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. Mitchell's Wickid Pissa......

Robert Breer, Kinetic Poet of the Avant-Garde Harvard Film Archive Carpenter Center, 24 Quincy St., Cambridge Today, 7:00pm, $10 More information Robert Breer brought pop art to abstract animation. He’s an artist whose work could fit equally well alongside the European “cubist” film of the early twentieth century and American Saturday morning cartoons. (Breer worked as an animator on the PBS series Electric Company in the early 70s.) Billed by HFA as a “founding member......

Crawford Saturday, April 26, 5:30 pm Somerville Theatre (rush tickets only) and Sunday, April 27, 12:00 pm Brattle Theatre Documentarian David Modigliani headed to Crawford, Texas, to find out how George W. Bush's presence impacted the tiny Texas town. Crawford did a lot for Bush, building his image as an ordinary small-town guy. And Bush did a lot for Crawford, boosting the local economy with his team and the media brigade that followed. Modigliani tries......

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. After a rocky start in which Gervais made fun of the Lowell Sun and the Lowell Sun responded in kind, Gervais appears to be back......

Independent Film Festival of Boston April 23-29, Somerville, Brattle, & Coolidge Corner Theatres Full Schedule (PDF) With the Red Sox's (arguable?) success, Deval Patrick's big new book deal, and a Globe Pulitzer win, Boston hasn't exactly been out of the mainstream lately. But there are always great performances sitting just out of the spotlight, and the upcoming Independent Film Festival of Boston will provide some exposure for lesser-known movies by up-and-coming artists. Featuring narrative, documentary,......

Schlock Around the Clock Tomorrow, Saturday April 5 Brattle Theatre 10:00 pm and going for 14 hours strong! $20/$15 for students and Brattle members The Brattle Theatre has decided to make Schlock Around the Clock, a marathon full of movies that not even MSTK 3000 would touch, an annual event. Last year's lineup was pretty impressive, but this year the Brattle team seems intent on outdoing themselves. Here's the lineup and Bostonist's take on each,......

--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......

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......

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. In the video, Gervais comments on some lines in the Lowell paper about his upcoming movie: "LA meets LA--Lowell area, that is." Throughout the clip, Gervais' lip curls in a gesture of distate, and he catches a typo ("scoping" versus......

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......

Animated movies continue to rake in the big bucks. Horton Hears a Who!, 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. When it came to counter-programming for the dudes, Never Back Down, dismissed by the Phoenix as a "Karate Kid ripoff" opened at number three, and Doomsday opened at number seven. Wesley Morris......

This weekend, Roland Emmerich's high-budget B-Movie 10,000 BC dominated the box office because everyone likes to look at cool effects, even if the movie itself is rotten. The strategically timed, family-friendly offering College Road Trip came in second. A Globe copyeditor had fun with Ty Burr's review of 10,000 BC, titling the piece "Yabba Dabba Don't." The other new movies, The Bank Job and Mrs. Pettigrew Lives for a Day, opened at a blah No.......

Music Hometown keytar heroes Freezepop have returned from touring the world (okay, Florida, and the Rust Belt) to once again rock Cambridge, with the help of the The Information, The Main Drag, and Michael Hensley. Middle East Downstairs, 8 pm, 18+, $14. Beer Harpoon will hold its St. Patrick's Festival at the brewery on 306 Northern Avenue. Wear galoshes because the floor may well be slick with beer. Harpoon Brewery, 5:30 to 11:00 pm,......

Books Sarah Boxer bravely prowled through the blogosphere to share its treasures with us in Ultimate Blogs. Of course, Go Fug Yourself makes the list. Brattle Theatre (via Harvard Book Store), 6:00 pm, $5. Edit: Event has been moved to Harvard Book Store --If you've been reading Bostonist for a while, you might know how we feel about the potential of wind power. A while ago, we read this barnburner of a book about......

Jorge Furtado's Porto Alegre Harvard Film Archive Carpenter Center, 24 Quincy St., Cambridge Friday, March 7 -- Saturday, March 8 More information Brazilian director Jorge Furtado's work should be better known among American film audiences. His movies are hilarious, thoughtful and unpretentious -- they aim to entertain above all else. The Man Who Copied (O Homem Que Copiava) (2003, screening Friday) is a case in point. It's the story of André (Lázaro Ramos), whose humdrum......

Boston's King of Boogie-Woogie With his long hair and white beard, Preacher Jack may look like a wild-eyed holy man descended from a lonely mountaintop. He's actually a living piece of boogie-woogie/rockabilly history who grew up and resides on the North Shore. Pounding the keys for fifty years, he may not keep a weekly residence at Frank's Steak House anymore, but Preacher Jack comes down to Cambridge & Boston every couple weeks to spread......

