Friday, August 23, 2019

Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 23 August 2019 - 29 August 2019

Summer is winding right down, isn't it?

  • Ready or Not opened up on Wednesday, and it's a fair amount of fun, good in the details of its family who has a ritual of sacrificing new people who enter the family even if it could use one or two really good action sequences. It's playing the Somerville, Boston Common, Fenway, the Seaport, South Bay, the Kendall, Assembly Row, and Revere.

    The biggest release is Angel Has Fallen, the third film featuring Geard Butler as a rule-breaking Secret Service agent, this time framed for the attempted assassination of the president, with Nick Nolte as the black-sheep father whom he turns to while on the run. That's at Fresh Pond, Boston Common, Fenway (including RPX), the Seaport (in Icon-X), South Bay (in Dolby Cinema), Assembly Row (including Dolby Cinema), the Embassy, Revere (including XPlus & MX4D), and the SuperLux. There's also a small release for Overcomer, a bit of generic-looking faith-based stuff, with it playing South Bay and Revere.

    The month's Ghibli Fest selection is My Neighbor Totoro, a charming film by Hayao Miyazaki playing Boston Common, Fenway, South Bay, and Revere in English Sunday & Wednesday and subtitled on Monday. Over at Boston Common, they'll be giving a screen to DreamWorks Animation, rotating Shrek, Kung Fu Panda, Trolls, Madagascar, The Croods, and How to Train Your Dragon: The Hidden World over the course of the next week. Revere has the "Final Cut" of Apocalypse Now on Wednesday and Thursday.
  • A surprisingly wide opening for The Peanut Butter Falcon, with Shia LaBeouf as a guy who helps a young man with Down's Syndrome realize his dream of becoming a professional wrestler. Looking at the co-stars, I had no idea Jake "The Snake" Roberts was still alive even before getting to the rest of a fun group (John Hawkes, Thomas Haden Church, Jon Bernthal, Bruce Dern). It's at The Coolidge Corner Theatre, West Newton, Boston Common, Fenway, the Seaport, and Revere.

    The Coolidge has a spiffy new website, which lays their regular and repertory programming out clearly. The latter includes the duelling volcano movies from 1997 at midnight, with Volcano on Friday and Dante's Peak on Saturday, both on 35mm. Monday's Big Screen Classic is Blazing Saddles, also on 35mm, as is Thursday's "Rewind!" show of The Goonies
  • Kendall Square also gets IFFBoston alum Love, Antosha, a documentary on the sadly truncated life of Anton Yelchin.
  • Apple Fresh Pond picks up Telugu-language film Kousalya Krishnamurthy, a remake of Bollywood's Kanaa, in which the title character is a woman who dreams of becoming a professional cricketer. Mission Mangal, Batla House, and Evaru continue there, while Boston Common keeps around Hong Kong actioner Line Walker 2 (which is not, it turns out, technically a sequel to Line Walker).
  • The Brattle Theatre spends the weekend paying tribute to Doris Day, with a 35mm print of The Man Who Knew Too Much on Friday, a double feature of Calamity Jane & Young Man with a Horn (35mm) on Saturday, and a 35mm twin-bill of Midnight Lace & Pillow Talk on Sunday. They also have late shows of Luz, for those who couldn't get to the midnight shows at the Coolidge a couple weeks ago.

    With summer wrapping up, so do the vertical columns on their calendar. Noirversary wraps up with a supernaturally-tinged pair on Monday (The Uninvited & The Curse of the Cat People) and To Have and Have Not on Tuesday (potentially all three are 35mm, although Curse isn't confirmed). They're closed on Wednesday, but Reel Music wraps on Thursday with a double feature of Babylon & The Harder They Come.
  • The Harvard Film Archive has a new restoration of Old Boyfriends on 35mm, Joan Tewkesbury's 1979 film featuring Talia Shire as a woman trying to figure herself out by sifting through her exes, with shows Friday, Saturday, and Sunday at 7pm, plus a 4:30pm matinee on Sunday. The Complete Howard Hawks continues in between, with Red Line 7000 (16mm) at 9pm Friday, and Today We Live (35mm) at the same time Saturday. On Monday, there's the monthly "Cinema of "Resistance" presentation, and it's jumbo-sized, a 35mm bring of Francesco Rosi's Christ Stopped at Eboli, a 220-minute epic originally made for Italian TV.
  • The Museum of Fine Arts resumes its run of Walking on Water, a documentary following artist Christo as he attempts to realize a project initiated by his late wife and partner, with shows on Friday, Sunday, and Thursday. "Space Exploration on Film" continues with 2001: A Space Odyssey (Friday) and Moon (Sunday), while "A Splinter in Your Mind: Films from '99" includes 35mm prints of Magnolia (Saturday), Fight Club (Saturday), and The Matrix (Thursday).
  • The Slaughterhouse Movie Club returns to The Somerville Theatre with a "Big Bada Boom" burlesque before The Fifth Element on Friday, which should be something. On Saturday, they have a special presentation of Pick It Up! Ska in the '90s at 7:30pm, with a 35mm midnight special of Cabin Boy later. The "Play It Cool" show on Wednesday is a 35mm print of M*A*S*H, with film also being used for the Thursday Jack Attack presentation, The Crossing Guard. Up the street a little ways, their friends at The Capitol have a Throwback Thursday show of Rocky on the 29th.
  • The Regent Theatre has music documentary Murder in the Front Row on Thursday, billed as "The San Francisco Bay Area Thrash Metal Story".
  • Cinema Salem looks to be the place to go for a couple of IFFBoston selections: Cold Case Hammarskjöld, Max Brugger's documentary that starts from the title and ends up somewhere else entirely, plays in the screening room, while Wild Rose appears to be on a larger screen. The Luna Theater has more shows of Midsommar on Friday, Saturday, and Tuesday evenings, Mike Wallace Is Here on Saturday afternoon, and Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom on Sunday, as well as free surprises from the "Magical Mystery Movie Club" on Saturday and Sunday mornings and Weirdo Wednesday. The AMC at the Liberty Tree Mall has Burn, with Josh Hutcherson as the guy robbing a gas station and Suki Waterhouse as the employee who finds a connection with him.
  • Joe's Free Films reminds us that it is Films at the Gate weekend on the Greenway, an outdoor film festival for nearby Chinatown which this year features Tyrus (a documentary about a Chinese-American artist who contributed to movies from Bambi to The Wild Bunch) on Friday, Little Big Soldier (one of the best things Jackie Chan has done in the last ten years or so) on Saturday, and Donnie Yen in Big Brother (with martial arts demonstrations by mother Bow Sim Mark's school and an introduction from father Klysler Yen) on Sunday. Elsewhere, Tim Burton's Dumbo remake seems to be the most popular outdoor movie this week.


Kind of curious about The Peanut Butter Falcon, Mission Mangal, and the noir this week.

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