Next Week in Virtual Tickets: Films sort of playing Boston 3 July 2020 - 9 July 2020

Some mixed messages on theater openings locally - indies making plans, chains saying they'll be shut down through the end of the month because all the major studios are pushing things at least that far.

No fireworks and no big-screen Jaws this weekend, and no blockbusters. It's a strange Fourth-of-July holiday.

• It's worth noting that the Coming Soon" page for The Coolidge Corner Theatre and its virtual screening room doesn't have as much lined up for the future as it had in recent weeks - maybe they're planning on opening physically? In the meantime, they have two new films opening virtually this weekend. John Lewis: Good Trouble is a documentary on the life of the civil right activist and congressman, whose stature has only grown over the past half-century. The other is Beats, which flashes back to 1994 when a pair of friends sneak out to attend an illegal rave together. It's paired with a pre-recorded festival discussion They also continue to feature Ella Fitzgerald: Just One of Those Things, The Last Tree, The Audition, Rififi, Miss Juneteenth, Sometimes Always Never, Shirley, and Picture a Scientist.
• The Brattle Theatre also has Beats, as well as a 25th Anniversary restoration of Zhang Yimou's Shanghai Triad, which features Gong Li as a nightclub singer mixed up with gangs in the 1930s from the point of view of a teenage girl hired to be her servant. Ella Fitzgerald: Just One of Those Things, In My Blood It Runs, The Killing Floor, the Pioneers of Queer cinema group (Mädchen in Uniform, Michael, and Victor and Victoria), Shirley, and Joan of Arc (the last in itsfinal week) also continue.
  
  The "36 Cinema" group re-shows two of their previous kung fu shows with commentary by RZA, The Mystery of Chessboxing & Shaolin vs Wu Tang at 9pm on Friday. They have also picked their recommendation series: "You Know, for the Kids" has offered up Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse and Daughters of the Dust in its first week back, while #BreakYourAlgorithm suggests The Watermelon Man.
• The Somerville Theatre also brings John Lewis: Good Trouble to its virtual cinema, alongside Shirley, Alice, and Pahokee. No new "openings" for The Capitol, but they can now allow a few indoor seats alongside curbside pickup (from 2pm to 9pm) and walk-up orders for ice cream and cinema snacks to accompany the virtual offerings of shorts package "One Small Step", The Surrogate, and Heimat Is a Space in Time. Both virtual rooms include "Quarantine Cat Film Fest", and (through Monday) the trio of I Am Not Your Negro, Whose Streets, and Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am.
• The Regent Theatre continues to stream What Doesn't Kill Us, Parkland Rising, Reggae Boyz, and WBCN and the American Revolution, while also running a GoFundMe campaign and streaming a summer concert series during at least the first two Sundays in July.
• The West Newton Cinema continues their GoFundMe campaign, and ticket pre-purchase program.
• The Lexington Venue is still planning on re-opening with Once Were Brothers and Emma on 10 July, with a screening of short subject "25: Tony Conigliaro - The Documentary" on the schedule for the 18th. We'll see They too have a GoFundMe campaign.

Looking forward to Good Trouble, Shanghai Triad, and a couple of others, while working my way through other things on disc.