Thursday, June 08, 2017

Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 9 June 2017 - 15 June 2017

This week features a bunch of people I like in movies that leave me saying "hm, sure, I guess". Kind of weird, that.

  • Take the new, 3D version of The Mummy. Tom Cruise, Russell Crowe, and Sofia Boutella (pretty great in Kingsman and Star Trek Beyond) star; Alex Kurtzman has been part of good genre work; and I don't think "Dark Universe" is the worst of ideas for a cinematic franchise. But, man, it sort of feels like it should be kicked off by Frankenstein and the previous Mummy series doesn't quite feel dormant yet. I will still watch Cruise try and kill himself on a giant screen, though. It's at the Somerville (2D only), Apple Fresh Pond (2D only), Jordan's Furniture (Imax 3D), the Embassy (2D only), Boston Common (including Imax 3D), Assembly Row, Fenway, Revere, and the SuperLux.

    Then there's Megan Leavey, featuring Kate Mara as an Army NCO who fights to be able to adopt the bomb-sniffing dog she handled in the middle east after she is discharged; I like Mara and the idea of her getting a big starring role a lot, and it's got a supporting cast full of good folks, on top of being directed by Blackfish's Gabriela Cowperthwaite. But, you know... eh? It's at the Capitol, Apple Fresh Pond, Boston Common, Fenway, and Revere.

    It Comes at Night, on the other hand, stars Joel Edgerton, whom I've seen in a dozen movies at least and could not pick out of a lineup. Krista filmmaker Trey Edward Shults will be the draw for some, directing a post-apocalyptic-looking horror movie where the larger threat may be the paranoia inside the house. It's at the Somerville, Apple Fresh Pond, the Embassy, Boston Common, Assembly Row, Fenway, and Revere.

    In addition to picking up Dean (which opened at the Kendall last week and also expands to West Newton), Boston Common also gets Middle Man,starring Jim O'Heir as a middle-aged would-be comedian who winds up with a corpse in his trunk when he picks up a hitchhiker on the way to Vegas. Elsewhere, TCM's Big Screen Classic of the week is Some Like It Hot, which plays Sunday and Wednesday at Assembly Row, Fenway, and Revere.
  • My Cousin Rachel gets a reasonably broad opening, playing not just The Coolidge Corner Theatre but the Capitol, West Newton, Kendall Square, the Lexington Venue (hey when did the Venue get a website?), and Boston Common. Rachel Weisz plays the title character, whom a young man believes killed his cousin, but when he meets her and falls in love… It's from a Daphne Du Maurier novel, so that's a nice pedigree.

    They also open IFFBoston Closing Night selection Band Aid, in which writer/director Zoe Lister-Jones and Adam Pally play a couple that opts to turn their arguments into songs, to mixed results. Generally pretty funny. And, speaking of festival alumni returning, The Survivalist played the Boston Sci-Fi Festival in 2016, and plays at midnight Friday and Saturday. It's a pretty good post-Apocalyptic thriller about a survivor whose determined isolation is tested when a mother and daughter show up at his door.

    Much-loved horror sequels are the other half of the midnight schedule, with Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn on Friday night and A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors on Saturday, both on 35mm. The Sunday Morning Goethe-Institut film is Paula, with Carla Juri as a woman who married a fellow art enthusiast on the way to becoming a famous painter. There's a special Monday night preview screening of The Bad Batch with director Ana Lily Amirpour in person. The week finishes with a 35mm "Rewind!" screening of Men in Black, with the after-party at Osaka.
  • This week's indication that Kendall Square is still under reconstruction is Past Life only opening at The Embassy in Waltham, a film from Israel about two sisters in 1977 seeking the truth of how their father survived World War II. The Kendall does have anime feature Black Butler: Book of the Atlantic for two shows, with subtitles on Monday and dubbed on Wednesday.
  • Nothing new from China, but Didi's Dream sticks around at Fenway. North of the river, Apple Cinemas Fresh Pond keeps Ami Tumi around and also opens Bollywood romantic thriller Raabta. Will I catch it for a mere Deepika Padukone cameo? Hmmm… There's also Muramba on Saturday & Sunday afternoons.

    In English, they've also got a Rocky Horror Picture Show screening with Teseracte at midnight on Friday (Full Body does their regular show at Boston Common on Saturday). They also give half a screen to 11:55, starring Victor Almanzar as a Marine who returns to his hometown and gets sucked back into a life of crime.
  • The Brattle Theatre continues their year-long "Women in Cinema" series of series with Seven Beauties: The Films of Lina Wertmüller, a retrospective of one of the 20th Century's most significant filmmakers. The seven films are Swept Away (Friday/Saturday), Seven Beauties (Saturday/Sunday/Thursday), The Seduction of Mimi (Saturday/Sunday), Love & Anarchy (Sunday/Monday), All Screwed Up (Monday/Tuesday), Summer Night (Tuesday), and Ferdinando & Carolina (Wednesday). There's also an eighth, Wertmüller documentary Behind the White Glasses, on Friday, Saturday, and Sunday.
  • The Harvard Film Archive does deep dives into filmmakers with long careers every summer, and first up for 2017 is The Complete Jean Renoir, with The Rules of the Game (Friday 7pm), Picnic on the Grass (Friday 9:30pm), Whirlpool of Fate preceded by "The Little Match Girl" (Saturday 7pm with live accompaniment by Bertrand Laurence), Night at the Crossroads (Saturday 9:30pm), Chotard et Cie (Sunday 4:30pm without subtitles), and Nana (Sunday 7pm with Laurence). They also begin a pair of monthly series, with Howl's Moving Castle on Saturday afternoon the first of the summer's $5 family films and Zoot Suit on Monday evening kicking off "Cinema of Resistance". All in 35mm aside from Chotard et Cie.
  • The Museum of Fine Arts has an Arab Film Weekend, with Go Home from Lebanon (Friday/Sunday), Clash from Egypt (Friday), Foreign Body (Saturday/Sunday), and The War Show from Syria (Sunday). They've got another screening of Matisse: From MOMA and Tate Modern on Saturday (see their exhibition while you're there!). Holocaust documentary Line 41 plays Wednesday and Thursday, as does The Freedom to Marry. Both of those two are co-presented by the Boston Jewish Film Festival, the latter also presented by Wicked Queer.
  • The Somerville Theatre has a collection of the best 48 Hour Film Project entries for the year on Sunday, and then continues the "Summer of Love" screenings on Wednesday with Valley of the Dolls
  • CinemaSalem picks up Citizen Jane: Battle for the City up from the Coolidge.
  • The Rockwell will host the Massachusetts High School Film Festival on Saturday afternoon, presenting a number of short films made by (mostly-local) teenagers.
  • Not a lot of outdoor screenings on the Joe's Free Films calendar yet, with just On Golden Pond at the Boston Harbor Hotel on Friday evening this week.


I'll take in The Mummy, It Comes at Night, My Cousin Rachel, Valley of the Dolls, and probably Megan Leavy, and Dean. Maybe some of the Renoir and Wertmüller stuff as well. I'd love to hit The Bad Batch and/or Black Butler, if only to see how far the live-action version I saw at Fantasia is from the source, but Monday's a baseball day. Not sure I'm up to a midnight, but it's been a while since my last 35mm screening of Evil Dead 2.

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