Friday, December 18, 2020

Next Week in [Virtual] Tickets: Films sort of playing Boston 18 December 2020 - 24 December 2020

AMC Boston Common got all dressed up only to have the party cancelled:
For those keeping track, The Rescue was supposed to come out back for Lunar New Year in January, and is just now getting a global release, only to have theaters in Boston and Newton closed down as the city rolls back to an earlier phase. I suspect it will be there when things reopen in January, but it's darkly funny that Covid could have us missing out on that one twice. Makes for a potentially quiet weekend!
  • The Brattle Theatre opens (one of) the latest by Kiyoshi Kurosawa, with To the Ends of the Earth having him reteam with his Seventh Code star Atsuko Maeda, once again seeing them leave Japan, this time for Uzbekistan to follow a TV travel host who is as reserved off-screen as she is charismatic on the air. It joins the reissue of Kurosawa's =Bright Future in their streaming offerings, along with Ikarie XB-1, Markie in Milwaukee, Another Round, Crock of Gold: A Few Rounds with Shane MacGowan, Mayor, Zappa, and City Hall.
  • The Coolidge Corner Theatre brings in quite a bit of "The World of Wong Kar-Wai" this weekend, with new restorations of As Tears Go By, Days of Being Wild, Chungking Express, Happy Together, and Fallen Angels, as well of an expansion of Eros segment "The Hand" (from 48 to 56 minutes), along with In the Mood for Love, which started last week.

    Outside of WKW, they also add The Emoji Story to their offerings, a documentary which looks at how those symbols are standardized and implemented, including questions of diversity and inclusion. Those movies all join Assassins, Sing Me a Song, Another Round, 76 Days, Coded Bias, City Hall, and Martin Eden.

    They also have a Goethe-Institut presentation this weekend, with Curveball playing through Sunday. It's about a German intelligence officer assigned to an Iraqi emigre who may have evidence that the country was producing anthrax, and how wanting suspicions confirmed distorts how one handles such situations.
  • With the Boston, Somerville, and Newton screens dark for the rest of the year and Revere closing after Sunday's shows, it is a quiet weekend. The big opening was supposed to be Monster Hunter, with Resident Evil director Paul W.S. Anderson and wife Milla Jovovich taking on another video game franchise, with the release date having been bumped up to grab giant screens, but now it's just at Watertown (including CWX). Fatale offers Michael Ealy as a married man caught in a bad situation after a one-night stand with a detective played by Hilary Swank; it's at Watertown, Revere.

    Watertown also has Wonder Woman playing starting Saturday evening ahead of the sequel opening next weekend.
  • Cambridge hasn't closed theaters, so Landmark Theatres Kendall Square is open with the same slate as last week, though they are not listing any showtimes for Monday and Tuesday.
  • The Regent Theatre continues to stream Insert Coin and Jefferson Mays's one-man version of A Christmas Carol.
  • The Somerville Theatre remains closed but The Slutcracker streams a version cut together from last year's performances; The Capitol in Arlington has the concession stand and ice cream shop open.
  • Theater rentals are available at the Brattle, the Coolidge, the Capitol, The Lexington Venue, Kendall Square, the AMCs out in the suburbs, and the Majestic in Watertown for sure, and maybe Apple Fresh Pond (their site is confusing!) and the Belmont Studio (the rental page on their site is pre-lockdown). The Coolidge is showing slots available to reserve online through December 29th, and has added "Premium Programming", where you can not just bring your own disc, but also choose from In the Mood for Love, Sound of Metal, Wolfwalkers, and Fleabag, akin to how the multiplexes will let you show their lineups; the Brattle has open slots through 3 January. The independent theaters (including The West Newton Cinema) also have other fund-raising offers worth checking out.
To the Ends of the Earth and Curveball for sure, plus maybe some of the stuff I missed last weekend. Time to find out how much fun it is walking to Kendall in the snow!

No comments: