Friday, September 27, 2024

Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 27 September 2024 - 3 October 2024

So what do you have for me for my birthday movies? … OK, that's kind of too much.
  • It seems almost impossible, but Francis Ford Coppola's dream project Megalopolis, which he has been trying to make for forty years, is actually opening in theaters this weekend, with Adam Driver as an architect charged with reinventing a grand city after a natural disaster while those in power try to consolidate it. It's at the Somerville, Fresh Pond, Boston Common, Kendall Square, the Seaport, South Bay (including Imax Laser), Assembly Row (including Imax Laser), Arsenal Yards, and Chestnut Hill. Assembly Row is also showing "Ultimate Experience" presentations on Friday and Saturday evening, which apparently have an in-person performance component.

    The other big opening is The Wild Robot, the new DreamWorks animated film that looks like something sort of familiar - robot sent to an isolated island for one purpose winds up on its own and clashes with others like it later - but seems like it might be something special, coming from Chrs Sanders of How to Train Your Dragon fame and looking good in the new house style. It's at the Capitol, the Coolidge, Fresh Pond (including 3D), Jordan's Furniture (Imax), West Newton, Boston Common (including Dolby Cinema & RealD 3D), Causeway Street (including RealD 3D), Kendall Square, the Seaport, South Bay (including Imax Laser & Dolby Cinema & RealD 3D), Assembly Row (including Dolby Cinema & RealD 3D), Arsenal Yards (including CWX), and Chestnut Hill.

    Lee, featuring Kate Winslet as model-turned-WWII photographer Lee Miller, plays Fresh Pond and Boston Common.

    Fantasia selection Azrael, starring Samara Weaving as a human sacrifice fighting back in a post-apocalyptic, almost non-verbal society, plays Boston Common and South Bay. Another horror indie, Bagman, opens at Boston Common. Boston Common also has Pacific Rim through Wednesday (presumably a Latino heritage thing since Guillermo del Toro directed).

    Boston Common has MountainFilm Adventure Shorts Saturday & Sunday. Paul McCartney & Wings: One Hand Clapping has encores at the Saport on Friday and Kendall Square & Boston Common on Sunday. There's a mystery preview at Boston Common, Causeway Street, and Assembly Row on Monday evening, and Monday also has Imax "Fan First" shows of Joker: Foile à Deux on at South Bay and Assembly Row. There are early access Dolby Cinema screenings of Piece by Piece on Wednesday at Boston Common, South Bay, and Assembly Row. Stop Making Sense plays in Imax at South Bay and Assembly Row on Wednesday. Boston Common has Lights Out on Wednesday; Arsenal Yards has a Coldplay Global Listening event that night. 20th Anniversary shows of Mean Girls play South Bay on Thursday.
  • The Coolidge Corner Theatre also opens a couple films in the smaller rooms: A Different Man (in the "Screening Room") stars Sebastian Stan as an actor with facial malformations who gets reconstructive surgery, only to see a play made about his old life; Adam Pearson, pretty great in director Aaron Schimberg's Chained for Life, plays the actor portraying him. It's also at the Kendall, Boston Common, and the Seaport.

    In the Summers plays on the GoldScreen; it follows two teenage girls who spend their summers with their father in New Mexico over four of those sojourns.

    September's Officially Sanctioned Midnight Movies wrap with Samurai Cop on Friday and Birdemic: Shock and Terror on Saturday. They have their first marathon in a while on Sunday, showing all five chapters of The Twilight Saga from11am to, I suppose around 10pm. Monday's Big Screen classing is Training Day, including a seminar with Coolidge staffer Billy Thegenus. As the calendar flips to October, they begin their "Schlock and Awe" tribute to William Castle with Macabre on Tuesday the 1st, which is the film where there were thousand dollar insurance policies against dying of fright. It continues with a new restoration of Hitchcock's Psycho on Wednesday (helpfully between Hitch days at the Somerville). On Thursday, the Big Screen Classic is a 35mm print of Wait Until Dark, while the cult classic later in the evening is Stop Making Sense.
  • The big Indian import at Apple Fresh Pond this week is Telugu blockbuster Devara Part 1, featuring N.T. Rama Rao Jr. in a dual role as the protector of a coastal region in different time periods (I think). It also plays Boston Common. Also opening is Tamil-language family drama Meiyazhagan. Marathi-language biography Dharmaveer 2 appears to only be playing Friday. Tamil comedy Lubber Pandhu is held over.

