Film Ahead is a weekly column focused on special events and repertoire programming for discerning Camberville moviegoers. It also includes capsule reviews of films that have not been feature reviewed.
local focus
The “updated, updated, restored” program Brattle Theater On Monday, Japanese filmmaker Masashi Yamamoto double-tapped “Robinson’s Garden” (1987) and “What’s Up Connection” (1990). Yamamoto Film has been described as having a Jarmusch-like texture. The pair revolves around a family of counterfeiters and a lazy, hipster drug dealer. Also on the calendar this week are Guy Maddin’s Tales from the Gimli Hospital (1988) and Krzysztof Kieślowski’s surreal dual-reality sublime tale The Double Life of Veronique (1991) on Tuesdays. , and an extended version of “Kingdom” will also be screened. Provocateur Lars von Trier’s trilogy (“Breaking the Waves”, “Dancer in the Dark”). Now, if The Brattle also shows his Kieślowski’s charming his Dekalog his series…
of Belmont World Film Festival‘s 20th Annual Family Film Festival takes place next week at The Brattle (more on that next week), but the kickoff event will feature the man and longtime local TV entertainment reporter Kulhawik on Saturday and January 15th. Junior Film Critics Workshop held at , in person at the new Newton Art Center in Newtonville one day, and in a Zoom session the next. The film we watch and review is Steven Spielberg’s his 1977 science fiction adventure Close Encounters of the Third Kind. (Tom Meek)
This week’s Kubrick Retro Replay Landmark Kendall Square Cinema The sci-fi classic 2001: A Space Odyssey (1968), like Alien (1979) and Blade Runner (1982), has outdone them in technological advances, but still It remains infectious, rewatchable, and believably real. A breakthrough in computer-generated special FX that has become the standard for blockbuster hits. Unimpressed by the seamless chapter-style transitions (such as the classic cross-cut from a bone thrown in the air to a spaceship sailing through space) and the insistent use of classical music (Strauss’s “The Beautiful Blue Danube”) I can’t stay. Scene textures (done even more effectively in “Eyes Wide Shut” and “A Clockwork Orange”) and Natch, Hal’s he who has a hidden purpose and sings a sleepy version of “Daisy Bell” AI invention. Its use of models, then-state-of-the-art special effects, and imaginatively detailed sets remain the benchmark decades later.
After a three-week run of the raunchy stage piece “The Slutcracker,” Somerville Theater returns to full repertoire glory with a one-night screening of Peter Hogan’s lo-fi crime novel How to Rob. independent film festival bostonThe film about two crooks (David Pridemore and Chinaza Uche) who rob other crooks takes place in Boston and Cape Cod, where Hogan grew up. The film is Hogan’s first feature film. Emerson’s alumnus, who now teaches filmmaking at his alma mater, describes his experience with low-budget filmmaking as most of his heavyweight wardrobe comes out of the closet and the duffel he drags to the set every day. It is said that it was in The film hits theaters on Thursday with the director in attendance, after which theaters will shift gears for “(Some of) The Biggest & Best of 2022,” which he screens in conjunction with The Brattle. The series is based off of Top Gun: Maverick, a reimagining of the blockbuster blockbuster himself, Tom Cruise, and the brash Indian anti-colonial action actor (including some Cruise-worthy stunt work). to start. Only on Netflix, but critical acclaim (which made it into the Top 10 Days of 2022) is gaining more and more viewing demand. The same goes for Water. The films will be screened on Friday and Saturday respectively. (Tom Meek)
in theaters or streaming
“The Pale Blue Eye” (2022)
Scott Cooper, known in these areas for his semi-controversial portrait of gangster Whitey Bulger, “Black Mass” (2015), sees a series of murders at West Point, circa 1830, as a reference to historical fiction. dive into. Augustus Lander (Christian Bale, who previously teamed up with Cooper on “The Adversary” and “Out of the Furnace”) is a drunken, dead wife and missing daughter. was devastated. The murders at first seem like suicides or accidents, but as Landor digs deeper, they veer into occult rituals. The best scene is when a young cadet at the scene where the victim’s heart was removed informs Rand that the perpetrator was clearly a poet. When Landor asked how he knew, the cadet replied, “Because I am a poet.” Cadet name? Edgar Allan Poe (perfectly played by Harry Melling). Hey, if there was “Abraham Lincoln: The Vampire Hunter,” how about “Edgar Allan Poe: The CSI Detective?” (Tom Meek) At the Landmark Kendall Square Cinema, 355 Vinny Street and on Netflix.
‘M3gan’ (2022)
The digital ad for “Funki PurrPetual Petz” is the starter here, letting parents and kids know they don’t have to deal with losing a beloved animal companion if they’re going to spend a fortune on a high-tech toy that looks like a sage. i promise. – Crack the gremlin. Bot pets aren’t the focus of the film, but Funki’s scientist in charge, Gemma (“Get Out”‘s Allison Williams), decided to test it on her recently orphaned 9-year-old niece, and the title next. Because we decided to create an AI doll for her. Old Caddy (Violet McGraw). Gemma has never seen the “Terminator” series. Yet, even as the bodies mysteriously pile up, even she finds out that M3gan (Amy Donald as body and Jenna Davis as voice) protects Caddy from physical and emotional harm. M3gans are more savvy than their human families when it comes to dealing with threats and dealing with existential crises (droids dream of existential crises). ), with Gerald Johnstone, director of ‘Housebound’ (2014), and Akela Cooper and James Wan, writers of ‘Malignant’ (2021). An entertaining sci-fi horror film about the detrimental effects of technology on human connectivity and the anti-natalist ethics of AI creation. The film’s virality Although his marketing campaign abandons the best scenes and the violence is kept understated to cling to his PG-13 rating, the film does well in satire and execution. Viewers leave the theater feeling guilt, reveling in M3gan’s witty, escalating kills with her skill and choice of victims. This movie is worth the price of admission just to see the reactions of the rubbery smooth faces of the can-do dolls. (Sarah Vincent) At the Landmark Kendall Square Cinema, 355 Vinny StreetApple Cinemas Cambridge, 168 Alewife Brook Parkway, Cambridge Highlands near Alewife and Fresh Pond. Somerville Theater, 55 Davis Square; and AMC assembly line 12, 395 Artisan WayAssembly Square, Somerville.
Cambridge writer Tom Meek’s reviews, essays, short stories and articles appear in WBUR’s The ARTery, The Boston Phoenix, The Boston Globe, The Rumpus, The Charleston City Paper and SLAB literary journals. Tom is also a member of the Boston Film Critics Association and rides his bike everywhere.
