Two from China(s): The Unseen Sister and Cesium Fallout

I caught these two as a preview double feature Thursday night because I'd looked at the week and seen chaos and it looked like, for most of the week, AMC was not going to let you knock both of them out in the same night. Although, amusingly, doing so on Thursday pointed made it clear that a lot of the two floorplans are basically identical; screen 7 is directly above screen 1 and is arranged the same way, so that I had basically the same seat for both shows, just with 20 feet of vertical distance.

Mildly surprised to see more people in the theater for Cesium Fallout - it's a pretty long movie to start at 9:30pm, or maybe I'm just old! - and the generally pretty scornful reviews online for The Unseen Sister, which I liked. It's enough to make me wonder if One Child Per Family is still enough of a controversial topic that folks simply do not want to engage with it (or be seen engaging with it), and certainly don't want a Taiwanese filmmaker examining the idea.

Or it could just be different taste that's totally apolitical; like Juror #2 earlier in the week, The Unseen Sister has the plot of a thriller but doesn't exactly execute it that way, and a lot of audiences have rebelled at expecting genre and getting art-house (ironically, Warner's shenanigans with Juror #2 might have wound up limiting it to the audience that would go for what he was doing and the movie might be scorned once it breaks containment).

At any rate, I liked The Unseen Sister more, but Cesium Fallout is more likely to hang around even as the big releases start rolling out; plan your trip to the Garden accordingly!


Qiao yan de xin shi (The Unseen Sister)

* * * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 7 November 2024 in AMC Causeway Street #1 (new release, laser DCP)
Not yet streaming (check here later)

It's funny that for how much I was kind of fascinated by China's one-child policy about five years back (I've got to repost the entire day of IFFBoston reviews that included One Child Nation sometime), it took me a while to realize that's what was driving this movie, and I wonder how that affected my perception before it clicked. I'm sure that there was a bit less mystery to Chinese audiences, and maybe that being less of a puzzle to unlock made it less exciting in its native land.

It opens with actress Qiao Yan (Zhao Liying) in a screening room, watching her performance in the film she's just shot, saying she wants fewer close-ups of her face, which agent Shen Haomng (Huang Juo) says he will relay to the director. Their contract is almost up, and Qiao Yan isn't eager to renew, or sign endorsement deals; maybe it has something to do with the texts she's been getting saying "I know your secret". Meanwhile, in Myanmar, another woman named Qiao Yan (Xin Zhilei), a year or two older but with more wear on her face and seven months pregnant, is being leaned on by the creditors of her missing husband Yu Liang (Dong Baoshi) - a jade mine hasn't panned out - and she heads to Beijing to find him. The first meets the second at the train station, but furtively beyond even what you might expect for a movie star. They're family that hasn't seen each other in 17 years. As the older Qiao Yan searches for her husband, the younger starts work on a new movie where she plays a pregnant woman weighing an abortion.

If you're seeing a lot of reflections and parallels there, well, that's not the half of it; director Midi Z and his co-writers are working the ideas of art imitating life and similar situations recurring hard, with what might have been hanging over everything. On top of that, he's taking a few shots at the way filmmaking presents a sort of altered reality, as Qiao Yan points out that there's an obvious bit of dishonesty in how the director is distorting his family history for the script, and when the older Qiao Yan tells the younger that she looks skinny and haggard, the actress replies that this is how you look pretty on film. Surprisingly, Midi Z seems somewhat loath to indicate characters' parallel nature visually very often; mirrored compositions and match shots are rare, almost like he doesn't want to be accused of making things too obvious.

Even taking that into account, it's a pretty spiffy little machine of a movie, impressively chilly without quite being completely detached. Many scenes feature snow coming down in a way that is both pretty and ominous, and Midi Z will find and create an interesting shot where it might not be expected fairly often. He builds up the way Shen and others demand a lot of control over their partner as both an actress and a woman, and doesn't exactly hold back in terms of how she has always been determined to choose her own course. One maybe doesn't initially know how, but as the pieces come together it's an interesting question as to whether she's reaching limits or they don't know what they're in for.

It's mostly built on a nice performance by Zhao Liying that gets better as the film goes on and she clearly feels this tightening around her - her Qiao Yan sharp and chilly in a way that is frequently distancing, but there is a point to her icy blankness that complements the various men who treat her like their empty vessel, but also a solidity to her that keeps her from being swallowed by madness as her roles approximate the secret parts of her life. Xin Zhilei has what's often a more traditional role - a woman whose pushiness probably hides a separate agenda - and does well with it; it's quite clear that she's a decade or two into a major choice made when she was very young and still trying to defend it and assure herself that it was the right one. Huang Juo captures something impressively nasty in Shen, too - a fear of how things will fall apart if Qiao Yan really does what she says that manifests as being extra nasty when he thinks he can and ingratiation hasn't been working anyway.

It can all be a little much - you trade a few nice images for accepting the coincidences at times, and I can see opinions on the film opinions reversing depending on whether a flashback seems to conveniently add too much humanity right when the film is going to need it. The last act drags at times. It's the second movie I've seen this week where the thriller setup doesn't quite get one near the edge of one's seat, but I do find myself impressed with the way it plays with film and law both creating phantoms out of real people, and wonder if it might grow in stature.


Fan Sing (Cesium Fallout)

* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 7 November 2024 in AMC Causeway Street #7 (new release, laser DCP)
Not yet streaming (check here later); soundtrack available on Amazon

This played Hong Kong and China in 3D, right? The first half in particular has the filmmakers really appearing to enjoy throwing stuff at the audience and using angles and depth in a way that really seems like it would be great in that format, and I'm sad that they don't seem to do 3D discs very much in Hong Kong any more because I'd import this even if the movie isn't that great.

Back in 1996, just before the handover, Dr. Simon Fan (Andy Lau Tak-Wah) was a minister in the Hong Kong government who announced a loosening of inspection requirements, with the aim of moving more containers through the Port of Hong Kong - which would soon have tragic consequences as his firefighter wife fell during a harbor conflagration, her brother Kit Li (Bai Yu) losing his grip on her wrist as she fell into the flames. Eleven years later, Simon is a private citizen and respected expert on contaminants, and Kit is still fighting fires, and they are about to be confronted with a monster at a recycling yard that is actually a front for Western hazardous waste disposal: Kit on the ground and Simon as the independent expert consultant to the Hong Kong government, with old rival Cecilia Fong (Karen Mok Man-Wai) acting chief executive. Simon's inspection suggests that radioactive cesium-137 has spilled within the facility, and an incoming super-typhoon could spread it across the entire region.

It's a big, dangerous premise all the more scarier for how common we know this problem to be is of that "the first half in particular" thing; stuff is going horrifically wrong, the firefighters are doing their best to respond, and each new escalation at the burning recycling center looks cool even as it's also obviously terrible. Eventually, though, it gets to a point of slowing down and facing the disaster movie problem where not destroying a global metropolis is not nearly as eye-popping as blowing up Hong Kong. It tries to have it both ways with a couple "here's what could have happened" shots, but even when they're putting an actual clock on the screen, the big climax is never the thrilling race against time and barely escaping the destruction they have to cause to stave off more, and the action is interspersed with way too much negotiating with craven corporate goons and worrying about nondisclosure agreements.

Also, I found myself mildly disappointed that Andy Lau was not the villain, as his being the guy to approve the less-stringent procedures seemed to be suggesting, or even the Chris Evans-in-Sunshine guy we can really dislike even when he's right. it's what he's suited for these days - own your wrinkles and sneer! - but instead, he plays Simon as pushy but not to an extent that there's a real hook. He's really the best chance for the movie to have some colorful characters as opposed to the well-meaning but unprepared folks high up in the government and the vast sea of loose-but-professional folks in the fire trucks. It's not really too many folks to keep track of, but there's not much material to go around - there are two separate romances going on in this firehouse, which just feels like redundancy.

Director Anthony Pun is also the cinematographer, and he and his crew do turn in a pretty good-looking movie, seemingly using planning for 3D as a reminder to make good use of space. They get some nifty compositions out of the massive junkyard, right up until the end when the fires are burning out and it looks like a post-apocalyptic wasteland at night. As might be expected from someone who came up shooting rather than writing, he's pretty great at capturing people doing things, less so them talking about things, and it's odd that there's so much of the latter interrupting the former toward the end.

It's a fun movie to watch, but eventually it drags out a bit to reach "epic disaster movie" scale and is stronger at the start than finish.

Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 8 November 2024 - 14 November 2024

Busy as heck week for moviegoers, but I always kind of like the sort of week where so much comes out that you can get a sense of the various plexes' audiences. I mean, sure, those audiences are all me even if I don't have that sort of time, but I mean more broadly.

• The big release for the week looks to be Heretic, wherein a couple LDS (or LDS-like) missionaries played by Sophie Thatcher & Chloe Eastwind up having their faith and mettle tested in a deadly-looking escape room that a creep played by Hugh Grant keeps under his house. It's at the Somerville, the Capitol, Fresh Pond, CinemaSalem, Boston Common (including Dolby Cinema), Causeway Street, Kendall Square, the Seaport, South Bay (including Dolby Cinema), and Assembly Row (including Dolby Cinema).
  
  A new adaptation of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever, which looks pretty even-handed coming from the guy who did The Chosen, opens at Fresh Pond, Boston Common, Assembly Row, Arsenal Yards, and Chestnut Hill. Christmas Eve in Miller's Point, about a large family gathering for what may be the last Christmas in the family home, plays Causeway Street, and the Seaport.
  
  Elevation is a "nearly indestructible creatures overrunning the Earth" thing with the gimmick that these things can't survive above 8000 feet, with Anthony Mackie leading a mission for sea-level supplies; it's at Fresh Pond, Boston Common, and South Bay. Weekend in Taipei is one of those Luc Besson-produced mid-budget action pieces that we don't necessarily see enough of, but is kind of interesting because it's written and directed by George Huang, who did Swimming with Sharks 30 years ago and then seemingly odd jobs since, and if you want the Chinese audience, you would seemingly set it in any other city. At any rate, Luke Evans is the guy reuniting with a former lover (Gwei Lun-Mei) to take down an old enemy (Sung Kang), and it's at Boston Common, Causeway Street, and South Bay.
  
