Results tagged “movies”

The Boston Bike Film Fest opens tonight at the Brattle Theatre, taking a broad perspective on all things bike. Last year, we enjoyed films about soft pretzels in Philly and a bike-powered rock tour across Wisconsin. This evening the festival promises a bike rap video, a farm-raised bicycle-related story, and a feature on fat bikes in Alaska (not to mention the Louie video we've already seen). Tomorrow night we'll see a Boston-based perspective on biking from a local filmmaker, a take on the RAGBRAI ride across Iowa, and other bike-related goodness. It's a good chance to celebrate your love of two (or maybe one, or three, but not four) wheels. Just make sure you bike there.

Maybe it's because he heard about MA Men and wanted to experience the Masshattery first hand. Or, more likely, it's because he's in a damn movie shooting here. Either way, Jon "Don Draper" Hamm of Mad Men fame is in Boston right now, causing women to faint, men to glower, and products to be sold. Hamm plays an FBI agent who pursues Ben Affleck's bank-robbing character in the upcoming The Town, adapted from the novel Prince of Thieves (set in Charlestown and written by Chuck Hogan). Hamm and Affleck are reportedly shooting at Fenway through September 27 if you want to hit Lansdowne in hopes of glimpsing some stars, hearing some gunfire, or perhaps even witnessing some of the explosions that Loaded Gun Boston heard might happen.

Opera Bedřich Smetana's The Bartered Bride calls for a dude in a bear costume, the most tuneful stuttering you'll ever hear, and the consumption of gallons of imaginary beer. Opera Boston places the 19th-century Czech comic opera in the Depression (the previous one), back when selling women was still hilarious. Pretty singing, with baseball. Cutler Majestic Theatre, 219 Tremont St, 7:30 pm. $29-$114.

Superbad director Greg Mottola’s latest film, Adventureland, premieres today, sending the message that we all need a little more adventure in our lives. For recent Oberlin grad James Brennan, his summer 1987 adventures don't quite come in the form that he expected When he’s told by his parents that they can no longer pay for his summer trip to Europe, James’ summer plans move from the meaningful exploration of ancient ruins to the meaningless manning of game booths at Adventureland, an amusement park near his native Pittsburgh. Even the park hiring process is disappointing, as the owner relegates James to games duty rather than his preferred rides, and ignores his resume, chock-full of academic accomplishments and college extracurriculars.

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Tomorrow the Somerville Community Garden will hold its annual Harvest Fair. Get your cider making and Butter Dance on, among other activities, from 1pm to 4pm. Those wishing to re-sully their cultural palates may enjoy the Brattle Theater's "Return to the Grindhouse" Repertory Series, starting at 8pm.

We've been ready to write off Dane Cook for a long time (we're still bitter about those "There's Only One October" commercials last year). Arlington's finest most famous export has been raking in the cash and selling out (large venues, that is) with essentially the same comedy material and frat guy schtick for years, while his movies have been much less commercially or critically successful. Seriously, did anyone actually see Good Luck Chuck?

People deal with grief in different ways. 22 years after the 1986 World Series, and a month after Bill Buckner's public homecoming to Fenway, Quincy's Josh Mitchell wants to make a movie about Buckner. And not just any movie - a musical where Mitchell's character road-trips to Idaho, talks Buckner out of seclusion, and brings him back to Boston to star in a revival of "No No Nanette". Oh, that age-old plot.

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When celebrities come to town to make movies, they usually descend upon us in a flash, look pretty, drink our booze, eat our ice cream and zip back out again. But Ricky Gervais, who is making a movie in Lowell, is leaving us a little something special in his blog.

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$20/$15 for students and Brattle members

--The investigation into why a commuter rail train crashed into a loose boxcar in Canton, injuring 150, is turning toward brakes not being set on a car at a lumberyard in Stoughton. Also, even if the train was on the loose, "The car should have been stopped by a derailing device where the siding meets the main track. A source close to the investigation said the derailing device worked properly when tested Wednesday morning and passed its most recent inspection." [The Enterprise of Brockton]

Dr. Seuss' Horton Hears a Who remained on top of the box office, followed by another behemoth almost as big as family-friendly monster hits--Tyler Perry. In case you haven't heard of Tyler Perry, he was the force behind Diary of a Mad Black Woman, and Perry is fond of dressing in drag as "Madea," a take-no-prisoners old lady. Perry's latest effort, Meet the Browns, with Angela Bassett and Rick Fox (yeah, the Lakers Rick Fox--go figure) landed at number two at the box office.

The Lowell Sun is presenting a surprisingly thuggy side to an unlikely target--British actor Ricky Gervais, who is making a movie there. Via Pax Arcana, we hear that Gervais did a video about the Sun.

Bennifer version 2.0 was in town this weekend stumping for Barack Obama. Ben Affleck and Jennifer Garner hosted a sold out party at Rumor’s night club on Sunday night. Affleck, who first met Senator Obama in 2004 when Boston hosted the Democratic National Convention, has become a fan of the Senator’s and feels he’s the right man for the job. While Ben seemed to have done most of the talking and schmoozing for the evening, Garner stayed in the background. She’s been in town filming Ghosts of Girlfriends Past with a fully clothed Matthew McConaughey.

, the Dr. Seuss tale with voices from Jim Carrey and Steve Carrell, was number-one at the box office. And it was number-one in a big way with $45.1 million bucks.

came in second.

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The big movie news this week was the rock-bottom ratings for the Oscar telecast. People just didn't tune in. Maybe it was the fact that the big movies weren't money-makers, but do the masses really expect the Academy to nominate Spider-Man 3 for an Oscar? No. However, nominating Ratatouille for best picture instead of limiting it to the animated section might have at least piqued the interest of moviegoers.

Oh, you know the Oscar drill already: Marion Cotillard surprised everyone by winning Best Actress for La Vie en Rose, further proving the rule that if you go ugly for a movie role, you will win. Poor Julie Christie just looked too beautiful. Otherwise, Tilda Swinton delivered the best speech for winning Best Supporting Actress for Michael Clayton. The men's races were yawners. Of course, Javier Bardem won Best Supporting Actor for No Country for Old Men, and Daniel Day-Lewis won Best Actor for There Will Be Blood. No Country for Old Men was picture of the year. LAist provides live-blogs and recaps.

Now that filmmakers have rediscovered Boston, the city wants to take advantage of it by building a movie studio in Weymouth, the Herald's Scott Van Voorhis reports:

This past Monday French avant garde novelist and filmmaker Alain Robbe-Grillet died at the age of 85. Robbe-Grillet is regarded as the theorist behind the "new novel", which rejects conventional storytelling techniques for surface narratives that focus on objects and details rather than the world at large. Truly, he could suck a story out of an electric shaver like no other.