Friday, June 11, 2021

Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 11 June 2021 - 17 June 2021

I went to a Red Sox game this week where full capacity was allowed, and it was kind of weird - like, yeah, Massachusetts has a great vaccination rate, but we jumped from 25% to 100% awful fast. Haven't been to a movie indoors like that yet, but it's probably only days away.
  • The week's big opening is In the Heights, John Chu's adaptation of the musical co-written by Lin-Manuel Miranda, with a cast of up-and-coming young actors. It's getting great reviews and plays at The Coolidge Corner Theatre (now open all week!), the Capitol, Fresh Pond, West Newton, Kendall Square, Boston Common (including Imax through Tuesday & Dolby Cinema), Fenway, South Bay (including Imax through Monday and Dolby Cinema), Assembly Row (including Imax and Dolby Cinema through Monday), Arsenal Yards (including CWX through Monday), Chestnut Hill, and HBOmax if you aren't ready to go out yet.

    (If that's the case; the Coolidge has a "Masked Matinee" show on Sunday the 20th; order ahead because capacity will obviously be lower, and it's an option for Private Movie Parties. They'll also be restarting outdoor showings next weekend, with Shutter Island at Medfield State Hospital on Friday the 18th & Saturday the 19th.)

    The Virtual Coolidge continues to offer Ahead of the Curve, Us Kids, Duty Free, About Endlessness, and In Silico.
  • Landmark Theatres Kendall Square opens three other new releases this weekend, and will be open all week. All Light, Everywhere is a documentary about how the histories of cameras and policing in America are intertwined, and how surveillance has not yet translated into accountability. There's also Sublet, the new film from Eytan Fox, which follows a New York travel writer who comes to Tel Aviv and connects to the city when he has never given much thought to his Jewish identity.

    And, down the hall (almost certainly on screen #9) is Censor, an Irish horror film with Niamh Algar as a member of the film review board who finds something frighteningly familiar in the movie she is reviewing. Here's hoping that the Kendall still has some room for genre film when things get back to normal!
  • If you've been to theaters, you've probably seen posters saying "In Theaters - FINALLY" for Peter Rabbit 2: The Runaway; you know things were bad when the bunny movie missed two Easters. It's out, though, which means there's no need to see the trailer again. It's at The Capitol, Fresh Pond, Boston Common, Fenway, South Bay, Assembly Row, Arsenal Yards, and Chestnut Hill.

    Also opening is The House Next Door: Meet the Blacks 2, in which Mike Epps's character moves his family again (a mere five years later!), only this time the family winds up in the middle of Fright Night rather than The Purge, which is an interesting way to do spoof movies in a time when YouTube has probably hit every possible joke within a week of something's release. It's at Boston Common and South Bay.

    "Fast Forward" is up to Furious 7 on Friday night at Boston Common, Fenway (for reward program members), and Arsenal Yards. Fenway has Pride matinee screenings of Milk through Thursday and To Wong Foo, Thanks for Everything, Julie Newmarr through Tuesday. Fenway, Assembly Row, and Arsenal Yards have the new transfer of My Fair Lady on Sunday; Fenway and Arsenal Yards also have it Tuesday.

    There are also early shows for The Hitman's Wife's Bodyguard (adding Salma Hayek to Ryan Reynolds & Samuel L. Jackson, because why not) on Friday and Saturday at Boston Common, Fenway, South Bay, and Assembly Row before opening Wednesday-but-really-Tuesday-evening at Fresh Pond, Boston Common (including Imax), Fenway, South Bay (including Imax), Assembly Row (including Dolby Cinema), Arsenal Yards (including CWX), and Chestnut Hill.

    And, yes, it looks like Fresh Pond is open, although their website is down and not all of the ticketing sites list them, but according to this, they've got Godzilla vs Kong, A Quiet Place Part II, Raya and the Last Dragon, Cruella, The Conjuring 3, and Spiral: From the Book of Saw, although clicking a link on that site redirects to Fandango, which chokes. Get it together, guys!
  • If you're a member of The Brattle Theatre, you've probably received an email about their first two 35mm member screenings this week, and are probably eager to get back. They're still very much in hybrid mode, though, adding three new selections to the Brattleite virtual theater, offering three different sorts of selections: New-release feature Slow Machine is a shot-on-16mm thriller in which an actress must flee upstate from New York City after a relationship goes sour. "Who Will Start Another Fire", on the other hand, is a collection of short films by new filmmakers in underseen corners of the country and world. The new restoration is of Hong Sang-Soo's The Power of Kangwon Province, which has two exes vacationing in the same place and threatening to repeat old mistakes whether or not they cross paths. Those three join Two Lottery Tickets, The Paper Tigers, and Punk the Capital.
  • Vietnam's Bo Gia (Dad, I'm Sorry) continues in South Bay; Japan's Demon Slayer continues at Boston Common. For more all-age-friendly anime, Ayumu Watanabe's Children of the Sea plays Boston Common, Fenway, South Bay, and Assembly Row on Sunday (dubbed?), and at Boston Common, Fenway, Assembly Row and Arsenal Yards on Tuesday (subtitled)
  • The West Newton Cinema is back to mixing and matching, with In the Heights and Cruella playing all weekend, Shiva Baby on Friday and Sunday, Together Together on Sunday, and Nomadland on Saturday and Sunday.
  • The Belmont World Film virtual World Refugee Month program has The Jump through Monday, when they will host a discussion including director Giedre Zickyte (and some of the local subjects). The last leg starts on Tuesday, with A Fish Tale following a couple who moved from Africa to Israel (and the children they left behind); director Emmanuelle Mayer will do a Q&A on Monday the 21st.
  • ArtsEmerson and The Boston Asian-American Film Festival continue the run of Suk Suk (Twilight's Kiss) through Monday evening; it includes a pre-recorded Q&A with director Raymond Yeung.
  • The Roxbury International Film Festival is still in hybrid form this year, and kicks off Thursday with How It Feels to Be Free and Memoirs of a Black Girl coming on-line that morning for a couple of days and limited in-person seating at the Museum of Fine Arts. More events will roll out through the 26th.
  • Hey, Cinema Salem is back, under new management/ownership! They've got In the Heights and The Conjuring 3 like you'd expect, but also play Gunda on one of their smaller screens.
  • The marquee at The Somerville Theatre says they will be close until "later this summer", so apparently renovations are kind of extensive.
  • Theater rentals are available at the Coolidge, the Brattle, Kendall Square, West Newton, the Capitol, The Lexington Venue, and many of the multiplexes. The Coolidge has slots available to reserve the screening room and the GoldScreen online through the end of June, including private shows of the films they have playing in the larger screens.
I've got a baseball ticket for Monday, and I'll probably try for In the Heights, Censor, and Children of the Sea, and Thursday's show at the Brattle. Maybe go for Slow Machine, Kangwon Province, and The Jump virtually, but it's looking like a busy week!

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