Friday, May 26, 2023

Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 26 May 2023 - 1 June 2023

Looking at what could be a busier week than what my AMC membership can handle and thinking, are we going to try MoviePass 4.0 (or whatever)? Do we trust it?

Oh, and in disappointing news given it's a holiday weekend, the multiplex at South Bay seems to be closed for "unexpected maintenance" this week, which means the area is down ten more screens, even with Fenway already shut down and the places at Causeway Street and the Seaport slow to re-open.

  • It's time for another Disney live-action remake, I guess, and this time it's The Little Mermaid, with Halle Bailey in the title role and Rob Marshall directing something half again as long as the animated film that kicked off the Disney Renaissance and which almost certainly won't be remembered 30 years later. It's at The Capitol, Jordan's Furniture (Imax), Fresh Pond (including digital 3D), West Newton, CinemaSalem, Boston Common (including Imax Xenon/Dolby Cinema/RealD 3D), Kendall Square (including RealD 3D), Assembly Row (including Imax Laser/2D & 3D Dolby Cinema/RealD 3D), Arsenal Yards (including CWX), Chestnut Hill (including RealD 3D).

    Also opening are a couple comedies with comedians adapting their act and starring as themselves and some big names as their fathers: About My Father has comedian Sebastian Maniscalco as Sebastian Maniscalco, who winds up taking his rough-around-the-edges father (Robert De Niro) to visit his girlfriend's family for the Fourth of July; it's at Fresh Pond, Boston Common, Assembly Row. The Machine looks like a more liberally adapted story, with Bert Kreischer spinning a story of how Russians come for him and his dad (Mark Hamill) twenty years after he crossed them during a semester abroad. That one's at Fresh Pond, Boston Common, Assembly Row, Arsenal Yards.

    Kandahar reunites Gerard Butler with director Ric Roman Waugh for the second movie about a guy fleeing the Taliban with his translator in a month. Looks solid, though. It's at Fresh Pond, Boston Common. Boston Common also gets The Wrath of Becky, a sequel to Becky, which came out at the start of the pandemic and thus mostly went to VOD, although this one, with Lulu Wilson as a final-girl survivor beset by a new threat, looks like it may be able to stand on its own. Boston Common also has Boston Underground Film Festival selection The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster on Wednesday night.

    Boston Common also has The Land Before Time on Saturday and Wednesday mornings. Early previews of The Boogeyman play Boston Common on Wednesday.
  • A couple much-anticipated films open at The Coolidge Corner Theatre this week: IFFBoston selection The Eight Mountains has been getting good notices all over, combining a story of childhood friends torn and connected by their different relationships with the father of one with what is apparently a stunning alpine backdrop. They also have Joyland, in which a mild-mannered man lands a job in a Lahore burlesque but keeps the exact position secret while the LGBT staff there changes his perspective on a number of things.

    Midnights this week are 35mm prints of Ken Russell's Crimes of Passion on Friday and Barbet Schroeder's Single White Female on Saturday. The May Jim Jarmusch series wraps with 35mm prints of The Limits of Control on Tuesday and Only Lovers Left Alive on Wednesday, and the newest Radio Boston Live screening/discussion for their "Set in Boston" series is Good Will Hunting.
  • You Hurt My Feelings opens at Landmark Theatres Kendall Square, the Somerville, the Lexington Venue, Boston Common, and Assembly Row. It is the newest film from Nicole Holofcenerm reuniting with Enough Said star Julia Louis-Dreyfus, who plays an author who panics when she finds out that her husband (Tobias Menzies) didn't really like her new book that much.

    The Kendall wraps their Scorsese/De Niro series on Tuesday with Casino. A Harrison Ford focus starts next week.
  • Once again, five Indian films open at Apple Fresh Pond this weekend. Telugu comedy Mem Famous appears to be brightly-colored overlapping stories in a small village; Kannada-language comedy Daredevil Musthafa has a group of friends conspiring to get one expelled from college; Telugu romance Malli Pelli is apparently about a character based upon star V.K. Naresh, who fell in love with a married co-star; Hindi romance NRI Wives is an anthology of four stories of forbidden relationships; and just yikes at the title of Telugu comedy #MenToo. There also appear to be two re-issued Telugu classics: Sunday features 1976's Adavi Ramudu, with 2015's Mosagallaku Mosagadu playing Tuesday.

