Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 14 March 2025 - 20 March 2024

Oh yeah BUFF time!

(Also, the ticketing apps are being weird again for AMC Boston Common; it looks like they're running two screens through Sunday and fewer than the full 19 during the week)

• Which is to say, the Boston Underground Film Festival opens Wednesday at The Brattle Theatre, kicking off with a preview of Nicolas Cage in Lorcan Finnegan's The Surfer and an unearthing of Muerte en la Playa opening night. On Thursday, the offer Chain Reactions, a documentary on the impact of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Irish-language folk horror Fréwaka, and Joel Potrykus's Vulcanizadora. The festival continues to test how many things you can fit into the Brattle's schedule through next Sunday.
  
  Before that, though, they have High Tide on 35mm as the Friday Film matinee, and then a weekend of "Bruce Willis: Beyond the Bombastic", with The Bonfire of the Vanities (35mm) and Hudson Hawk (35mm) on Friday, Death Becomes Her on Saturday & Sunday (only Saturday listed as 35mm), a Pulp Fiction/Nobody's Fool double feature (both 35mm) on Saturday, The Sixth Sense (35mm) and Breakfast of Champions on Sunday; and 12 Monkeys (35mm) on Monday. Sunday also features an Adventure Time Afternoon with the makers of the tie-in comics choosing their favorite episodes and signing their new giant-size compendium. The Frederick Wiseman film for the week is Juvenile Court, and the German queer cinema presentation on Tuesday is Dorian Gray in the Yellow Press.
• But first, another local underground-ish film, Eephus opens at the Somerville Theatre and the Coolidge Corner Theatre, with director Carson Lund and co-star/former Red Sox Bill Lee making appearances at the Somerville on Saturday and the Coolidge on Sunday (there's more on tap, with folks at West Newton next weekend). It's a terrific little movie about the last game played on a town ballpark about to be bulldozed, between two rec league teams of folks from college to retirement age. Lee shows up as basically Bill Lee and recently-retired Sox radio guy Joe Castiglione is selling pizza.
• For their second film of the year, director Steven Soderbergh and writer David Koepp offer up Black Bag, with Cate Blanchett and Michael Fassbender as married MI-6 agents whose life becomes a thriller when her field agent is suspected of being turned and his ratcatcher is required to suss out the truth. It's at the Coolidge, the Capitol, Fresh Pond, CinemaSalem, Boston Common (including Dolby Cinema), Causeway Street, Kendall Square, the Seaport, South Bay, Assembly Row, Arsenal Yards, and Chestnut Hill.
  
  Say farewell to the Novocaine trailer, as the film - starring Jack Quaid as a man without pain receptors stumbling forward in an attempt to rescue his new girlfriend from hostage-takers, opens at Fresh Pond, Boston Common (including Dolby Cinema), Causeway Street, Kendall Square, the Seaport, South Bay (including Dolby Cinema), Assembly Row (including Dolby Cinema), Arsenal Yards (including CWX), and Chestnut Hill.
  
  Not to be confused with Eephus, Opus stars Ayo Edebiri as a journalist invited to the estate of John Malkovich's reclusive pop star ahead of his first release in 30 years, but something is apparently not right beyond how fawning the rest of the press is. It's at the Coolidge, the Capitol, Fresh Pond, CinemaSalem, Boston Common (starting Monday), Causeway Street, the Seaport, South Bay, and Assembly Row.
  
  The oddest release this week is The Day the Earth Blew Up: A Looney Tunes Movie featuring Porky Pig and Daffy Duck as the odd couple who must stop a secret alien invasion, which Warner Brothers has offloaded to small distributor Ketchup Entertainment, which I suppose is better than entirely disappearing it. It's a spinoff of the recent "Looney Tunes Cartoons" show on Max and uses those designs. It plays at Fresh Pond, West Newton, Causeway Street, South Bay, and Assembly Row.
  
  The Rule of Jenny Pen shifts to Causeway Street with whatever's going on at Boston Common leaving it no screen.
  
  There's an AMC "Screen Unseen" preview Monday at Boston Common, Causeway Street, South Bay, and Assembly Row. Concert film Hans Zimmer & Friends: Diamond in the Desert plays Kendall Square, Boston Common, the Seaport, and Assembly Row Wednesday. Wednesday also has an A24 x Imax show of Spring Breakers at South Bay and Assembly Row and an Early Access screening of Ash with livestreamed Q&A with the cast at South Bay and Assembly Row. Thursday also offers an "Opening Night Fan Event" for Snow White in Dolby Cinema at Boston Common, South Bay, and Assembly Row, and "RAD Day", which includes both cult BMX flick Rad and the new A Rad Documentary, at Boston Common, South Bay, and Assembly Row.
• A nifty one from last year's IFFBoston Fall Focus, On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, opens at The Coolidge Corner Theatre, Kendall Square, and Boston Common (starting Monday). It follows a young woman in Zambia who finds the body of her uncle on the road but is, for reasons that gradually become clear, more than a bit ambivalent about the elaborate funeral arrangements.
  
  The Coolidge also "opens" one of my favorites from last year's Fantasia Festival, The Dead Thing, for midnight shows on Friday and Saturday; with Blu Hunt as a woman whose professional, dating, and home life seems at a dead end until she meets a good man with secrets; I really liked how, in a festival where folks were setting things in the past to avoid cell phones, it seemed to be figuring out how a gothic romance worked in a world with dating apps, flex-time, and roommates. Oh, and it's apparently on 35mm film to boot!
  
  Also at midnight on Friday is lab-monkey-at-large flick Shakma (preceded by short "Humanzee") on 35mm, while Saturday offers the original Japanese version of King Kong Vs. Godzilla, albeit in an English dub. Earlier that evening, they welcome Joe Bob Briggs for a "Cult of the Rock Star" double feature of Bubba Ho-Top & Rock 'n' Roll High School. Other rep for the week includes German doc Riefenstahl on Sunday morning, presented by Geothe-Institut and featuring a Zoom Q&A with director Andres Veiel afterward; a 35mm print of Agnès Varda's Vagabond with pre-film seminar led by Alex Kittle; New England Legacy screenings of documentary featurettes Primary & The Collective: Fifteen Years Later on Wednesday; and both a National Center for Jewish Film festival presentation of Elie Wiesel: Soul on Fire with director Oren Rudavsky in person and a 35mm Big Screen Classic show of Alice Doesn't Live Here Any More on Thursday.
• Landmark Kendall Square picks up The Actor, with Andre Holland as an amnesiac who attempts to begin a new life with a local costume designer (Gemma Chan) until his memories start to re-emerge. Duke Johnson directs from a Donald E. Westlake novel; it also plays in West Newton.
  
  The Edgar Wright series at the Kendall continues with Scott Pilgrim vs. the World on Tuesday. Tuesday also features thriller Misericordia, with director Alain Guiraudie on-hand for a Q&A.
• Indian films at Apple Fresh Pond include Hindi-language thriller The Diplomat, with John Abraham as the title character, who must attempt to return an Indian girl from Pakistan and a marriage presumably entered into under false pretences. The other new releases are in Telugu: Drama Court - State vs. a Nobody, romantic thriller Dilruba, and a re-release of 2012's romance Yuganiki Okka Premikudu, opening Saturday. Superboys of Malegaon continues at West Newton.
  
  Vietnamese comedy The 4 Rascals, about friends trying to "solve" a love triangle, opens at Causeway Street and South Bay.
  
  Hong Kong drama Papa, starring Sean Lau Ching-wan as a father trying to do the right thing after his schizophrenic son kills the rest of their family, opens at Causeway Street. Ne Zha 2 starts to wind down but still shows at Boston Common (RealD 3D starting Monday), Causeway Street, and Assembly Row (RealD 3D).
  
  There's an encore "Gundam Fest" screening of Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack on Sunday at South Bay, and Assembly Row. Another anime preview, the "Witch Watch" Watch Part, plays Assembly Row Sunday to Tuesday.
• The Seaport Alamo has more David Lynch shows, Wild at Heart and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me playing through Wednesday (and maybe Thursday). Jumanji plays Friday to Sunday, with Sunday a "Movie Party" show. The Barrymore/Diaz/Liu/McG Charlie's Angels plays Friday/Saturday/Monday/Wednesday; The Lady Eve Saturday/Sunday/Monday/Wednesday. A "Mystery Machine" movie plays Monday (maybe the same as AMC, maybe not), a members' preview show of Holland on Tuesday, and the Watermelon Woman, also on Tuesday.
• The Somerville Theatre ties into Eephus by showing Major League as Friday's midnight special. They also have Any Day Now, a locally-produced film inspired by the 1990 Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum robbery, on Monday night with director Eric Aronson and actors Paul Giulfoyle & Taylor Gray on hand for a Q&A. The 2025 edition of the Ciclismo Classico Bike Travel Film Festival on Tuesday, and an IFFBoston "March Music Madness" show of Wattstax on Thursday. On Becoming a Guinea Fowl also shows Thursday; it's not clear if that's a one-off or the start of a run.
  
  The Capitol Theatre has a 4th Wall show with Preacher & Daisy and Sweet Petunia on Friday, with BADWARE on visuals.
• The Museum of Fine Arts has Kubo and the Two Strings on Friday evening and Frederick Wiseman's National Gallery on Saturday afternoon.
• Movies at MIT has Ran on Friday & Saturday evening. As always, if you're not part of the MIT community, they'd appreciate an email at lsc-guest (at) MIT dot edu ahead of time.
• Joe's Free Films shows two "Women Take The Reel" screenings on Thursday, with Breaking the News at Northeastern and Category: Woman at Boston College
• The Museum of Science is showing Mickey 17 on the giant screen Fridays & Saturdays throughout March, with the exception of the 22nd when they will show Hidden Figures (free, RSVP).
• The Embassy has We're All Gonna Die and The Brutalist through Sunday. The free Community Classic on Monday is Erin Brockovich.
• The Lexington Venue is open all week except Monday with Black Bag, Mickey 17, and Anora. They also have a free Sunday matinee of Safe at Home!, a 1962 oddity featuring Mickey Mantle and Roger Maris as themselves, and documentary The (M) Factor: Shredding the Silence on Menopause on Thursday.
  
  The West Newton Cinema opens The Day the Earth Blew Up and The Actor, keeping Mickey 17, No Other Land, Superboys of Malegaon, Anora, Flow, and A Complete Unknown. Hundreds of Beavers plays Friday night, and there's a "Producer's Circle" show of The Pneumafractalist on Thursday.
  
