Thursday, October 26, 2017

Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 27 October 2017 - 2 November 2017

Last weekend before Halloween, so some places are pulling out all the stops, and it looks like the good fall movies are finally starting to roll out. Woo-hoo!

  • Suburbicon looks like one of the "good" fall movies - George Clooney directing Matt Damon, Julianne Moore, and Oscar Isaac in a story about an office drone in the 1950s who loses his wife in a home invasion and becomes increasingly violent - but isn't getting great reviews. It started from a Coen Brothers script, but Gambit sort of implies they push their lesser works off to others. It's at the Capitol, Apple Fresh Pond, the Embassy, Boston Common, Fenway, Assembly Row, Revere, and the SuperLux.

    I've seen roughly a billion previews for that, but surprisingly, not a one for Jigsaw, which is weird for a relaunching 8th entry in the Saw series, with Michael & Peter Spierig (of Undead, Daybreakers, and Predestination) supposedly giving it a more stylish revival. It's at Apple Fresh Pond, Jordan's Furniture (Imax), Boston Common (including Imax), Fenway (including RPX), Assembly Row (including Imax), Revere (including MX4D and XPlus), and the SuperLux. Another thriller, All I See Is You, gets a smaller release, with Marc Forster's film about a blind woman who discovers something is amiss in her marriage when she regains her sight. It's at Boston Common and Revere. There's also a week-long release of Harry Selick's The Nightmare Before Christmas, showing twice a day at Fenway.

    There's also Thank You for Your Service, a drama about servicemen returning from the Middle East and having difficulty re-integrating. It's at the Embassy, Boston Common, Fenway, Assembly Row, and Revere.

    The Disney Junior HalloVeen Party" has a final show at Revere on Saturday. There's also this month's Studio Ghibli film, Spirited Away, which plays Fenway and Revere on Sunday, Monday, and Wednesday, with Monday's subtitled and the other two dubbed into English. There's also the Director's Cut of Little Shop of Horrors on Sunday and Tuesday at Fenway, Assembly Row, and Revere, while Fenway concludes the Regal Halloween series with The Shining on Monday and Tuesday. There's also a one-night only screening of new horror movie Keep Watching at Boston Common and Assembly Row.

    And then, with Halloween over, A Bad Moms Christmas opens on Wednesday, November 1st, playing at the Capitol, Apple Fresh Pond, Boston Common, Fenway, Assembly Row, Revere, and the SuperLux.
  • Wonderstruck opens at The Coolidge Corner Theatre, Kendall Square, West Newton and Boston Common. Writer Brian selznick has done pretty well to get his two concrete block-sized children's books adapted by the likes of Martin Scorsese (Hugo) and Todd Haynes; this one follows two children who arrive in New York City fifty years apart. The Coolidge also opens Psycho documentary 78/52 in the GoldScreen for late shows, with a midnight screening on Friday night.

    Their midnights also finish their October Italian Horror series with Black Sunday on Friday, while the Saturday overnight Halloween Horror Marathon kicks off with 35mm Night of the Living Dead and Zombie and continues for another nine hours of unannounced prints. The Saturday morning kids' show, Day of the Dead, is not hugely spooky, but it is kind of charming. It's back to scary on Monday with a "King of Halloween" double feature of Carrie & Christine on 35mm, and continues the Stephen King fun by showing a print of Pet Semetary on Halloween night, with actress Denise Crosby and John Campopiano, who directed a whole documentary about this movie.
  • Kendall Square is one of a couple places opening The Killing of a Sacred Deer (it's also at Boston Common), the new one by Yorgos Lanthimos, with Colin Farrell and Nicole Kidman as a couple whose lives are turned upside down after taking in a troubled teenager; given that this Greek nutter is in charge, it's probably strange than it sounds.

    The Kendall also picks up a couple documentaries, with Chinese artist Ai Weiwei's Human Flow chronicling stories of refugees and other migrants, while The Paris Opera takes a behind the scenes look at… well, take a guess. That one's booked for a week, and there's also a single screening of Kedi on Sunday for National Cat Day.
  • It's taken over a year for A Silent Voice to make it's way from Japan to America, because Japan is unlike every other country in that they don't push stuff across the Pacific quickly. The animated drama about a school bully who finds himself rejected after tormenting a hearing-impaired girl, but gets a chance at redemption later plays at Boston Common.

