Friday, November 01, 2019

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

You know, I could have sworn I saw previews for Terminator: Dark Fate in 3D earlier this year, but (checks Hong Kong showtime app) it's not even being shown that way internationally. Go figure.

  • But before going there, stop at The Brattle Theatre for the Independent Film Festival Boston Fall Focus, which offers a preview of some of the fall's most anticipated movies midway between the 2019 and 2020 editions, some of which may not hit theaters because they're produced by streaming services. The lineup features Marriage Story on Friday; The Wild Goose Lake, Waves, The Truth, and Honey Boy on Saturday; and The Two Popes, Clemency, The Kingmaker, and Portrait of a Lady on Fire on Sunday.

    After that, they have a DocYard presentation Combat Obscura on Monday, with filmmaker Miles Lagoze editing the footage he took as a military cameraman into a short feature. On Tuesday, they start their leg of the "Make My Day: The Cinematic Imagination of the Reagan Era" series with a double feature of True Stories & Videodrome, both on 35mm, with Desperately Seeking Susan also playing on film Wednesday evening.
  • So, back to the multiplexes, where Terminator: Dark Fate is at least the third time the franchise has been restored from backup wiping out everything else after Terminator 2, with Linda Hamilton and Arnold Schwarzeneggar returning to face off against a new set of killer robots from the future trying to protect their own timeline. It's at Fresh Pond, Jordan's Furniture (Imax), Boston Common, Fenway (including RPX), the Seaport (Icon-X), South Bay (including Imax & Dolby Cinema), Assembly Row (including Imax & Dolby Cinema), the Embassy, Revere (including MX4D & XPlus), and the SuperLux.

    Speaking of blasts from the past, Edward Norton's Motherless Brooklyn features Bruce Willis and Alec Baldwin, which would have been a heck of a cast ten years or so ago, as well as Gugu Mbatha-Raw and Willem Dafoe. It's at Boston Common, Fenway, the Seaport, South Bay, Assembly Row, and Revere.

    There's also Arctic Dogs, with Jeremy Renner doing the voice of an anthropomorphic sled dog in one of those animated comedies from comes from a lesser animation studio and sort of looks it. It plays Fresh Pond, Boston Common, Fenway, South Bay, and Revere.

    Boston Common has The Rocky Horror Picture show twice this weekend, on Friday and Sunday. Christmas Jars plays one night at Fenway, South Bay, Assembly Row, and Revere on Monday, while The Divine Plan is at Fenway and Revere on Wednesday. For something rather less faith-baiting, there's Slayer: The Repentless Killogy, with a short film preceding concert footage from the band on Wednesday at Boston Common, Fenway, and Revere. Lynyrd Skynyrd: The Last of the Street Survivors Farewell Tour plays Fenway, South Bay, Assembly Row, and Revere on Thursday.
  • The other big release this week is Harriet, featuring Cynthia Erivo as Harriet Tubman, who was probably more badass than most people recognize. It's at The Coolidge Corner Theatre, the Capitol, Kendall Square, Boston Common, Fenway, the Seaport, South Bay, Assembly Row, the Embassy, Revere, and the SuperLux.