  Cinema Salem has Black Bag, Opus, Mickey 7, and Anorathrough Monday. Friday's Night Light show is Enter The Dragon, and Wayback Wednesday is Yankee Doodle Dandy

Already have tickets for BUFF and that Holland, and also figure to get to Black Bag and The Day the Earth Blew Up, hopefully The Actor and Opus and Any Day Now, but that's a full week, especially if I want to fill some Bruce Willis blind spots/revist favorites at the Bratte. That's potentially a full week!

Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 7 March 2025 - 13 March 2024

Heads up - it looks like they're completing work on the upgraded Imax screen at Boston Common next week, and maybe upgrading the rest, because the apps show only a handful of screens in use on Monday and Wednesday and nothing playing Tuesday and Thursday. Also, there are like three movies that should be playing in 3D this weekend that aren't. C'mon, folks, give me this.

• Well, maybe not big sci-fi satire Mickey 17, the latest from Bong Joon-ho, and one which Warner Brothers has apparently been screwing around with the release date for months (last year to January to April to March), with Robert Pattinson as a working-class guy who signs up to be an "expendable" who will be sent into perilous situations in space to be killed and recloned. It's at the Coolidge, the Capitol, Fresh Pond, the Museum of Science (Omnimax on Fridays/Saturdays), Jordan's Furniture (Imax), the Lexington Venue, West Newton, CinemaSalem, Boston Common (including Dolby Cinema), Causeway Street, Kendall Square, the Seaport (including Dolby Atmos), South Bay (including Imax Xenon & Dolby Cinema), Assembly Row (including Imax Laser & Dolby Cinema), Arsenal Yards (including CWX), and Chestnut Hill.
  
  In the Lost Lands should definitely be 3D, though; with Paul W.S. Anderson directing Milla Jovovich and Dave Batista in an adventure based on a George R.R. Martin story about a quest into the middle of a forbidden kingdom. It's at Fresh Pond, Boston Common, Causeway Street, the Seaport, and South Bay.
  
  Queen of the Ring features Emily Bett Rickards as a woman who broke into pro wrestling when such a thing was unheard of. It's at Boston Common, Causeway Street, and South Bay.
  
  Thriller The Rule of Jenny Pen has a fine horror movie scenario, with Geoffrey Rush as a man who recently suffered a stroke discovering that one of the other patients (John Lithgow) appears to be a torturing psychopath. It's at Boston Common, the Seaport, and South Bay.
  
  Clive Barker is a producer and "from the mind of" credit on Night of the Zoopocalypse, an animated zombie-animal adventure where a wolf voiced by Paul Sun-Hyung Lee and a mountain lion voiced by David Harbour have to stop the virus's spread. It's at Fresh Pond and South Bay.
  
  Also opening is Rule Breakers, a drama about Afghani girls attempting to get an education. It plays at Fresh Pond, Boston Common, Causeway Street, South Bay, and Assembly Row.
  
  There are early-access shows of Novocaine at Boston Common, the Seaport, South Bay, Assembly Row, Arsenal Yards, and Chestnut Hill on Saturday; there's also a "Screen Unseen" mystery preview on Monday at Boston Common, Causeway Street, South Bay, and Assembly Row; Black Bag has a Dolby Cinema preview on Wednesday at Boston Common, South Bay, and Assembly Row.
• In addition to Mickey 17 and re-opening Best Picture winner Anora, The Coolidge Corner Theatre picks up Universal Language, where the cities of Winnipeg and Tehran seemingly overlap in a group of overlapping stories. It also plays Boston Common.
  
  March is a month of monkey midnight movies at the Coolidge, with George Romero's Monkey Shines on Friday and the 1932 version of Murders in the Rue Morgue with Bela Lugosi on Saturday, both on 35mm. They also show Eraserhead at midnight on Saturday. At the other end of the spectrum, there's a Kids' Show of Paddington on Saturday morning. "Totally Trailblazers" features a 35mm print of Fast Times at Ridgemont High on Sunday afternoon and Smithereens with a recorded introduction by director Susan Seidelman on Tuesday. The Adventures of Priscilla, Queen of the Desert is the 35mm Big Screen Classic on Monday, there's Open Screen on Tuesday, and a Cinema Jukebox show of documentary Lifers: A Local H Movie with filmmaker and lead singer Scott Lucas on-hand for a performance and a Q&A on Thursday.
• Landmark Kendall Square opens Atom Egoyan's Seven Veils, which stars Amanda Seyfried as a theater director trying to remount an opera by her mentor with important changes, based on a production of Egoyan's. They also have There's Still Tomorrow, starring director Paola Cortellesi as a woman in post-war Rome looking for a better life, a movie that was a box-office sensation and award winner in Italy.
  
  The Edgar Wright series at the Kendall continues with Hot Fuzz on Tuesday.
• Apple Fresh Pond Malayalam action movie Officer on Duty on Friday. A re-release of 2013's Telugu comedy-drama Seethamma Vaakitlo Sirimalle Chettu plays Friday night, Marathi comedy ChikiChiki BooboomBoom Saturday afternoon, and Bengali mystery Shotyi Bole Shotyi Kichhu Nei on Sunday afternoon. Chhaava continues at Fresh Pond and Boston Common and Dragon continues at Fresh Pond and Causeway Street, and Superboys of Malegaon at the West Newton.
  
  The Accidental Getaway Driver, a thriller about an elderly cab driver carjacked by escaped convicts with a mostly Vietnamese/Vietnamese-American cast, opens at South Bay. Vietnamese drama The Real Sister continues there as well.
  
  Ne Zha 2 continues shows at Fresh Pond, Boston Common (including RealD 3D), Causeway Street (including RealD 3D), South Bay, and Assembly Row (including RealD 3D), Arsenal Yards . Detective Chinatown 1900 continues at Causeway Street.
  
  Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX: Beginning continues at Boston Common; there's also a "Gundam Fest" screening of Mobile Suit Gundam: Char's Counterattack on Wednesday at Boston Common, South Bay, Assembly Row.
• The Brattle Theatre has a weekend of "True Tales of Wonder Women", with Harriet and Wild Nights with Emily on Friday; Forever a Woman, Silkwood (35mm and featuring an intro and post-film discussion), and Professor Marston and the Wonder Women on Saturday; Thousand Pieces of Gold, Perspolis (35mm), and Frida on Sunday. Sunday also features and RPM Fest Presentation, "Lost and Found: Lei Lei", with seven of her short films. I think I saw an installation she did in Sydney, which was pretty neat.
  
  Frederick Wiseman films this week are Law and Order & Basic Training on Monday and Canal Zone on Tuesday, with no German queer cinema this week. There's a special presentation of James Carson's Cabin Music on Wednesday, with performance and Q&A by the filmmaker and musician afterward. On Thursday they begin a Bruce Willis series with The Sixth Sense & Unbreakable, the former on 35mm film.
• The Oscar shorts stick around an extra week with Animated shorts at the Coolidge, The ICA (Sunday), Kendall Square, Boston Common, and the Seaport; Live-Action shorts at the Coolidge, the ICA (Sunday), Kendall Square, Boston Common, and the Seaport; plus Documentary at the Coolidge.
• The Seaport Alamo has some David Lynch shows, with Blue Velvet Friday/Saturday/Monday and Eraserhead Friday/Saturday/Sunday/Tuesday. Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? plays Friday to Monday.
• The Somerville Theatre and IFFBoston partner for "March Music Madness", with The Last Waltz (4k) on Friday, Prince: Sign 'O' the Times on 35mm Tuesday. They also get to be one of the first to project a 35mm print of Hundreds of Beavers, late Friday and at midnight on Saturday, and a return engagement of another cult film, Dinner in America, on Wednesday and Thursday. On top of that, there's a free screening of Made in Massachusetts on Sunday afternoon, a three-plus hour journey through a hundred years of movies shot in the Commonwealth, with filmmakers Adam Roffman and Vatche Arabian on hand.
  
  The Capitol Theatre plays host to the Lois Weber Film Festival on Saturday, opening with Jeff Rapsis accompanying Miss Weber's 1915 silent Hypocrites at noon, followed by three blocks of films - student/YA/experimental/drama, local/documentary/horror, and foreign (plus documentary feature Recovery City). Later that night, they have Splatter University with live chiptune scoring as part of Boston Bitdown.
• On Friday, The Harvard Film Archive begins an Albert Serra series ("Cinematic Time Regained") on Friday, with separate shows of The Death of Louis XIV and Lliberté. On Saturday afternoon the student-programmed cinematheque is open to the public with a double feature of Beau Travail & Brief Encounter. The rest of the weekend is given over to Ben Rivers, who is on hand for his film Bogancloch on Saturday, programs Peter Watkins's Edvard Munch on Sunday (which also ties into a Munch exhibition at the Harvard Art Museums), and presents his short "Now, at Last!" on Monday, the latter two on 35mm film.
• The Museum of Fine Arts presents Danish Oscar nominee The Girl with the Needle on Friday night and MIyazaki's Spirited Away on Sunday afternoon.
• Movies at MIT has Her on Friday & Saturday evening and From Ground Zero on Sunday, though the latter wasn't in the week's email. As always, if you're not part of the MIT community, they'd appreciate an email at lsc-guest (at) MIT dot edu ahead of time.
• Per Joe's Free Films, RPM Fest has two other shows on Sunday after the monthly Brattle presentation, down the street at Harvard's CAMLab, with shorts at 7pm and the feature To Alexandra at 8:30pm.
• The Museum of Science is showing Mickey 17 on the giant screen Fridays & Saturdays throughout March, with the exception of the 22nd when they will show Hidden Figures (free, RSVP)..
• The Embassy has We're All Gonna Die and I'm Still Here through Sunday, with the former about a couple making a road trip to retrieve the possessions that the 10,000 mile-long alien tentacle in the sky has deposited on the other side of the country. The free Community Classic on Monday is 9 to 5
• The Lexington Venue is open Friday/Saturday/Sunday/Wednesday/Thursday with Mickey 17 and Anora. They will also screen documentary Recovery City on Wednesday, followed by a Q&A with the director and several subjects.
  
  The West Newton Cinema opens Mickey 17 and No Other Land, holding over The Klezmer Project, Superboys of Malegaon, Anora, Nickel Boys, Flow, and A Complete Unknown. What's Up, Doc?> screens as part of Ty Burr's Movie Club on Thursday.
  
  Cinema Salem has Mickey 7, Anora, Last Breath, Porcelain War, and The Monkey. They also have Giant for Wayback Wednesday with Weirdo Wednesday on the other screen.

I want to head out to the Embassy for We're All Gonna Die, but the times make it a little more difficult than I'd like (not like the Screen On Fire thing in New York on Sunday, but, still, annoying). In the meantime, Mickey 17, In the Lost Lands, maybe Zoopocalypse.

Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 28 February 2025 - 6 March 2024

It's Oscar weekend! Catch up, watch the winners, enjoy the oddities that get booked in in-between weeks, all of which apparently co-star Ed Harris.

• The big opening is Last Breath, with Woody Harrelson as the head of a team leading an impossible-seeming underseat rescue. It's at the Somerville, Fresh Pond, CinemaSalem, Boston Common, Causeway Street, the Seaport, South Bay, Assembly Row, Arsenal Yards, and Chestnut Hill.
  
  My Dead Friend Zoe has a really nice cast, with Sonequa Martin-Green as a veteran and Natalie Morales as the title character, with Ed Harris, Morgan Freeman, and Gloria Ruben among the supporting cast. It's at Boston Common, Kendall Square, the Seaport, South Bay, and Assembly Row.
  
  Also opening is Riff Raff, with Harris and Jennifer Coolidge atop a family of petty crooks that include Bill Murray, Pete Davidson, Lewis Pullman, and Gabrielle Union. It's at Boston Common, the Seaport, and Kendall Square.
  
  Australian animated film The Sloth Lane gets renamed A Sloth Story for its American release at Boston Common, about a speedy sloth who has to move to a new town with her family.to open a food truck. Also renamed (and opening after a delay) is Men of Divorce, now Ex-Husbands, featuring Griffin Dunn as a man who crashes his son's bachelor party after his wife of 35 years leaves him. Also at Boston Common.
  
  Nobody really knows what will win on Sunday, but exhibitors seem to be betting on A Complete Unknown, continuing/returning to the Coolidge, The Capitol Theatre, the Kendall, Arsenal Yards, Chestnut Hill; Wicked, which honestly may not have left Arsenal Yards and Chestnut Hill; Conclave, which returns to Boston Common; Anora returning to Kendall Square and Boston Common; The Brutalist returning to the Capitol and The Substance at Boston Common, Boston Common also has a 24-hour Best Picture Marathon starting at noon on Saturday, with everything but Emilia Perez, and a half-marathon with Wicked, The Brutalist, A Complete Unknown and Dune Part 2, starting at the same time.
  
  There's a Screen Unseen preview at Boston Common, Causeway Street, South Bay, and Assembly Row. Purple Rain plays in Dolby Cinema at Boston Common, South Bay, and Assembly Row on Wednesday.
• Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX: Beginning opens surprisingly wide, playing the Coolidge, Boston Common, Causeway Street, the Seaport, South Bay, and Assembly Row. The latest take on the storied franchise has an all-star creative steam and a story that looks like a good jumping-on point.
  
  Superboys of Malegaon opens wider than usual for a Hindi-language film, telling the story of young friends in a small, remote town looking to make a movie by, for, and in their hometown. It's at Fresh Pond, the Lexington Venue, West Newton, and Causeway Street.
  
  Apple Fresh Pond also opens Tamil-language horror comedy Sabdham, Malayalam comedies Get-Set Baby! and Machante Malakha, plus Nepali comedy Laaj Sharanam. Holdovers include Hindi-language historical epic Chhaava at Fresh Pond and Boston Common; Dragon continues (in Tamil only) at Fresh Pond and Causeway Street; and Mazaka continues at Fresh Pond and Causeway Street.
  
  Ne Zha 2 continues to expand, adding shows at Fresh Pond, Arsenal Yards and continuing at Boston Common (including RealD 3D), Causeway Street (including RealD 3D), South Bay (including Imax 2D), and Assembly Row (including RealD 3D & Imax 2D). Legend of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants continues at Boston Common; Detective Chinatown 1900 continues at Causeway Street.
  
  Vietnamese drama The Real Sister continues at South Bay.
  
  The IVE: THe First World Tour concert has an encore at Boston Common Saturday afternoon.
• On top of opening Gundam and re-opening A Complete Unknown, The Coolidge Corner Theatre wraps Fu Fighting February with a 35mm print of Eastern Condors, which is Sammo Hung at the top of his game on-screen and behind the camera, at midnight on Friday, and has a quick Osgood Perkins series with The Blackcoat's Daughter at midnight on Friday and Longlegs at midnight Saturday. Saturday afternoon has the Anvil Orchestra (the part of the Alloy Orchestra that got the big percussion set in the divorce) accompanying The Adventures of Prince Achmed. It is, if I recall, pretty kid-friendly, and there's also a kids' show of Babe Sunday morning.
  
  There's a "Stage & Screen" presentation of The Rules of the Game on Monday, with post-film discussion featuring David Miller of the French Theatre Project. They start their March series, "Totally Trailblazers", with another French film, playing Tuesday. On Wednesday, there's a special "New England Legacy Screening" of David Holzman's Diary plus shorts "Riverdogs" and "Backyard". Thursday's Cult Classic show is Batman Forever on 35mm.
• The Brattle Theatre has Alan Rudolph's Afterglow on 35mm for the Friday Film Matinee, then has a weekend of "Oscar Sweeps": One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest on Friday & Saturday, The SIlence of the Lambs Friday to Sunday, and It Happened One Night Saturday & Sunday, leading up to the Member's Oscar Watch Party on Sunday evening.
  
  Once the work week starts, they begin their portion of the multi-venue Frederick Wiseman Retrospective on Monday with Hospital & Essene, continue 100 Years of Queer German Cinema with a 35mm print of The Bitter Tears of Petra Von Kant on Tuesday, and have a 35mm print of Anora Tuesday to Thursday.
• This week's Oscar shorts schedule has Animated shorts at the Coolidge, The ICA (Friday/Saturday), Kendall Square, Boston Common, the Seaport, the Lexington Venue (Friday/Saturday/Sunday/Thursday), and CinemaSalem (Saturday/Sunday/Monday); Live-Action shorts at the Coolidge, the ICA (Saturday), Kendall Square, Boston Common, the Seaport, CinemaSalem (Friday/Saturday/Sunday), and the Lexington Venue (Friday/Saturday/Sunday/Tuesday); and Documentary at the Coolidge, the ICA (Sunday), the Lexington Venue (Saturday/Sunday), Cinemasalem (Friday/Saturday/Monday), and West Newton.
• The Seaport Alamo has Shrek movie party shows on Friday & Tuesday (plus a regular show Tuesday afternoon); Parasite Saturday/Sunday/Wednesday; Interstellar on Sunday; and Titane on Monday;
• The Somerville Theatre partners with the Mahoning Drive-In for a sort of Indoor Drive-In Triple Feature on Saturday, with Shock Waves, The Funhouse, and Alligator, all in 35mm, with classic trailers, intermissions, and other ephemera in between. During the week, they get out the big film, with 70mm presentations of The Wild Bunch on Monday & Tuesday and The Brutalist on Wednesday and Thursday.
• The Harvard Film Archive is listing their David Lynch tribute shows with collaborator introductions - Eraserhead & Wild at Heart on Friday and Twin Peaks: Fire Walk with Me on Monday - as sold out, though the weekly email said there may be a rush line. On Sunday, they have two more Delphine Seyrig movies - Aloïse (with short "Colors of Madness") in the afternoon and Dorian Gray in the Mirror of the Yellow Press in the evening. And while their planned appearance by director Mati Diop fell through, they will still be showing her documentary Dahomey on Monday.
• The Museum of Fine Arts has a fairly full week, with Anora on Friday, Frederick Wiseman's Titicut Follies Saturday afternoon, The Brutalist on Sunday, and Flow on Thursday afternoon.
• Movies at MIT has City of God on Friday & Saturday evening, for free, although if you're not part of the MIT community, they'd appreciate an email at lsc-guest (at) MIT dot edu ahead of time. Per Joe's Free Films, the first screening of the 2025 "Women Take the Reel Film Festival" is also on the MIT campus, with All We Imagine As Light on Thursday (reservations required).
• The Regent Theatre has Ukrainian documentary Soldiers of Song on Sunday.
• Landmark Kendall Square has a $5 ecret movie on Monday (maybe the same as at AMC, maybe not) and starts an Edgar Wright series with Shaun of the Dead on Tuesday.
• The Museum of Science will be showing Mickey 17 on the giant screen in March, with tickets on sale now..
• The Embassy has Every Little Thing and I'm Still Here through Sunday, with A League of Their Own for the free community classic matinees on Monday.
• The Lexington Venue is open Friday/Saturday/Sunday/Tuesday/Thursday with Superboys of Malegaon and the Oscar-nominated shorts.
  
  The West Newton Cinema has the Documentary Oscar Shorts this week, opens meta-documentary The Klezmer Project and Superboys of Malegaon, and keep The Monkey, Anora, Nickel Boys, Flow, and A Complete Unknown. They're also hosting an Oscar party Sunday night.
  
  Cinema Salem has all three Oscar shorts programs,Last Breath, Nickel Boys, Porcelain War, and The Monkey. Rep shows include the original Shaft for the Friday Night Light, His Girl Friday for Wayback Wednesday, plus Weirdo Wednesday.

Work has clobbered my ability to see the Oscar Shorts before the ceremony, so I'll be trying to cram those in, and maybe Gundam, though its showtimes are oddly matinee-heavy. There's an Ed Harris double feature to be had, too.

Lunar New Year 2025.05: Legends of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants

I take photos of the end credits just in case IMDB isn't particularly helpful on occasion, but it seldom looks this good.

AMC switched things up a bit for this particular week, opening the Indian films at Causeway Street while this opened at Boston Common, counter to what's become the norm of late; I kind of suspect they didn't necessarily want three Chinese films at the 13-screen Causeway Street location, and that appears to be where Detective Chinatown 1900 is lingering. Something interesting is that, despite being right next to Chinatown, it's the first opening night for a Chinese film in a while where I didn't feel like I was the only person who needed subtitles. A lot of English being spoken on top of ethnicity, and I kind of wonder if some of the young stars are known for other things.

I don't think it was only playing in 2D because there was only room for one screen - although that was probably why 3D shows for Ne Zha 2 were initially scarce before the chain realized showtimes were going to sell out - because Sony seems relatively less enthused about using it these days, and I don't know how much the hardware side no longer putting out 3D televisions and dedicated Blu-ray 3D players has to do with it (their 4K players do tend to have 3D as an unadvertised feature) or if it's just because they're not getting much return. Doesn't much matter, I guess, except that I'd like to see it that way, and you can't even count on regular Blu-rays out of Hong Kong for Chinese movies these days, let alone 3D. But maybe we'll get lucky!

She diao ying xiong zhuan: Xia zhi da zhe (Legends of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants)

* * * (out of four)
Seen 21 February 2025 in AMC Boston Common #10 (first-run, laser DCP)
Where to stream it (when available)

There's a certain flavor of Tsui Hark film that you don't see quite so much since he started working with the big Chinese studios, the sort where he's seemingly trying to cram all the good parts of a sprawling epic into 100 minutes and doesn't quite have the FX resources it demands. During his Hong Kong heyday, he'd often have a producer credit while someone else directed, but his fingers were all over those movies. Legends of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants is the closest he's come to that in years, for better or worse (but mostly better).

The Gallants in question are Guo Jing (Xiao Zhan), a son of the Song Kingdom who grew up in the grasslands of Mongolia, raised by the Great Khan, but who joined Huang Rong (Zhuang Dafei)on Peach Blossom Island to learn magical martial arts, but rejecting her when it appeared it appeared her father murdered his teachers. The real culprit is likely Western Venom Ouyang Feng (Tony Leung Ka-Fai), who sells the Novem Scripture which Rong-er has hidden and Jing-ge has mastered - and he might well provoke a war between the Mongols and the Jin-dominated Song in order to get it.

That muddies the story up more than a bit; as is Hark's tendency in these pictures, he front-loads with a fair amount of background to get to the stretch of the novel that he figured would make the best movie, but also occasionally jumps into flashbacks like a storyteller who sees his audience getting confused and is like oh, right, that doesn't make sense without this. For a while, it's a bit overwhelming but not much of a problem; the pieces fit even if you have to keep reaching back into the box. Once that's in place, the more serious problems start, as Hark is seemingly trying to include all the cool action scenes and melodramatic heights that there's not a whole lot of room for what goes in between. The back half of the movie has the young lovers dramatically separated and reunited without much time to feel like they're actually apart, and bombastics professions of loyalty that may or may not be enough to get someone killed and are pretty quickly forgiven. The climax is a massive showdown between the Mongol and Song armies that doesn't seem strictly necessary even before considering that all the audience really wants is Jing and Rong facing off against Feng.

It flows well, at least, in large part because, even with tragic backstory and other events pulling at them, Xiao Zuan and Zhuang Dafei have upbeat youthful energy and the chemistry to play scenes so they're not explicitly romantic but establish enough of a connection that there doesn't need to be a lot of hand-wringing about how they really feel later. Tony Leung Ka-Fai is the right villain for them, monstrous and powerful but also kind of amusingly pompous. He's big and rugged but doesn't have the sort of dignity and gravitas Bayaertu brings to The Great Khan in contrast. Zhang Wenxin is good as her daughter, a princess you can watch growing up (although she really doesn't look like the sister of the ethnically-Mongolian actors playing the Khan's sons at all).

And the action, of course, is just as much fun as you might expect; Hark has been honing this sort of high-flying, mystical martial arts for roughly forty years (since Zu: Warriors from the Magic Mountain in 1983), and though the action here is less aerial than in some cases, it's still larger than life and has the right weight to it, even when it's effectively force fields and chi blasts. There's impact to the blows and some freewheeling creativity to the staging that mostly doesn't quite cross over into slapstick. Even with CGI tools he could probably barely imagine forty years ago, he sometimes seems to want a little more than he has, with the CGI armies and locations not quite being top of the line. The fights between Jing, Rong, and Feng tend to be great fun, though, not quite gravity-defying but big and satisfying.

(I'm guessing that they're even better in a 3D presentation; Tsui Hark clearly plans for the technology and enjoys throwing things at the audience!)

For all that this is a big Tsui Hark fantasy-action movie where his reach exceeds his grasp by a bit, it's also possibly the most grounded of the three films in the genre released for the 2025 Lunar New Year, which is an odd turn of events, when you think about it. The result is a bit messy at times but has personality and assurance; Tsui Hark continues to do Tsui Hark stuff well.

Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 21 February 2025 - 27 February 2024

You know, I was absolutely certain The Monkey was a remake, but apparently the movie I'm thinking of (George Romero's Monkey Shines) is something else entirely!

• The Monkey is kind of an odd duck, because it's being promoted on the back of director Osgood Perkins's success with Longlegs but it looks like something very different, black comedy splat-stick versus that movie's overpowering dread. It has Theo James as twin brothers trying to prevent a demonic wind-up monkey from killing everyone they know, and plays The Somerville, The Coolidge, West Newton, CinemaSalem, Boston Common, Causeway Street, Kendall Square, the Seaport (including Dolby Atmos), and Assembly Row.
  
  Cleaner could be a fun little dumb action movie, with Martin Campbell directing Daisy Ridley as a former army window-washer who is on the side of a building when terrorists led by Clive Owen take it hostage. Basic Die Hard stuff, but that's a good group. Showing at Boston Common and the Seaport.
  
  Apparently The Unbreakable Boy has sat on the shelf for three years; it stars Zachary Levi and Meghann Fahy as parents of a child with both autism and brittle bone disease. It's at Boston Common and Assembly Row. Speaking of taking forever to get distribution, The Comeback Trail plays one matinee daily, though it was released internationally in 2020. It stars Robert De Niro as a film producer who hopes to get an insurance settlement by having his film's star (Tommy Lee Jones) die in an accident, only to have him do his best work. It's also got Morgan Freeman! Crazy.
  
  This week's Black History Month booking at Boston Common and South Bay is Bad Boys: Ride or Die, and it's not for me to critique this, but it's not really Black History, is it? Boston Common has a two-day Best Picture marathon, with I'm Still Here, Conclave, Nickel Boys, Anora, and The Substance this Saturday and the rest (presumably minus Emelia Perez) next week.
  
  Second weekend of Harry Potter stuff at Boston Common, Causeway Street, South Bay, Assembly Row Arsenal Yards, with Chamber of Secrets Friday, Prisoner of Azkaban Saturday, and Goblet of Fire on Sunday. There's a "Screen Unseen" preview at Boston Common, Causeway Street, South Bay, Assembly Row on Monday. I Heart Willie, the first Mickey Mouse-based horror movie to hit theaters after the character entered the public domain, plays Wednesday at Fresh Pond and Boston Common. K-Pop concert film IVE: The 1st World Tour plays Boston Common on Wednesday. A24's Imax show is Moonlight at South Bay and Assembly Row on Thursday.
• Week four of the Lunar New Year rollout brings Legend of the Condor Heroes: The Gallants, which comes from Hong Kong legend Tsui Hark and stars Xiao Zhan and Zhuang Dafei as martial-arts maters who stand between Genghis Khan (Bayaertu) and the Song Dynasty, with Tony Leung Ka-Fai and Ada Choi also in the cast. It's at Boston Common; sadly, no 3D despite Tsui loving to throw things at the audience. Ne Zha 2 expands and gets more consistent 3D shows, playing at Boston Common (including RealD 3D), Causeway Street (including RealD 3D), the Seaport, South Bay, and Assembly Row (including RealD 3D); Detective Chinatown 1900 continues at Causeway Street.
  
  Apple Fresh Pond picks up a few from the subcontinent: Dragon stars Pradeep Ranganathan as a college senior who drops out after a breakup and gets involved in shady businesses afterward; it plays in Tamil and Telugu, and Causeway Street in Tamil. Tamil comedy Nilavuku Enmel Ennadi Kobam also revolves around a breakup, with a man accepting the marriage his parents arranged only to have his girlfriend return. Hindi-language romantic comedy Mere Husband Ki Biwi also features a love triangle, though not quite so young; it's also at Causeway Street. There's also a re-release of 1994's Hum Aapke Hain Koun..!, which stars Salman Khan and Madhuri Dixit as a couple that met at their older siblings' wedding, only to have things upended when she takes custody of her sister's kid. Telugu-language comedy Mazaka opens at Boston Common (and maybe Fresh Pond) on Tuesday. Hindi-language historical epic Chhaava continues at Fresh Pond and Boston Common. All We Imagine as Light continues at the Coolidge.
  
  Vietnamese drama The Real Sister opens at South Bay, starring Viet Huong as a sister-in-law who finds things tense when meeting her husband's three sisters at their father's funeral.
  
  Anime Attack on Titan: The Last Attack continues at Causeway Street. Mobile Suit Gundam GQuuuuuuX: Beginning plays Assembly Row in Imax Laser Wednesday, before moving to Boston Common, Causeway Street, and the Seaport on Thursday.
• Landmark Kendall Square has Ed Burns's newest indie, Millers in Marriage; he plays the husband in one of three married couples at crossroads. It's only playing matinees, making me wonder if this is four-walled or Landmark figures only senior citizens watch movies like this.
  
  Tuesday's Best Picture Retro Replay is Argo; one Wednesday they have this year's edition of the New York Dog Film Festival.
• The Brattle Theatre switches up the program for the second weekend of this year's Bugs Bunny Film Festival, so even if you've already been, why not go again? All on 35mm.
  
  The weekend also features a double feature of new 4K Tarsem Sing restorations, with The Fall & The Cell playing Friday to Sunday. Sunday also has shorts program "Kathy Rugh: Mountains Meet the Sea" hosted by RPM Festival with Rugh in person, and a free screening and discussion of Amazing Grace: YorubaWorlds that evening. They also have a David Lynch tribute with Blue Velvet Monday to Wednesday and Mulholland Drive Wednesday & Thursday. And on top of that, It Is Not the Homosexual Who Is Perverse, But the Society in Which He Lives as part of 100 years of German Queer Cinema on Tuesday.
• The Coolidge Corner Theatre picks up The Monkey and the Oscar short docs, but keeps everything else, so they've got 12 titles on six screens even before rep.
  
  The midnight February Fu features are Rumble in the Bronx on Friday (apparently the 87-minute American cut) and Rush Hour on Saturday, both on 35mm film. Sunday afternoon's Black History Month Icons show is Sister Act; Monday's Science on Screen; Monday's Science on Screen show has BU geneticist Shoumita Dasgupta introducing X-Men: First Class; Tuesday's Cary Grant show is Notorious; Wednesday's "Queering the Screen" show is Tangerine and has post-film discussion with The Theater Offensive; and Thursday's Big Screen Classic is Buck and the Preacher.
• This week's Oscar shorts schedule has Animated shorts at the Coolidge, The ICA (Sunday),Kendall Square, Boston Common, the Seaport, the Lexington Venue (Friday/Saturday/Tuesday), and West Newton; Live-Action shorts at the Coolidge, the ICA (Friday/Sunday/Thursday), Kendall Square, Boston Common, the Seaport, and the Lexington Venue (Friday/Saturday/Sunday/Tuesday/Thursday); and Documentary at the Coolidge and the Lexington Venue (Saturday/Sunday/Wednesday).
• The Seaport Alamo has Phantom of the Opera (Movie Party shows Saturday & Tuesday), The Social Network (Saturday), Cry-Baby (Saturday & Sunday), Vertigo (Sunday & Monday), and Dolemite Is My Name on Wednesday
• The Harvard Film Archive has an extremely varied roster this weekend, starting with the opener of their Ben Rivers series, a 35mm print of two Years at Sea (and its 16mm antecedent, "This Is My Land") on Friday evening. There are two from the Delphine Seyrig series, with Golden Eighties playing Friday night and Be Pretty and Shut Up Sunday evening. Undergrads program a 35mm double feature of Punch-Drunk Love & Ali: Fear Eats the Soul on Saturday afternoon (free with Harvard ID), and former HFA usher Carson Lund visits with his new film Eephus in the evening. The weekend ends with a visit from Jessica Sarah Rinland, who programs and introduces Hatari! on 35mm film on Sunday afternoon and presents her own latest work Collective Monologue on Monday.
• In addition to opening The Monkey, The Somerville Theatre picks up Parthenope in its second week. There are some live events in the big room, but around them, they have the "Silents Synced" I>Sherlock Jr. on Sunday afternoon and Monday evening, and Life on the V: The Story of V66, a documentary which looks back at a local UHF music video channel that took to the Boston airwaves 40 years ago this month, with various "V66-ers" on hand for a Q&A afterward.
  
  The Capitol Theatre has Happy Feed for noon matinees until Sunday, and then it's back to school. They also have a special presentation of Scott Pilgrim vs the World on Friday night, with chiptunes, a pop-up arcade, live music, and 360 projections in the theater throughout. There's also a 4th Wall show on Saturday with Max Ryan giving It's Always Better Late Than Never, S.E.B., Reid Duran, and Roaches All the Way Up visual accompaniment. And since Monday is the last of the month, they're doing Disasterpiece Theater with pre-show tape swap.
• The Regent Theatre has one last Banff Mountain Film Festival show on Friday, with the "Sandstone" package. And they just squeak a sing-along into school vacation week, with The Greatest Showman on Saturday & Sunday.
• ArtsEmerson and The Boston Asian American Film Festival present Nobuko Miyamoto: A Song in Movement on Friday as part of the Day of Remembrance for Japanese-American internments. The 84-year-old subject will be present to introduce the sold-out 1:30pm screening, with another show at 5:30pm (and the website advises to check to see if tickets for the early show may be released).
• The Museum of Fine Arts has Chinese drama This Woman as part of their "Global Cinema Now" series on Sunday and Oscar-Nominated Art Doc Porcelain War Thursday evening.
• Movies at MIT has Moonlight on Friday & Saturday evening, and a special screening of The Universe in a Grain of Sand with director Mark Levinson on-hand for a Q&A Wednesday night. If you're not part of the MIT community, they'd appreciate an email at lsc-guest (at) MIT dot edu ahead of time.
• The Museum of Science will be showing Mickey 17 on the giant screen in March, with tickets on sale now..
• Among other things, Joe's Free Films shows a screening of Secret Mall Apartment with director Q&A at Tufts on Thursday (RSVP requested). It's the sort of fun little documentary where you can not only barely believe it's true, but that there's footage.
• In addition to Captain America, The Embassy has Every Little Thing, a really charming little documentary about a woman who cares for injured hummingbirds that played IFFBoston last spring. Monday's Community Classic is Parasite.
• The Lexington Venue is open all week (except Monday) with Paddington in Peru and the Oscar-nominated shorts.
  
  The West Newton Cinema welcomes local director Adam Newman and actress Victoria Mirrer on Friday night for horror movie Round the Decay with post-show Q&A. They also have the Live-Action Oscar Shorts this week, open The Monkey, and bring back Anora. Paddington in Peru,I'm Still Here, Nickel Boys (including a Sunday "Behind the Screen" show), Flow, and A Complete Unknown are held over.
  
  Cinema Salem has all three Oscar shorts programs, Captain America, and The Monkey. Do the Right Thing plays Saturday afternoon, Wednesday's Whodunit Watch Party has a film that takes place on a plane, with Arsenic and Old Lace for Wayback Wednesday with Weirdo Wednesday on the other screen.
  
  If you can make it out to Danvers, Mexican-American comedy Las Tres Sisters plays at the Liberty Tree Mall.

I am here for the Condor Heroes, Cleaner, The Comeback Trail, Sherlock Jr., some Oscar shorts, The Cell, and probably a thing or two that I should have seen already.

Lunar New Year 2025.04: Ne Zha 2

Caught this one at an early show which, at the time, looked like one of just two chances to see the movie in 3D, which I remembered being a highlight of the first. AMC has decided to do more, though, and I'm not sure to what extent it's a matter of someone finally seeing it and realizing that it looks amazing or just noticing that the film is an absolute box office monster in China - $448M opening five-day weekend, $1.3 billion pulled in before it got to the United States and decided to give it a bigger release here and put a few more of those shows where the hundred people in the theater give you an extra five bucks.

One thing I'm kind of curious about is whether it got a wider release than most Chinese films get or just a "deeper" one, so to speak. It's playing at four locations I can reach relatively easily, and the AMCS in Burlington, Braintree, and Framington, but that's still pretty close to a major city; my folks in and around Portland, ME, aren't seeing it easily. And while I know these Chinese studios don't really care much about what these movies make in the USA - it's a non-trivial amount of money for stuff that isn't this sort of blockbuster but I suspect it's more about students and other expats not getting used to piracy - I kind of wonder what Well Go would have done if they got gotten the distribution rights for this one. This movie had a bunch of PG-rated trailers before it and there's school vacation next week; some English-dubbed matinees might have sold some tickets and had it break containment here. There's probably an audience for this sort of anime-adjacent fantasy that's not being served this week.

Not that the Chinese producers necessarily are, nor should they. But it's a fun movie, and like with Creation of the Gods a couple weeks ago, I feel like there's an audience here that could really go for this sort of big fantasy that can go anywhere compared to how bland the Western version of it has become.


Nezha: Mo tong nao hai (Ne Zha 2)

* * * ½ (out of four)
Seen 13 February 2025 in AMC Causeway #2 (first-run, RealD 3D laser DCP)
Where to stream it (when available)
Where to stream the first (Prime link), or buy the disc at Amazon

The lagtime that can exist between a movie and its sequel can be interesting, especially for stuff originally aimed at children. The first Ne Zha in 2019 bounced between nifty visuals, childish humor, good action, and a straightforward sort of story despite the elaborate mythology. Re-watching it before the new film, it felt like well-produced kid stuff. Whether intentionally or not, though, filmmaker Yu Yang (aka Xiaozi) made this second film in the series for the teenagers who would have been ten when it came out, and that adjustment lets him build something bigger and more epic (even if there are still plenty of bits with snot and pee).

For those who missed the first film, Ne Zha (voice of Lu Tanting), third son of the guardians a crucial pass (voices of Chen Hao & Lu Qi), and Ao Bing (voice of Han Mo), third son of Dragon of the East Sea, were able to stop an apocalyptic lightning strike but in the process, their bodies were destroyed. Immortal Taiyi (voice of Zhang Jiaming) was able to use the Holy Lotus to create new vessels, but they are initially weak, and an attack by the dragons and demon Shen Gongbao (Yang Wei) leaves Ao Bing forced to share Ne Zha's body and an uneasy truce as Ne Zha and Taiyi travel to the Yu Xu Palace in Kunlun to pass the trials of the Immortals to obtain an elixir that can restore the Lotus. Elder Immortal Wuliang Xianwong (voice of Wang Deshun) assigns Nezha to assist Demon Hunter Wutong (voice of Zhang Yunqi) in vanquishing three demons, but a tragedy midway through the trials threatens to unleash Ne Zha's demonic rage.

Ne Zha 2 is not purely a movie of two halves, but despite the calamitous battle that sends Ne Zha, Taiyi, and Ao Bing on their quest, the first half is really a cleverly built sort of comic fantasy adventure. The whole premise is amusingly rickety - Ne Zha cannot use his powers or the immortals will realize he is a demon, so Ao Bing must take control of his body to fight, but that involves knocking him unconscious, and he comes to at inconvenient times - and the instability of his new body also explains why his abilities are sort of nerfed compared to what he did at the end of the previous movie. This part of the movie is full of whimsical designs, goofy slapstick, and, yes, a bit built around Ne Zha having entirely the wrong idea about where it's acceptable to relieve himself, though it's still a tick more mature than the first film and built to move forward rather than just wander from joke to joke. Indeed, when the tone of the movie changes, some of the characters don't seem to get the memo, like the third demon who is almost like "wait, I'm a funny demon, why so intense?"

It launches into a second half that is full of big, melodramatic action, like playtime is over and now it's time to confront the horrors of what the adult world that Ne Zha's parents have tried to shield him from entails, with betrayals, apocalyptic battles, and discoveries that rock the characters' understanding of the word. The goofiness of the first leg isn't completely lost - the marine-life demons discover that they are actually delicious when pan-seared by hellfire in a particularly bizarre sequence - but the stakes are higher and the villains more monstrous. Xiaozi does an impressive job of keeping up a frantic action pace while also occasionally pulling back to demonstrate the scale of the battle and letting the audience breathe a bit. It's not perfect - the sheer amount going on can make it feel like a video game or a Marvel finale where heroes get lost in a ton of stuff flying around - but it works as well as this sort of battle can, and Xiaozi occasionally does the trick where something terrible is presented in a beautiful image, rattling the audience in a good way when it might get detached.

The whole movie is beautiful, though, evolving the cartoon nature of the first film such that it can shift to stark wastelands without a hitch, and when Ne Zha takes on a more evolved, mature form, it's like the film shifts from Akira Toriyama influence to Tetsuo Hara, still exaggerated in a different way. The color palette shifts too, and the filmmakers make the action three-dimensional in ways that many struggle with, as the sinuous dragon shapes, high-flying heroes, and solidity of the Tian Yu cauldron all get the audience to visualize where things are in space. It works especially well in 3D, although I suspect it will be fine just filling up a large screen.

Given the extent to which the first was great-looking but probably not for me, I'm not shocked by how the visuals and action are terrific, but it's a very pleasant surprise to see that the story has been tweaked to appeal to an older audience on top of kids. The post-credit scenes cheekily admit that it may be a while before we see a third entry (amid an anachronistic gag that made me howl), but with all the hints about the dragons holding back some sort of darkness and a "Deification War", I'm sold on seeing what Xiaozi and company come up with next.

Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 14 February 2025 - 20 February 2024

Happy Valentine's Day, although the movies coming out don't look terribly Valentine-y. Hollywood just doesn't do romantic dramas and comedies any more, does it?

• Captain America: Brave New World is the first for-real Marvel Universe flick since The Marvels in '23, and has Anthony Mackie fully taking center stage as he investigates a national security threat that may reach into the halls of power, with Harrison Ford taking over as (President) Thunderbolt Ross from William Hurt. It's everywhere in every format: the Capitol, Fresh Pond, the Embassy, Jordan's Furniture (Imax 2D), CinemaSalem, Boston Common (including Dolby Cinema 2D & RealD 3D), Causeway Street (including RealD 3D), Kendall Square, the Seaport (including Dolby Atmos), South Bay (including Imax Xenon 2D/3D & Dolby Cinema 2D & RealD 3D), Assembly Row (Imax Laser 2D/3D & Dolby Cinema 2D & RealD 3D), Arsenal Yards (including CWX), and Chestnut Hill.
  
  Also dealing with some recasting is Paddington in Peru, although surprisingly it's just Emily Mortimer taking over for Sally Hawkins as Mrs. Brown and Dougal Wilson in the director's chair instead of Paul King, rather than the kids, even though it's been a bit since the last one. This time, the polite bear returns to the land of his birth to find his missing Aunt Lucy, with Antonio Banderas as his possibly-suspicious guide. It's at The Capitol, Fresh Pond, the Lexington Venue, West Newton, Boston Common, Causeway Street, the Seaport, South Bay, Assembly Row, Arsenal Yards, and Chestnut Hill.
  
  Marvel knocks Becoming Led Zeppelin off the Imax screens, but that lets it expand, now playing the Lexington Venue, Boston Common, the Seaport, South Bay, Assembly Row, and Chestnut Hill. A 35th anniversary Re-release of Ghost plays Boston Common, South Bay, and a couple shows at the Seaport. Challengers plays Boston Common and South Bay for the week's Black History Month special; Rob Peace also plays Boston Common on Thursday afternoon and South Bay all week.
  
  Harry Potter films continue with Chamber of Secrets at Boston Common, Causeway Street, South Bay, Assembly Row, and Arsenal Yards Friday, Prisoner of Azkaban at the same spots Saturday, Goblet of Fire on Sunday, looping back to Philosopher's Stone on Thursday (RealD 3D at Boston Common, Causeway Street, South Bay, and Assembly Row); presumably the next four will come later. AMC has a "Screen Unseen" mystery preview at Boston Common, Causeway Street, South Bay, and Assembly Row on Monday.
• This week's staggered Lunar New Year release is Ne Zha 2, an animated fantasy adventure that picks up right where the series left off in 2019 but goes even bigger. It's at Boston Common (including RealD 3D), Causeway Street (including RealD 3D some days), South Bay, and Assembly Row. Detective Chinatown 1900 and Creation of the Gods II: Demon Force continue at Boston Common and Causeway Street.
  
  Apple Fresh Pond turns its Indian films over this weekend. The big one appears to be Chhaava, with Vicky Kaushal as a legendary figure in Indian history in a Hindi-language epic; it also plays Boston Common. Brahma Anandam is a Telugu-language film an actor asking his grandfather for help mounting a theatrical production; Laila, also in Telugu, has Vishwak Sen as a beautician who uses his skills to disguise himself as a woman, presumably to escape some sort of danger. Malayalam comedy Bromance, boxing drama Daveed, and romantic comedy Painkili all play Saturday & Sunday. All We Imagine as Light continues at Fresh Pond and the Coolidge, and also plays Saturday afternoon at The Museum of Fine Arts.
• Landmark Kendall Square and Boston Common open Partenhope, the latest from director Paolo Sorrentino which features Celeste Dalla Porta & Stefania Sandrelli as the title character over the course of her life, born at sea but named for the city she call home. Gary Oldman is in it as well, though it may just be a cameo despite his high billing.
  
  Tuesday's Best Picture Retro Replay at Kendall Square is The Departed; they also have the 2025 edition of the "New York Cat Film Festival" package.
• After a filmmaker visit a week or two back, The Coolidge Corner Theatre opens Armand for its regular run, with Renate Reinsve as a mother who is called into her son's school for a parent-teacher conference and discovers shocking, tangled allegations. It also plays Boston Common, but mostly late shows, Saturday to Wednesday. More cheerily, the Coolidge brings back Flow for a couple screenings a day (though go on Saturday or Sunday if you work a nine-to-five).
  
  Midnites at the Coolidge continue Kung Fu February with Jet Li and Aaliyah in Romeo Must Die on 35mm Friday and Enter the Dragon on Saturday. Black History "Icons" include Glory on Sunday afternoon and Judas and the Black Messiah with director Shaka King and other special guests on Wednesday. Point Break is the 35mm Big Screen Classic on Monday, wth Holiday to celebrate Cary Grant on Tuesday.
  
  Kids' Matinees for winter vacation week are Muppet Treasure Island on Monday, Fantastic Mr. Fox on Tuesday, The Incredibles on Wednesday, and The Parent Trap '98 on Thursday.
• The Oscar Shorts are playing! This week, you can see Animated shorts at the Coolidge, the Capitol (Saturday/Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday), Kendall Square, the Lexington Venue (Monday), West Newton; Live-Action shorts at the Coolidge, the Capitol (Friday/Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday) Kendall Square, the Lexington Venue (Monday); and Documentary at the Capitol (Sunday/Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday/Thursday), the Lexington Venue (Monday).
• The Seaport Alamo has one screening a day of You, Me & Her, with a young couple on their first vacation in years considering a threesome with a woman they meet. They also have Movie Party shows of The Wedding Singer on Saturday & Wednesday, single shows of Ghost on Monday & Tuesday, and Eddie Murphy in The Nutty Professor on Thursday
• The Brattle Theatre has their Valentine's Day 35mm shows of Casablanca and The Princess Bride sold out; you snooze, you lose. They will be kicking off another annual tradition, the all-35mm Bugs Bunny Film Festival, on Saturday, with 80 minutes of classic cartoons running all week and into next weekend.
  
  They'll also have late shows of David Cronenberg's Crash at 9pm Saturday and Sunday. There are also two special "Exploring the Odyssey" shows with introductions from the staff of the American Repertory Theater (which is presenting The Odyssey as a stage play) - The Boy and the Heron Monday evening and The Return on Wednesday. Tuesday's "100 years of Queer German Cinema" film is 1933's Victor and Victoria, which did indeed inspire the American remake.
• The Harvard Film Archive starts the weekend with director Nelson Carlo de los Santos Ariason on hand for Cocote on Friday evening. There are two notable Delphine Seyrig films after that, with Chantal Akerman's Jeanne Dielman, 23 Quai du Commerce, 1080 Bruxelles playing on 35mm Saturday evening and Jacques Demy's Donkey Skin Sunday afternoon. A double feature of short Korean documentary features Labor News No. 1 & melting icecream, plays Sunday evening.
• The New England Aquarium adds "Call of the Dolphins" to their Imax rotation starting on Friday; it appears to be in 2D while the other shows there are in 3D. Not to be outdone, The Museum of Science adds "Space: The New Frontier" to the Omnimax rotation (after last week's preview) starting Saturday evening.
• The Somerville Theatre hosts Boston Sci-Fi Film Festival with new indies Friday, Saturday, and Sunday, while the 24-hour Marathon runs from noon Sunday to noon-ish Monday, including Lifeforce on 70mm film and several others on 35mm. With a screen to fill from Tuesday to Thursday, they show a selection of The Fleischer Studios' Greatest Hits, including their Betty Boop, Superman, and Popeye cartoons.
  
  The Capitol Theatre also has vacation matinees with The Iron Giant Saturday to Tuesday and Happy Feed Wednesday & Thursday.
• Movies at MIT has Punch Drunk Love for free on Friday and Saturday evenings, although, as always, if you're not part of the MIT community, they'd appreciate an email at lsc-guest (at) MIT dot edu ahead of time.
• Per Joe's Free Films, The Wang Center is hosting doing a free "Lights, Camera, Boston!" series this weekend. Reservations are required, but they have Good Will Hunting Friday, Legally Blonde and The Departed Saturday, Little Women '19 and Glory Sunday, and The Wizard of Oz on Monday.
• The Regent Theatre has the latest presentations of the Banff Mountain Film Festival, with the "Quartzite" package on Monday & Wednesday and the "Granite" package on Tuesday & Thursday.
• The Embassy has Captain American and The Brutalist Friday to Sunday, while Monday not only has the community classic of Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon, but all three Oscar Short packages.
• The Lexington Venue is open Friday to Monday plus Tuesday & Thursday with I'm Still Here, Becoming Led Zeppelin, and Paddington in Peru. They also have Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story on Thursday, which may be the start of a run or a one-off.
  
  The West Newton Cinema opens the Animated Oscar Shorts, Paddington in Peru, and Liza: A Truly Terrific True Story, keeping I'm Still Here, Dog Man, Nickel Boys, Flow, and A Complete Unknown. Singles plays as part of the Gen X series on Friday and Jimmy Tingle has a live show Saturday night.
  
  Cinema Salem has all three Oscar shorts programs, Captain America, and I'm Still Here. The original My Bloody Valentine is Friday's Night Light show, The Philadelphia Story plays Saturday afternoon, and Howard Hughes's The Outlaw is the "Wayback Wednesday" (which includes a serial episode), with the mystery Weirdo Wednesday show on another screen.

Checked out Ne Zha 2 when I thought there would just be a couple of 3D shows, and it's great fun; I'll also go for the new Captain America and Paddington movies, the Fleischer cartoons possibly Partenhope or Armand.

Lunar New Year 2025.03: Dark Nuns

Obligatory photo, but it's kind of funny how being on a screen rather than paper transforms the photo. Also, if you look at the top, you can see where it says "The Priests 2" even though that phrase is absent in all the advertising. Like with Veteran 2: I, The Executioner a couple months ago, Well Go clearly feels they're better off not letting on that this is a sequel, presumably because the audience for Korean cinema has grown but isn't reaching back terribly far to catch up. This refers back to its predecessor on occasion, but is digestible enough on its own.

