Weekly Film Agenda: Impossible Vacation Edition

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.

Opening Friday 7/7

A Scanner Darkly
Waking Life
Bostonist is crossing her fingers that Richard Linklater's well-cast and lovingly-animated Philip K. Dick adaptation will strike the right tone of near-future uneasiness (like Bladerunner did) and eschew chase scenes and tacked-on Hollywood endings (like Total Recall and Minority Report didn't).
For those of us who'd like to spend even more of the weekend in a rotoscoped haze, the Coolidge is screening Linklater's 2001 stream-of-unconsciousness film Waking Life.

A Scanner Darkly: IMDB | web site | book reviews & cover art | trailer
Loews Boston Common, Kendall Square Cinema, Coolidge Corner Theatre
Many showtimes, various prices

Waking Life: IMDB | web site
Coolidge Corner Theatre
Friday & Saturday at midnight, $7.50

Great Yokai War (Yôkai daisensô)
The first Takashi Miike film we saw was Audition, a Japanese precursor to Hard Candy that left Bostonist iding behind the couch, one of our friends cowering in the adjacent kitchen, and another, braver friend somewhere in between, reading us the subtitles without looking directly at the screen. And the last Miike film Bostonist saw was The Happiness of the Katakuris, a surreal musical about a disastrous family vacation&mdashl;a rollicking good time for everyone. The Globe reports that the director's latest, The Great Yokai War, is an apocalyptic kids' adventure and that "strong-stomached 11-year-olds and their stoned baby sitters will love it."
Brattle Theatre
Friday-Mounday at 9:45 pm (plus midnight showings Friday & Saturday), $9
The Great Yokai War: IMDB | web site | trailer

Pirates of the Caribbean
Can there be a better summer movie to watch while consuming cheese fries with a zipcarload of your friends at the nearest drive-in? (Maybe Superman Returns, playing on screen 1?)
Screen 2 at the Mendon Twin Drive-In (and other, less awesome venues)
8:40 pm, $20 per carload
Pirates of the Caribbean: IMDB | trailer

Pandora's Box (Die Büchse der Pandora)
Dark, silent, and newly restored: Louise Brooks, who once wrote that "If I ever bore you it will be with a knife," stars as Lulu, a flapper with more drama than livejournal and a haircut to bring down myspace.
Brattle Theatre
Friday through Monday at 3:00, 5:15, 7:30 pm (plus 1 pm on Saturday & Sunday), $9
Pandora's Box: IMDB | review |
Louise Brooks: Wikipedia | Louise Brooks Society

Saturday 7/8 & Sunday 7/9

Fireworks (Hana-bi)
Takeshi Kitano (2003's inexplicably bleach-blond Zatoichi) stars, writes, directs, and paints canvases of animals with flowers for heads in a slow, gorgeous film about a cop, his wounded partner, and his dying wife.
Harvard Film Archive
Saturday at 9:15 pm, Sunday at 7 pm, $8
Fireworks: IMDB

Monday 7/10 & Tuesday 7/11

Little Miss Sunshine
Two preview screenings of an anticipated Sundance comedy about a cross-country road trip from hell (with Devotchka and Sufjan Stevens in the car stereo).
Monday at the AMC Fenway, 2:30 pm, free (RSVP to see if there are any seats left)
Tuesday at the Museum of Fine Arts, 7 pm, Friends of Film membership required
Little Miss Sunshine: IMDB | trailers