Friday, December 14, 2018

Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 14 December 2018 - 20 December 2018

And, just like that, the studios seem to remember that they actually need to refresh what's playing in theaters. Huzzah! And with me having to take a couple days off work, too!

  • Funny thing; up until a couple weeks ago, it looked like Mortal Engines was going to be the big opener on the premium 3D screens, and why not - it's great-looking and as built for the giant-screen experience as anything, if sort of in the Sky Captain/Gods of Egypt "feast your eyes but don't think too hard" way. It doesn't have the same sort of buzz other things coming out now have, though it's still playing at Fresh Pond (2D only), Jordan's Natick (Imax 2D/3D), Boston Common (including Imax 2D/3D), Fenway, the Seaport, South Bay (including Imax 2D/3D), Assembly Row (including Imax 2D/3D and Dolby Cinema), and Revere.

    Meanwhile, the animated Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse, which features Spider-Men and -Women from different realities all coming together, wound up being something people really got excited about, from style to story to casting. It gets a fair chunk of the premium screens now, playing at the Capitol (2D only), Fresh Pond (2D only), Jordan's Reading (Imax 2D/3D), Boston Common, Fenway (including RPX 2D/3D), the Seaport (including 2D/3D Icon-X), South Bay (including Imax 2D/3D and Dolby Cinema), Assembly Row (including Imax 2D/3D and Dolby CInema), Revere (including XPlus and MX4D), and the SuperLux (2D only).

    Meanwhile, Clint Eastwood's latest as producer/director/star, The Mule, in which he plays an unlikely drug smuggler trying to make ends meet (with Feds played by Bradley Cooper and Forest Whitaker closing in), shows up hoping to attract an older audience. It's at the Capitol, Fresh Pond, the Embassy, Boston Common, Fenway, the Seaport, South Bay, Assembly Row, and Revere. There's also Vox Lux, featuring Natalie Portman as a pop star who emerged out of tragedy as a teenager (at least, in the second half of the movie); that one's at the Somerville, Boston Common, and Revere.

    Anna and the Apocalypse hangs on for a couple shows a day at Boston Common, through at least Tuesday, so get on that. Once Upon a Deadpool, a PG-13 version of the R-rated Deadpool 2, opened Wednesday and is playing Boston Common, the Seaport, South Bay, Assembly Row, and Revere. Mary Poppins Returns opens Wednesday at .

    There are Saturday preview screenings of Aquaman at Fenway, the Seaport, and Revere. The coming week also features holiday presentations of National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation (Saturday at Fenway), "Emmett Otter's Jug-Band Christmas" & "The Bells of Fraggle Rock" (Sunday at Fenway), and Love Actually (Sunday at Revere). Peter Jackson's World War I documentary, They Shall Not Grow Old, plays on Monday at Boston Common (3D), Fenway (2D/3D), South Bay (3D), Revere, and the SuperLux. Fenway and Revere have Hayao Miyazaki documentary Never-Ending Man on Tuesday.
  • Saoirse Ronan is Mary Queen of Scots (with Margot Robbie as cousin and rival Elizabeth I) at The Coolidge Corner Theatre, Kendall Square, and Boston Common. That is a heck of a terrific cast right there.

    The dangerous gifts for the Coolidge's weekend midnights this weekend including Puppet Master: The Littlest Reich on Friday and, as has become customary, Gremlins on Saturday. Coolidge Award winner Michael Douglas continues to be saluted on Monday as The Game plays on 35mm.
  • Kendall Square and Boston Common also get Ben Is Back, with Julia Roberts as a mother whose troubled son (Lucas Hedges) reappears without warning on Christmas Eve. Hedges's characters are having a pretty rough fall.
  • Baseball documentary Heading Home: The Tale of Team Israel opens at The West Newton Cinema, with a special screening on Sunday afternoon presented by Boston Jewish Film

    West Newton is one of three new theaters opening Roma this weekend, with runs at The Somerville Theatre and The Lexington Venue joining Kendall Square. Sadly, Netflix is being demanding in return for access to 70mm prints, and with the Somerville still having the Slutcracker going on, they aren't getting one.
  • The Brattle Theatre's has their annual 35mm screenings of It's a Wonderful Life this weekend (note: many are already sold out, so buy in advance), which means that their usually more fun "Holiday-Adjacent" series is also playing with a late shows of the new restoration of Deep Red (Friday), a 35mm print of Gremlins 2: The New Batch (Saturday), and Tangerine (Sunday), along with a Wednesday double feature of The Apartment & Blast of Silence (the latter on 35mm), finishing up with Eyes Wide Shut on Thursday.

    On Monday night, Karina Longworth of the podcast You Must Remember This and new book Seduction: Sex, Lies, and Stardom in Howard Hughes's Hollywood will be on hand to introduce a 35mm print of Bombshell and sign books afterward. Things go downhill the next day, as Tuesday is Trash Night, with public mocking of Cyborg Cop II
  • 2.0 seems to be down to 3D Tamil screenings, with Kedarnath also having limited shows. Malayalam film Odiyan (apparently about the last of a clan of shapeshifting thieves plays Friday, Sunday, and Monday; Marathi comedy Mumbai Pune Mumbai 3 on Sunday & Monday, with Tamil drama Seethakathi opening Wednesday evening.
  • The Harvard Film Archive closes their December schedule with more from the Rediscovering Jacques Becker series, including Casque d'or (35mm Friday & Monday), Rendezvous in July, It Happened at the Inn (35mm Saturday & Sunday), Antoine and Antoinette (Saturday), and Edourd and Caroline (Sunday). The weekend also features two family-friendly matinees: The Big Bad Fox & Other Tales… on Saturday and their annual free 16mm/35mm Vintage Holiday Show on Sunday.
  • The Museum of Fine Arts continues to pay tribute to Agnes Varda and Jacques Demy with Demy's The Young Girls of Rochefort (Friday), Varda's Happiness (Saturday), Demy's Lola (Saturday). The Color Tells a Story series continues with Fantastic Mr. Fox (Friday) representing orange and 3 Women (Saturday/Thursday) representing yellow, Vertigo (Sunday) for green, Edward Scissorhands (Sunday) for blue, and Eyes Wide Shut for violet. There are also "Exhibition on Screen" shows of Degas: Passion for Perfection on Wednesday & Thursday.
  • The Regent Theatre has an encore of Horn from the Heart: The Paul Butterfield Story on Monday with musician Al Kooper as a special guest.
  • The good folks at The Boston Underground Film Festival have their monthly "Dispatches from the Underground" series at the Somerville Theatre with Dial Code Santa Claus (aka Deadly Games), in which a kid must defend his grandfather from a murderous burglar in a Santa suit on Christmas Eve; this is very much the BUFF version of Home Alone despite coming from France in 1989.
  • Cinema Salem has Lars Trier's The House That Jack Built listed as playing in the small room, although I seem to recall that it's release was pushed back.

I've already seen Mortal Engines - it's fun! - and will probably try and get to Spider-Verse, Mary Queen of Scots, and most likely The Mule this weekend. I hate that I have to choose between Bombshell and The Game after They Shall Not Grow Old on Monday, and should probably grab another theatrical screening of Roma while I can.

No comments: