Friday, May 12, 2023

Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 12 May 2023 - 18 May 2023

Still on vacation as I write this, but coming back soon with a fair amount to catch up on in this week-between-blockbusters.
  • The counterprogramming is Book Club: The Next Chapter, which reunites Diane Keaton, Jane Fonda, Candice Bergen, and Mary Steenburgen for a bachelorette party in Italy; hijinks will obviously ensue. It's at The Capitol, Fresh Pond, West Newton, CinemaSalem, Boston Common, Kendall Square, South Bay, Assembly Row, Arsenal Yards, and Chestnut Hill.

    A couple movies that were barely on the radar before a couple weeks ago but grab a spare screen after the initial see-the-new-Marvel-first-weekend rush also open. Hypnotic stars Ben Affleck and is directed by Robert Rodriguez, and features the former suddenly discovering that there are people out there with mind-control powers; it's at Fresh Pond, Boston Common, Kendall Square, South Bay, and Assembly Row. Knights of the Zodiac is a live-action manga adaptation starring Japanese-American actor Mackenyu (who has mostly worked in Japan) and a strong "should be doing more than just direct-to-video" folks (Famke Janssen, Mark Dacascos, Nick Stahl, Sean Bean). It's at Boston Common and Assembly Row.

    IFFBoston selection Blackberry opens at Boston Common and South Bay; a comic look at how a Canadian company created the smartphone market for business but was swept aside when Apple made it mainstream. Charlie Day writes and directs Fools Paradise, also starring as a man who gets caught up in showbiz insanity when a publicist (Ken Jeong) has him substitute for a movie star; that one plays the Somerville, Boston Common, and CinemaSalem.

    Rally Road Racers, an animated film which posits sloths racing up and down the Silk Road, opens at Fresh Pond.

    Arsenal Yards has matinees of The Wizard of Oz all week. Grease gets 45th anniversary shows Sunday and Wednesday at South Bay, Assembly Row, and Arsenal Yards. The Way, a 2010 film starring Martin Sheen and directed by son Emilio Estevesz, has apparently become popular enough in come circles to get a one-night re-release Tuesday at South Bay and Assembly Row. Concert film Eric Clapton: Across 24 Nights, plays the Capitol, Fresh Pond, Boston Common, and Kendall Square on Wednesday. Gerard Butler war/action movie Kandahar has a preview showing Wednesday at Boston Common.
  • The Coolidge Corner Theatre picks up IFFBoston selection Wild Life, the new film from Chai Vasarhelyi & Jimmy Chin, this one following entrepreneurs and outdoor enthusiasts Kris & Doug Tompkins as they work to create national parks in Chile and Argentina after leaving their successful businesses behind. Vasarhelyi will be on-hand for the 7pm screening on Saturday.

    They also open (with relatively limited showtimes) Other People's Children, about a woman who falls for a divorced dad and his daughter, and must grapple with how she's going to be at least partly an outsider in the girl's life while her time for having a child of her own is limited.

    Midnights at the Coolidge this weekend are Brian De Palma's Body Double on Friday and a 35mm print of Wild Things on Saturday. The National Center for Jewish Film presents 1341 Frames of Love and War and Where Life Begins on Sunday. The Jim Jarmusch series continues with Mystery Train on Tuesday and a 35mm print of Life on Earth on Wednesday.
  • Landmark Theatres Kendall Square also has one from IFFBoston; Still: A Michael J. Fox Movie documents how the actor shot to fame as a young man and then was diagnosed with Parkinson's Disease when he might otherwise have hit his leading-man prime.

    The Scorsese/De Niro Retro Replay for this Tuesday is Goodfellas.
  • The Kerala Story, a docudrama about Indian women recruited into Da'esh, arrives at Boston Common and Apple Fresh Pond. Fresh Pond also opens Custody, wherein a cop must get a witness to court but the whole department is corrupt, in Telugu and Tamil; historical spy thriller IB 71; Hindi musical family drama Music School; and action-drama Raavana Kottam. Malayalam-language thriller 2018 returns to Fresh Pond for one show on Friday. Ponniyin Selvan: Part Two (aka PS-2) continues Tamil-language shows at Fresh Pond and Boston Common (Tamil).