I'm not sure how big a holiday Lunar New Year is in South Korea; certainly AMC decided it's not a particularly big deal in Boston. We don't have a Koreatown like we do a Chinatown, and time was i'd have to go to Revere to see a Korean movie, but on the other hand the closest Newbury Comics to this theater has a big K-Pop section, so maybe the audience is growing more than the one show a day this is getting. At least it's at a decent time as opposed to 3pm.

I do kind of wonder if I would have seen this movie - and even tried to track down the one to which it is a sequel! - if it weren't Korean. I'm not really that big a fan of religious horror, and generally skip Western movies about exorcisms, but I apparently can't let this go by.

(Amusingly, "I'm not really a big fan of religious horror" is something I said to my nieces at Christmas, and for all that seeing them grow up reminds me I'm old, it is also very fun to be able to talk about horror movies with your nieces!)


Geomeun sunyeodeul (The Priests 2: Dark Nuns)

* * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 7 February 2025 in AMC Cuaseway #4 (first-run, laser DCP)
buy the first film on DVD at Amazon

A question I often have when watching Korean exorcism movies involving the Catholic church is "why are you doing this when you could be making Exhuma?", although it obviously got easier to articulate when that film came out. The irony in this question, of course, is that the Catholic material probably carries the same thrill of discovery in Korea that shamanism has here in the U.S. The opening credits have definitions of relatively basic information (for Westerners), after all. Still, I can't help but feel that this movie seems most alive when it's closer to its local roots than its Roman ones.

The film opens with Kang Sung-ae, aka Sister Junia (Song Hye-kyo) arriving at the site of an exorcism with a huge jerry-can of holy water and more confidence than the priests involved, and soon setting sights on a new target: Choi Hee-joon (Moon Woo-jin), a pre-teen boy under observation at the Catholic hospital who is clearly possessed to Junia, but attending physician Father Paolo (Lee Jin-wook) may be a priest but doesn't really believe in demonic possession, with protegé Su-young, aka Sister Michela (Jeon Yeo-bin) echoing his point of view. Junia knows that Michela is maybe not so skeptical as she appears, and soon has her assisting in her attempt to free the boy from what may be one of the "12 Manifestations".

I'm not a particular fan of this particular slice of the horror genre, in part because I am not religious . It's not so much that I don't believe demons are real, but because I don't find anything resonant in a story where a demon is just a demon, and that's what Dark Nuns winds up being: Once Hee-joon's mother exits the story, he's not connected to anything bigger, and it makes the story kind of procedural, but the procedures seem arbitrary. The demon possessing Hee-joon doesn't feel like it's connected to any sort of real-world horror, and the film is only occasionally interested in what fighting it means to the SIsters, which could be a pretty good story, with plenty of material about how the Church is not built to let these highly-capable women have the authority they'd give less-able men.

Indeed, when the film is at its best, it's because Song Hye-kyo and Jeon Yeo-bin have enjoyable chemistry on-screen. Song's Junia is impatient, smoking too much and dumping gallons of holy water when most priests will flick a few drops, not looking to waste her numbered days; Jeon's Michela has a sweet tooth and is clearly the result of being close to the supernatural but wanting to help in grounded ways. Even if nuns weren't called "sisters", there's an enjoyable big-sis/little-sis vibe to them. Male priests drift in and out of the story making minor impressions, but I could watch a whole movie full of scenes where Michela has bought an extra soda for Junia who only drinks it because it's a non-smoking area. Props to Moon Woo-jin as the possessed kid, though - he goes hard when the time comes.

That's mostly the back half of the movie, which feels like director Kwon Hyeok-jae and writer Kim Woo-jin took a bunch of scenes from other horror movies and glued them together whether or not they really made sense together. They commit to the bit enough to make the finale propulsive, but the action itself is more about evoking a familiar feeling rather than connecting things. Why is the final exorcism in this industrial plant? No really compelling reason. Michela's flashbacks and the time she sees a ghost? Not useful. All those rats? Not a big deal. Wait, is it important to get Hee-joon to a church or just to ring the bell? Kwon executes each bit well enough and isn't bad at connecting them, but what's it add up to?

Of course, it probably also doesn't help that the script has to contort itself so badly to get the situation it wants that Junia and Mikela often seem as frustrated with the writers as the bureaucracy they've created. What do you mean, the heroes of 2015's The Priests are out of the country and, no, we can't say what they're doing or bring them or any dedicated exorcists from the Vatican even though it's a Duke of Hell and not just some minor demon possessing Hee-Joon! Oh, and all the Korean shamans are busy today because there's an election (which itself might be a fun bit but is just here so Michela can snort "really?"). When a movie requires the writers to avoid so much, maybe they shouldn't be writing that particular movie. Also, I don't know if this is just awkward subtitling, but there's a weird fixation on Junia's uterus that only Song Hye-kyo seems to recognize as creepy and insulting; her facial expressions are the only acknowledgment of this being uncomfortable.

Mostly, though, it's blandly familiar without a real story hook. It feels like the studio decided it wanted a sequel or spin-off of The Priests, and someone came up with the nuns as an interesting angle, but nobody came up with something to put underneath the well-executed surface in order to make it hit home.

Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 7 February 2025 - 13 February 2024

Happy "Between Lunar New Year and Valentine's" Week. Which is kind of a thing, I guess.

• The two "Valentine's Day" movies are genre pictures rather than romantic comedies. Heart Eyes is a slasher with a killer who targets couples. It plays Fresh Pond, Boston Common, Causeway Street, the Seaport, South bay, Assembly Row, and Arsenal Yards (including CWX).
  
  Less closely-tied to the holiday is Love Hurts, with Ke Huy Quan channeling Jackie Chan as a former killer trying to live a quiet life but pulled back into the fight against his gangster brother (Daniel Wu) by an old friend (Ariana DeBose). It's at Fresh Pond, Boston Common (including Dolby Cinema), Kendall Square, Causeway Street, the Seaport, South Bay (including Dolby Cinema), Assembly Row (including Dolby Cinema), and Arsenal Yards (including CWX).
  
  Becoming Led Zeppelin, a documentary featuring a bunch of rare footage, gets an Imax-exclusive run at Jordan's Furniture, South Bay, and Assembly Row. Assembly Row also has Parasite in Imax (which is kind of amusing, because Bong Joon-ho's latest was supposedly moved from last week to get a chance to play the giant screens).
  
  Black History Month films at Boston Common and South Bay this week are The Fire Inside and The Forge.
  
  There are Early Access screenings of Paddington in Peru at Boston Common and Assembly Row on Saturday, and of The Monkey at Boston Common, South Bay, and Assembly Row, all on the Dolby Cinema screens, on Wednesday. Oscar nominated animated feature Memoir of a Snail plays Boston Common and Assembly Row on Tuesday. Theaters are running Harry Potter movies again, with Philosopher's Stone playing Thursday at Boston Common, Causeway Street (including RealD 3D), South Bay (including RealD 3D), Assembly Row (including RealD 3D), and Arsenal Yards. Interestingly, the new 3D conversion appears to be reverting to the original British name while the flat presentation is still Sorcerer's Stone.
• The Coolidge Corner Theatre opens No Other Land, a documentary made by a group of Palestinian and Israeli filmmakers that depicts the destruction of villages in the West Bank over the past five years. Friday night's 7pm show is a Panorama with Boston Palestine Film Festival Programming Director Michael Maria.
  
  Midnight martial arts movies this weekend are Brandon Lee in Rapid Fire on Friday and Black Belt Jones on Saturday, both in 35mm. Sunday's Goethe-Institut film is From Hilde, with Love, while the afternoon's Black History Month "Icons" show is In the Heat of the Night, with Odie Henderson leading a pre-show seminar. There's Open Screen on Tuesday, An Affair to Remember to celebrate Cary Grant on Wednesday, with a 35mm Big Screen Classic show of Notting Hill on Thursday and a Cult Classic show of Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar later that evening.
• Bring Them Down opens at Landmark Kendall Square, Boston Common, the Seaport; it's a sort of modern Irish Western, with Barry Keoghan and Christopher Abbot as members of rival families whose conflict suddenly escalates, with Colm Meaney in the supporting cast.
  
  Tuesday's Best Picture Retro Replay at Kendall Square is A Beautiful Mind. On Wednesday, they have the newest "Silents Synced" presentation, with Buster Keaton's Sherlock Jr. synced to REM's "New Adventures in Hi-Fi' and "Monster". Emilia Pérez returns on Wednesday and Thursday.
• Does South Korea celebrate Lunar New Year? I've seen places include Dark Nuns as part of their LNY slates; it's a sequel to The Priests, with a pair of nuns taking on the job of exorcising a possibly-possessed boy. It's at Causeway Street, and appears to stand alone (which is good because the first is not streaming anywhere and only available on DVD). K-pop concert film IU Concert: The Winning playing Boston Common and Assembly Row (Imax Laser) on Sunday.
  
  It's a busy week for Indian films: Hindi romantic comedy Loveyapa opens at Fresh Pond, Boston Common, with Khushi Kapoor & Junaid Khan as young lovers who exchange cell phones for the day. Hindi-language action comedy Badass Ravikumar, with Himesh Reshammiya's character spinning off from The Xpose, plays Boston Common. Hindi-language crime thriller Santosh, with Shahana Goswami taking over for her late husband as a small town cop, plays Boston Common (with at least some shows listed as Q&A events). Tamil thriller VidaaMuyarchi, which looks like a remake of Frantic but they're apparently in negotiation with a different studio; it's at Fresh Pond, Causeway Street. Telugu-language drama Thandel plays Fresh Pond, Boston Common, and follows a group of fishermen who drifted into Pakistani waters. Malayalam-language comedy Narayaneente Moonnaanmakkal plays Fresh Pond, with brothers trying to come together to give their dying mother a pleasant send-off. All We Imagine as Light continues at Fresh Pond, the Coolidge.
  
  Also playing Apple Fresh Pond for early matinees is Kidnapping Inc., a Haitian comic thriller about an abduction that goes incredibly awry. It's as low-budget and rough as you'd expect from a Haitian indie, but it's vital as a result.
  
  There's an AXCN presentation of Cowboy Bebop: The Movie at Boston Common, South Bay, Assembly Row on Sunday (subbed). Attack on Titan: The Last Attack, a theatrical release of the anime series's finale, plays Causeway Street, Assembly Row Monday to Wednesday (also Thursday at Causeway).
  
