Thursday, January 04, 2018

Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 5 January 2018 - 11 January 2018

Another post-Christmas week where not much is opening, but there's another theater opening too, this one the Kerasotes Showplace Icon in the Seaport District, near the Courthouse stop on the Silver Line. It's a fancy place, with the now-expected recliners, a full kitchen with in-seat ordering, 4K laser projection and Dolby 7.1 sound, and at least one "Icon-X" screen with Dolby Atmos. It's pricey and pitched to a picky clientele, discouraging kids and not allowing seating after the movie starts. I think it will eventually have ten screens, but six are open now, with The Shape of Water, Star Wars: The Last Jedi, Pitch Perfect 3, All the Money in the World, and Molly's Game.

  • There are a few new movies opening - or expanding - this week, with the most notable being The Post making it's first stops in the Boston area at Kendall Square and Boston Common. It's got a bit of a pedigree, with Meryl Streep and Tom Hanks leading an all-star cast for director Steven Spielberg's story of how publishing the Pentagon Papers nearly destroyed The Washington Post. It will likely expand next weekend.

    With the burlesque cleared out, The Somerville Theatre picks up I, Tonya, while the Embassy adds Molly's Game and South Bay gets Lady Bird.
  • It can't be a great sign that fourth film in a popular series is coming out in one of those weeks where studios dump less popular stuff, but that's what's happening with Insidious: The Last Key, once again sending me to IMDB to check that I've seen the Sinister movies but not the Insidious ones; this one has Lin Shaye's paranormal investigator dealing with a haunting in her own home. It's at Fresh Pond, Boston Common, Fenway, South Bay, Assembly Row, and Revere.

    Boston Common also gets Hostiles, which opened elsewhere in December and expands further in a couple weeks. It's the latest from Crazy Heart and Black Mass director Scott Cooper, a western featuring Christian Bale as an Army captain escorting a party (including Wes Studi and Rosamund Pike) through Comanche territory.

    In one-or-two-offs, The Room is playing Fenway and Revere on Wednesday with UFO documentary Alien Intrusion: Unmasking a Deception at Fenway, Assembly Row, and Revere on Thursday. Revere also has the first of a couple screenings of Goodfellas on Thursday.
  • Boston Common also has a lot of Chinese stuff playing, with Ex Files 3 and Youth hanging around for one matinee a day, and three other films opening, though none getting a full slate. Goldbuster is a Hong Kong comedy starring and directed by Sandra Ng, with holdouts in a building meant to be demolished now dealing with apparent hauntings on top of everything else. Hanson and the Beast is a Mandarin-language comic fantasy with Liu Yifei as a fox demon hiding out among humanity, with Feng Shaofeng also in the cast. There's also Namiya, a sentimental-looking tale whose previews showcase Karry Wang, Dilraba, and Dong Zijan but not the guy playing the owner of the general store where they gather, Jackie Chan.

    Apple Fresh Pond continues Tiger Zinda Hai, and also shows Kannada-language romantic comedy Chamak from Friday to Sunday. Starting on Tuesday, they give a lot of screen-time to Agnyaathavaasi (Prince in Exile), a subtitled Telugu-language film in which a billionaire's heir goes undercover in the family business to solve his father's murder. There may not be subtitles for Telugu-language action flick Jai Simha and Tamil-language heist movie Thaanaa (both opening Thursday).
  • The Brattle Theatre finishes the Refreshed, Renewed, Restored series with two days of new DCPs: Separate shows of "No Maps on My Taps" & "About Tap" and Hallelujah the Hills on Friday, a special matinee of The 7th Voyage of Sinbad on Saturday, and then a double feature of Maigret Sets a Trap & Maigret and the St. Fiacre Case.

    After that, they switch to more recent fare with first few days of (Some of) The Best of 2017, kicking off with a double feature of Wonderstruck & Dawson City: Frozen Time on Sunday. Monday is a single feature of Get Out, and then an appropriate pairing of Columbus & After the Storm on Tuesday. Wednesday has The Ornithologist in the evening and a late-ish show of Girls' Trip. The first leg finishes with mother! on Thursday, but there's still another week after that.
  • The Coolidge Corner Theatre starts a month of cold-weather midnights this weekend a 35mm print of The Abominable Snowman on Friday night, and the first of four weekly screenings of The Shining (also on 35mm) on Saturday.

    They also have two Science On Screen shows this week: A Junior presentation of Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory with children's book author Melissa Stewart talking about chocolate on Saturday morning and BU actuarial scientists Lois K. Horwitz & Hal Tepfer introducing a 35mm print of Double Indemnity on Monday evening. Open Screen is Tuesday, and the 70mm run of Phantom Thread starts on Thursday.
  • The Museum of Fine Arts gives most of their schedule over to the Boston Festival of Films from Iran, with screenings of Blockage (Friday/Saturday), Simulation (Saturday), Disappearance (Sunday/Wednesday), Oscar submission Breath (Sunday/Thursday), Negar (Wednesday), and roto-animated Tehran Taboo (Thursday).

    There's also a Friday matinee ofCanaletto and the Art of Venice, and that day ends with their first monthly "On the Fringe" show of 2018 (this year's series focusing on indie films of the 1990s), Spike Lee's Do the Right Thing.
  • BPM (Beats per Minute) hits CinemaSalem about a month before the Brattle, so if that's your local place or you can't wait to see this history of the early days of ACT UP, hie thee to their 18-person room.


New Spielberg? Yep, down for that, and Hostiles, some Chinese stuff, finally catching All the Money in the World, Lady Bird, Dawson City and Girls Trip.

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