  Small Things Like These, a drama featuring Cillian Murphy as a working-class man who discovers abuse in a nearby convent/orphanage, opens at Fresh Pond and Boston Common. French sci-fi film Meanwhile on Earth (which I loved at Fantasia this summer), plays once a day at Boston Common.
  
  Documentary Fighting Spirit: A Combat Chaplin's Journey plays Boston Common.
  
  A contemporary Paris ballet production of Swan Lake plays Imax screens at Jordan's Furniture, South Bay, and Assembly Row. Andrea Bocelli 30: The Celebration, which has the famed tenor reminiscing and singing with the likes of Shania Twain, Will Smith, and Ed Sheeran, plays Boston Common, Causeway Street, and Arsenal Yards. Roxbury Film Festival selection Luther: Never Too Much, which examines the impact of Luther Vandross, plays South Bay. K-pop concert/doc Galaxy Fanmade: ENHYPEN plays Boston Common Friday and Saturday. Concert film Shawn Mendes: For Friends & Family Only plays Assembly Row on Thursday.
  
  Anora, already at the Coolidge, the Somerville Theatre, Kendall Square, Boston Common; the Seaport, Assembly Row, and Chestnut Hill, expands to West Newton, CinemaSalem, Causeway Street, and South Bay.
  
  There are early access screenings of Red One at Boston Common (Dolby Cinema), South Bay (Imax Xenon & Dolby Cinema), Assembly Row (Imax Laser & Dolby Cinema), and Arsenal Yards (CWX), on Sunday. There's also a "Screen Unseen" preview at Boston Common, Causeway Street, and Assembly Row on Monday. Boondock Saints gets more 25th anniversary screenings at Boston Common, the Seaport, and Assembly Row on Sunday. The A24 x Imax show at South Bay and Assembly Row on Wednesday is The Lighthouse.
• Another streaming awards hopeful, Apple's Blitz opens at The Coolidge Corner Theatre, the Somerville, Kendall Square, West Newton, and CinemaSalem this week, following the dangerous journey of a mixed-race child (Elliott Heffernan) trying to return to his mother (Saoirse Ronan) in London after having been sent to the countryside during the London Blitz.
  
  The weekend's David Lynch midnights at the Coolidge are Dune on Friday and Blue Velvet on Saturday, the former on film and the latter a digital restoration. Sunday's Noirvember matinee is Niagara (one of the few times Marilyn Monroe played the femme fatale), with post-film discussion led by Northeastern professor Nathan Blake; they also have The Killers on Tuesday, making for a very sexy week of noir. Monday's Big Screen Classic is When Harry Met Sally in 35mm (with a pre-film seminar in the classroom area). There's Open Screen on Tuesday, a special Panorama screening of A Real Pain on Thursday ahead of its Friday opening, and Pink Flamingos on Thursday, the start of a month of John Waters movies that includes the man himself visiting on the 21st to collect this year's Coolidge Award and do a Q&A.
• Landmark Kendall Square gets another one from Netflix, The Piano Lesson, the first feature from director Malcolm Washington, adapting August Wilson's play and starring brother John David Washington and Danielle Deadwyler as siblings clashing over what to do with the heirloom piano they inherited from their father, with Samuel L. Jackson as an uncle trying to mediate.
  
  Tuesday's Retro Replay film is Clint Eastwood comedy Every Which Way But Loose
• Busy week for South Asian cinema at Apple Fresh Pond, with Telugu-langauge thriller Ka (also at Causeway Street), Telugu-language drama Lucky Bhaskar, Tamil films Amaran (also at Boston Common), Hiindi-language horror-comedy Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 (also at Boston Common), and Hindi-language actioner Singham Again (also at Boston Common & the Seaport) all held over and several new ones: Telugu-language drama Jithender Reddy, a 20th-anniversary release of Shah Rukh Khan drama Veer-Zaara, Malayalam-language comedy I Am Kathalan, and Nepali drama Purna Bahadur Ko Sarangi. Away from the Pond, Telugu-language love story Dhoom Dhaam opens at Causeway Street. On Wednesday, Fresh Pond and Boston Common open Tamil action-fantasy Kanguva, with the struggles of a tribal warrior a thousand years ago and a modern cop linked.
  
  Two from the Chinas open at Causeway Street: The Unseen Sister is a nifty quasi-thriller in which an actress is visited by her sister, who is looking for her husband, who is blackmailing the actress because of something that happened when they were kids. Cesium Fallout is a Hong Kong disaster movie as a fire in a recycling center threatens to irradiate the entire city due to the cesium-137 that has been illegally dumped there. Andy Lau is the government expert, Bai Yu the firefighter on the ground.
  
  Anime spinoff Overlord: The Sacred Kingdom grabs some big screens this week, playing at Jordan's (Imax), Boston Common, South Bay, Assembly Row (including Imax Laser). Another anime spinoff, the first three episodes of Dragon Ball Daima, plays Sunday to Tuesday (dubbed) at Boston Common, South Bay, and Assembly Row.
  
  Vietnamese comedy The Trophy Bride, in which a poor family schemes to overcome the prejudice against inter-class marriages plays South Bay.
• The Brattle Theatre's Noirvember series intersects with the yearlong celebration of Columbia Pictures' 100th anniversary with a new 4k restoration of In a Lonely Place; Experiment in Terror & My Name Is Julia Ross on Saturday (the latter on 35mm and playing again Sunday morning); The Big Heat & Human Desire on Sunday; a 35mm double feature of The Sniper & Over-Exposed on Monday; and The Crimson Kimono (35mm) & Underworld USA. Marya E. Gates will be on-hand to introduce many showtimes, as well. Not Columbia and therefore only adjacent to the series is Friday's 35mm matinee, The Killing.
  
  The also have a RPM Festival presentation of "Landforms: Seven Films by Laura Kraning" on Sunday afternoon, and Boston Jewish Film Festival shows Saturday and Thursday.
• One screening only of 100 Yards at The Seaport Alamo on Friday night, which is a shame because it's a martial-arts banger. Aside from that, the weekly Wong Kar-Wai selection is Chungking Express, playing Friday/Saturday; Blazing Saddles Friday/Saturday; Drop Dead Gorgeous Saturday, the year's first sightings of Elf (Movie Party Sunday); Grave of the Fireflies Monday/Wednesday; an early-access screening of A Real Pain on Monday, National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation on Tuesday; and indie drama When Men Were Men on Thursday.
• The Capitol hosts the Arlington International Film Festival from Friday to Sunday.
  
  Mostly new releases at The Somerville Theatre this week, but they show independent documentary Food and Country on Wednesday.
• The Museum of Fine Arts has French sports bio Marinette as part of "Global Cinema Now" on Friday evening.
• The Boston Jewish Film Festival continues with shows at the Brattle on Saturday & THursday, the MFA on Sunday, the Center for the Arts in Natick on Monday, West Newton & Orchard Cove on Tuesday, the Coolidge on Wednesday.
• The Harvard Film Archive starts a new series, "The Yugoslav Junction: Film and Internationalism in the SFRY, 1957-1988, the weekend, with The Way Steel Was Tempered & "Merry Working Class" (35mm Saturday), a 16mm Vlatko Gilić program (Saturday), and Siberian Lady Macbeth & "Stone Sleeper"with an introduction by Tatiana Kuzmic (35mm Sunday). Alongside the series, they will also be streaming four episodes of Screening Room (a local movie-based talk show that the ABC affiliate ran in the 1970s) online.
  
  In addition to the films from the former Yugoslavia, they dip into the Jenni Olson Queer Film Collection for Neo Homo Promo, playing on 35mm film Sunday afternoon, and they also welcome filmmaker Natalia Almada for a screening of her film The Night Watchman on Monday evening.
• The Regent Theatre has film Beautiful Was the Fight, about women in the Boston music scene, on Wednesday evening with director Dave Habeeb and Amanda Palmer on had for a post-film Q&A.
• Movies at MIT has Big Hero 6 on Friday and Saturday; the email suggests you give them a heads-up if you're not part of the MIT community.
• The Lexington Venue has Blitz and Conclave Friday to Sunday as well as Tuesday & Thursday. They also show Playland, a fantasy about a night in one of Boston's best-known gay bars, on Thursday evening
  
  The West Newton Cinema picks up Anora (with a special "Behind the Scenes Panel" on Sunday), Blitz, Here, How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies, Venom 3, Conclave, The Wild Robot, and The Substance (no show Sunday). They also play The Breakfast Club on Friday and It's Always Fair Weather on Thursday evening.
  
  The Luna Theater has A Different Man Friday/Saturday, Music for Mushrooms Saturday, and They Live on Sunday. There's a Weirdo Wednesday show, and a free screenings of The Candidate, presented by UMass Lowell's Philosophy & Film series.
  
  Cinema Salem turns their schedule over completely now that they're past the Halloween hangover, playing Heretic, We Live in Time, Anora, and Blitz through Monday.
  
  If you can make it to the Liberty Tree Mall in Danvers, they have La Cocina, a drama featuring Raul Briones and Rooney Mara as ambition workers in a Times Square restaurant
• Joe's Free Films calendar shows two BU Albertine Cinematheque French Film Festival shows this week, The Innocent on Monday and The Goldman Case on Wednesday, both with post-film discussion and RSVPs requested.

Ugh, man, I want to go to all the noir and also catch Heretic, 100 Yards, Blitz, The Piano Lesson, Weekend in Taipei, and maybe Elevation and Conclave, and I am rapidly running out of time before the big holiday movies come out and I have a possibly movie-light vacation!

Fantasia in Theaters: 100 Yards (and Meanwhile on Earth, too!)

Go way back to the Fantasia vs Fantasia" preview four months ago, "Round 14" basically had me choosing between Azrael and 100 Yards, and contrary to what I wrote in July, I wound up going for 100 Yards - based on wanting the crowd for that one more and there being guests for Self Driver on Friday but maybe not Sunday. After all, I figured both Azrael and 100 Yards would have theatrical runs in Boston, though I figured 100 Yards would have the bigger one.

Turns out that wasn't the case - Azrael wound up playing once a day for a week at inconvenient times at Boston Common, and I wound up seeing it there (review on Letterboxd). I'd like to be able to say I guessed that something was wonky with the release for 100 Yards, but I didn't. I did see that it had been on the festival circuit for a year, without apparently getting an actual release in China, but didn't think much of it, and just figured that finding good release windows could be harder in China than in America, and this may be a great action movie, but it's specifically martial-arts movie (no CGI or explosions!), kind of an art-house action movie at that - writer/director Xu Haofeng can be an acquired taste. Near as I can tell, this didn't even get a proper release in China so much as one night using whatever the Chinese equivalent of Fathom Events is, right before the big wave of National Week films. Well Go likely couldn't play it in North America until that happened, and then all those National Week films were coming out here. Then when the North American release date comes, two other Chinese films - Cesium Fallout and The Unseen Sister, plus Weekend in Taipei co-starring Gwei Lun-Mei, wind up grabbing the screens that it would normally play on.

The upshot: It's getting one screening in the Boston area, a 9:45pm show on Friday at the Seaport Alamo, billed as "Fantastic Fest Presents". As I write this, it has sold no tickets, not even to friends of star Andy On driving up from Providence. It's worth checking out, though, and would be better with a crowd.

Speaking of Providence, they're actually getting a full schedule for Meanwhile on Earth, although that's also playing Boston Common Thursday to Wednesday. Mostly matinees - I think Sunday evening is the only time it plays Boston after 4pm all week - it's a scheduling strategy that often frustrates me, but I wonder if someone at AMC has data showing that French films mostly play to seniors and students who can catch this sort of matinee.


Men qian bao di (100 Yards)

* * * ½ (out of four)
Seen 2 August 2024 in Auditorium des diplômés de la SGWU (Fantasia 2024, laser DCP)
Not yet streaming in the USA, but listings for when it is

Xu Haofeng is the martial-arts lover's martial-arts filmmaker, to the point where his movies can feel almost as detached as the masters who will spend years honing a technique but would never be so crass as to get into a fight. Maybe it's the presence of a collaborator here (brother Xu Junfeng), but 100 Yards is not just his best work yet, but genuinely thrilling, the sort of film that is not just great entertainment but a demonstration of why he's so into this.

As the film opens in 1920, a martial arts master (Guo Long) in Tianjin lays dying, with son Shen An (Jacky Heung Cho) returning home, presuming he will inherit the school. Instead, Master Shen orders a duel between An and his top student Qi Quan (Andy On Zhijie). Quan wins just as the Master passes, taking control of the school, while An takes a job in a French-owned bank that his father has already arranged, and where mixed-race fiancée Xia An (Bea Hayden Kuo Bit-ting) is already a fixture (though his return also reunites him with Gui Ying (Tang Shiyi), a childhood friend and daughter of an allied master). An cannot bear the insult, though, and attempts to challenge Quan to a rematch, but there are strict rules about such things, enforced by Chairman Meng of the martial arts association (Li Yuan) and Quan's bodyguards. But when Quan starts talking about teaching martial arts to street fighters, foreigners, and other undesirables, some members of the association begin to covertly assist An.

It unfolds like a great novel from the start - the sort that characters in Wong Kar-wai movies write - immediately serving up an emotionally charged rivalry, adding dimensions, and building out a world that feels as if it is designed to do more than lead to fights or restrain people in the name of honor. The pieces beyond the margins feel like part of the story without being immediately relevant, and there's a level of corruption and compromise built into the martial world that Xu has occasionally shied away from. And while An eventually winds up more of a traditional protagonist, the movie becomes engrossing in large part because neither he nor Quan seems exactly wrong in their beliefs, and the shifting allies who likely have their own agendas toward the start keep things interesting. Add an extra level of soap with the secrets that both Xia An and Gui Ying harbor, and you've got a good hunk of pulp even before they start settling scores with fists, feet, swords, and anything else.

And, man, those fights are something else. If you stay to watch the end credits, you'll note how few stunt doubles are credited for a movie with so much action; the Xus have cast a bunch of genuine martial artists who know what they're doing; it lets them use fairly long takes where a bunch of moves are exchanged, and you can see the chess match going on within a fight that is just as good as the ways Quan and An try to misdirect each other before actually squaring off. They're some of the best on-screen fights you'll see, Xu Haofeng has not always been able to merge an enthusiast's interest in detail with a filmmaker's ability to thrill, but he does here, also bringing a teacher's clarity to make sure viewers understand the small details that a duel can hinge on. Aside from being terrific demonstrations of athleticism, it heightens the palpable sense of danger when An removes the tapes wrapped around weapons meant to keep fights non-lethal.

That many of the fighters are martial artists first and actors second doesn't make things dull or wooden, though; Jacky Heung and Andy On are screen fighters more than masters, and while they can move, they also dive into their roles with gusto Hayden Kuo and Tang Shiyi are excellent as the women in their lives, and the film is peppered with great supporting characters, few more entertaining than Li Yuan's Chairman Meng, who wears fantastically tailored men's suits, carries herself like a master with no need to actually fight, and comes off as a longtime friend of An's while still wielding plenty of authority.

Xu can still get self-indulgent at times: There are two man-versus-mob pieces toward the end when one would probably do (didn't we just do this?), and he seems a bit constrained by the period at times. I don't so much expect him to misrepresent it, but he does seem more concerned by the intricacies of the political maneuvering as an abstract than the ethics of it, and how this may be viewed a hundred years later, at times. And he twice has interesting characters shot out of nowhere without seeming particularly worried about who did it, because they have served their purpose in connecting the things he is really interested in.

Those things aside, this is a downright terrific example of the rival schools genre, one that should please both the most obsessive fans of real-world martial arts and those who want a good story with their action.

Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 1 November 2024 - 7 November 2024

Awards season starts with the Fall Focus in Boston.

• After the Friday-afternoon matinee of Out of the Past on 35mm, The Brattle Theatre is all in for the IFFBoston Fall Focus for the weekend, with Eephus and Devo Friday; The Seed of the Sacred Fig, All We Imagine as Light, On Becoming a Guinea Fowl, and Bird on Saturday; and Flow, Nickel Boys, Gaucho Gaucho, Hard Truths, and A Real Pain on Sunday, with the fest heading up the Red Line for its close on Monday.
  
  There's a free 35mm "Elements of Cinema" screening of Fright Night on Monday evening, and then after that they give folks a chance to chill out with 35mm shows of The Muppet Movie Monday to Wednesday.
• The new film from Robert Zemeckis, Here, reunites him with Forrest Gump writer Philip Roth and stars Tom Hanks and also has him toying with form in that the whole film is shot in the same location (a suburban living room) and the same angle, covering the life of the family that lives there and then some. It's at Fresh Pond, West Newton, Boston Common, Causeway Street, the Seaport, South Bay, Assembly Row, Arsenal Yards, and Chestnut Hill.
  
  Absolution, with Liam Neeson as another career criminal having a crisis of conscience and trying to reconcile with his family, plays Boston Common, Causeway Street, and South Bay.
  
  Boston Common seems to be the only place on the T playing Juror #2, possibly Clint Eastwood's final film, which stars Nicholas Hoult as the title character, who realizes that the trial he's been selected for is judge whether someone else is guilty of a crime he committed.
  
  Animated film Hitpig! is based on Berkley Breathed's children's book Peanut & Pickles, with Jason Sudeikis voicing a porcine bounty hunter who does have the heart to bring the escaped elephant (voice of Lily Singh) that he's been assigned to track. It's at the Capitol, Fresh Pond, Boston Common, and South Bay. Also opening for kids is Lost on a Mountain in Maine, the sort of family adventure Disney used to make, following a kid struggling to survive on Mt. Katahdin while the community mounts a rescue. That plays Fresh Pond.
  
  Anora, already at the Coolidge, Kendall Square, Boston Common; expands to the Somerville Theatre, the Seaport, Assembly Row, and Chestnut Hill this week, with Causeway Street coming next week. White Bird returns to theaters, playing Causeway Street and Arsenal Yards.
  
  Mostly late shows at Fresh Pond for Director's Cut, in which a punk band looks to shoot a music video but the director (Louis Lombardi) is a psycho.
  
  Coraline plays in RealD 3D at Boston Common and South Bay on Friday. Boston Common has an extra screening of Rocky Horror on Friday evening, in addition to the usual Saturday night show. There are early shows of The Best Christmas Pageant Ever at Boston Common, Assembly Row, Arsenal Yards, and Chestnut Hill on Saturday. John Wick has 10th anniversary shows at Boston Common, Causeway Street, South Bay, and Arsenal Yards on Sunday and Wednesday. Between the Temples returns to Boston Common for a mini-run Sunday to Tuesday. Boondock Saints has 25th anniversary shows at Boston Common, the Seaport, South Bay, and Assembly Row on Thursday.
• Netflix movie Emilia Pérez opens at The Coolidge Corner Theatre, Kendall Square, and the Seaport; it's a musical about a former drug cartel leader looking to restart her life. The Coolidge has in in 35mm for certain shows through Wednesday; it's got to share a screen with the 35m print of Anora, which plays house #1 in 35mm through Tuesday.
  
