Oof, I've just seen a couple more festivals planning to go virtual, one in November. Looks like the "virtual" section is staying at the top for a while.
- The new virtual entry The Brattle Theatre is Małni – Towards the Ocean, Towards the Shore, an experimental film built around the Chinookian death myth and anything connected to it. It joins This Is Not a Burial, It's a Resurrection, Center Stage, The Fever, The Inheritance, Keep an Eye Out, and F.T.A. in their "Brattlite" section. Take-out concessions are available for pick-up through the weekend for those looking to make the experience a little more complete.
- Their friends at The DocYard also have one that sounds like it's on the experimental side, with Shared Resources having filmmaker Jordan Lord turn the camera on his own family as he chronicles his parents' bankruptcy, although much would appear to be captioned audio from the description. The film plays through Thursday, with Lord joining curator Abbey Sun for a discussion on Wednesday evening.
- Every once in a while, I get the impression that folks at The Coolidge Corner Theatre don't really enjoy playing The Room, but if people are going to repeatedly give a non-profit theater ten bucks to watch a bad movie every couple of months, that theater would be foolish not to let them do it. Anyway, that's what's opening in the Coolidge's virtual room this week, apparently not streaming anywhere else, and your ticket gets you a Zoom discussion with co-star Greg Sestero next Friday evening. Looks a bit out of place next to Eric Rohmer's "The Tales of the Four Seasons", the three Oscar Nominated Shorts programs (Animated, Live-Action, and Documentary, Wojnarowicz, Stray, and City Hall.
There are also two "Stage & Screen" discussions this week - folks from the Huntington Thatre Company will be talking about Ma Rainey's Black Bottom on Monday, while the month's Shakespeare Reimagined presentation has set/costume designer David Zinn and folks from the Commonwealth Shakespeare Company talking about Sally Potter's Orlando. Find the movies yourself, and join in!
- Wicked Queer is in its main stretch this week, with 21 features streaming from the 8th to the 18th, with Kiss Me Kosher coming online Wednesday and 17 short film packages also available.
Belmont World Film is back on the regular schedule this week, with France's Gloria Mundi online through Monday evening, culminating in a discussion with Suffolk University's Michèle Plott at 7:30pm that night. They stick around France for The Dazzled, which begins streaming on Tuesday with folks having a week to take in its story of growing up with one's family in a cult before a talk with BU's David Frankfurter on the 19th.
- The Regent Theatre is still streaming Long Live Rock: Celebrate the Chaos.
- ArtsEmerson's film program continues "Projecting Connections: Chinese American Experiences" presentation Far East Deep South through Sunday, including discussion with director Larissa Lam, producer Baldwin Chiu. They also have their second weekend of the Boston Baltic Film Festival, featuring A to B Rollerski, which features Latvian-American biathlete Raimonds Dombrovskis, who rollerskied from Inuvik to Baja California when his Olympic dreams were stymied in 1988 and recreated it 26 years later, hoping to meet some of the same people. It plays through Sunday, with a pre-recorded Q&A featuring Dombrovskis and director Arnis Aspers. There's also a presentation that's more in line with their theatrical side, "The Return of the Dragon", a shot-in-quarantine look behind the scenes of Chilean dramatist Guillermo Calderón's play Dragón. It streams with live Q&As on Saturday and Sunday evenings, with the 23-minute short streaming on demand starting on Tuesday.
The week's Bright Lights at Home entry "Generation Green New Deal" is also a short, 45 minutes long, about the Sunrise Movement and others pushing for bold action on the climate crisis. It's available Wednesday to Thursday evening (free but capped at 175 total viewers), with director Sam Eilertsen and several activists participating in a Zoom discussion at 8pm Thursday evening.
- Landmark Theatres Kendall Square has weird churn going on, with some things sticking around quite a while and some exiting pretty fast for how they've been built up. So, even though you may have seen posters and trailers for documentary The Truffle Hunters for a while, there's no guarantee that it won't be gone in a week if too many screenings are one or two people. It follows the old men of Piedmont, Italy, who (with their dogs) have the knack for finding the rare Alba truffle, which has thus far resisted farming. They also open South African film Moffie, which follows a young man completing his compulsory military service in 1981, when not only is there the thread of war with Angola while apartheid has made the country a powderkeg, but the army can become even more cruel if they find out one is gay.
- Voyagers feels like the sort of thing I once would have been aware of before seeing a preview a couple weeks ago - slick-looking movie with Tye Sheridan, Lily-Rose Depp, and some others as the crew of a generation ship medicated to be mission-focused until they discover sex, Colin Farrell as their handler, a director in Neil Burger who's done some interesting stuff in the genre - but it feels like it came out of nowhere, and it's not even based on some Young Adult series that usually forms my blind spot. Weird, right? It's at Boston Common, South Bay, Watertown (through Sunday).
That's right, the Majestic in Arsenal Yards is re-opening this weekend, and they are the ones with the new Telugu-language film opening with "Power Star" Pawan Kalyan returning to the screen in Vakeel Saab, a remake of Hindi-language hit Pink, playing the title character in an action-thriller about a lawyer who steps in to defend three young women and apparently get involved in dangers beyond the courtroom.
- The West Newton Cinema is open through Sunday, with Godzilla vs Kong, The Father, Raya and the Last Dragon, and Nomadland all playing reasonably full schedules. They're also open for private rentals.
- The Somerville Theatre and The Capitol are still not showing movies, though latter has their ice cream shop and concession stand open.
- Theater rentals are available at the Coolidge, the Brattle, Kendall Square, West Newton, the Capitol, The Lexington Venue, and the AMC/Majestic/Showcase multiplexes. The Coolidge has extended the slots available to reserve online through the end of April now offers early and late evening chances to rent Moviehouse II, the screening room, and the GoldScreen, with "Premium Programming" including Promising Young Woman, The Trial of the Chicago 7, The Father, Mank, Judas and the Black Messiah, Nomadland, Minari, In the Mood for Love, and Sound of Metal; the AMC app lists some "sold out" showtimes that are probably just meant to show the movies are available as part of rentals. The independent theaters also have other fund-raising offers worth checking out. Regal Fenway is expected to re-open next weekend, but no word yet on either the ArcLight at the Garden or the ShowPlace Icon in the Seaport, the latter of which has disappeared from its company's website entirely, which is concerning.
No plans this weekend; I've ordered a bunch of discs (which is silly) and have plenty I want to get through before the Oscars, but when are those, anyway?
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