    Hideaki Anno's latest reimagining of a major piece of Japanese pop culture, Shin Kamen Rider, plays at Boston Common, Assembly Row on Wednesday; if it's half as fun as Shin Godzilla and Shin Ultraman, it'll be a blast. Anime Suzume continues at the Coolidge and Boston Common, subtitled.
  • The Brattle Theatre continues Reunion Week 25th/50th/75th anniversary shows (though not 100th this year; maybe next. This year's presentations are The Big Lebowski (35mm) & Altman's The Long Goodbye on Friday, Saving Private Ryan on Saturday afternoon, Enter the Dragon (35mm) & Coffy on Saturday, The Spirit of the Beehive (35mm) & Bicycle Thieves on Sunday, A Foreign Affairs & The Red Shoes on Monday, a free Elements of Cinema show of Fantastic Planet on Tuesday, After Life on Tuesday & Wednesday, Stricting Brohibited shows of High Art and Love & Anarchy on Wednesday, wrapping up with Touki Bouki & Run Lola Run (35mm) on Thursday.
  • The Somerville Theatre has a mini-David Lynch series this weekend, with The Elephant Man on Friday & Saturday, Blue Velvet on 4K on Saturday with a 35mm print of Eraserhead at midnight, and Twin Peaks Fire Walk with Me on Sunday, which can also be paired with an after-movie party upstairs at the Crystal Ballroom. Wednesday's F— the Nazis double feature is 35mm prints of Judgment at Nuremberg and The Train, while the Two-for-Thursday is new 4K DCps of Steven Spielberg's first two, Duel & The Sugarland Express.
  • The Harvard Film Archive wraps their spring season and with it the Late Kiarostami series with Like Someone in Love and Taste of Cherry (35mm) on Frida, plus a 35mm print of Certified Copy on Monday. They'll be dark for a week, and then return for a Complete Ozu summer.
  • The Museum of Science brings "Serengeti" back into the Omnimax mix, along with the last giant-screen showing of Everything Everywhere All At Once on Saturday night.
  • The New England Aquarium adds "Blue Whales: Return of the Giants" to their Imax 3D mix, displacing "Incredible Predators" and "Superpower Dogs"
  • Per Joe's Free Films, the Goethe-Institut is presenting Exile, a film they screened at the Coolidge's virtual cinema during the pandemic (remember virtual cinema screens?), at their own location on Beacon Street on Wednesday.
  • The Regent Theatre has documentary 32 Sounds on Wednesday night.
  • The Lexington Venue is open through Sunday with You Hurt My Feelings and Are You There God? It's Me, Margaret.

    The West Newton Cinema brings The Little Mermaid and You Hurt My Feelings in, alongside Guardians, Are You There, God? It's Me, Margaret, Air, and Super Mario Brothers. Closed Monday and Tuesday.

    The Luna Theater has Beau Is Afraid Friday and Saturday evenings; How to Blow Up a Pipeline Saturday afternoon and Thursday evening, Labyrinth on Sunday; plus a Weirdo Wednesday show.

    Cinema Salem opens The Little Mermaid and You Hurt My Feelings, with Polite Society and Guardians also hanging around through Monday. The original Death Race 2000 plays Friday night, The Great Escape on Saturday through Monday afternoons, and the Panorama Film Festival shorts program on Thursday.
I already have a ticket for Shin Kamen Rider (although, you know, mildly disappointed that its release doesn't line up with Fantasia), and will likely check out Kandahar, The Machine, The Wrath of Becky, some of the good rep stuff, and hopefully circle back around to finally catch Evil Dead Rise.

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