Thursday, May 05, 2016

Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 6 May 2016 - 12 May 2016

The big opening this weekend is Captain America, and I don't know whether it's a coincidence that only amuses me that there are also a fair chunk of foreign films coming out or if this is a little bit of hedging bets against Marvel's movie after the disappointment of Batman v Superman.

Coincidence, I figure. But it's making for a busier weekend than I expected!

  • But, yeah, the weekend's big opener is Captain America: Civil War, which looks like it owes as much to Ed Brubaker's run on the book, has appearances by nearly every character that has been introduced in the Marvel movies, and is getting great reviews. I'm excited. It's in 3D and 2D at the Somerville, the Studio, Apple Fresh Pond, Jordan's (Imax 3D), the Embassy, Boston Common (including Imax 3D), Assembly Row (including Imax 3D), Fenway (including RPX), Revere (including XPlus and MX4D), and the SuperLux.

    Not much room for special screenings with that, but Boston Common and Revere have a single screening of The Abolitionists, a documentary about the fight to stop human trafficking.
  • There is another American movie or two opening this week, though, with The Coolidge Corner Theatre, Kendall Square, and West Newton Cinema opening The Meddler, with Susan Sarandon playing a recent widow who moves cross-country to be near her daughter (Rose Byrne) and, well, meddle. I'm guessing JK Simmons is there to make sure she doesn't stay single for that long, though.

    They also pick up The Man Who Knew Infinity for the smaller rooms. In the big ones, there's a 35mm print of the original RoboCp at midnight on Friday & Saturday. There's also a "Cinema Jukebox" screening of Bob Dylan in Don't Look Back on Monday, and a different sort of music documentary on Tuesday as they present Shining Night: A Portrait of Composer Morten Lauridsen (with Open Screen going on in the screening room). They break out the 35mm again for the "Rewind!" screening of She's All That on Thursday.
  • Speaking of 35mm, The Brattle Theatre plays Too Late from Friday to Monday, a neo-noir which is not only built around the idea of each reel of film being a single long take, but is only being disributed on actual film.

    They do take a break from that on Sunday to do a special Mother's Day screening of Psycho. It's Trash Night on Tuesday, and then the exact freakin' opposite on Wednesday when "John Williams Scores" continues with Raiders of the Lost Ark on 35mm before wrapping up Thursday with Family Plot & The Killers. Williams, by the way, will be conducting the Pops on the 12th and 13th.
  • In addition to The Meddler, Kendall Square finds themselves something of a victim of their own success, as the last two "one-week" bookings (Older Than Ireland and Fireworks Wednesday) are still hanging around, which means there's only half a screen for Men & Chicken, a Danish comedy by Anders Thomas Jensen that stars Mads Mikkelsen & David Denick as brothers who find out... Well, it's weird. It's the off hours (4:30 and 9:00pm), too.
  • IFFBoston is done for a while, but The Somerville Theatre, in addition to the gigantic movie, also opens 3rd Street Blackout with writer/director/stars Negin Farsad & Jeremy Redleaf doing a Q&A for the 7:45pm show on Friday. They also quietly picked up Green Room and Everybody Wants Some!! on Wednesday, whie their sister cinema in Arlington (The Capitol), picks up Eye in the Sky and Dough (previously only playing in West Newton).
  • Apple Cinemas Fresh Pond picks up a bunch of Indian films this weekend, with time-travel thriller 24 playing in both Tamil & Telugu and horror movie 1920: London Story (apparently the third in the series), which appears to be Hindi. I think the latter, at least, is subtitled, but the website is not

    Boston Common keeps Finding Mr. Right 2 around (and apparently you can see the first for free on SnagFilms), and they also get the rare Mainland China horror film in Phantom of the Theatre, and a romantic comedy called MBA Partners (or "Miss Partners" in some spots), featuring Yao Chen, Wang Yibo, and Tang Yan as three women who go into business together.
  • You'll have to go downstairs from The Regent Theatre to see Estree 1976, a documentary on the making of Star Wars told from the point of view of the extras and folks like Jeremy Bulloch and David Prowse who only appeared behind iconic masks.
  • The Harvard Film Archive is running a lot of 16mm this weekend with Chick Strand, SeƱora con Flores, a series of short films by the avant-garde filmmaker, with packages Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at 7pm, and Monday at 8pm (the 7pm slot is a pair of 16mm shorts by Paolo Gioli). There's also one last "Guy Maddin Presents" show at 9pm Saturday, Pink Narcissus, that one on 35mm. Note that the Sunday afternoon shorts from Philip Trevelyan on the calendar will not run.
  • The Museum of Fine Arts has more of JewishFilm.2016 on Friday (The Kind Words) and then again on Thursday the 12th, when The Venice Ghetto, 500 Years of Life will have a Q&A with the author of a related book and silent film accompanist Donald Sosin will score the newly-restored 1922 silent Breaking Home Ties. There's one last screening of Francofonia on Saturday, along with a special screening of featurette "Nazi Law: Legally Blind" with director John Michalczyk and several other guests hosting a Q&A afterward.
  • The ICA also has a JewishFilm.2016 presentation on Saturday evening, Tango Glories, with a live tango demonstration as well. That day will also feature three screenings of a short program organized by artist Geoffrey Farmer, free with museum admission, and it's got some pretty impressive material.
  • Monday's entry inThe Belmont World Film Series at the Belmont Studio Cinema is the very well-regarded Neon Bull from Brazil (it won prizes in both Venice and Toronto last year).


Yikes; I was hoping for some downtime after the festival, just catching Captain America and Too Late, but I want to see the two Chinese movies, Green Room, Keanu, Men & Chicken, Dough, Older Than Ireland, Raiders, The Killers, a preview... And I've got tickets to a Red Sox game. This is festival-level nuts.

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