Friday, April 26, 2019

Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 26 April 2019 - 2 May 2019

Only one thing going on at the movies this weekend, and we all know what that is!

  • That's right, it's the week of Independent Film Festival Boston, which started this past Wednesday and runs through the First, taking up all five screens (and, at times, the Micro) at the Somerville as well as the Brattle through Monday before moving across the river to the Coolidge for the last two days. Notable features include Jennifer Kent's The Nightengale, Justin Chon's Ms. Purple, Alex Ross Perry's Her Smell, Peter Strickland's In Fabric, Andrew Gibson's Gutterbug, Gavin Hood's Official Secrets, and Lulu Wang's The Farewell. There are also a ton of shorts, including former EFilmCritic/HBS writer Will Goss's "Sweet Steel" in the "Exeter" section Saturday-Monday.
  • So, we'll all be at that and not spoiling Avengers: Endgame to the people in line, right? I kid, but it's kind of a big deal, the three-hour Imax 3D culmination of 22 films across eleven years that became the biggest thing in pop culture despite/because of how it eventually expanded to include all the crazy comic book stuff that people often figured kept it from expanding into the mainstream. I don't think there's ever been anything quite like it, and it's got almost all the theaters: the Capitol (2D only), Fresh Pond, Jordan's Furniture (Imax 2D/3D), The Studio in Belmont (2D only), Boston Common (including Imax 2D/3D), Fenway (including RPX 2D/3D), the Seaport (including Icon-X), South Bay (including Imax 2D/3D and Dolby CInema), Assembly Row (including Imax 2D/3D and Dolby CInema), Revere (including XPlus and MX3D as well as some shows with Portuguese subtitles), the Embassy (2D only), and the SuperLux (2D only).

    It only leaves room for Family to play matinees at Boston Common, at least through the weekend, so if you want to see Taylor Schilling as a career woman looking after her juggalo niece, that's when it's playing.
  • BUFF opening night film Hail Satan? opens at The Coolidge Corner Theatre and Kendall Square, with subject and founder of the Satanic Temple in Salem Lucien Greaves swinging by for a show at the Coolidge on Sunday to answer questions. It's a fun documentary, although I don't know how persuasive it will be to the viewer who would otherwise be in church during those hours.

    The Coolidge celebrates 4/26 being "Alien Day by running a 35mm print of the original film at midnight on Friday and one of Alien: Resurrection - the last chronologically - at the same hour Saturday. There's a "Stage & Screen" presentation of Disobedience on Monday before IFFBoston sets up shop on Tuesday.
  • Kendall Square also picks up Ramen Shop, in which a young Japanese man travels to Singapore to learn about his Chinese mother's family, and the natural way to do so is by learning be tutored in how to prepare a local dish. Even as someone who doesn't really go for noodles, I found myself salivating at the trailer.

    The Kendall and Boston Common also open Red Joan, one of those movies that puts a big picture of Dame Judi Dench on the poster but probably spends more time with Sophie Cookson player the same character in her youth, when she was allegedly stealing nuclear secrets for the Soviets, a crime for which she is arrested decades later.
  • After having mostly been cleared out for the festival, The Somerville Theatre is closed Tuesday and re-opens Wednesday with Wild Nights with Emily, Us, and Amazing Grace before resuming "Reel Films/Fake Bands" on Thursday with a 35mm print of Almost Famous
  • Similarly, The Brattle Theatre fills out its post-IFFBoston schedule with a short tribute to the late Stanley Donen, playing Funny Face on Tuesday
  • and a 35mm double feature of Royal Wedding & Singin' in the Rain on Wednesday. Then it's back on the festival horse with the opening night of the Women in Comedy Festival on Thursday.

  • The Harvard Film Archive welcomes artist and filmmaker Ja'Tovia Gary as part of a "Cinema of Resistance" program on Friday; she'll be presenting a pairing of two of her own recent shorts and a 35mm print of Med Hondo's West Indies. Saturday offers the conclusion of Japan's Other New Wave, with 35mm prints of The Warped Ones and The Age of Our Own, while the rest of the week finishes up Visions of RIchard P. Rogers, with two programs of his short films on Sunday and The Windmill Movie, his attempt to film his autobiography which was finished by student Alexander Olch, on Monday. The latter is in 35mm and will have Olch and Rogers's widow Susan Meiselas there in person.
  • The Museum of Fine Arts finishes their April calendar on Friday, with a final screening of The Wild Pear Tree and Mamacita concluding "New Cinema From Mexico". The May program starts on Wednesday with a program of MFA/Tufts thesis screenings, with Ferrante Fever kicking off "She Makes a Universe: Literary Luminaries" on Wednesday and Thursday. The month's "On the Fringe: Adventures in Cult Cinema" show is also a hold-over from April's "Gender Bending Fashion on Film" series, with The Man Who Fell to Earth being preceded by a set from The Wrong Shapes.
  • The Regent Theatre has a free screening of REUSE! Because You Can't Recycle the Planet on Friday evening. It's in the underground room and followed by discussion, with free tours of the Box Truck Tiny House (which I presume is featured in the film) in the Robbins Library parking lot from 4pm to 7pm.
  • The last show in this "Month of Sundays" at The ICA is Matangi/Maya/M.I.A., which plays at 1pm and is free with your museum ticket.
  • Belmont World Film moves over to the West Newton Cinema on Monday to wrap up this year's series with Sir, about a young woman who has no place in her village as a childless widow, moves to Mumbai to work as a servant and learn fashion design. West Newton also appears to be the first place in the area to get Nureyev, a documentary biography of the famed Russian dancer who defected after his individual fame became incompatible with communist principles.
  • Emerson's Bright Lights had its planned final show last week, but an earlier cancellation means they will squeeze in Three Identical Strangers on Thursday. As always, the shows upstairs at the Paramount of free, open to the pubilc, and followed by discussion.
  • Cinema Salem has Styx, which played the Coolidge a few weeks back as part of the Goethe-Institut series, in their screening room for a week. In Lowell, The Luna Theater has Steve Bannon documentary The Brink (reminder: not Max Zhang punching people underwater) on Friday, Saturday, and Tuesday; Cloudy with a Chance of Meatballs on Saturday and Sunday; Apollo 11 and Jimi Hendrix: Electric Church on Saturday, with Sunday's The Devil's Rain giving Weirdo Wednesday a heck of a bar to clear this week.


I'm living at BUFF this week, with my plans looking like Pizza, A Love Story and Not for Resale on Friday; We Are Not Princesses, Ms. Purple, either shorts and Midnight Family, and In Fabric on Saturday; One Child Nation, The Pollinators, Cold Case Hammarskjold, and For the Birds on Sunday; either Shorts E and The Rusalka on Monday; The Sound of Silence and The Art of Self-Defense on Tuesday; and The Farewell on Wednesday. Maybe I go for Avengers Thursday, or maybe I just drop.

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