Friday, January 06, 2017

Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 6 January 2017 - 12 January 2017

New year, new mix of expanding platform releases, start-of-year crud, and oddball releases trying to find a spot where the can grab some eyeballs.

  • I have to say, I originally expected Hidden Figures to be in the crud category, but it got a Christmas release in some cities, so I’m hopeful (plus, my brother liked it). It recounts the story of three African-American women working at NASA during the lead-up to the attempts to put John Glenn in orbit. It’s at the Capitol, Apple Fresh Pond, the Embassy, Boston Common, Assembly Row, Fenway, Revere. Also expanding is A Monster Calls, in which a kid who has learned his mother (Felicity Jones) has cancer manifests a giant creature (voiced by Liam Neeson) as a means to deal with his terror. It’s at Apple Fresh Pond, the Embassy, Boston Common, Assembly Row, and Revere. I could have sworn I saw 3D previews for it, but all screenings here are 2D.

    The week’s 2D/3D release is the one that’s part of the January “dumping ground” release, Underworld: Blood Wars, which I guess is the fifth in a series that I dropped after the first. Kate Beckinsale’s still doing the things, though, and vampires are still fighting werewolves sometime in the future. It’s at Apple Fresh Pond (2D only), Boston Common, Assembly Row, Fenway, and Revere (2D only).

    Revere has the dubbed version of Princess Mononoke on Monday evening, and a 60th anniversary screening of Carousel on Wednesday.
  • Another high-profile expansion is Silence, Martin Scorcese’s long-in-development passion project featuring Liam Neeson as a Jesuit priest who has gone missing in Japan at a time when Christianity was illegal there, with Adam Driver and Andrew Garfield as the missionaries trying to find him and Tadanobu Asano as their interpreter. That one is at Kendall Square, West Newton, and Boston Common, and is apparently emotionally brutal. Kendall Square also has a more cheerful Japan-based picture, with an English dub of One Piece: Gold, the latest in the tremendously popular anime/manga series, on Tuesday.
  • Jackie Chan’s latest, Railroad Tigers, opens at Boston Common; it’s a big action comedy set on a moving train which reteams him with Little Big Soldier director Ding Sheng. From across the Sea of Japan, they also get Master (cutely spelled “MA$TER”), the latest from Cold Eyes director Jo Ui-seok with Gang Dong-won, Lee Byun-hun, and Oh Dal-su, which is a nice group. You’ve got to be pretty dedicated to see it, though, as it is only screening at 10am. Which means, hey, $8 tickets, and it’s better than it not playing Boston at all, but this is kind of brutal scheduling.

    Over at Apple Cinemas Fresh Pond, they pick up Tamil thriller Dhuruvangal Pathinaa, with Telugu flick Khaidi No. 150 opening Tuesday, Gautamiputra Satakar (also Telgugu) and subtitled Tamil action/adventure Bairavaa coming Wednesday, but Bollywood hit Dangal is the main attraction, even expanding to Fenway.
  • The Brattle Theatre continues their Refreshed! Renewed! Restored! series from Friday to Tuesday, with a Daughters of the Dust headlining and playing at least once each day. Pan’s Labyrinth, (Friday/Saturday in 35mm), Time Bandits (Saturday/Sunday), and Tampopo (Sunday/Monday) round out the series.

    Tuesday night is Trash Night, with Quigley being Gary Busey’s inevitable entry in the “guy reincarnated as an animal” genre. After that, they start their annual (Some of) The Best of 2016 series, with a double feature of The Fits (kind of amazing) & Ixcanul on Wednesday and one of Kaili Blues & Embrace of the Serpent on Thursday.
  • The Coolidge Corner Theatre keeps up the same schedule they’ve had since Christmas, but also offers up Surviving the Game on 35mm at midnight on Friday and Saturday. They’ve also got a Stage & Screen presentation of Scenes from a Marriage on Monday, Open Screen on Tuesday, and a special screening of The Breakfast Club on Thursday with Searching for John Hughes author Jason Diamond there as a guest of Brookline Booksmith.
  • No members’ weekend coming out of Christmas Break for The Harvard Film Archive, but they do get right back into Busby Berkely Babylon with 35mm prints of Gold Diggers of 1935 (Friday 7pm), 42nd Street (Friday 9pm), Babes in Arms (Saturday 7pm with an introduction from Rhae Lynn Barnes), Babes on Broadway (Saturday 9pm), Palmy Days (Sunday 5pm), Gold Diggers in Paris (Sunday 7pm), and Wonder Bar (Monday 7pm with an introduction by Sam Parler).
  • The Museum of Fine Arts kicks off a monthly “On The Fringe” on Friday night with Altered States, while also continuing their run of the restored The Battle of Algiers (Friday/Saturday/Sunday/Wednesday). They also begin a series looking at the films of Pierre Étaix with The Suitor (Saturday/Thursday), Yoyo (Sunday), The Land of Milk and Honey (Wednesday), and As Long as You’re Healthy (Thursday), all in 35mm and all but Milk and Honey preceded by one of the director’s short films.
  • The ICA will have afternoon screenings of a program of short films from the Ottowa International Festival of Animation, one of the world’s most prestigious, on Saturday and Sunday.
  • Jeff Rapsis will be at Somerville’s Aeronaut Brewery Sunday evening to accompany Metropolis.
  • The Boston Jewish Film Festival and ReelAbilities pair for a special screening of My Hero Brother at the Somerville Theatre on Thursday, with the documentary featuring a group of Israelis with Down Syndrome and their siblings hiking the Himalayas. Director Yonatan Nir will be on hand for a Q&A.
  • I’ve been meaning to get out to CinemaSalem, which often has at least one movie not playing anywhere else, at some point, and while this probably won’t be the thing that does it, Two Lovers and a Bear stars Dane DeHaan and Tatiana Malasny as two people living in a tiny town way the heck up north. It’s so Canadian that Gordon Pinsent is credited as “Voice of the Bear”, and I know some folks who go for that.

My plans: A bunch of catch-up, Railroad Tigers, Master, Hidden Figures, and A Monster Calls.

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