Weekly Film Agenda: Theaters Are Dark And Cold 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.

Thursday 8/3

Stolen
One of the things that endears the Isabella Stewart Gardner Museum to us (along with the dim lighting, strict ban on electronic devices, and terse signage) is how the frames of missing paintings hang empty on the walls. (As per Mrs. Gardner's will, nothing can be moved or changed, no matter how spooky it looks to the rest of us.) One of those frames used to hold Vermeer's "The Concert," the world's most expensive stolen painting, carried off in America's biggest art heist ever. Rebecca Dreyfus's documentary involves mobsters, collectors, thieves, terrorists, contemporary authors, and an eyepatched detective, but thankfully no albino monks.
Museum of Fine Arts, Remis Auditorium
4:45 pm, $7
Stolen: web site | IMDB

The Sound Your Eyes Can Follow
Brainwashed.com founder Jon Whitney projects his massive and eclectic collection of music videos (the playlists include Nick Cave, Salt-N-Pepa, Antony & the Johnsons, Goldfrapp, His Name Is Alive, Joanna Newsom, and that "one two three four five six seven eight nine ten eleven twelve" song with the pinballs from Sesame Street) on a big screen, and loud.
River Gods, 125 River St., Cambridge
9 pm-1 am
The Sound Your Eyes Can Follow: web site

Friday 8/4

Little Miss Sunshine
The darling of Sundance, scored by Devotchka, the darlings of Bonnaroo. This family-road-trip-from-hell comedy opens for real after a slew of packed preview screenings in Boston and Cambridge—we never got in, but Bostonist's more punctual friends were impressed by Alan Arkin's grandfatherly advice and by Steve Carell's performance as a suicidal gay Proust scholar.
Coolidge Corner Theatre, Kendall Square Cinema, & AMC Loews Boston Common
Showtimes through next week
Little Miss Sunshine: IMDB | trailers

Brothers of the Head
Bostonist recently came across what appears to be a chicklit novel about conjoined-twin rock stars, titled Love Will Tear Us Apart. Brothers of the Head gets points just for having a title that doesn't make us wince and for not naming its conjoined-twin rock star protagonists "Flora" and "Fauna."
Kendall Square Cinema
Showtimes through next week
Brothers of the Head: web site | IMDB | trailer

Sprited Away
Howl's Moving Castle
A double feature of gorgeous animation about children in surreal, magical predicaments, by the incomparable Hayao Miyazaki. It'll keep you in air conditioning and Toblerone all night, and it'll take you the rest of the weekend to recover.
Brattle Theatre
Sprited Away: web site | IMDB
2, 7 pm
Howl's Moving Castle: web site | IMDB
4:30, 9:30 pm
$7.50-$9 for both

Philadelphia Story
Ambushed by her dandyish ex-husband and a charming tabloid reporter the eve of her wedding, paradoxically sympathetic ice queen Katherine Hepburn is forced to choose between Jimmy Stewart, John Howard, and Cary Grant. (The Academy chose Stewart, for Best Actor.)
Boston Harbor Hotel, Intrigue Café, 70 Rowes Wharf
Dusk, free
The Philadelphia Story: IMDB | trailer

Monday 8/7

Lolita
Kubrick's black & white black comedy on Monday, to be followed by Adrian Lyne's controversial, out-of-print, straight-to-cable version on Thursday.
Boston Public Library (Copley Square), Rabb Lecture Hall
Lolita (1961): IMDB | trailer
Monday, 6 pm, free
Lolita (1997): web site | IMDB
Thursday (8/10), 6 pm, free

The Big Lebowski
See the Coen Brothers' classic, vivid stoner comedy at the Coolidge's Second Annual Bowling Party Extravaganza, and win prizes for your costume, your nihilistic quipping prowess, your Walter rant, and your bowling skills.
7 pm, $9
Coolidge Corner Theatre
Der grosse Lebowski: IMDB

Wednesday 8/9

Typophile Film Festival
In one of the free events at this year's TypeCon, Typophile and the Society of Typographic Aficionados present shorts featuring experimental, animated, beautiful, humorous, and just really cool uses of type, including new work by Blur, Convert and MK12, an homage to Josef Müller-Brockmann, and an alternate opening credits sequence for The Da Vinci Code.
Hyatt Regency, 1 Avenue de Lafayette
8 pm, free
TypeCon 2006: The Boston T Party: web site