    Chinese action film Go For Broke, which looks Hong Kong-set but with a bunch of Mainland and Taiwanese cast, opens at Causeway Street.

    Korean cop thriller I, The Executioner - or Veteran 2 renamed because Korean pop culture is bigger that when the first came out back in '15 - plays Causeway Street. K-pop documentary/concert film Jung Kook: I Am Still plays Boston Common, the Seaport, and Assembly Row through Sunday.

    Vietnamese horror movie Ma Da: The Drowning Spirit, plays South Bay.

    Studio Ghibli-Fest wraps with 20th Anniversary shows of Howl's Moving Castle at Boston Common, South Bay, Assembly Row, Arsenal Yards on Sunday (dubbed), Monday (subtitled), Wednesday (dubbed), and Thursday (dubbed); it also plays Boston Common on Friday (dubbed). Wednesday the anime series apparently switches to "AXCN Gundam Fest", with Mobile Suit Gundam subtitled at Boston Common, South Bay, Assembly Row.

    Thai comedy How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies continues at Causeway Street and South Bay.
  • It's Silent Movie Day/Weekend at The Brattle Theatre! A new 4K restoration of Pandora's Box plays Friday and Sunday, although the big (in every way) event is Abel Gance's 416-minute opus La Roue, which starts at noon on Saturday and finishes sometime around 8pm to give organist Jeff Rapsis a break (and others some time to hit the head and get something to eat). They also have a pair of Buster Keaton featurettes - "Sherlock Jr." & "The Navigator" celebrating their 100th on Sunday and Monday, and a free Elements of Cinema show of The Circus on Monday.

    For the work-week, they have Four by Sean Baker: Take Out on Tuesday, Tangerine Tuesday & Wednesday, and then a double feature of The Florida Project & Red Rocket on Sunday.

    This leaves gaps, filled by a 35mm print of Longlegs (Friday/Saturday); RPM Fest welcoming Karel Doing for a "Ruins and Resilience" program of short films on 16mm & 35mm film (part of their larger festival rather than "just" a monthly program; and a new 4K remaster of Dazed and Confused (Sunday).
  • The Museum of Fine Arts also welcomes RPM Festival with "Historical Amnesia: Short Films by Sun Xun" (with Sun Xun in person) on Saturday with An Owl, a Garden, and a Writer on Thursday, with producer Farhad Mohammadi there for a Q&A.
  • It's mostly Melville et Cie at The Harvard Film Archive this weekend: A 35mm print of Le Samourai (Friday), Henri Verneuil's The Sicilian Clan (Friday), Jean-Luc Godard's Breathless (35mm Saturday), Two Men in Manhattan (Saturday), a 35mm print of Le Cercle Rouge (Sunday), and Claude Sautet's Class Tous Risques (Monday). Sunday afternoon features "Fragments of a Faith Forgotten: The Art of Harry Smith, nine short films playing on 35mm. They also have the first of a pair of new 35mm prints made for Japanese studio Shochiku's Centennial, Carmen Came Home.
  • Cinefest Latino Boston runs through Sunday, with programming at the Museum of Fine Arts and Emerson's Paramount Theatre all three days and closing night film La Cocina at the Coolidge on Sunday evening.
  • In addition to opening Megalopolis The Somerville Theatre has a midnight show of Miami Connection on Saturday. There's an "attack of the B-Movies" double feature Sunday afternoon, withThey Came from Beyond Space & Zontar, the Thing from Venus, with the restoration of Dazed and Confused playing later. "A Bit of Hitch" is split this week, with a 4K Restoration of Shadow of a Doubt playing Tuesday and a 35mm print of the 1956 The Man Who Knew Too Much on Thursday.