  The Coolidge also opens two independent films with special events: High Tide has Marco Pigossi as an undocumented Brazilian immigrant in Provincetown, with Pigossi on hand for a Q&A Friday evening. They also open Dahomey, a documentary which examines the return of various artifacts from a Paris museum to modern Benin. It's mostly matinees, but there is a special "Panorama" screening with experts on art curation and repatriation on Friday evening.
  
  Midnights in November feature David Lynch, with a 35mm print of Eraserhead on Friday and one of The Elephant Man on Saturday. Noirvember starts Sunday afternoon with Rebecca, with a post-screening discussion featuring Northeastern professor Nathan Blake up in the Engagement Center afterwards. Monday's Big Screen Classic is Robert Altman's 3 Women. Thursday features another screening of The Tingler in Percepto (do they wire up different seats each time, or do folks know which one tingles by now?), and a 35mm Cult Classic 35mm presentation of Blade Runner (the "final cut"). They also start a five-week "Behind the Screen: Analyzing Film from the Makers' Perspective" on Tuesday evening.
• Memoir of a Snail plays Landmark Kendall Square, Boston Common, and the Seaport. It's an Australian stop-motion film with Sarah Snook voicing an eccentric girl (she's really into snails) trying to cope with everyday life. Eric Bana and Jacki Weaver co-star, as they must in an Australian film.
  
  The Retro Replay at Kendall Square on Tuesday is Harold and Maude
• The Seaport Alamo begins a Wong Kar-Wai run of "Seaport Selects" with Days of Being Wild Friday to Sunday. They also have Election (Payne/Witherspoon/Broderick, not To & Yam) Friday/Saturday/Tuesday (cute), The Texas Chain Saw Massacre Friday/Monday/Tuesday, The Great Dictator Saturday, They Live Saturday/Tuesday, The Parallax View Sunday, and a Clueless movie party Wedneday.
• Happy Diwali! In addition to what opened last week to get a jump start on the Indian holiday - . Wednesday has three opening - Telugu-langauge thriller Ka (also at Causeway Street), Telugu-language drama Lucky Bhaskar, Tamil films Amaran (also at Boston Common), Bloody Beggar, and Brother - Apple Fresh Pond also opens.two Hindi-language franchise entries, with horror-comedy Bhool Bhulaiyaa 3 (also at Boston Common), an all-star cast of Ajay Devgn, Kareena Kapoor, Deepika Padukone, Ranveer Sing, Akshay Kumar, Tiger Shroff, and more in Singham Again (also at Boston Common & the Seaport), plus Kannada-language actioner Bagheera.
  
  Toho brings Godzilla Minus One back to theaters for the franchise's 70th anniversary, getting a full run at Boston Common, Causeway Street, the Seaport (including "Minus Color" shows), South Bay, and Assembly Row. For anime, AXCN presents Osamu Tezuka's Metropolis at Boston Common, South Bay, and Assembly Row on Sunday, Monday and Wednesday; aside from being a terrific anime, it's got an all-time great needle drop at the climax.
• The Somerville Theatre has a 70mm print of Vertigo to wrap their "A Bit of Hitch" series - which was apparently no guarantee, as the previous theater with the print they were supposed to show messed it up good. They keep using the big projector on Monday for the finale of IFFBoston's Fall Focus, running The Brutalist on 70mm film, and who knows if anyone will show it that way during its regular release? On Wednesday and Thursday, they have Warren Miller's 75, the latest package of ski movies in a line dating back to 1950.
  
  The Capitol has a Friday 4th Wall show featuring Lemon Truth, Today Junior, and Viruette, with Josh Artman on visuals. They also host the Arlington International Film Festival starting Thursday, with opening night film The Books He Did Not Burn (and short "Safety State").
• The Harvard Film Archive has another weekend of António Campos and the Promise of Cinema Nuovo, with Francisco Valente introducing What Will I Do With This Sword? and Loveless (35mm) on Friday, with Trás-os-Montes playing Sunday afternoon and Wild Stories Sunday evening Saturday is for Psychedelic Cinema, with Antonioni's Zabriskie Point and a 35mm print of Koyaanisqatsi separately; the series wraps on Thursday, with a free 35mm presentation of the Monkees in Head, introduced by Steven Biel and preceded by a 16mm print of James Whitney's "Lapis". On Monday, they have the biggest of Harry Smith's numbered films: Film No. 18 (Mahogany).
• The Museum of Fine Arts has I Saw the TV Glow on Friday evening.
• The Regent Theatre presents an AGFA Trailer Show double feature on Friday night, with two programs of trailers pulled from the American Genre Film Archive - The AGFA Horror Trailer Show and The Cult of AGFA Trailer Show - for a total of three-plus hours of preview for films of questionable quality. On Wednesday, they've got the "Girl Winter Film Tour", six shorts celebrating winter sports with poster signings and Q&As with some of the directors and athletes.
• Boston Jewish Film kicks off their annual festival on Wednesday with The Performance at the Coolidge, featuring a tap-dancing performance at the start and a Q&A with director Shira Piven and co-writer Joshua Salzberg. There will also be filmmakers at the Coolidge for Avenue of the Giants on Thursday, and at the Brattle for the FreshFlix shorts package the same night.
• Movies at MIT has Superbad on and Saturday; the email suggests you give them a head's up if you're not part of the MIT community.
• The Museum of Science has Coco on the Omni screen Friday and Saturday evenings.
• The Lexington Venue has We Live in Time and The Apprentice Friday to Sunday, and slight spooky season hangover with Halloween '78 and the Radiohead Nosferatu playing late-ish shows Friday and Saturday.
  
  The West Newton Cinema opens Here, How to Make Millions Before Grandma Dies, keeping Venom 3, Conclave, We Live in Time, The Goldman Case, The Apprentice (no listing Thursday), The Wild Robot, and The Substance. They also have a preview of Albany Road on Sunday.
  
  The Luna Theater has A Different Man Friday/Saturday, Music for Mushrooms Saturday, and Dr. Strangelove on Sunday. There's a Weirdo Wednesday show, and Don't Call Me Son, presented by UMass Lowell's Identity and LGBTQ+ Experiences film series.
  
  As you might imagine, Cinema Salem is not letting Halloween go with a fight, open Friday to Monday with Smile 2, Halloween '78, and Hocus Pocus Friday to Wednesday, and A Nightmare on Elm Street Saturday to Wednesday. They also host the Happenstance Horror Fest on Saturday, with two blocks featuring three short-film packages each.
  
  If you can make it to the Liberty Tree Mall in Danvers, they have Chasing Chasing Amy, a documentary on the impact Kevin Smith's film had on a queer kid in a small tow, and; The Carpenter, an action-oriented take on the Christian gospels (Jesus apparently had a Viking carpenter's apprentice).
• Joe's Free Films calendar shows one BU Albertine Cinematheque French Film Festival shows this week, Colette and Justin on Wednesday.

Tough balance between catching up and getting ahead this weekend with IFFBoston 2024.5 doing the same sort of insane 15-minute-turnaround-despite-intros-and-people-loitering normally only seen for BUFF. I'll probably go with most of that, 35mm evening at the Coolidge Tuesday, and maybe fit Juror #2 and Godzilla Minus One Minus Color in there somewhere.

Also, looking ahead to next week, two of my favorites from this year's Fantasia Fest are coming and it's nuts that the weird French sci-fi flick Meanwhile On Earth is getting a real run at Boston Common while the easy-to-sell wall-to-wall action of 100 Yards gets one show in the Seaport.

Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 25 October 2024 - 31 October 2024

Happy Halloween; it's almost the end of Nosferatu season, at least for a couple months.

• Venom: The Last Dance claims to be the series finale, with Tom Hardy and writer/director Kelly Marcel finally getting a chance to make one of these without some director who wants to make a normal movie interfering, apparently involving Knull, the symbiote King in Black, attacking earth. It plays the Capitol, Fresh Pond, Jordan's Furniture (Imax), West Newton, Boston Common (including Dolby Cinema & RealD 3D & Spanish subtitled shows), Causeway Street (including RealD 3D), Kendall Square, the Seaport (including Dolby Atmos), South Bay (including Imax Xenon 2D/3D & RealD 3D & Dolby Cinema), Assembly Row (including Imax Laser 2D/3D & RealD 3D & Dolby Cinema), Arsenal Yards (including CWX), and Chestnut Hill.
  
  Also out this week is Conclave, with Ralph Finnes as the cardinal in charge of the process to select a new pope, with Stanley Tucci, John Lithgow, and Isabella Rossellini in the supporting cast and apparently even more skullduggery than one might expect. It's at the Coolidge, West Newton, Boston Common, Causeway Street, Kendall Square, the Seaport, South Bay, Assembly Row, and Chestnut Hill.
  
  Your Monster plays at Boston Common; it stars Melissa Barrera as an actress who falls in love with the monster living in her closet (Tommy Dewey).
  
  Longlegs gets a full-week re-release including a pre-recorded Q&A and a preview of The Monkey at Boston Common, the Seaport, South Bay, and Assembly Row.
  
  The week's concert and music doc films include Tears for Fears Live (A Tipping Point Film) at Kendall Square, Boston Common, and the Seaport Saturday; Whitney Houston: The Concert for a New South Africa at Assembly Row Sunday; Luther: Never Too Much at Assembly Row Wednesday; Megan Thee Stallion: In Her Own Words at Assembly Row (Imax Laser) Wednesday, and Sabaton: The Tour to End All Tours at Boston Common Wednesday & Thursday.
  
  Five Nights at Freddy's is the "Blum Fest" show at Boston Common on Wednesday. Coraline has 3D shows at Boston Common and South Bay on Tuesday; Boston Common has an extra Rocky Horror Picture Show on Thursday; dunno if Full Body Cast is there like on Saturday nights.
• The Coolidge Corner Theatre gets a 35mm print of Sean Baker's new film Anora, which stars Mikey Madison as a call girl who has a whirlwind romance with a Russian heir whose parents do not approve and come to New York to get the marriage annulled. The shows on screen #1 are on film, the rest on DCP, and it also plays at Kendall Square and Boston Common; it expands to the Seaport and Assembly Row next week.
  
