Friday, May 15, 2020

Next Week in Virtual Tickets: Films sort of playing Boston 15 May 2020 - 21 May 2020

It's kind of weird to read about the big companies starting to do the watch-at-home-and-give-the-theater-a-cut thing, although I guess it buys the studio some goodwill later on and, hey, if your local screen is a multiplex, you probably want them staying solvent too. We're lucky to have indie-programming indies in Boston.

  • So let's start with them and, as usual, The Coolidge Corner Theatre, which adds three new pictures to their virtual screening room. Driveways stars Hong Chau as a single mother cleaning up her late sister's house so that it can be sold, with Brian Dennehy playing the man next door in one of his last roles. Director Andrew Ahn, along with the writers and composers, will be doing a YouTube Q&A on Sunday afternoon, which can be accessed through the Coolidge's site.

    Also opening there this weekend is On A Wonderful Night, the latest from Christophe Honoré, with Chiara Mastroianni as a woman who walks out on her husband into the hotel across the street, with her room's window allowing her to see into the past. There's also documentary Up From the Streets, a documentary that recounts the history and culture of New Orleans through its music. Sticking around are Straight Up (with a filmmaker Q&A Tuesday night), What She Said: The Art of Pauline Kael, Capital in the Twenty-First Century, Beyond the Visible: Hilma Af Klint, and The Booksellers around.

    A few shows are only booked through the weekend, notably Geothe-Institut presentation Free Country, a thriller about German police investigating the disappearance of two teenage sisters in 1992, when most in the small formerly-East-German town distrust their likes even after the fall of the Berlin Wall. The two New York International Children's Film Festival programs of Kid Flicks (one for those 3 and up, one for 8 and up) also continue through the 17th.

    In addition to the other Q&As, the After Midnite crew has Akira Oni, who does a monthly drag-show introduction to their films, for their Saturday Night Instagram chat. The Week's Coolidge Education seminar has The Dying of the LIght filmmaker and Emerson educator Peter Flynn examining Charlie Chaplin in The Kid. Register, watch the introduction, stream the movie, and then circle back for a Zoom discussion on Thursday.
  • The Brattle Theatre opens Fourteen in their virtual screening room, which looks like an American take on SoulMate, following two young women who were best friends to start high school through the next ten years. The also keep Vitalina Varela, Thousand Pieces of Gold, Deerskin, and The Cordillera of Dreams.

    Their "Women of Sci-Fi" series/watchlist began on Wednesday with Worlds of Ursula K. LeGuin and a bunch of nifty themed double features recommended through Tuesday. "Y'Know, For the Kids!" is now offering recommendations Tuesdays and Saturdays, with the most recent suggestions being Whale Rider and The Princess Bride; #BreakYourAlgorithm updates Monday and Thursday, most recently suggesting Ganja and Hess and Dave Made a Maze.
  • The Capitol has a Popcorn Pop-Up on Saturday, and will even sell you a Capitol tote bag to go with your popcorn, beverages, candy, and ice cream if you call ahead. Their virtual cinema continues to offer Spaceship Earth, Dying for Gold, The Whistlers, Once Were Brothers, and Slay the Dragon. Over at The Somerville Theatre, the virtual cinema adds Alice, about a woman who enters the escort business after her husband's addiction to such leaves them broke, keeping Pahokee, The Whistlers, and Once Were Brothers around. Both are also participating in Magnolia's "A Few of Our Favorite Docs" series, where $5 both rents a movie and registers one for a Wednesday Q&A; this week's selection is RBG
  • West Newton Cinema is also part of the Magnolia docs program (with links to pre-order Life Itself for next week in addition to RBG), and has tweeted out a message about their own curbside popcorn-pickup for Saturday. Once Were Brothers, Slay the Dragon, and The Whistlers continue in the virtual room, as does their GoFundMe campaign, and "Local Hero" advance ticket sales.
  • The Regent Theatre has once again extended Fantastic Fungi through at least Wednesday the 20th, and has two other "virtual premieres": Dosed covers a larger range of psychedelic drug treatments, while IFFBoston alum WBCN and the American Revolution looks at the early days of the underground rock station; I'm guessing the $10.41 price refers to its original frequency. Both have filmmaker events planned for the coming weeks. They also would have been hosting the A-Town Teen Video Festival on Tuesday, but now their Facebook page will be one of the sites broadcasting/streaming the event.
  • GlobeDocs has another documentary feature tied to a Monday Zoom discussion this weekend; RSVP for Rewind, in which director Sasha Joseph Neulinger uses home movies to reconstruct a history of child abuse.
  • And, finally, back to those chains; Showcase Cinemas is kind of local (Massachusetts-based, at least), even if the closest locations to the city are a pain to reach on the MBTA, but the "Showtimes" tab on their website has links for The Mindfulness Movement, Capone, and Scoob!, if you'd like to kick a bit of cash to my employers during my college years.


This week I plan on checking out Driveways, Free Country, Alice, and maybe On a Magical Night, Up From the Streets, Fourteen, and Born in Flames and Advantageous from the Brattle's sci-fi program.

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