaves her fiancé in port only to find that an old boyfriend is the ship's captain. Both play Wednesday and Thursday and into next week.
- The two screenings in Emerson College's Bright Lights in the Paramount Theater's screening room are co-presentations, with the Boston LGBT Film Festival and Roxbury Film Festival bringing The Passionate Pursuits of Angela Bowen there on Tuesday, along with director Jennifer Abod, while director Karim B. Haroun will be there for Documentary Educational Resources's presentation of Mystic Mass, which depicts an intriguing rite in Lebanon.
- The Regent Theatre has a musical documentary double feature on Friday and Saturday nights, with What's Going On - Taste Live at the Isle of Wight Festival 1970 (which appears to cover the band's entire short history rather than just that one performance) and Jimi Hendrix - Electric Church. $10 each, $15 for the pair. They also bring Joe Swanberg's Digging for Fire back to town for one show on Wednesday evening.
- The Institute of Contemporary Art presents Peggy Guggenheim - Art Addict on Friday evening and Saturday afternoon, documenting how the heiress was a major figure in the modern art movement.
- The Boston Film Festival bounces around different venues, at the JFK Library Friday evening, the Aquarium's Imax theater Saturday, "Cinema 1" at the Revere Hotel on Sunday, and back to the Aquarium on Monday. Some potentially interesting stuff there, although I can't imagine that some of these things are going to look good on or use a big chunk of the Aquarium's 6-story screen.
I saw Veteran on Thursday, which means I'm looking at Office and maybe checking out the upgraded furniture store theater for Everest, maybe also looking at Black Mass and Sleeping with Other People.
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