  Midnights at the Coolidge are a 35mm print of The Tomb Of Ligea for Friday's Corman show, with a digital restoration of Frankenhooker also playing on Friday, and the annual all-35mm Horror Marathon on Saturday. It kicks off with The Invisible Man '33 and The Fly '86, then has five more mad scientists before concluding at noon. For other spooky stuff, there's also a Kids' Show of Monster House on Saturday, Rosemary's Baby on Sunday, a 35mm print of A Nightmare on Elm Street (including a seminar by Ava M. Fields) on Monday, The Tingler in Percepto! On Wednesday, and a Scream Halloween House Party on Thursday with the first and fifth films in the series.
  
  Sunday's Goethe-Institut matinee is Elbow, with both director Aslı Özarslan and Fatma Aydemir, author of the source novel, on hand for a Q&A afterward. There's also The Manchurian Candidate on Tuesday with an introduction by Judge Nancy Gertner, and a Cinema Jukebox show of The Crow '94 on Wednesday. The latter two are kind of spooky-adjacent, but not quite Halloween movies.
• The Seaport Alamo appears to be the only place opening Magpie, which features Daisy Ridley as the mother of a child actress who begins to have suspicions of her husband when the girl is cast in a movie with a superstar; Other specials include Halloween '78 (Friday/Thursday), The Craft (Friday/Sunday/Tuesday), Wes Craven's New Nightmare (Saturday/Wednesday), Creature from the Black Lagoon (RealD 3D Sunday/Monday), The Guest (Monday/Tuesday), and a Rocky Horror Movie Party on Thursday.
• Landmark Kendall Square picks up My Name Is Alfred Hitchcock, a documentary of sorts which imagines the director rewatching his films in the 21st Century and reassessing them, with Alistair McGowan supplying the voice.
  
  Tuesday's Retro Replay at Kendall Square is Go and Wednesday's Fright Night Retro is Trick 'r Treat.
• Two new releases from India at Apple Fresh Pond starting Friday - Telugu-language action film Pottel and Malayalam-language thriller Pani. Wednesday has three opening - Ka (also at Causeway Street) and Lucky Bhaskar in Telugu and Amaran (also at Boston Common) in Tamil - with two more on Thursday, Tamil films Bloody Beggar and Brother. Held over (through Tuesday) are Tamil-language Vettaiyan (also at Boston Common) and Jigra (Hindi).
  
  Chinese thriller High Forces, directed by Oxide Pang with Andy Lau as a security expert aboard a hijacked airliner, is the last of the National Week movies to make its way stateside. It plays Causeway Street.
  
  Is Ghibli Fest still a "fest" if it continues year-round? This week, Kiki's Delivery Service plays Boston Common, South Bay, Assembly Row, and Arsenal Yards Sunday/Tuesday (dubbed) & Monday/Wednesday (subtitled); its also subtitled at Boston Common & Arsenal Yards on Saturday, but not at Arsenal Yards Tuesday & Wednesday. In other anime, Look Back stays around at Boston Common. Gundam Fest also continues (concludes?) with Mobile Suit Gundam III: Encounters in Space at Boston Common, South Bay, and Assembly Row on Sunday.
• The Brattle Theatre has the back half of the GlobeDocs Film Festival over the weekend, with Porcelain War and 2073 on Friday; Martha, Union, Recovery City< and Whatever It Takes on Saturday; and Local Shorts, Ernest Cole: Lost and Found, Separated, and Zurawski v Texas on Sunday.
  
  Friday's matinee is The Bride of Frankenstein on 35mm film. There's more Halloween stuff after the festival, with Kwaidan on 35mm film Monday, Evil Dead 2 on 35mm film Monday & Tuesday, Practical Magic with author Alice Hoffman on Tuesday, and Nosferatu with the Andrew Alden Ensemble on Wednesday.
  
  Then, on Thursday, they kick off the IFFBoston Fall Focus with Nightbitch and It's Not Me.
• The Harvard Film Archive continues António Campos and the Promise of Cinema Nuovo, with Trás-os-Montes (Friday 7pm), Mild Manners on 35mm (Friday 9:15pm), and The Vows on 35mm (Sunday 7pm). They also finish the Melville et Cie series with 35mm prints: Le Doulos (7pm Saturday), Claude Sautet's Max and the Junkmen (9:15pm Saturday), and Army of Shadows (3pm Sunday) Then on Monday, they have two more of Harry Smith's numbered films: Film No. 12 (Heaven and Earth Magic Feature) on 16mm film, as well as "Film No. 16 (Oz: The Tin Woodman's Dream)" on 35mm.
• The Regent Theatre has one show of Eno, Gary Hustwit's documentary about the ambient musician that is different each time, with a panel discussion on Friday night.
• The Somerville Theatre is doing a bunch of spooky stuff this week, with a double feature of 1986 heavy-metal horror film Trick or Treat presented by The Spooky Picture Show and Horror Arts Collective, with a secret second feature afterward. Later that night, the Midnight Special is Nosferatu with the Radiohead sync soundtrack. Sunday's "Silents, Please" show with Jeff Rpasis is The Bat, while the evening features a double feature of Basket Case & The Gate, the second in 35mm; Monday's is Night of the Creeps & Night of the Comet, with the second again being on film; same deal on Tuesday with Beetlejuice & Little Shop of Horrors; while both the original Friday the 13th & Halloween look to be digital. Halloween Night is Rocky Horror with Teseracte Players.
  
  The Capitol has a Saturday 4th Wall show featuring Pearl Sugar, Dress Better Please, and Kai Burns, with Digital Awareness on visuals.
• Movies at MIT has Dr. Strangelove or: Low I Learned to Stop Worrying and Love the Bomb on and Saturday; the email suggests you give them a head's up if you're not part of the MIT community.
• The Museum of Science has Coco on the Omni screen Friday and Saturday evenings.
• The Lexington Venue has We Live in Time and The Apprentice Friday/Saturday/Sunday/Thursday. For Halloween, they have 9pm shows of Longlegs Friday & Saturday and Halloween '78 Friday/Saturday/Thursday, with the Radiohead Nosferatu playing Saturday afternoon.
  
  The West Newton Cinema opens Venom 3, Conclave, We Live in Time, and The Goldman Case, , holding over Blink, Saturday Night, The Apprentice, The Wild Robot, and The Substance. They play ParaNorman on Sunday, War Game with post-film discussion on Tuesday, Get Out on Wednesday.
  
  The Luna Theater has Terrifier 3 Friday & Sunday, The Exorcist Saturday, Halloween '78 Saturday & Sunday, and The Texas Chain Saw Massacre Sunday.
  
  Cinema Salem is Friday to Wednesday but closed on Halloween, with Smile 2, Halloween '78, and Hocus Pocus Friday to Wednesday; Beetlejuice Beetlejuice Friday, Shaun of the Dead for the Friday Night Light show, global horror indie Beach Chain on Saturday, and A Nightmare on Elm Street Saturday to Wednesday. There are Universal Monsters movies pretty much all day from Friday to Tuesday.
  
  If you can make it to the Liberty Tree Mall in Danvers, they have Let's Start a Cult, Stavros Halkias as a cultist who missed the mass-suicide teaming up with the former leader to start things up again.
• Joe's Free Films calendar shows three BU Albertine Cinematheque French Film Festival shows this week: The Beast (with post-film discussion) on Friday, Lumumba: The Death of a Prophet on Tuesday, and Scarlet on Wednesday.

I am down for Venom 3, Conclave, Magpie, and High Forces while trying to fit in a 35mm Anora and maybe some Halloween stuff around the World Series. Also, I didn't get that HFA membership to not catch some of the last few Melville shows, especially Army of Shadows.

This Week in Tickets: 14 October 2024 - 20 October 2024 (China, Hitch, oddities)

So, I gather nobody's been seeing these, even though I've definitely been posting them!

(You're not buying it, are you?)

I've got several things I want to catch up with on this blog, from T.W.I.T. to FIlm Rolls to Fantasia to the festivals in between, and they feel nested in a way that I wasn't ever getting out of, so now I'm going to try to rotate and keep current and say "you know what, if this isn't done by bedtime it gets a really quick finish tomorrow morning before work because it is cutting into 'watching more movies' time".

Anyway, it was a fairly fun and busy week, starting off with a Chinese double feature - Tiger Wolf Rabbit being a fairly serviceable thriller from the mainland and Stuntman is a more ambivalent ode to Hong Kong movies than is typical. I must admit, I can't help but wonder what moving the Chinese and Korean films from Boston Common to Causeway Street is doing to their audience; even if it is leading to theater splits that make double features easier.

The middle of the week (around watching some baseball) was given to watching some Hitchcock at the Somerville. Marnie on Tuesday was a nice 35mm print, and Frenzy on Thursday in a new-ish 4K remaster. They're both what I call "post-peak Hitchcock" in the reviews, made after the late-1950s masterpieces and perhaps in some ways more interesting compared to what other folks were doing in the 1960s and early 1970s than the rest of Hitch's career, because other genre filmmakers had started internalizing his lessons.

Friday evening was a trip to Kendall Square for Rumours, the new Guy Maddin that I wish I liked a bit more, then Saturday morning I headed out to the Seaport for the re-release of Tarsem Singh's restored The Fall, two filmmakers who can be niche but also have incredible style.

Then I wrapped the weekend with a couple of movies that AMC basically scheduled against each other and made difficult to see during the week, more or less carving out the weekend's late afternoons: Kensuke's Kingdom on Saturday was a nice little animated film from the UK, and Panda Plan on Sunday was the latest Jackie Chan film. The most amusing thing about it, perhaps, was that I skipped a film of his at Fantasia figuring Well Go or someone would release it in the USA, but apparently not before his next one.

Anyway - my Letterboxd account is genuinely more reliable than this, although full of spelling errors and hastily composed thoughts that get sorted out here.


Yu Huo zhi Lu (Tiger Wolf Rabbit)

* * ½ (out of four)
Seen 14 October 2024 in AMC Causeway Street #4 (first-run, laser DCP)
Not yet streaming in the USA, but listings for when it is

There are a couple moments in Tiger Wolf Rabbit when the filmmakers try to pull back from what has become a movie perhaps too dour and grim to get audiences to the finish, and the result is just mild disbelief. It's better than outright whiplash of going from talking about child abduction to romantic comedy material and back again, but the filmmakers don't quite have the knack for taking a little step away from the abyss or occasionally touching solid ground that keeps the audience from drifting away.

It's a movie that really doesn't come together until the second half, like the filmmakers know the three characters they need for later but can't really get them to work together before the main story kicks in. It opens with some striking scenes, but kind of drags between introducing the oddly mismatched trio - Cui Dalu (Yang Xiao), a just-released convict whose child was abducted; Li Hongyng (Zhao Zanilla), the woman he hooked up while searching for his son and wound up running scams with; and Zhao Zishan (Liu Ye), a mysterious figure who wants to hire Dalu to find a worse criminal - and giving them a big mission. That mission, it turns out, is pretty good. It's fragmented, sure, but you can see them building a movie to get there.

I don't know that the full story of the film really holds up; it often feels like the screenwriters came up with its two halves separately and stitched them together the best they could; the screenplay gets the story through but every previously-unrevealed thing about the characters feels more useful for explaining their next steps than making any sense of their previous ones. The cast is good, and vibe well when they're allowed to, but there's a segment in the middle where the characters are literally lost and pulled out via a weird deux ex machina, like the writers had no idea to how to get things to come together naturally.

There's style to the film, too; it feels like the folks involved sought out parts of China that seldom show up on screen and made the most of striking landscapes and village architecture. The big visual swings and plot twists are probably more memorable than things in many more sensibly constructed movies, to the point where it impresses more than it disappoints, even if the result isn't quite the sum of the parts.


Stuntman

* * ½ (out of four)
Seen 14 October 2024 in AMC Causeway Street #4 (first-run, laser DCP)
Not yet streaming in the USA, but listings for when it is

Stuntman starts out with what feels like a really good Police Story pastiche and gets interesting when that not only goes awry but the film fast-forwards to the present day and tempers its nostalgia for old-school Hong Kong action.

After the energetic stunt show, and the horrible accident at the end, it has once-famed action director Sam Lee (Stephen Tung Wai) running a little first aid clinic, catering mostly to former stuntmen who are now taking shifts as security guards and the like. At a martial-arts society reunion, he meets old friend Cho (To Yin-Gor), a director who wants him to handle the action on a movie he's putting together with action superstar Wai (Philip Ng Wan-Lung), who had been a suntman in Sam's crew but now has his own. Sam hires Lee Sam-Lung (Terrence Lau Chun-Him), who is just about ready to give up stunts to work at his brother's logistics business as the stunt co-ordinator, all while trying to prepare for the wedding of daughter Cherry (Cecliia Choi Si-Wan), though most of the father-of-the-birde work is going to her stepfather.

DIrectors Herbert Leung Kun-Seun and Albert Leung Koon-Yiu - I think they're brothers - have stuntwork bona fides and I wouldn't be terribly shocked if every piece of this movie was based on a real anecdote or experience. What's notable is that they present both the bits about making a movie and what comes after with remarkable clarity; where some may have blind spots about their life's work, the Leungs show what an action director does compared to a stunt co-ordinator, for instance, and what working-class jobs these actually are. Most importantly, while many fans of Hong Kong film and bigger names like Sammo Hung will often look back at the industry's heyday and talk about how a month would be spent on a single fight despite the guerilla filmmaking, they recognize that it was tremendously dangerous, and folks like "Heartless Sam" were a big part of the reason why. Perhaps the key thing they capture is that someone like Sam can be very good at his job and also extremely dangerous; the film's centerpiece is one that many films would play as a thrilling caper but which instead feels like Sam is going to get someone killed.

Hong Kong action is a complicated legacy and the film isn't completely successful at grappling with it; it's too fascinated by Sam to really give sufficient space to the younger characters who maybe want to be smarter about things even when he proves to be a terrible role model. It doesn't exactly help that Stephen Tung Wai has a wonderfully weathered face but never feels as natural as nearly everyone else in the cast as an actor, especially during the scenes with Cecilia Choi, where his smiling too wide and trying too hard only start to feel like something the character does rather than the actor in retrospect. The film is also big on "Hong Kong Spirit", not so much in a way that feels like it's meant to contrast with anywhere else, but also not in a way that examines it. Is it just doing more than such a tiny place should, stretching yourself past the breaking point no matter what, or...?

The stonework is legit, at least - Tung and the directors have extensive stunt backgrounds and know their stuff - and while I suspect the filmmaking is simplified, it's nicely grounded and doesn't seem interested in romanticizing the process too much.


Marnie

* * * (out of four)
Seen 15 October 2024 in Somerville Theatre #1 (A Bit of Hitch, 35mm)
Available to rent/purchase digitally on Prime or elsewhere; 4K and DVD available on Amazon

Perhaps the most entertaining thing about Marnie is that you can see Hitchcock trying to coax a James Stewart or Cary Grant performance out of his lead, who absolutely cannot be anything but Sean Connery. He knew the power of movie stars, but Connery was just starting to be James Bond and broaden his own screen persona beyond that as the film was shooting, so maybe Hitch wasn't fully familiar with his new tool yet.

Connery plays the wealthy head of a publishing company who recognizes the title character (Tippi Hedren) as the woman who robbed her previous job when she applies for work as a secretary but is nonetheless fascinated by her, covering up her crimes and blackmailing her into marriage. There's the makings of an intense thriller there, but Hitchcock, perhaps, is not the man to make it; his world view seems locked into seeing Marnie as the broken women driven to crime by previous psychological trauma and Connery's Mark Rutland mostly holding her tight so that he can see how to fix her. There's a moment - perhaps the film's best - when Hitchcock or screenwriter Jay Presson Allen seem quite happy to undermine the idea, as Marnie mocks Rutland's psychological approach, saying she's seen all the same movies, but hanging a lantern on those issues isn't exactly rising above it. The whole thing might be better off acknowledging Rutland as kind of a bastard and letting Marnie own her choices move, even if they don't wind up together.

Heck, you can see how that works in the second best thing about the movie, watching Diane Baker's Lil mature from bratty to bitchy before the audience's eyes; she's never a conventional good girl but it's tough to really dislike her as she's doing interesting things around the edges, even if it she is working at cross-purposes to the film's central romance. There are also a couple other impressive scenes - the bit where Marnie steals from the safe is a clinic in presenting such a basic bit of crime as genuinely tense, and the way Hitchcock and Hedren present Marnie's panic during the hunt (where she should feel safe and assured) is great as well - but they're often exceptions, the parts the filmmakers can make singe even if what's around them aren't as great.

The movie is very much post-peak Hitchcock: Elaborate psychological constructs, a script stuck between explicit and euphemistic, and an underlying meanness where a younger Hitch would have found chemistry and affection.


Frenzy

* * * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 17 October 2024 in Somerville Theatre #1 (A Bit of Hitch, 4K laser DCP)
Available to rent/purchase digitally on Prime or elsewhere; 4K and DVD available on Amazon

Fifty years later, Frenzy feels like it's in a weird, in-between spot, where a casual viewer might not be able to tell where Alfred Hitchcock is ahead of the times, where he's catching up, and where his experiments are having mixed results. It's good, but there are moments when I'd wonder what he's getting at; it can feel like a Monty Python sketch, and Hitchcock's dark sense of humor means it could be a joke or the sort of thing the Pythons were spoofing.

(And that's setting aside stuff like the joke about how exotic and terrible a "Margarita" is, which has aged about as well as James Bond scoffing at the Beatles)

Some of those bits are obvious bad ideas, like a long recap of what has already happened that exists to beat the joke about the detective's wife's cooking into the ground. Sometimes I wondered whether stuff like using a freeze-frame instead of holding a shot was meant to be unnerving or not. Other times, Hitchcock seems to be trying to get every morbid gag he's ever thought of in during what he probably figures will be one of his last few films.

But, on the other hand, some pieces are legitimately great. The armchair psychoanalysis might be terrible, but the way the killer slides from affable to vicious is genuinely terrific, and a scene where the camera seems to nervously back away from a murder and then wait for the body to be found feels about three layers deep. The film tortures by waiting just a little too long, but not so much that giggling breaks out. It's mean, and the results of murder are undignified in a way that makes the whole idea even more awful.

At times, it feels like Hitchcock wants to scratch the same itch as Psycho but knows folks will compare the two films and maybe tries too hard to differentiate between them (and his other "wrong man" stories). But it works more often than not, and looks gorgeous to boot.

Previous review (2013)


Rumours

* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 18 October 2024 in Landmark Kendall Square #9 (first-run, DCP)
Available to pre-order digitally on Prime; not yet streaming in the USA, but listings for when it is

Everything about Rumours feels like it should not just be a lot of fun, but work well together: Guy Maddin (And his frequent collaborators)! Bog body zombies! At the G7 summit! With a giant brain! And a fun cast, including an increasingly game-for-anything Cate Blanchett! And yet, it resolutely fails to come together. One of cinema's greatest weirdos seems too timid to be absurd or satiric.

You can tell early on, too, when the leaders are chummy but won't say what sort of crisis they are meeting to discuss, and then seem like they're being taxed to write out platitudes. In 2024, it seems like the weakest jokes you can make about politicians, even if the G7 feels like a lot of empty hype (has anything concrete actually emerged from one?); if you're making them, put some tension in it. Make them seem paralyzed into politeness rather than empty. Or maybe go all in on absurdity, which is often this group's specialty, but they seldom push a joke past odd into weird or unnerving territory. Rumours is all the little bits a movie puts in between the big gags that you might miss, elevated to the foreground.

