Weekly Film Agenda: Cads and Monsters

In a world where there's nothing to do but watch movies.
In a city full of theaters, museums, and libraries.
One moviegoer who can be in three places at once.

This week, Boston's movie theaters offer a variety of giant monsters (fire-breathing turtles, radioactive lizards, skyscraper-climbing apes), smaller monsters (teenagers on myspace, paintball enthusiasts), and a terrifying alternate universe where everyone sings with R. Kelly's voice.

Wednesday 4/26

King Kong & Godzilla Triple Feature
A crash course in giant monster classics: the original 1954 Japanese version of Godzilla (sans bad dubbing and Raymond Burr) and the original 1933 King Kong. The evening culminates in the international smackdown King Kong vs. Godzilla, directed by Godzilla's creator, Ishiro Honda.
Coolidge Corner Theatre
7 pm (starts with King Kong; Godzilla at 9, King Kong vs Godzilla at 11), $10 for all three shows
King Kong: IMDB | trailer
Godzilla: IMDB | Film Forum | trailer
King Kong vs Godzilla: IMDB | Snopes

Friday 4/28

Gamera 3
Shusuke Kaneko has directed softcore porn, family comedies, and a ghost story about gay schoolboys. In the course of his 1990s Gamera trilogy, Kaneko transformed the fire-breathing turtle from MST3K-ready Friend Of All Children to a darker, bigger-budget defender of planet Earth. Moviegoers need not have seen any of the earlier installments to enjoy Gamera 3's strangely delicious cinematography, strong female characters (accompanied by one effeminate prophet of doom), script by Ghost in the Shell's Kazunori Ito, or its brave, ominous ending.
Harvard Film Archive
9 pm, $8
Gamera 3: IMDB | trailer

Trapped in the Closet
Sing along with R. Kelly as Sylvester, a hapless philanderer whose simple one-night stand with a preacher's wife leads him into a tangled and ever more preposterous web of lies, betrayal, asthmatic midgets, and telenovela-quality cliffhangers.
Coolidge Corner Theatre
Midnight, $7.50
R. Kelly: web site | Wikipedia | Chapters 1-5

Friday 4/28 through next week

Hard Candy
A 14-year-old girl goes home with a 32-year-old photographer she met on the internet, and... "I love when men tell me that they feel like they've been kicked in the stomach," precocious star Ellen Page tells the Globe. "It's good."

The movie telegraphs what's going to happen from the very beginning but the dial gets turned from holy crap to wtf to ludicrous speed to holy crap what the hell did I agree to see this to someone call a doctor—not for the characters but for the audience.
Loews Boston Common, Kendall Square Cinema, and Landmark Embassy Cinema (Waltham)
Various showtimes and prices
Hard Candy: IMDB | web site | trailers

Blackballed: The Bobby Dukes Story
Daily Show correspondent and Weymouth native Rob Corddry stars in a shocking exposé of the dark underbelly of professional paintball.
Brattle Theatre
5:30, 7:30, 9:30 pm daily (and 3:30 pm on Saturday and Sunday), $9
Blackballed: IMDB | web site | trailer
Rob Corddry: Comedy Central | video of "Corddry's Boston" from the Daily Show's 2004 DNC coverage

Joel Oliveira got kicked in the stomach by Hard Candy and lived to contribute to this post.