Friday, May 03, 2019

Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 3 May 2019 - 9 May 2019

Boy, you think all of the movies coming out this week are hoping for overflow or worried about just having their shows cancelled while theaters put Endgame on more screens to meet demand?

  • Of course, after a couple times seeing Avengers 4, you might want to change pace with something like Long Shot, with Charlize Theron playing a cabinet secretary running for President and Seth Rogen the one-time classmate and reporter brought in to punch of her speeches only to discover surprising chemistry. It's an actual romantic comedy, when the genre seemed almost extinct, playing at the Somerville, Fresh Pond, Boston Common, Fenway, the Seaport, South Bay, Assembly Row, Revere, and the SuperLux. Or maybe The Intruder, a thriller with Meagan Good and Michael Ealy as a couple who just bought a house only to find that the previous owner isn't ready to give it up. That's at Fresh Pond, Boston Common, Fenway, South Bay, Assembly Row, and Revere.

    Or, for the kids, there's Uglydolls, which looks cute but heavy-handed, but it's probably for six-year-olds, so maybe that's as it should be. That is at the Capitol, Fresh Pond, Fenway, Boston Common, South Bay, Assembly Row, and Revere.

    Then again, you may want more superheros, and while we're apparently not getting Fast Color, there's something called El Chicano opening at Boston Common and Revere, with Raul Castillo playing a cop who becomes a masked avenger. Doesn't sound like much, but Joe Carnahan co-writes and director Ben Hernandez Bray came up doing stunts, so maybe there's some good action. Boston Common is also finding a couple showtimes a day for heburgh, a documentary on a priest who found himself at the center of a number of turning points in 20th Century America.

    This week's TCM anniversary movie is True Grit, playing Fenway and Assembly Row on Sunday and adding Revere to the pair on Wednesday. The week's bizarrely-punctuated anime for folks who are already fans is Code Geass: Lelouch of the Re;surrection, playing subtitled at Kendall Square, Boston Common, and Revere on Sunday and dubbed at those spots and Assembly Row on Tuesday and Wednesday. Revere will also be doing an "80 Years of Batman" series, with the first Tim Burton/Michael Keaton movies Saturday afternoon and the second Monday evening (as well as the completely-unrelated Ted on Thursday). There are also a couple of special previews, with Tolkein playing Wednesday with footage of Stephen Colbert leading a post-film Q&A (at Fenway, the Seaport, South Bay, Assembly Row, and Revere; while The Hustle does a "Girls' Night Out" show at Boston Common, Fenway, the Seaport, South Bay, Assembly Row, and Revere on Wednesday.
  • IFFBoston alumni are making it to theaters very quickly, with The Coolidge Corner Theatre, Kendall Square, and West Newton Cinema opening Ask Dr. Ruth, a documentary on the life of Dr. Ruth Westheimer, who is still going strong at 90 years old.

    First weekend of the month means a "Martial Art House" show at the Coolidge at midnight on Friday, this time a 35mm print of Crippled Avengers, making me kind of wonder if they're still working with with Garo on this series. Regular midnights for May will involve "Satanic Panic", with a 35mm print of The Black Cat on Friday and another of The Devil's Rain on Saturday. They've got a special screening of Nureyev on Sunday (it's also still playing daily at West Newton), and a "Science on Screen" show of First Man on Monday with astronaut Jeffrey Hoffman introducing it.

    They will also host the first two days of The Nation Center For Jewish Film's 2019 Festival, with Chewdaism and a restored 35mm print of Mortal Storm on Tuesday and Abe and It Must Schwing! The Blue Note Story on Wednesday; they move to the MFA's Remis Auditorium on Thursday for The Tobacconist and Leona on Thursday. That program runs through the 19th.
  • Kendall Square didn't even wait for the festival to finish before opening documentary centerpiece Knock Down the House on Wednesday; it follows a group of the new freshman in the House of Representatives through their elections, including Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez. They also have Dogman, the new one from Matteo Garrone, about a dog groomer who gets involved in a life of crime.
  • The Somerville Theatre and Cinema Salem also pick up one from the festival, with Her Smell starring Elizabeth Moss as a punk rocker whose career and addiction issues are crashing hard. The Somerville also has a bunch of their own events as well, starting with a 35mm print of Jurassic Park on Friday as part of the Slaughterhouse Movie Club, which means you can arrive an hour early and get a live dinosaur-themed burlesque show as well! It's also a Jack Attack! weekend, pairing Chinatown (on 35mm) with The Last Detail on Saturday and with a The Passenger (also on 35mm) Sunday. The year's first "Silents, Please!" show on Sunday has Jeff Rapsis accompanying Charlie Chaplin in The Kid. Jack's back with Tommy on Wednesday, and then there's a "Reel Film, Fake Band" show of This Is Spinal Tap on Thursday.
  • Two Chinese films at Boston Common this weekend, with Savage featuring a cop and a gang of thieves throwing down in a mountaintop police station during a blizzard, while Always Miss You starring Amber Kuo as a woman who thinks she's finally found the right guy, right up until her high school crush comes back to town.

    Apple Fresh Pond has a pair of comedies for fans of Indian cinema this Saturday, with Marathi film Wedding Cha Shinema and Malayalam-language Oru Yamandan Premakadha. Telugu action drama Maharshi opens on Wednesday.
  • The Brattle Theatre hosts events for the Women in Comedy Festival on through the weekend, including short films Saturday afternoon and Clueless on Sunday. They're also playing 50 minutes of cartoons on 35mm as part of Sunday's Harvard Square Mayfair, with four shows from noon to 3pm. They celebrate some more recent animation with Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse on Tuesday and Wednesday, then close the week by hosting The Technoskeptic's screening and panel discussion of The Mosquito Coast on Thursday.
  • The Museum of Fine Arts spends most of their week of screenings on "She Makes a Universe: Literary Luminaries", with documentaries Toni Morrison: The Foreigner's Home (Friday/Saturday/Sunday/Wednesday), Worlds of Ursula K. LeGuin (Friday/Saturday/Sunday/Wednesday), and Ferrante Fever (Saturday/Wednesday).
  • Sky Hopinka visits The Harvard Film Archive on Sunday evening with a program of her short films. After that, they start a Rumanian Cinema Now program with Cristian Mungiu's Graduation on Monday and Radu Jude's Scarred Hearts on Tuesday.
  • The Luna Theater has Polaroid documentary Instant Dreams on Friday and Tuesday, and locally-produced Days to Live on Saturday and Monday. The Sound of Music plays Saturday & Sunday, with the original Hairspray playing Sunday afternoon and evening - the first of three weeks of Jon Waters flicks - once again meaning Weirdo Wednesday has to bring its A-game.


I kind of want to see Endgame again, but there's two good-looking Chinese films, Long Shot, and some fun rep stuff. And yet, I am tempted to head out to New York for Subway Cinema's Old School Kung Fu Fest and to catch a couple films that just don't look like they're heading here.

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