    The Diwali movies continue at Apple Fresh Pond - Secret Superstar, Golmaal Again, and Mersal continuing. They also open Telugu drama Vunnadi Okate and Malayalam thriller Ramaleela, and also have a Sunday screening of Bengali romance Projapoti Biskut.
  • The Regent Theatre opens Halloween Pussytrap! Kill! Kill!, in which an all-girl punk band including Sara Malakul Lane must survive a booby-trapped house, with a mastermind voiced by Megadeth frontman Dave Mustaine taunting them throughout. Veteran actress margaret O'Brien and ex-Jump Streeter Richard Grieco are in it, too! It plays in the "Underground" screen from Friday to Sunday and in the main room from Monday to Thursday. They've also got motocross stunt flick Moto 9 on Saturday evening and meditation documentary Walk with Me on Sunday afternoon.
  • The Brattle Theatre is going all-in with Halloween stuff or joining in on Netflix's massive Stranger Things 2 promotion, or both! Strange Inspirations is a ton of (mostly) 1980s movies that inspired their retro horror series, with mostly 35mm prints in double features: Alien & The Thing on Friday, E.T. & Close Encounters on Saturday (both DCP), Stand by Me & The Goonies on Sunday, a single-bill of Buckaroo Banzai on Monday, Ghostbusters & Prince of Darkness on Tuesday, single features of Explorers and A Nightmare on Elm Street on Wednesday, and a pairing of Firestarter (DCP) & Scanners (35mm) on Thursday. Filling in that extra spot on Monday is a free 35mm "Elements of Cinema" screening of the original Planet of the Apes, with philosophy podcaster Wes Alwan leading a discussion afterward.
  • Bright Lights has Prevenge for their Halloween show on Tuesday, with BUFF artistic director Kevin Monahan leading the discussion afterward. They continue in the same vein on Thursday, when director Anna Biller brings a 35mm print of The Love Witch. As usual, both are free, but the Bright Screening room in Emerson's Paramount is small, so get there early.
  • The Somerville Theatre finishes up their Halloween stuff with a 35mm double feature of the classic Frankenstein & Bride of Frankenstein on Friday, and then the Teseracte Plays accompanying The Rocky Horror Picture Show (Boston Common also has a different group on both Friday and Saturday). There's also a Boston Underground Film Festival "Dispatches from the Underground" program in the Micro-Cinema on Wednesday, 2016 Fantasia selection Man Underground.

    Sister cinema The Capitol plays host to The Arlington International Film Festival through Sunday, with a pretty packed schedule that includes Chasing Trane on Friday night, IFFBoston alum Maineland on Saturday, and many shorts on Sunday.
  • The Harvard Film Archive begins The Legends of William Wellman, a retrospective of the filmmaker's work that stretches from the silent era to the 1950s, with Beggars of Life (DCP) and Night Nurse on Friday, The Public Enemy on Sunday, and The Ox-Bow Incident on Monday. Their monthly kids' show on Saturday is Tim Burton's Frankenweenie, followed later in the day by their last two films celebrating Houghton Library collections - in this case, the LSD Library: Barbarella and Monkey on My Back. Sunday night features a pair of Danny Lyon featurettes - Los Ninos Abandonados (16mm) & "Llanito" (digital), while Sunday has a free screening of 1976 Soviet comedy-drama Slave of Love (digital) at the Tsai Auditorium. All in 35mm, except where indicated.
  • The Museum of Fine Arts has the back half of their Boston Palestine Film Festival, with Sunday night's closing film Stitching Palestine featuring a conversation with director Carol Mansour and producer Muna Khalidi. Their last screening of Kékszakállú (Bluebeard) is on Friday, but the November schedule starts on Wednesday with two documentaries that will play throughout the month. Dawson City: Frozen Time parallels the boom, bust, and rebirth of a Gold Rush town and the silent-movie prints that wound up their, protected by the extreme cold, while "Chartres: Light Reborn" follow the restoration of a French cathedral, with Wednesday's first showing followed by a panel discussion. On Thursday, they open the Turkish Festival's Documentary & Short Film competition with a special presentation of The Turkish Way, with a local Turkish chef introducing the food movie and the Antioch Civilizations Choir performing afterward.
  • The Museum of Science wraps up their Saturday Night Creature Features series at the planetarium with the surprisingly good giant-insect movie Them!.


I skipped Beggars of Life at the Brattle last month, so I'll catch it, Wonderstruck, A Silent Voice, and Human Flow, and probably see some crap rather than Sacred Deer. Then, it's on a plane Thursday night for a vacation that already has one movie-related tour booked.

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