    The Capitol has a 4th Wall show featuring Fletcher, Alaska's Angels, Tiberius, and Sophie's body, plus visuals by Max Ryan, on Friday, with the monthly Disasterpiece Theater show on Monday.
  • The Seaport Alamo welcomes riffers Master Pancacke for Anaconda on Friday night and a "Choose Your Own Pancake" show on Saturday (I briefly thought they would be hosting the International Pancake Film Festival, but alas). Classic doc Hoop Dreams plays Saturday afternoon, and there's a sing-along The Greatest Showman on Sunday. Then, for whatever reason, it looks like they are closed Monday to Wednesday, with just sold-out shows of The Jerk and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1 on the site, and the Tuesday screening of The Birthday removed, which is a stone bummer.
  • Movies at MIT has Wadjda on Friday and Saturday, and a special screening of The World Is Family on Monday with post-film Q&A. $5, open to the public, although the email suggests you give them a head's up if you're not part of the MIT community.
  • The Taiwan Film Festival of Boston takes place Saturday & Sunday, with a number of features including post-film Q&As either in person or via Zoom.
  • The Regent Theatre has more screenings of the 2024 edition of Manhattan Short on Wednesday & Thursday.
  • The Tuesday Retro Replay at Landmark Kendall Square is The Blair Witch Project, and it looks like they'll be doubling up for spooky season with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre playing Wednesday.
  • The Lexington Venue has Girls Will Be Girls and The Critic all week (except for Monday, when they are closed). The former only plays a matinee on Thursday as the evening slot is reserved for documentary Great White Summer, which looks at the aftermath of the first real-life shark attack off Cape Cod in over eighty years.

    The West Newton Cinema opens The Wild Robot, keeping The Substance, Transformers One, Beetlejuice Beetlejuice, Between the Temples (no show Saturday), Sing Sing, and Inside Out 2. The SPOTLIGHT: Newton Filmmakers series continues with Maria Agut Carter's Rebel and David Sutherland's Out of Sight on Friday, Carma Hinto & Richard Gordon's Gate of Heavenly Peace Saturday afternoon, Bestor Cram's Bonnie Blue Saturday evening, and two double features on Sunday: "Wild Innovators: Rooted in Justice" & A Reckoning in Boston early, with A Father's Kaddish & a sneak preview of "Why We Dance" later. They also start Halloween programming with the original version of The Stepford Wives on Wednesday.

    The Luna Theater shows The Front Room Friday, Saturday, and Sunday; Look Into My Eyes on Saturday and Sunday; Cuckoo on Saturday and Sunday, and a Weirdo Wednesday show. There's also a free screening of Alice Junior on Thursday, presented by the UMass Lowell Department of World Languages and Cultures..

    Cinema Salem has The Substance, Speak No Evil, and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Friday to Monday; Darkman is Friday's Night Light show, Carl Theodor Dreye's The Passion of Joan of Arc plays Sunday for Silent Movie Day, and they also start Halloween programing with Interview with the Vampire, A Nightmare on Elm Street, and Halloween '78 (plus Beetlejuice Beetlejuice) on Wednesday, with Interview and Beetlejuice Beetlejuice also playing Thursday.

    Wolfs is apparently doing well enough for another week at the Showcase in Dedham (great job, Apple). The AMC at the Liberty Tree Mall has Faith of Angels, a religious thing about a man looking for a boy lost in a mine.
  • Outdoor films on the Joe's Free Films calendar this week are limited to E.T. The Extra-Terrestrial on the Rose Kennedy Greenway to kick off "Fall Fright Nights". They also list Banel & Adama showing at BU as part of the Albertine Cinematheque French Film Festival on Wednesday.
So La Roue looks like a once-in-not-very-often thing, but boy does it blow a hole in a movie-seeing weekend where I'm already seeing a ballgame on Friday, stuff like Azrael, Go For Broke and Ma Da have limited times, and even running across Harvard Square isn't going to let me see both Pandora's Box and Le Cercle Rouge. Plus, the Hitchcocks at the Somerville mean Megalopolis only gets the giant screen there for a day or two and who knows how long The Wild Robot will play in 3D, given how quick Transformers One got cut down.

(Also, no, still not heading to Dedham for Wolfs)

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