Friday, August 30, 2019

Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 30 August 2019 - 5 September 2019

Apparently Labor Day weekend is a terrible time to open hits, but a great one to open weird stuff.

  • Or foreign films, as the biggest hit of the summer in China makes its way to the US, with Nezha playing in Imax 3D at Boston Common through Wednesday, before returning in regular 2D soon after. It's a fun animated fantasy adventure that looks pretty terrific, full of action and broad comedy.

    Over at Apple Fresh Pond and Revere, they open Telugu-language globetrotting action/adventure Saaho, starring Prabhas in his first major role since the Baahubali movies, which you may have seen clips of on social media. Fresh Pond will also be playing it in Hindi and Telugu, with Mission Mangal and Batla House still playing in Hindi.

    Over at Revere, Tad@s Caen comes from Mexico, with Omar Chaparro and Martha Higareda as a pair who each have a knack for seduction and therefore find each other their most interesting targets.
  • The Coolidge Corner Theatre, Kendall Square, and Boston Common get Brittany Runs a Marathon, starring Jillian Bell as a woman who needs to get healthy and winds up joining her neighbor in training for the New York City Marathon. The Coolidge also has their last 35mm screenings of Once Upon a Time in Hollywood at 2:30pm and 6pm through Sunday.

    The Coolidge uses film for their animals-attack midnights, with Anaconda (plus The Room) on Friday and Deep Blue Sea on Saturday. This continues into Monday, when they have the annual Labor Day 35mm Big Screen Classic screening of Jaws. A fall "Cinema Almodóvar" program starts on Tuesday with Law of Desire on 35mm, while "Summer of '69" wraps with Sweet Charity, also on film.
  • Kendall Square and West Newton open BJFF favorite Fiddler: A Miracle of Miracles, which covers the origin story of Fiddler on the Roof. Kendall Square also picks up This Is Not Berlin, a coming-of-age story set against the rock & roll clubs of Mexico City in 1986.

    They and their sister cinema in Waltham, the Embassy, also open Aquarela, a documentary power of water in all its forms. Looks amazing from the trailers, although it's kind of a shame that neither place is likely equipped for high-frame-rate projection.
  • That leaves Don't Let Go as the sole new release, with David Oyelowo as a cop who is tracking the killers of his beloved niece and her parents when said niece somehow manages to call him across time. That's at Boston Common, Fenway, South Bay, Assembly Row, and Revere. Boston Common and Revere also get Bennet's War, featuring Michael Roark as an injured vet who trains to be a motocross racer. Boston Common also gets Fantasia Festival selection Killerman, with Liam Hemsworth as an amnesiac money launderer in the new film from the makers of Cash Only.

    Rather than put out something new, two movies get re-released with added footage: Spider-Man: Far From Home gets 4 new minutes (basically one scene) and plays at Boston Common, Fenway, the Seaport, South Bay (in Imax 2D), Assembly Row (in Imax 2D), and Revere; Midsommar adds 24 minutes of gore and extended scenes and mostly plays late shows at Somerville, the Coolidge, Boston Common, Fenway, the Seaport, and Revere.

    Meanwhile, the places with deluxe screens need to fill them with something, so aside from Nezha at Boston Common, the Dolby Cinema screens at South Bay and Assembly Row get The Matrix, while the Fenway moves Once Upon a Time in Hollywood (back) to the RPX screen for a couple shows a day while also bringing in Pulp Fiction and both parts of Kill Bill, with tickets for the classic Tarantinos at $6 a pop - at least through Tuesday, with the first part of It assuming the slot (and low price) on Wednesday, before the sequel opens next weekend.

    Fenway and Assembly Row have a TCM presentation of Lawrence of Arabia on Sunday, with Revere joining them in showing it on Wednesday. Boston Common has three screens showing K-12: A Film by Melanie Martinez on Thursday, which is apparently a horror fantasy built around her new concept album (available the next day).
  • The Brattle Theatre has a special engagement of Federico Fellini's La Dolce Vita running on 35mm from Friday to Monday. On Wednesday, they open documentary Blue Note Records: Beyond the Notes, which runs through the next Thursday, while the Tuesday in between has the first "Blue Note Accompaniment" that goes with this series - a 35mm print of Michelangelo Antonioni's Blow-Up, with a score by Blue Note artist Herbie Hancock.
  • The Harvard Film Archive finally reaches the end of The Complete Howard Hawks on Friday, with Monkey Business at 7pm and His Girl Friday on 35mm at 9pm. Saturday night is when the traditional Labor Day Weekend overnighter happens, with $12 getting you in for a night of danger on the high seas in Dark Waters, featuring The African Queen, Purple Noon, Alone on the Pacific, Knife in the Water, Fitzcarraldo, and The Poseidon Adventure, all but the last on 35mm.
  • The Museum of Fine Arts finishes the August schedule with final screenings of Walking on Water (Friday) and An Elephant Sitting Still (Saturday). "A Splinter in Your Mind: Films from '99" wraps on Friday with a 35mm print of Fight Club, while the last "Space Exploration on Film" show is Moon on Saturday.

    Sunday, the Calendar flips, and they start the September schedule, which opens with two artist documentaries. Leaving Home, Coming Home: A Portrait of Robert Frank was filmed by Gerald Fox in 2004, but the subject (a Swiss-American filmmaker and photographer) long considered it too personal, only recently giving his blessing to it for actual release. It plays Sunday, Wednesday, and Thursday, as does A Bigger Splash, a 1974 film about famed artist David Hockney.
  • Documentary Shattered: The Story of Kevin Stevens has its U.S. premiere relatively early in the evening on Tuesday at The Regent Theatre, with its hockey-player subject on hand to introduce the film about his recovering from a horrific 1993 injury. VIP tickets get you into a reception afterward, and all proceeds go to benefit the "Power Forward" drug prevention program.
  • The Luna Theater shows the Midsommar director's cut on Friday and Saturday, probably earlier in the evening than most. Mike Wallace Is Here has two shows, late Saturday afternoon and Tuesday Evening. The Sunday feature is Phantasm, while the holiday on Monday means that not only do they extend the "Magic Mystery Movie Club" to three days this weekend, but they also have a full day of screening Plan 9 From Outer Space. And, of course, Weirdo Wednesday.

    In addition to Ne Zha, The Matrix, and many of the other bigger openings, the AMC at the Liberty Tree Mall gives half screens to thrillers Angel of Mine (starring Noomi Rapace, Luke Evans, and Yvonne Strahovski, who all seem like they could do a bit better) and The Fanatic (with John Travolta and Devon Sawa, who probably do belong in a movie by Fred Durst).
  • Outdoor films tail off like crazy with the unofficial end of summer, with Joe's Free Films just listing Captain America: The First Avenger at the Harbor Hotel on Friday, the new Dumbo at the Prudential Center on Saturday, and Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse at Tufts on Sunday.


Already seen Nezha and will likely try and check out Killerman, Saaho, and The Matrix around traveling to Maine for a brother's wedding this weekend.

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