    Anime Suzume continues at the Coolidge and Boston Common, subtitled.
  • The Brattle Theatre gets ready for Asteroid City with The Compleat Wes Anderson, including Bottle Rocket (35mm Friday/Saturday), The Royal Tenenbaums (Saturday), Rushmore (35mm Saturday), Fantastic Mr. Fox (35mm Sunday), Isle of Dogs (Sunday), The French Dispatch (Monday/Tuesday), The Darjeeling Limited (Wednesday), The LIfe Aquatic with Steve Zissou (35mm Wednesday), The Grand Budapest Hotel (35mm Thursday), and Moonrise Kingdom (35mm Thursday). He's about two or three films away from not being able to squeeze this into a week the next time a new one comes out!

    And, of course, on Mother's Day (Sunday), they have a matinee of Alfred Hitchcock's Psycho.
  • The Somerville Theatre has a Bogard double feature of Key Largo & The African Queen, both on 35mm film, Friday night. Saturday's Midnight Special is Better off Dead. The most recent local shorts from the 48 Hour Film Project play Monday through Wednesday, and the Two-for-Thursday twin bill has Robert Mitchum in Night of the Hunter & Out of the Past, the latter on 35mm. The main room is used Saturday for a the Vienna Light Orchestra's candlelight tribute to The Greatest Showman.
  • The Harvard Film Archive begins to shift into summer mode with a new Late Kiarostami series, with The Wind Will Carry Us on Friday and Five Dedicated to Ozu on Monday. The Hong Sangsoo series wraps with Hotel by the River on Saturday and Sunday and The Novelist's Film on Sunday. The final film of their Med Hongo retrospective, Polisario, A People in Arms, plays Sunday evening on 16mm film.
  • The Museum of Fine Arts has the first weekend of their Festival of New Films From Japan, with speculative-fiction tale Plan 75 on Saturday and Sunday, a dubbed screening of animated drama Miss Hokusai, and Ribbon, a pandemic story from actor-director Non.
  • Belmont World Film wraps this year's series with Peaceful, with Catherine Deneuve as a mother whose son (Benoit Magimel), has just received a terminal cancer diagnosis. It streams through Sunday night ahead of a sold-out show with a pre-film reception and talk with consultant/cast member Dr. Gabriel Sara, but there are apparently reush tickets and the discussion will be made available to those who stream the movie.
  • The Museum of Science has Everything Everywhere All At Once, on the Omnimax screen Saturday nights through May for Asian American Pacific Islander Heritage Month, in association with The Boston Asian-American Film Festival.
  • The Regent Theatre has documentary Anxious Nation on Wednesday and the A-Town Teen Film Festival on Thursday.
  • Joe's Free Films has German film The Airship showing at Goethe-Institut with English subtitles on Wednesday; RSVPs requested.
  • The Lexington Venue is open through Sunday with Book Club: The Next Chapter and Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret. They also have the 2nd Annual New England Community Film Series, with all ticket sales going to the local filmmakers, on Saturday afternoon.

    The West Newton Cinema brings in Book Club: The Next Chapter and keeps Guardians, Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret, Beau Is Afraid (no shows Friday & Thursday), Air, and Super Mario Brothers. Closed Monday.

    The Luna Theater has Beau Is Afraid from Friday to Sunday and on Thursday, plus a Weirdo Wednesday show.

    Cinema Salem is back in the Friday late show business with Battle Royale, and also opens Book Club, Fool's Paradise, Evil Dead Rise, and Hypnotic, keeping R.M.N. and Guardians as well.

    If you can get out to the Liberty Tree Mall, they have Oxide Pang's new movie Flashover, about firefighters trying to extinguish a chemical plant. He and his brother did a good job with Out of Inferno, so he's got experience.
I'll be seeing the Sunday Japanese films when I come back, and then there's a LOT of festival/vacation catching up to do!

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