When the jokes land and linger, the film can be pretty fun - a late gag with the Canadian Prime Minister going for the land acknowledgment in an emergency feels downright clever for instance. The cast is admittedly terrific: Everybody seems to at least be digging into the various bits of pompous dignity of their characters, with Roy Dupuis (as Canada's virile, scandal-plagued PM) and Denis Ménochet (as France's intellectual President) in particular making off with any scene that's not tied down. It's also very fun to see Maddin's silent-influenced style emerge from a movie that initially looks downright normal, especially once one learns that they have taken an actual forest and used lighting and smoke to make it look like a set. The melodramatic score is fun.

The filmmakers just don't seem to know how to connect all those ideas that probably seemed like they would write themselves once that failed to happen.


The Fall

* * * ½ (out of four)
Seen 19 October 2024 in Alamo Boston #4 (re-release, laser DCP)
Available to rent/purchase digitally on Prime or elsewhere; original DVD available on Amazon (new one likely on the way)

The Fall is arguably one of the great cinematic follies of our time, and that's no insult: It's just acknowledging that there's clearly a lot of time, money, and effort poured into a film that was probably never going to connect with a mainstream audience unless it got very lucky. It's a folly, but one that's worth being in the world. The world is richer for having such things in it.

And it's worth checking out during this re-release, even if it hadn't been cleaned up and presented as the finest digital file possible. The film is more eye-poppingly gorgeous than one likely remembers, for a start, even if you remember it looking pretty good; 15 years of movies being increasingly built inside machines rather than from figuring out how to populate a grand landscape or striving for consistency rather than this movie's glorious contradictions makes something like this harder to conceive even in memory, as we often remember things in relation to other things, and that can cause something as singular as this to fade precisely because there's nothing like it. Watching it for the first time in years allows it to stun anew because there is very little like, say, a scene where an elaborately-costumed army makes their way down an almost Escher-like series of stairs in sync.

The script often seems shaggier than the precisely-planned visuals, and the fact that it's a bit of meta-commentary - Roy's story shifts and expands and contracts to capture his young visitor's attention to a purpose - the viewer can perhaps see that a bit too plainly. It stays to grind at a certain point, but then, the movie is about to change, and perhaps wearing out its welcome keeps the audience from rejecting the shift, and Tarsem's choice to plunge what had spent a lot of time as a children's story with dark undertones into not just darkness but despair can feels audacious: There's no winking or quipping, but the sincerity is powerful, and Tarsem isn't trying to impress us so much as be honest about how hard crawling out can be.

The filmmaker never got to make this sort of big swing again, but what a thing to spend your credit on.


Kensuke's Kingdom

* * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 19 October 2024 in AMC Boston Common #6 (first-run, laser DCP)
Not yet streaming in the USA, but listings for when it is

Kensuke's Kingdom certainly starts out in that easily-maligned category of "British animated films that look kind of cheap but somehow have an amazing voice cast", but happily grows into something better. The language barrier that never really gets bridged forces it to be more visual, and the filmmakers are wise to keep the scale manageable.

And it could be easy for it to seem too big, opening with Michael (voice of Aaron MacGregor) sailing around the world at some point in the 1990s, presumably, with his parents (voices of Cillian Murphy & Sally Hawkins) and older sister (voice of Raffey Cassidy), none too pleased about supposedly leaving his dog stella behind, though he's somehow managed to smuggle the pup on board and keep him hidden for days despite being not that great a sailor otherwise. It all leads to him being swept off the deck during a storm, landing on a seemingly deserted island, although eventually he'll meet Kensuke (voice of Ken Watanabe), who appears to have been there since World War II.

It's kind of wobbly at times, but the filmmakers are wise to lavish attention on what will get the most benefit: They quietly show how ow great it is to have a dog in this situation, lovingly render tropical animals, and make sure Kensuke's those doesn't look like a CGI effect on the middle of a hand-drawn film, as can happen. Heck, it happens here, as a choppy sea and the boat upon it are clearly created using different methods. The style switch to show his origins is very nice, and the animators give him a lot of dignity without making him stiff.

The filmmakers do sometimes seem to have a bit of trouble with how to tell the best part of the story; one suspects that the heart of the original book is Michael and Kensuke somehow getting to know each other without being able to speak, but that's probably more internal and time-consuming than the film can likely manage, while Michael remains a rather passive part of the story. The introduction of an external danger sometimes feels like something needs to be going on, but feels like an interruption more than a climax.

Still, as these small family movies which are fortunate to get one show a day for a week go, it's pretty decent.


Xiong Mao Ji Hua (Panda Plan)

* * (out of four)
Seen 20 October 2024 in AMC Causeway Street #3 (first-run, laser DCP)
Not yet streaming in the USA, but listings for when it is

You don't have to do this, Jackie Chan. You're a seventy-year-old legend who has recently expressed a fair amount of interest in being seen as a serious filmmaker rather than a clown. You don't have to sign up for the movie with the CGI panda cub, ego-puffing self-referentiality, and action scenes where everyone can see you've lost a step. You can just do one movie a year, play mentor on and off the screen, and just enjoy the fruits of an incredibly successful career.

Maybe someone gave Jackie that advice before Panda Plan, which takes what must have at one point seemed like a clever idea for a movie - action movie star gets caught up in the middle of a plan to steal baby pandas while at a symbolic "adoption ceremony" - and just sucks the life out of it. Part of it is probably Chan's ego - when going meta, he's willing to have people joke about his nose and make himself look like a goofball, but he's not going to let folks take out the knives like Andy Lau did in The Movie Emperor - which means that a lot of this movie is heroes and villains alike fawning over Jackie-the-character and he never quite plays himself as an older man who needs choreography in a way that would add tension. The filmmakers don't spend much of their Dairy Queen product placement money on actors who can play English-speaking mercenaries like people who actually speak English. The effects work isn't great and the last stretch is a cringe-worthy attempt to give the heartstrings an unwarrented tug.

(It's interesting that Jackie has a line about receiving an Oscar, though; it's clearly what he says, rather than subtitles, and while he did receive an honorary award in 2015, I wonder if this takes place in an alternate universe where The Diary got made out he didn't pass on Everything Everywhere All at Once. Plus you kind of expect him to go with the Mainland China equivalent these days)

Of course, Jackie Chan can star in a movie like this and get a National Week release because he knows the ropes as well as anybody ever has, and it's not just habit to smile as he slips through gaps in leaders or dodges punches. He may not be as spry as he was, but the choreography is still pretty good, inventive and funny, and there's a moment when things slow down enough to let Jackie talk about why he loves making movies where we're reminded of his genuine charisma and how good he can be given a chance to play it straight.

Sometimes you can say that the rest of the movie is worth it for those good bits, but this isn't one of them; it's a bit that could fit in many other movies and have the whole thing be much better.

Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 18 October 2024 - 24 October 2024

Happy "no more Smile 2 trailer" day to those who celebrate!

• The preview disappears because Smile 2 hits theaters, with Naomi Scott as a pop star who is menaced by the killer expression or entity that makes people smile or whatever this series's deal is. It's at Fresh Pond, CinemaSalem, Boston Common (including Dolby Cinema), Causeway Street, The Seaport, South Bay (including Dolby Cinema), Assembly Row (including Dolby Cinema), Arsenal Yards, and Chestnut Hill.
  
  Also opening pretty wide is We Live in Time, with Florence Pugh and Andrew Garfield as a couple who meet cute when she hits him with her car, have a kid, and then face a cancer diagnosis. It's at the Coolidge, the Somerville, Boston Common, Kendall Square, South Bay, Assembly Row, Arsenal Yards, and Chestnut Hill; it expands to South Bay next weekend.
  
  While his returning to a character after 35+ years is still playing in theaters, Michael Keaton does a new riff on Mr. Mom after 40+ years, which means that Goodrich has him seeking help from the daughter from his first marriage (Mila Kunis), and if that doesn't make you feel old enough, it's written & directed by by Hallie Meyers-Shyer, who is, yes, the daughter of Nancy Myers and Charles Shyer. It's at Boston Common and Causeway Street.
  
  Exhibiting Forgiveness plays Boston Common and South Bay, with André Holland as an artist on the rise whose addict father arrives and disrupts his life.
  
  Two new animated films get one-show-at-Boston-Common-a-day releases you have to work around. Gracie & Pedro: Pets to the Rescue has a couple of pets lost during a move trying to find their family (with some fun folks doing supporting voices), while Kensuke's Kingdom has a shipwrecked boy trying to survive alone - although maybe there is some other presence on the island after all.
  
  Hocus Pocus is now apparently a holiday tradition, getting a run at Fresh Pond, Boston Common, and South Bay.
  
  Several concert films this week: Taeyong: Ty Track in Cinemas at Boston Common Saturday; Tom Petty: Heartbreakers Beach Party at the Kendall and Boston Common on Sunday, Whitney Houston: The Concert for a New South Africa at Assembly Row on Wednesday; and Tears for Fears Live: A Tipping Point Film at Kendall Square, Boston Common, and the Seaport on Thursday.
  
  Back to the Future Part II gets 35th anniversary shows on Saturday & Monday at Boston Common, Causeway Street, South Bay, Assembly Row, and Arsenal Yards (Monday only); Saw plays Boston Common and South Bay Sunday & Wednesday for its 20th. There's a Screen Unseen preview at Boston Common, Causeway Street, and Assembly Row on Monday. There are previews of Memoirs of a Snail at the Seaport on Tuesday and Assembly Row on Wednesday, the latter with a livestreamed Q&A. The A24 x Imax showing at South Bay, Assembly Row on Wednesday is The Witch, while Longlegs also returns to Boston Common, the Seaport, and South Bay with a prerecorded Q&A (and preview of The Monkey) on Wednesday & Thursday, and Boston Common also shows Black Phone on Wednesday . Some of the Imax Venom: The Last Dance early shows on Thursday are "Opening Night Fan Event" presentations, including at South Bay and Assembly Row.
• Rumours opens at Landmark Kendall Square, with the directing team of Guy Maddin, Evan Johnson, and Galen Johnson attacking the G7 Summit with zombies, with the heads of state played by a group including Cate Blanchett, Alicia Vikander, Roy Dupuis, and Charles Dance. It's also at West Newton, Boston Common, and South Bay, which means absolutely unsuspecting people will be hit with Maddin-level weirdness.
  