  Among Chinese movies, Detective Chinatown 1900, already at Causeway Street and the Seaport, expands to Boston Common, Assembly Row. Creation of the Gods II: Demon Force continues at Boston Common, Causeway Street.
• The Brattle Theatre has a 35mm print of John Carpenter's The Vampire Lovers as the Friday Film Matinee. After that, it's time for more "Dread of Winter", with a double feature of Outrage & Repulsion (35mm) Friday & Saturday, Insomnia (35mm) & The Vanishing Saturday evening, a 35mm print of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me as their annual "Superb Owl" counter-programming, Enemy & The Double on Monday, The Killing of a Sacred Deer on Tuesday, and Under the Skin & High Life on Wednesday.
  
  Tuesday's "100 years of Queer German Cinema" film is Mädchen in Uniform, and Thursday lets one get an early start on Valentine's Day, with Casablanca and The Princess Bride, both on 35mm.
• The Seaport Alamo finishes Lord of the Rings extended editions with The Return of the King playing Friday to Sunday. Other rep includes About Time on Saturday & Tuesday; Scott Pilgrim movie parties Sunday & Tuesday; "World of Animation" presentations of Anomalisa on Monday & Wednesday and Memoir of a Snail with pre-recorded Q&A on Tuesday; Bridesmaids on Monday, Wednesday, and Thursday; a preview of The Monkey with livestreamed Q&A on Monday; and The Golden Child on Wednesday.
• The Harvard Film Archive bookends the week with "Fables of the Reconstruction", which puts a spotlight on director Nelson Carlo de los santos Arias, with Santa Teresa and Other Stories preceded by "Lullabies" Friday evening, You Look like a Carriage That Not Even the Oxen Can Stop later that night, and a free screening of Pepe with the director in person on Thursday. For the next two evenings, they welcome Rosine Mbakam in person for Mambar Pierette on Saturday and Delphine's Prayers onSunday. Sunday afternoon offers Georges Méliès program of grand fantasies - "Voyages through Earth, Sea, and Space" with accompaniment by Martin Marks. Finally, Delphine Seyrig stars in The Garden That Tilts on 35mm film Monday evening.
• The Museum of Science has a special preview of "Space: The New Frontier" on the Omnimax screen on Tuesday night, featuring Dr. Ariel Ekblaw, one of the scientists featured in the film, with both a presentation an a Q&A afterward.
• Movies at MIT has a special screening of Prisoner No. 626710 Is Present early Friday evening and then Inglorious Basterds on Friday and Saturday night. As always, if you're not an MIT student or faculty member, try to give them a heads-up
• The Capitol Theatre seems to be bringing some recent acclaimed films back, with Sing Sing, The Room Next Door, and Nickel Boys returning to the screen.
  
  The Somerville Theatre has live shows in the big room Friday/Saturday/Monday, but also opens I'm Still Here. They also have a Clint Eastwood double bill of A Fistful of Dollars (4K) & Unforgiven (35mm) on Sunday. They also host the Boston Sci-Fi Film Festival starting Wednesday, with a shorts package, Clone Cops, and Small Town Universe that day and The Road to Nowhere, a panel discussion on alien-hunting, and Parallel Consequences on Thursday. The festival continues through the following weekend, climaxing on the 24-hour Marathon.
• The Regent Theatre has a weekend run of Liza: A Truly Terrific Absolutely True Story from Friday to Sunday, with filmmaker Bruce David Klein on-hand Friday evening.
• Thriller 6 in the Morning is the Closing Night film of the Festival of Films From Iran at The Museum of Fine Arts on Friday night.
• ArtsEmerson begins their "Shared Stories" season with Look Into My Eyes on Friday evening, and The Truer History of the Chan Family (preceded by short "Ten Time Better") on Sunday afternoon, both co-presented by The Boston Asian American Film Festival.
• The Embassy picks up The Brutalist, with the Saturday evening show including discussion with two professors, Dr. Muna Güvenç and Dr. Eugene Sheppard, from nearby Brandeis University. They also have a free kids' show of Ratatouille as part of their one-year anniversary screening on Sunday and Cinema Paradiso as the free "Community Classic" Monday morning/afternoon.
• The Lexington Venue is open Friday to Monday plus Wednesday & Thursday with The Brutalist, and A Complete Unknown (Friday/Saturday/Thursday), and I'm Still Here. They also have the "Silents Synced" Sherlock Jr. Friday/Saturday/Sunday/Thursday.
  
  The West Newton Cinema opens I'm Still Here, keeping Dog Man, Nickel Boys, The Seed of the Sacred Fig, The Brutalist; Flow, A Complete Unknown, and Babygirl. There's a "Behind the Screen" show of All We Imagine as Light on Sunday (although the movie seems to have closed there otherwise), plus a special presentation of Girl Talk on Wednesday.
  
  Cinema Salem has I'm Still Here, Flow, Memoir of a Snail, The Girl with the Needle, The Seed of the Sacred Fig, and The Brutalist from Friday to Monday. The Philadelphia Story plays Wednesday, as does the Weirdo Wednesday mystery show (and given that the Luna seems to have nothing on the schedule, I wonder if that's the same series with a new home).
  
  If you can make it out to Danvers, Renner, a sci-fi thriller with Frankie Muniz as someone who programs his AI with the personality of his overbearing bother, plays the Liberty Tree Mall.

Down for Dark Nuns, and Love Hurts, a little bit of Oscar-oriented catch-up, and what seems like multiple mutually exclusive options Sunday afternoon.

Lunar New Year 2025.02: Creation of the Gods Part II: Demon Force

Been a while since I saw a Chinese movie near this sign, which I still don't quite understand. You would think the Chinese movies would play better in the theater right next to Chinatown, but perhaps the one at North Station is more accessible to students or something? Are Chinese students particular about reclining seats or something? I dunno.

I watched the first to catch up the night before, and found I didn't like it much more than the first time, but it was kind of good to be reminded of the basics before going into the next one. There's going to be a bit more of that going on over the course of the next month - I don't recall much about Ne Zha - but not as much as I'd thought, because apparently The Priests isn't streaming anywhere to prep for Dark Nuns and Operation Hadal does not actually seem to be a sequel to Operation Red Sea, despite how the trailer plays that up. Big "Happy Lunar New Year - Have Some Sequels!" situation this year.

One more thing: These aren't the only movies that literally have a message come up saying to stay through the credits for three extra scenes, but there's something specific about how Wuershan does it that I go back and forth between liking and disliking. Some movies in planned trilogies will say "stick around for a preview of the sequel", and Marvel tends to put in teases that are kind of inconsequential, but Creation of the Gods puts in things that are pretty consequential and which in some cases undoes what happened in the climax. It's as good a place to put these events as anything - they're not really part of either story - but on some level isn't how even serialized movies are expected to work.

I will say, at least, that I kind of felt sorry for the poor folks watching the extended edition of the second Lord of the Rings movie over at the Seaport at roughly the same time - sure, they're good films, but the fantasy adventure isn't as batty as it is here!


Feng Shen 2 (Creation of the Gods II: Demon Force)

* * *¼ (out of four)
Seen 31 January 2025 in AMC Boston Common #1 (first-run, laser DCP)
Where to stream it (when available)

I zonked out watching Part I to refresh my memory the night before this sequel opened - it's kind of beautifully mounted but nothing special until the finale - but Demon Force is a big improvement, with all the big fantasy stuff from that finale on display right from the start, exciting action that feels like more than CGI armies rubbing at each other, and some romance and sexiness from someone other than the villains. It's a genuine upgrade beyond being past setting things up.

For those that don't recall, the world is beset by a Great Curse that can only be dispelled using the Fengshan Bang, a scroll that absorbs the chi of the dead which can only be opened by the King of All Realms, but the current Shang king, Yin Shou (Fei Xiang aka Kris Philips), is a monster who heard "more death means more power" and obliged, and though defeated in the previous movie's climax, he has been revived by his lover, a fox demon who has taken the body of Su Daji (Na Ran aka Narana Erdyneeva). Speaking of revivals, immortals Nezha (Wu Yafan) and Yang Jian (Sha Chi) have brought the king's beheaded son Yin Jiao (Luke Chen Murchi) to Kunlun Mountain to be resurrected, while formerly loyal hostage Ji Fa (Yosh Yu Shi) has fled to his home city of Xiqi. Yin Shou wishes to dispatch Commander Wen Zhong (Wu Hsing-Kuo), just returned from a ten year campaign near the North Sea, to destroy Ji Fa and Xiqi, the old man wishes to retire, but General Deng Chanyu (Nashi) is eager to step up, and she leads a force of 800 men, and the four giant Mo brothers.

There is immediate "just kiss already" energy between Ji Fa and Deng Chanyu, and it's a sign that writer/director Wuershan is looking to have more fun this time around; the melodrama that drew snickers in the first has given way to actual jokes without sacrificing the implied cosmic scope of the danger or the more grounded stakes of the siege, and there's room for joy rather than just decadence. Maybe, having examined the formal framework the last time around, there's a little more room to have the characters act human within it.

That's especially the case with Yosh Yu and Nashi, who have solid enough chemistry that they don't have to be making eyes at each other to the audience to pull for them, but very enjoyable as leaders trying to outwit each other. It lets Kris Philips and Na Ran step back a bit, and Huang Bo also gets to be a bit funnier even as he takes a more active role as Xiqi's strategist. Wu Hisng-Kuo is formidable as Wen. Even when Chen Muchi returns, the cast never feels nearly as same-y as it could in the first - or, at least, they're able to have a little fun with the endless succession of characters, like when a character's name appears on-screen three seconds before he is killed.

And, also, there are big fantasy battles, with giants and gargoyles, and a pursuit involving horses that plays like a classic cliffside car chase. There's also a scene where the fancy armor that had been so important for the previous movie and a half becomes more trouble than it's worth, which is a delight. The grand finale has a besieged city having to figure out how to defend itself against flying saucers, and it's an absolute gas. The visual effects are maybe not quite Hollywood quality, but if they're short of photorealism, it's in a way that recalls the artwork for these mythic and fantastic stories that the filmmakers are likely referencing.

A third film in the series is promised, and I must admit, I found myself a lot more excited about the prospect than I had been 24 hours before. It's a big, entertaining adventure that audiences can jump into without having seen the first, and hope that they hold to a two-year schedule and the next comes out in 2027.