As the heat rises to record temperatures and the sociopolitical climate spirals ever further into entropy, it becomes more and more apparent that the prophecy of Bananarama has come to pass: This is, indeed, a cruel summer. Fortuitously, this week marks the beginning of The Brattle Theatre’s own series of the same name. Each Thursday for the remainder of the summer, The Brattle will present stories of people pushed to the brink by the unforgiving heat of the summer sun. The series begins, appropriately enough, with a pair of adaptations of one of the preeminent bards of human cruelty in the sweltering South, playwright Tennessee Williams. Elia Kazan’s “A Streetcar Named Desire” (1951) and Richard Brooks’ “Cat on a Hot Tin Roof” (1958) are as revered as the plays upon which they’re based, their performances among some of the most timeless in movie history. What’s more, their simple fashions – particularly Marlon Brando’s plain white tee in “Streetcar” and Elizabeth Taylor’s silk nightgown in “Tin Roof” – remain the gold standard of looking cool in spite of simmering anger and punishingly hot nights.
On the other hand, sometimes the best way to beat the heat is to get out of your sticky apartment and enjoy the fresh air of a park at sundown – and all the better if you can take in a film at the same time. On Thursday, head to Gilman Park in Somerville for the latest screening from the archives of High Energy Vintage, lovingly projected on actual 16 mm film! On tap this month is “Warlords of the Deep” (1978), a lovably hokey undersea epic in which Doug McClure battles rubber monsters in the depths of the Bermuda Triangle. Admission is free, but attendees are invited to bring their own chairs, refreshments and taste for cinematic cheese.
Few collaborations in the history of film are as rightly revered as the partnership between Michael Powell and Emeric Pressburger, the duo who, between 1939 and 1957, turned out such unforgettable fantasias as “A Matter of Life and Death” (1946), “Black Narcissus” (1947) and “The Red Shoes” (1948). The films of Powell and Pressburger are like no others, steeped in magical realism, high drama and some of the most eye-popping matte paintings committed to celluloid. Though their commercial success petered out in the 1950s, their influence can be felt among subsequent generations of filmmakers, few more vocal in their love and appreciation than the great Martin Scorsese. It is no surprise, then, that Scorsese serves as onscreen narrator and tour guide in David Hinton’s new documentary “Made in England: The Films of Powell and Pressburger” (2024), which makes its local premiere run at The Brattle from Friday through Sunday. For those new to the filmmakers – or for the converted, who know how great their films look on the big screen – the doc is paired with screenings of “The Red Shoes” (on Friday and Sunday) and “Black Narcissus” (on Saturday). These films inspired some of the greatest filmmaking of our lifetime, and they’ll almost certainly inspire you as well.
It is both a testament to the filmmaker and a condemnation of our society that John Carpenter’s “They Live” (1988), which screens at midnight Saturday at the Somerville Theatre, remains one of the most potent and relevant fables Hollywood has told about U.S. politics. The setup alone is stroke of brilliant pulp simplicity. A musclebound drifter, played with square-jawed perfection by professional wrestler “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, discovers a pair of magical Ray-Bans that allow him to view the sinister aliens in his midst: Politicians and businesspeople are revealed to be grotesque, skeletal creatures and advertisements and magazine covers bear only stark messages such as “OBEY,” “CONSUME” and “MARRY AND REPRODUCE.” Subtle? Of course not, but neither was the political climate at the tail end of the Reagan era, and even less so now. Carpenter punctures the cynical consumerism of the decade with a canny flair for action and a puckish sense of humor (all together now: “I have come here to chew bubblegum and kick ass, and I’m all out of bubblegum!”). I would love to live to see a day when “They Live” is no longer relevant. Until then, I’ve got my sunglasses handy.
One of the joys of a complete filmmaker retrospective is the chance to catch up with the titles you may have missed. This week, “Summer of Sofia,” The Brattle’s reverse-chronological voyage through the films of Sofia Coppola, reaches “The Beguiled” (2017). Despite netting Coppola an award for Best Director at Cannes (only the second time in history the award was bestowed upon a woman, following Yuliya Solntseva for “Chronicle of Flaming Years” in 1961), “The Beguiled” today feels a bit overlooked, even as Coppola’s standing in the pantheon has (rightfully) risen. This is perhaps understandable; as a remake of a Don Siegel-Clint Eastwood Civil War drama, it lacks the immediate pop sheen of, say, “Marie Antoinette” or “The Bling Ring.” Nevertheless, it is an essential chapter in the filmmaker’s career, and if you missed it the first time this is the perfect time to catch up.
Oscar Goff is a writer and film critic based in Somerville. He is film editor and senior critic for the Boston Hassle and his work has appeared in the monthly Boston Compass newspaper and publications such as WBUR’s The ARTery and iHeartNoise. He is a member of the Boston Society of Film Critics, the Boston Online Film Critics Association, and the Online Film Critics Society.
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