The theatrical world is upside down, what with the new movie that likely would be direct-to-video if Liam Neeson wasn't in it at the Kendall and the French comedy at Boston Common. Madness.
- The Coolidge Corner Theatre adds Martin Eden to its virtual offerings, a bit of a curiosity in that it's an Italian adaptation of an American novel by Jack London, which seems against the usual tide. They also pick up documentary Belly of the Beast, about the discovery and fight against a program of involuntary sterilization in women's prisons, and a
Big Small Screen Classic run of Ganja & Hess, which is incidentally part of the "Black Horror" online class that began Wednesday but whose Sunday sessions may still have some spaces left. They also continue Totally Under Control, Aggie, Major Arcana, The Disrupted, and Oliver Sacks: His Own Life. They also head out to the Medfield State Hospital for drive-in screenings of E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial on Friday and Saturday, and later kick off a "Wednesdays with Wiseman" series with The Ballet on the 21st. For that last one, in addition to a nearly three-hour documentary, there will be a conversation between Wiseman and Free Solo filmmaker Elizabeth Chai Vasarhelyi
Though Ganja & Hess is technically a vampire film, it's not generally considered to be in the same category as their other Halloween programming. For that, the After Midnite crew continues their "Quattro Di Bava" series with Baron Blood, streaming Friday through Sunday. They've also rescheduled one of their rained-out John Carpenter double feature programs of The Thing & They Live at the Medfield State Hospital for Sunday, with tickets still available. Tickets are also available for their Halloween Rocky Woods shows, with Evil Dead 2 and the Evil Dead remake on the 30th and 12 hours of werewolf pictures on the 31st, and they'll also be returning there in mid-November 13th, because a little pandemic isn't going to stop Friday the 13th on Friday the 13th, with this iteration featuring The Final Chapter and Jason Lives.
- The Brattle Theatre opens White Riot, which looks at the late-1970s birth of Rock Against Racism in the United Kingdom, and a restoration of Mathieu Kassovitz's La Haine, which takes place in the volatile multi-racial Paris suburbs in the mid-1990s. Also continuing are Once Upon a River, Native Son, The Myth of a Colorblind France, Dead, and The Hole. Faust and Vinyl Nation still have live links, but were scheduled to end on Thursday.
- Honest Thief is probably the biggest mainstream release since Tenet and maybe through the end of the year, featuring Liam Neeson as a retired bank robber who aims to return his horde in exchange for a reduced sentence so that he can be with his new love without anything hanging over him, only to have the agents he's surrendering to double-cross him. It's at West Newton, Kendall Square, Boston Common (including Dolby Cinema), South Bay (including Dolby Cinema & Imax), Watertown (including CWX), Chestnut Hill, and Revere (including XPlus).
In smaller releases, The Kid Detective features Adam Brody as a 32-year-old who was an Encyclopedia Brown type in school and kind of got stuck there, only to be thrust into the big leagues when a young woman brings him the case of her murdered boyfriend. It's at Boston Common and Revere. Also playing is 2 Hearts, which follows two parallel romances in different decades and whose trailer sure does a bad job of hiding an obvious twist. That one has screens at Boston Common, South Bay, Chestnut Hill, and Revere.
I'm not sure if Conjuring-in-order is actually just Annabelle-in-order, but Boston Common has Annabelle: Creation, South Bay has Annabelle Comes Home, and Revere has The Nun and Annabelle Comes Home. This week's AMC DreamWorks feature is The Croods, playing Boston Common and South Bay; the Disney Halloween picture is The Nightmare Before Christmas at Boston Common (in 3D), South Bay (in 3D), Watertown, and Revere (in 3D). Fandango has a "4D" note for the 3D showings of that one, but I'd be pretty shocked if they installed motion seats or other gimmicks right now (I'd actually bet against 3D as well, even if the glasses are pre-wrapped). Revere has It, with the second part presumably playing next week.
Lupin III: The First, the latest screen adaptation of the Monkey Punch manga about a gentleman thief (this one CGI), plays Sunday afternoon at Boston Common & South Bay and Wednesday evening at those two plus Revere. Boston Common and Revere also have Bong Joon-Ho's Memories of Murder on Monday and Tuesday. Revere has PJ Masks: Halloween Tricksters on Saturday and Sunday, The Shining on Saturday/Tuesday/Thursday, anime feature Aura: Koga Maryuni's Last War on Monday, and Sense & Sensibility on Tuesday. South Bay has The Big Chill on Sunday.
