Friday, February 01, 2019

Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 1 February 2019 - 7 February 2019

This weekend is sort of a calm before the storm - lots happening next weekend, but the biggest event before then is Chinese New Year, though that can go under the radar in American theaters.

  • The biggest thing opening at the multiplexes is Miss Bala, which features Gina Rodriguez as a visitor to Tijuana who gets ensnared in a war between carels. It's at Fresh Pond, Boston Common, Fenway, South Bay (including Dolby Cinema), Assembly Row (in Dolby Cinema), the Embassy, and Revere (including XPlus).

    After a few one-offs, Peter Jackson's They Shall Not Grow Old starts a regular run, which hopefully makes it much easier for people to see this nifty transformation of 100-year-old silent documentary footage into a 3D feature. That plays The West Newton Cinema (2D only), Boston Common (2D/3D), Fenway (2D/3D), the Seaport (in Icon-X 2D/3D), and Revere (2D/3D).

    Free Solo shifts to the Imax screens at Jordan's, Boston Common, and South Bay, while Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse gets the Imax bump at Assembly Row. There are Fandango preview shows of How To Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World at Boston Common, Fenway, the Seaport, South Bay, Assembly Row, Revere, and the SuperLux on Saturday afternoon and "Girls' Night Out" shows of What Men Want at Fenway, South Bay, and Assembly Row on Wednesday. The Wizard of Oz plays Fenway and Assembly Row on Sunday, with Revere added to that group on Tuesday. For fans of Japanese animation who want more on top of Dragon Ball Super: Broly (still going at Boston Common, South Bay, and Revere at least through Wednesday), the coming-of-age story I Want to Eat Your Pancreas plays subtitled at Fenway and Revere on Thursday. Casino plays Revere on Thursday, which is also when Kendall Square has concert film Joni 75: A Birthday Celebration.
  • Boston Common gets a jump on Chinese New Year with the new comedy from Pang Ho-cheung, Missbehavior, featuring an all-star cast of Hong Kong actors in what looks like a thoroughly entertaining farce. Another noteworthy Hong Kong comedy filmmaker, Ning Hao, has his new one open on the actual holiday, with Crazy Alien reuniting him with Huang Bo, who plays an animal trainer who forces the alien who hurt his monkey to take his place; that opens at Boston Common and Revere, as does "Peppa Pig Celebrates Chinese New Year", interesting because there was a bit of brouhaha about Peppa Pig being banned in China a while back. Boston Common also gets Chinese racing drama Pegasus that day.

    Boston Common opened Indian film The Gandhi Murder on Wednesday, with Fenway giving another week to Uri: The Surgical Strike. Apple Fresh Pond keeps Manikarnika: The Queen of Jhansi, and also opens Hindi-language romantic comedy Ek Ladki Ko Dekha Toh Aisa Laga and Tamil dramas Peranbu & Sarvam Thaala Mayam on Friday. They show Mirathi biography Bhai: Vyakti Ki Valli on Saturday. They also The Least of These open Indian-set English-language film The Least of These.

    For Spanish speakers, Dominican romantic comedy Qué León is held over at Revere.
  • The Coolidge Corner Theatre picks up Stan & Ollie, an also has a bit of an early Chinese New Year treat with midnight shows of Jackie Chan's Police Story (Friday), and Police Story II (Saturday) in new restorations; the other screen has Wes Craven's New Nightmare (35mm Friday), and the new Halloween (Saturday) for its midnight show. They double up with special shows Sunday morning as well, with a "Science on Screen Jr." presentation of Singin' in the Rain preceded by a demonstration on the physics of sound from Dr. Daniel Davis and Goethe-Institut showing Mack the Knife: Brecht's Threepenny Film on screen #2.
  • The Brattle Theatre runs documentary What Is Democracy? from Friday to Thursday, with director Astra Taylor on-hand to discuss it after the Friday evening show. It gives way to Piercing for the last show of the day, with director Nicolas Pesce doing a story of insanity and murder that is the stylistic opposite of his The Eyes of My Mother. There's a Secret Members-Only Screening on Wednesday (for which they have not yet offered any hints), and then they round the week up with the opening night of The Boston Israeli Film Festival, The Other Story.
  • A new month means new film programs at The Museum of Fine Arts, with much of February given over to two series. Down and Dirty in Gower Gulch: Poverty Row Films Preserved by UCLA offers new restorations of The Vampire Bat (Friday/Thursday), Damaged Lives (Saturday/Thursday), The Sin of Nora Moran (Wednesday), and False Faces (Wednesday), all preceded by newsreels and cartoons; The Boston Festival of Films from Japan includes Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms (Friday/Sunday), Tremble All You Want (Saturday), Kusama: Infinity (Sunday), Shoplifters (Wednesday), and Ramen Shop (Thursday).
  • The Harvard Film Archive welcomes legendary documentarian Errol Morris to present his new film American Dharma, and has also added a second show on Sunday afternoon without the live Q&A. Having had a matinee of Mamoru Hosoda's first feature last week, they show his new one, Mirai, on Saturday afternoon, and then give much of the rest of the weekend to Argentine filmmaker Mariano Llinás, with the four-plus-hour Extraordinary Stories playing Saturday evening and his compact debut Balnearios on Sunday evening. They then welcome filmmakers Véréna Paravel and Lucien Castaing-Taylor for Caniba, the first of three films with post-screening presentation, the other two playing next weekend.
  • Bright Lights returns to the Bright Screening Room at the Paramount Theater with the remake of Suspiria on Tuesday and director David Abel presenting his documentary Lobster War on Sunday. As always, the screenings are free and include post-film discussion.
  • The Regent Theatre has an encore presentation of Who Will Write Our History? in the main room on Wednesday, as well as the premiere of locally-produced film The Angry World of Brian Webster, including shorts and an introduction from the director, on Thursday.
  • Cinema Salem has Becoming Astrid in the little room. The Luna Theater in Lowell has a few more screenings of Vox Lux (Friday/Saturday/Tuesday), weekend matinees of Ernest and Celestine, Beautiful Boy and Border on Saturday, three screenings of West Side Story on Sunday, and, of course, "Weirdo Wednesday".


Am I down for at least the Pang Ho-Cheung and Ning Hao movies? Oh, heck yes. I'm also very tempted to give They Shall Not Grow Old another chance after a less-than-great Fathom screening, still have some Oscar stuff to catch up on, and will likely try and watch the Police Story midnights despite my last attempts to do something like that not going so well.

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