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. One movie that will not get......

Dance Party JD Samson and Johanna Fateman, of the terribly missed Le Tigre, are now working it as a DJ duo known MEN. The new stuff definitely riffs off the best of Le Tigre, which still owns the award for best prom photo/album cover ever. Great Scott, 1222 Comm Ave, $12, 9:00 pm. Movies When we started writing about this happening, we swore we wouldn't do this, but "ARE YOU TALKIN' TO ME?" Taxi......

Short Cartoons You saw the nominees for the Live Action Short Film Academy Award last night; come back to the ICA for the contenders in the animated category. Formats include traditional 2D animation, CGI, and claymation. Check out the John Lennon interview film "I Met the Walrus." Institute of Contemporary Art, 100 Northern Avenue, South Boston, 7:00pm. $7/$9. Recover Heal a broken heart with laughter. Ben Karlin has assembled a collection of raucous breakup......

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......

Books Susan Choi draws on real-life, high-profile crimes for her literary works. Her last book was American Woman, based on the kidnapping of Patty Hearst, and now she's inspired by her father's real-life experience as a former colleague of the Unabomber in her latest, A Person of Interest. Brookline Booksmith, 7:00 pm, free. Movies Child of the Big City and Daydreams are two silent films from the vanguard of pre-revolution Russian cinema. The former......

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: Seeking to build political support and persuade the state to expand existing tax credits, a team of Hollywood film moguls is flying into the Hub this week for meetings with state lawmakers and the development firm that controls the former naval air station in South Weymouth, industry sources......

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. While a favorite name to drop in the literary lounge, Robbe-Grillet is best known......

Movies The MFA calls Les Saignantes "the first science fiction film to come out of Africa," which should be reason enough to see it. But did we mention that it has won comparisons to Russ Meyer? And that it's about a group of women determined to rid their distopian future world of all men? Cameroon director Jean-Pierre Bekolo wins Bostonist's seal of approval. Remis Auditorium, Museum of Fine Arts, 6:00pm (also screening Sunday). $8/$9......

Books Manil Suri's The Age of Shiva follows a woman as she tries to find a life outside male expectations. Meera, a young woman in India, marries the man she desires, only to discover he's Mr. Wrong. Eventually, she throws all her hopes on her son, and the intensity of her feelings prompted the San Francisco Chronicle to call the work "a steamy, hot-out-of-the-oven offering of mother love." Whoa, there! Brookline Booksmith, 7:00 pm,......

Sci-fi flick Jumper was number-one at the box office this weekend, but the real story was the disappointing turnout for Definitely, Maybe, which was supposed to be a romantic comedy. Was it the annoying title? Maybe they should have referred to an old '80s TV show and called it My Three Moms instead. Maybe moviegoers aren't feeling Ryan Reynolds. Ty Burr blew kisses at Maybe co-star Isla Fisher, but he blew a raspberry at Reynolds:......

Jazzy Movies Avant garde filmmaker Robert Fenz and free music composer and multi-instrumentalist Wadada Leo Smith team up tonight at the Harvard Film Archive to "create a 'space' that grows out of the combination of disciplines, with neither sound nor image subjugated." Fenz screens his film Meditations on Revolution and Smith provides live improvisational accompaniment. Harvard Film Archive, Carpenter Center, 24 Quincy St., Cambridge, 7:00pm. $10. (RS) Rabbits Bored on President's Day? Get in......

Movies --The ultimate sci-fi slumber party will happen with the 33rd Annual Boston Sci-Fi Film Festival, where this year's theme is "The Future is Passe," and the main event is a screening of A Boy and His Dog, starring Don Johnson. Get more details. Somerville Theatre, Davis Square, 12:00 noon, running through 12:00 noon the next day. Gender Bending Trannies take the stage for Traniwreck, Boston's only all-gender, all-genre burlesque variety show. Expect comedy,......

Comedy Just when you're sick of all the caucusing and candidate crap, Jimmy Tingle makes a triumphant local return with his show "Jimmy Tingle for President." Bostonist interviewed the candidate, and he's going to have plenty to say. Regent Theatre, Arlington, 8:00 pm. $30 orchestra / $25 balcony. PS--Mr. Tingle himself told Bostonist another show has been added for next Saturday, February 23. Dirty Movies Be careful who sits behind you tonight as sex......

If what you want out of a movie is moral clarity -- or even coherence -- you should probably avoid the new Irish gangster flick In Bruges. It's a credit to screenwriter and director Martin McDonagh's clever contrivance to hear critics complain that its superlatively violent ending breaks the moral deal. To paraphrase Arthur Penn, the father of critically reviled ultraviolence, we're killing people every day in Iraq, and you're upset that this movie is......