- Landmark Theatres Kendall Square fills other screens with a couple of Netflix productions this weekend, both kind of interesting: Rebecca is a new adaptation of the novel that brought Alfred Hitchcock to Hollywood, directed by Ben Wheatley, who is mostly known for less tony productions, here working with a cast that includes Armie Hammer, Lily James, and Kristin Scott Thomas. Over the Moon also has a noteworthy director in Glen Keane, who won an Oscar for "Dear Basketball" and was the primary character animators for Disney during their renaissance period, making his feature directing debut with an adventure about a girl who builds a rocketship to travel to the moon and meet the goddess thereof.
Their website is not currently showing any times for Monday and Tuesday, and I wonder if they'd be down to weekends-only if they hadn't already sold tickets for the Stevie Nicks: 24 Karat Gold concert film on Wednesday (it also shows at Boston Common, Chestnut Hill, and Revere that night). The musically inclined can also watch Harry Chapin: When in Doubt, Do Something, which focuses on his activism as much as his music.
- The mainstream foreign film getting a theatrical release this week actually comes from France, with Mermaid in Paris a fair-sized hit there and delivering enough French whimsy to maybe collapse under its own weight. For Chinese film fans, My People, My Homeland and Jiang Ziya: Legend of Deification continue at Boston Common; Korean film Train to Busan Presents: Peninsula is still at Revere.
- The Boston Women's Film Festival runs through Sunday; I liked Proxima when I saw it at the Sci-Fi festival in February. The virtual festival run doesn't stop there, though, as the Boston Asian American Film Festival kicks off with Definition Please on Wednesday (one night only, limited to MA/NH/ME/RI) and Keep Saray Home, which is available through the end of the festival on 25 October. After that, Independent Film Festival Boston is taking their annual "Fall Focus" online from the 29th to 2 November, and A HREF="https://www.bostonjfilm.org/">Boston Jewish Film picks things up a couple days later to run from 4 to 15 November.
- The Regent Theatre has up to 50 seats available for their premiere of Come Together, a concert film featuring frequent guests The Ultrasonic Rock Orchestra, on Friday evening. They are apparently also opening doors for the first night of the Screaming Ostrich International Film Festival, which promises a festival of short films as eccentric as its name.
In between, they'll be streaming a live concert with Go Now! Playing the music of the Moody Blues in London on Saturday afternoon, and switching up their weekly streaming concert from Lee Rocker of the Stray Cats to The Hitmen on Tuesday They also still have Chet's Last Call and Herb Alpert Is… available to stream through the end of the month.
- The West Newton Cinema is open Friday through Sunday this week, adding A Rainy Day in New York to their offerings (and Honest Thief, according to Fandango, but it's not on the theater's site). The rest of the lineup includes The Keeper, Lolita, The Bridges of Madison County (Saturday/Sunday), RBG (Friday), The Maltese Falcon (Friday/Saturday), Citizen Kane (Saturday), Tenet, 2001: A Space Odyssey (Saturday), and Casablanca (SaturdaySunday), with curbside popcorn pick-up as available on Fridays, Saturdays, Sundays, and Wednesdays.
They've also got a special preview of locally-shot A Ring for Christmas on Sunday, one of those cable-destined holiday romances, this one centered on a trust fund kid who returns home to seduce her old high-school boyfriend by Christmas because she will inherit a substantial sum if she marries.
- Thursday's Bright Lights at Home presentation is Code of the Freaks, a documentary on how disabled people have been portrayed on film. Reservations start at noon, the stream begins at 7pm, and the post-film discussion will include producers Susan Nussbaum and Carrie Sandahl
- The Somerville Theatre is still dark and not updating their virtual screening room listings which still include The Fight, Amulet, John Lewis: Good Trouble, Pahokee, and Alice (no more discount); and a dead link. The Capitol is selling snacks, but their virtual theater is basically empty, with the link to The Surrogate still live but the coupon no longer valid.
- The Capitol has joined the Brattle, the Coolidge, The Lexington Venue, and West Newton in also offering private rentals for small-size groups, with information on their websites (which often include other fundraising links) or by contacting them directly. The Coolidge has online booking through the 30th and the Brattle currently shows all available slots as filled.
Plenty of good reason to stay in, but I may try to catch the Netflix stuff at the Kendall;
The Kid Detective and
Lupin III are tempting as well. And as always, if you haven't yet, go to
Save Your Cinema to send a letter to your Congresspeople.
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