Thursday, August 09, 2018

Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 10 August 2018 - 16 August 2018

Late summer means a really random set of movies coming out, from dumpings to not knowing what to do with something to "this might be an awards contender but maybe not".

  • Since movies aren't listed by genre at the multiplex, Meg the novel has become The Meg the movie, with Jason Statham, Li Bingbing, Rainn Wilson, and Ruby Rose crewing an international underwater research facility who are set upon by a gigantic, prehistoric shark. No idea whether the book was as goofy as the film looks to be, but I know a bunch of people that swear by it. It's at Fresh Pond, Jordan's Furniture (Imax 2D), the Embassy, Boston Common (including RealD), Fenway (including RPX, RealD, and the two in tandem), the Seaport (in Icon-X including 3D), South Bay (including Imax 2D and RealD), Assembly Row (including Imax 2D and RealD), Revere (including XPlus and RealD), and the SuperLux. If your taste in horror is more creepy things in the shadows than giant monsters, there's Slender Man, with Joey King stuck in a movie about the first urban legend to primarily exist on the Internet. That one's at Fresh Pond, Boston Common, Fenway, the Seaport, South Bay, Assembly Row, and Revere.

    Intersecting-storylines-with-furry-friends movie Dog Days had an early opening this week, starting on Wednesday and playing Boston Common, South Bay, the Seaport, Assembly Row, and Revere. Crazy Rich Asians had a preview last week and openis for real this Wednesday at Fresh Pond, Boston Common, Fenway, South Bay, Assembly Row, Revere, and the SuperLux.

    There are multiple anime classics opening this weekend, with Ghibli-Fest screenings of Grave of the Fireflies at Fenway and Revere (dubbed Sunday/Wednesday and subtitled Monday), while the Cowboy Bebop: Knockin' on Heaven's Door movie plays the Kendall, Boston Common, and Fenway (subtitled Wednesday/dubbed Thursday). The Hangover plays Monday night at the Seaport, and there's a one-night premiere of Blood Fest at Revere on Tuesday. The Elvis '68 Comeback Special plays Fenway, Assembly Row, and Revere on Thursday.
  • Spike Lee's latest, BlacKkKlansman, tells the story of a black detective who poses as a racial extremist over the phone, necessitating a partner when it comes to make contact. It's opening at The Coolidge Corner Theatre, the Capitol, Kendall Square, the Embassy, Boston Common, Fenway, the Seaport, South Bay (including Dolby Cinema), Assembly Row, and Revere.

    The Coolidge also opens The Miseducation of Cameron Post, with Chloe Grace Montez as the title character, whose conservative parents send their daughter off for conversion therapy and accidentally introduces her to an actual gay community for the first time.

    At midnight, the Coolidge continues "Organic Panic", with a killer plant double feature of Island of the Doomed & Dr. Terror's House of Horrors on Friday and Troll 2 on Saturday, shockingly, without anybody involved showing up as a guest. The Wizard of Oz is the Big Screen Classic on Monday, with critic Monica Castillo handling the seminar before and after. There's also a Cinema Jukebox presentation of Footloose on Thursday, with the Brookline Music School having a performance before that one runs. All of the special presentations are on 35mm this week.
  • Kendall Square has IFFBoston selection Nico, 1988, which is a biography of a musician trying to rebuild a relationship with her son in her last days. There's a wider release for Puzzle, which co-stars Kelly Macdonald an Irrfan Khan as an unlikely team of competitive jigsaw puzzle solvers. It also plays at West Newton Cinema and Boston Common.
  • Another IFFBoston alum plays The Brattle Theatre, with Hirokazu Kore-eda's The Third Murder playing all weekend, Monday evening, and Monday & Tuesday afternoons. It's pretty good, although it's less a quiet Kore-eda piece than a Very Serious Murder story. That schedule leaves a bit crowded, but there's still room for a benefit screening of Ang Larawan on Saturday afternoon, a Rita Hawyorth double feature of Affair in Trinidad (on 35mm) & Gilda on Tuesday. That leaves two evenings for "Heroic!", with The Witch on Wednesday, and an "All About Evil" double feature on Thursday, featuring 35mm screenings of All About Eve and Showgirls, with critic Adam Nayman introducing both and signing copies of his book about the latter between shows.
  • The Museum of Fine Arts continues to split "Heroic!" with the Brattle, with screenings of RBG (Friday/Sunday; the second sold-out), Terminator 2 (Friday), NausicaƤ of the Valley of the Wind (Saturday/subtitled), and Advanced Style (Sunday). They also have their own Casanova's Europe series going, with this week's selections Barry Lyndon (Saturday) and Fellini's Casanova (Thursday). They also show Sadaf Foroughi's Ava on Thursday.
  • Apple Fresh Pond opens Vishwaroopam 2 in three languages, with at least the Hindi and Tamil screenings having subtitles (not sure about the Telugu). There's also Telugu family drama Srinivasa Kalyanam (through Monday), Malayalam film Koode (Saturday), Telugu romantic comedy Geetha Govindam (starting Tuesday), and two more Hindi movies starting Wednesday: Action flick Styameva Jayate with John Abraham and Gold, telling the story of India's first Olympic medal after their independence (in field hockey, which is huge there).

    Boston Common doesn't have room for BuyBust, but they do play The Island<, the directorial debut of Chinese superstar Huang Bo, who plays a guy marooned on a company team-building exercise with a winning lottery ticket in his pocket, although the world may have been wiped out by a meteor impact. It co-stars Wang Baoqiang and Shu Qi, which is a heck of a cast.
  • The Somerville Theatre has Fantasia Festival selection Summer of '84, a genuinely fun flick from the makers of Turbo Kid that follows a group of kids whose leader is certain that their neighbor is a serial killer. It's not just the "midnight special" on Friday and Saturday, but also plays at 10pm through Sunday with 12:45pm matinees on the weekend. They've also got a "Silents, Please!" program of 35mm Laurel & Hardy Shorts with Jeff Rapsis on the organ on Sunday. They drop down to three screens come Monday, but still have room for Wednesday's "Play It Cool" Burt Reynolds double feature of Smokey and the Bandit (35mm) and his latest, The Last Movie Star, on DCP.

    They push The Spy Who Dumped Me, Three Identical Strangers, and Won't You Be My Neighbor to The Capitol, their sister cinema in Arlington, come Monday, and that theater also welcomes Jeff to accompany Constance Talmadge playing a dual role in Her Sister from Paris on Thursday.
  • With the Red Sox out of town, Fandango is presenting "Movie Night at Fenway Park" on Tuesday with Jurassic Park. Not sure exactly what the setup is, but I'm guessing you get to sit in the loge box seats and it plays way up on the big video board, which is probably as close as us city dwellers who don't have cars get to going to a drive-in, for better or worse. You get to walk the warning track before the movie, too. (Speaking of drive-ins, the Leicester Drive-In appears to still be showing Mission: Impossible 6 on film Friday & Saturday, and if I get their Facebook posting right, so is A Quiet Place after it and the double feature of E.T. & Jaws on their third screen. I guess just one of the three can handle digital, maybe?)
  • I think I listed this weekend's Yellow Submarine shows at The Regent Theatre as playing last week (or maybe it just keeps getting held over), but it's showing on Friday night and Saturday afternoon and evening, with pre-show warmups, post-film Q&As, and more.
  • Still lots of outdoor movies listed at Joe's Free Films, with Coco being the most frequent and Nocturna (at Egleston Square on Wednesday) the most off the beaten path.

I've got BlacKkKlansman, The Meg, The Island, and some silents to see, and I'm not sure what else I can fit in.

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