  There's a "Landmark First Look" on Monday; a Tuesday Retro Replay of Election with a (livestreamed?) Q&A of Alexander Payne, Reese Witherspoon, and Matthew Broderick; and a Wednesday Fright Night Retro Replay of Gremlins.
• The Coolidge Corner Theatre also opens a couple in the 14-seat GoldScreen. The Goldman Case comes from France and chronicles a pivotal trial of the 1970s where a left-wing activist was accused of murder and the fallout divided the country on partisan and racial lines, and documentary Leap of Faith follows a group of American Christian leaders at a retreat in Michigan.
  
  Last call for The Texas Chain Saw Massacre at midnight on Friday, well, for a while, at this location. Friday's 35mm Corman midnight is Tales of Terror, while Saturday has a 35mm print of William Friedkin's Director's Cut of The Exorcist on screen #1 and Dinner in America on screen #2, including a (very late) post-film Q&A with director Adam Rehmeier and producer Ross Putman.
  
  Sunday afternoon includes a Panorama screening of Invisible Nation with director Vanessa Hope and producer Ted Hope discussing their film about Tsai Ing-wen, Taiwan's sitting president (and the first woman to have the job). There are two "Schlock and Awe" screenings of The Tingler in Percepto! on Monday (the 70m show including a seminar by Mark Anastasio), and a 35mm Big Screen Classic show of Eyes WIthout a Face on Thursday.
• Relatively quiet week for new Indian movies with Diwali less than two weeks away, with Malayalam thriller Bougainvillea the only new release at Apple Fresh Pond. Held over are Tamil-language Vettaiyan (also at Boston Common), Jigra (Hindi), and Janaka Aithe Ganaka (Nepali); Devara: Part 1 returns for one Telugu-language show Saturday night.
  
  The week's Chinese movies are Stand By Me, with Karry Wang as a homeless teenager who bonds with an abandoned child played by Zixie Guan, and Panda Plan, with Jackie Chan playing "movie star Jackie", who winds up paired with a baby panda that has poachers or animal smugglers or something after him. Both are at Causeway Street.
  
  Vietnamese horror film The Sisters opens at South Bay.
  
  In anime, My Hero Academia: You're Next! continues at Fresh Pond, Boston Common, Causeway Street, South Bay, and Assembly Row; Look Back stays around at Boston Common. Gundam Fest also continues with Mobile Suit Gundam II: Soldiers of Sorrow at Boston Common, South Bay, and Assembly Row on Sunday, with Mobile Suit Gundam III: Encounters in Space on Wednesday.
• The Brattle Theatre has a 35mm presentation of An American Werewolf in London at 3:30pm Friday They also have Stop Making Sense Friday & Saturday nights and Sunday morning for… Well, they don't particularly need a reason. They've also got locally-made Captain Dymo vs. The Cowmaster, shot on 16mm film in the mid-1970s but only put through post-production recently, on Saturday afternoon. RPM Fest presents Sasha Waters: "Labor and Parts" on Sunday afternoon.
  
  Those are mostly scheduled around the back half of Roger Corman: King of Cult, which also features some of the art-house films he imported: The Student Nurses & Caged Heat Friday, a single bill Amarcord on 35mm Saturday, a double feature of Chopping Mall & Piranha later Saturday; Autumn Sonata on 35mm Sunday afternoon; Rock 'n' Roll High School & Suburbia Sunday evening; Galaxy of Terror & Battle Beyond the Stars on Monday; Stripped to Kill on Tuesday; The Slumber Party Massacre & The Slumber Party Massacre II on Wednesday; and a 35mm print of Death Race 2000 on Thursday to wind things up.
• The Harvard Film Archive begins a new series this weekend, António Campos and the Promise of Cinema Nuovo, with Belarmino & Campos's short "The Tuna Trap" (Friday 7pm), Change of Life (Friday 9:15pm), Paths (Sunday 3pm), Vilarinho das Furnas (Sunday 7pm), and a double feature of Campos's Falamos de Rio de Onor & Gente de Praia da Vieira on Monday evening; the Sunday and Monday evening shows will have conversations with José Manuel Costa and Haden Guest. Saturday, they have two "Psychedelic Cinema" shows: Kenneth Anger's shorts "Lucifer Rising" & "Inauguration of the Pleasure Dome" on 16mm film at 7pm and Alejandro Jddorowsky's El Topo on 35mm film at 8:30pm.
• The Somerville Theatre has a bunch of live events in the big room over the weekend, which means even Saturday's midnight show - Onur Tukel's serial killer flick Poundcake - is downstairs. Sunday's Attack of the B-Movies double feature is surprisingly good, though, with Vincent Price in House on Haunted Hill & The Last Man on Earth. Independent documentary Holding Back the Tide, which examines the oyster as a onetime major New York industry and queer icon, also plays Sunday afternoon, with director Emily Packer and writer/producer Josh Margolis on hand for a Q&A. On Monday, though, they start a three-day run of North by Northwest on 70mm film. On Thursday, they show the 2024 Quality Ski Time packages of short films.
  
  The Capitol has a specia screening of Empire Waist with a Q&A featuring director Claire Ayoub as well as a book signing and sample sale. Thursday's Creature Double Feature is Frankenstein & The Bride of Frankenstein. The Friday Fourth Wall show features Cal Fish, Forbes Graham, Leathe Projection, and Rachel Devorah with visuals by Black Tourmaline.
• The Museum of Fine Arts hosts The Boston Palestine Film Festival with The Teacher on Friday, Life is Beautiful and Aida Returns on Saturday, and a short film package on Sunday. Sunday evening, they present "speculative documentary" Lyd at the Coolidge; experimental short "Familiar Phantoms" is paired with documentary feature Three Promises at the MassArt and Design Center Monday; documentary No Other Land plays The Regent Theatre on Wednesday; and featurette "From Ground Zero (Part 1)" plays the Brattle on Thursday.
• The Seaport Alamo continues showing the new restoration of Tarsem Singh's The Fall, which also plays at the Coolidge. The Alamo also has The Shining Friday, Saturday, and Monday; World of Animation shows of Coraline (2D, I think) on Sunday & Tuesday; Cronenberg's The Brood on Monday; and A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors on Tuesday & Wednesday
• Movies at MIT has The Rocky Horror Picture Show with Full Body Cast for free on Friday (they will, as usual, be at Boston Common on Saturday), although the email suggests you give them a head's up if you're not part of the MIT community.
• The Museum of Science will be showing Coco on the Omni screen for two weekends, starting on the 25th.
• The Lexington Venue has Rumours, Saturday Night and The Apprentice Friday/Saturday/Sunday/Wednesday/Thursday. Locally produced family Halloween movie The Hay Man plays Saturday, and Nosferatu has another Radiohead-synced show on Thursday.
  
  The West Newton Cinema has a fancy new website that shows them getting Rumours and Blink while keeping Saturday Night, The Apprentice, White Bird, Lee (no shows Saturday/Sunday), The Wild Robot, and The Substance. The Halloween movie for Wednesday is The Purge: Election Year, and they've got Jeff Rapsis in on Thursday to accompany Nosferatu.
  
  The Luna Theater has Terrifier 3 Friday and Sunday; Creepshow on Saturday; Roger Corman's The Raven on Sunday (presented by Poe in Lowell and with local horror host Penny Dreadful for the 2pm show); a Weirdo Wednesday show; and a free presentation of Election from UMass Lowell's Philosophy department on Thursday.
  
  Cinema Salem has Smile 2 Friday/Saturday/Sunday/Wednesday/Thursday; A Nightmare on Elm Street Friday/Sunday/Wednesday/Thursday, The Monster Squad Friday/Saturday/Sunday (plus doc Wolfman's Got Nards on Sunday); The Texas Chain Saw Massacre Friday/Saturday/Sunday; Rocky Horror with Teseracte Players on Saturday; Halloween '78 Saturday/Wednesday/Thursday, a potential Universal Monsters triple-feature of The Wolf Man, Dracula, and Frankenstein on Wednesday; then another on Thursday Frankenstein, Bride of Frankenstein, and Creature from the Black Lagoon (plus Dracula in the same slot as Frankenstein).
  
  If you can make it to the Liberty Tree Mall in Danvers, they have Allswell in New York, about three Nuyorican sisters played by Elizabeth Rodriguez, Liza Colon-Zayas, and Daphne Rubin-Vega; it seems to have kicked around a bit since playing Tribeca in 2022.
• Someone hit the "suddenly cold" button, so consider the two outdoor screenings on the Joe's Free Films calendar this week at your own risk There's the Vancouver INternational Mountain Film Festival at the MIT open space on Friday and BeetleJuice on the Rose Kennedy Greenway on Thursday. There's also an RSVP-required show of Made in Germany? at the Harvard Art Museum on Sunday and a BU Albertine Cinematheque French Film Festival presentation of The Animal Kingdom on Thursday, with author Victor Dixen on-hand (who doesn't seem to be connected with the film but is a top French sci-fi/fantasy author).

AMC is not making it easy to see both Panda Plan and Kensuke's Kingdom if you work, so I guess that settles my late afternoons this weekend. Aside from that, Rumours and North by Northwest are top priorities, and maybe I'll do the Keaton double feature of Goodrich and the oddly-delayed Beetlejuice Beetlejuice.