    The Coolidge has a Skype call with Bong Joon-Ho after the 7pm Friday show of Parasite. They also have two digital restorations of Godzilla movies at midnight this weekend, with Destroy All Monsters on Friday and Godzilla vs. Hedorah on Saturday. Sunday includes a special "Panorama" presentation of "Veteran Children: When Parents Go to War", a half-hour short with a post-film discussion. The Science on Screen show on Monday is Big Night, with BU chemistry professor Scott Schaus talking about how our sense of taste works before the 35mm show. It's Open Screen on Tuesday.
  • Kendall Square opens Gift, a documentary on creativity, with a Lewis Hyde, the author of the book which inspired the film, paying a visit before the 7:15pm show on Friday. They also have a one-night presentation of A Night with Janis Joplin on Tuesday night.
  • Apple Fresh Pond has more Diwali openings, including Hindi comedies Meeku Maathrame Chepta, about a man who claims to not drink getting into trouble when video leaks right before his wedding, and Ujda Chaman, about a balding man who has been told he has a deadline to fall in love by a fortune teller. There's also a single show of Tulu-language comedy Girgit on Sunday. Housefull 4, Bigil, and Kaithi continue with the latter getting Telugu shows added to the Tamil-language ones..
  • If you go to the website of The Harvard Film Archive, you'll see that the program descriptions for their B-Movies series is starting to get weird. Not so much for Friday's first double feature of Weird Woman (16mm) & Captive Wild Woman (35mm), but they really don't seem to believe they're actually showing Sh! The Octopus (16mm) and The Devil Bat later that night (and to be fair, Sh! is 54 minutes of awful around one genuinely amazing bit of special effects); they are naturally much more enthusiastic about Ida Lupino's Outrage, showing on 35mm Sunday afternoon. Alex Ross Perry will be on hand to introduce two on Saturday - David Lynch's The Elephant Man is a favorite and Paul Schrader's Patty Hearst is him getting the chance to see something the archive has a print of for the first time - both on 35mm. He also presents his most recent two films, with Golden Exits playing on 35mm Sunday evening and Her Smell Monday night.
  • A calendar flip means The Museum of Fine Arts shuffles things up, in part by starting a run of Leonardo: The Works, an "Exhibition on Screen" presentation which presents some of Da Vinci's works in Ultra-HD (though I don't know if the Remis auditorium has a 4K projector) on Friday, Sunday, Wednesday, and Thursday. They also start runs of Making Waves: The Art of Cinematic Sound (Friday/Sunday/Wednesday) and What You Gonna Do When the World's on Fire? (Sunday/Wednesday). The monthly "On the Fringe: Adventures in Cult Cinema" show on Friday is Hedwig and the Angry Inch, format not yet announced. Saturday has two shows from a short program of "New Cinema from Brazil", with Bacurau and Araby playing that afternoon.
  • Boston Jewish Film's annual festival kicks off on Wednesday with Safe Space at the Coolidge including a Q&A with director Daniel Schechter and star Justin Long. It expands to multiple locations on Thursday, with the FreshFlix shorts competition at Arts at the Armory, Good Morning Son at the Coolidge, Dolce Fine Giornata at the MFA, and both My Polish Honeymoon with director Élise Otzenberger and an encore of Safe Space at the Brattle.

    Over at The Capitol Theatre, the Arlington International Film Festival kicks off with documentary Path of the Daff on Thursday (preceded by Oscar-nominated short "Lifeboat")
  • The Museum of Science has an Anime Boston Weekend Saturday and Sunday, which in addition to cosplay and other activities includes screenings of two recent releases in the Cahners Theater - Mirai on Saturday and Okko's Inn on Sunday, both with subtitles at 10am and English dubs at 2:30pm.
  • This week's Bright Lights screenings are Time for Ilhan with director Norah Shaprio present on Tuesday and IFFBoston alum We Are the Radical Monarchs with director Linda Goldstein Knowlton on Thursday. Those are always open; I'm not sure whether that's usually the case for Emerson's Films From the Margin club, which will be showing Paris, Texas in Walker 202 on Wednesday.
  • Though The ICA has sold out timed tickets for their Yayoi Kusama exhibit through November, they will be showing Kusama: Infinity on Sunday for those who buy tickets for the museum in advance.
  • Cinema Salem takes a break from horror to be what I think is the only place in the area showing Netflix's Dolemite Is My Name on the big screen. The same is true for The Luna Theater in Lowell, which after leaning on spooky stuff plays Official Secrets on Friday and Saturday evenings, taxidermy documentary Stuffed on Saturday afternoon and Tuesday evening, and Pee-Wee's Big Adventure all day Sunday, as well as the surprise Saturday Morning Cartoons, Sunday "Magic Mystery Movie Club", and Weirdo Wednesday shows. And if you head out to the Liberty Tree Mall or Methuen, the AMCs there are showing Inside Game, which stars Eric Mabius as an NBA referee who was caught betting on games he worked.


I'm hitting some of IFFBoston 2019½, although I'm also likely to wager that most of it will be coming out elsewhere soon (if not the very next weekend) and catch Terminator, Harriet, and the stuff I'm behind on.

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