To local cinephiles, the Fourth of July weekend usually means fireworks, barbecues and The Brattle Theatre’s annual screenings of “Jaws” (1975). This year is a little different: Since the Brattle already screened Spielberg’s iconic man-vs.-fish epic as part of its “Reunion Week” series (and because the studio undoubtedly has its own 50th anniversary plans for the film), The Brattle’s programmers are taking a slightly different tack with a series celebrating the film’s incalculable influence. With “The Spawn of Jaws: Blockbusters and Wannabe Blockbusters,” The Brattle brings to the screen some of the most iconic (and, in some cases, infamous) spectacles to grace the cineplex in the Orca’s wake. Spielberg himself is of course well-represented, with “Close Encounters of the Third Kind” (1977, screening Friday), “Raiders of the Lost Ark” (1981, Thursday through Saturday), “Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade” (1989, in a double feature with “Raiders” on Saturday) and “E.T. the Extra-Terrestrial” (1982, screening with the Spielberg-produced “Poltergeist” Saturday and Sunday). Thursday brings a nigh-irresistible double feature of Ridley Scott’s “Alien” and James Cameron’s beefed-up sequel “Aliens” (1986), both of which play in a similar intersection of horror and adventure as “Jaws.”
But some of the most intriguing selections of the series are the also-rans, films that failed to rate the cultural impact of Spielberg’s films but have nonetheless endured as cherished cult classics. Take, for example, David Lynch’s original 1984 adaptation of “Dune,” which screens on 35 mm Saturday and again on Tuesday, written off at the time as a pale “Star Wars” knockoff but now a fascinating watch in light of its director’s ensuing career. Monday brings a double feature of two of the most bonkers genre films of the 1980s, John Carpenter’s gleefully pulpy “Big Trouble in Little China” (1986) and the deadpan-comic “The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the Eighth Dimension” (1984), which plays a little like if Thomas Pynchon tried his hand at a superhero screenplay. Then there’s the infamous “Howard the Duck” (1986), the jaw-dropping bomb that has the distinction of being the first big-screen adaptation of a Marvel comic book; it screens on Wednesday in an ironic double feature with the decade’s biggest superhero movie, Tim Burton’s “Batman” (1989). Whether hits or flops, all of these films embody the thrill of escaping the summer heat by taking in a big, bombastic movie and are as appropriate a way as any to ring in the year’s loudest holiday.
This week marks the long-awaited reopening of the Harvard Film Archive, and the revered institution is coming out swinging with a massive retrospective of a true titan of world cinema. Though perhaps less well-known on these shores as such contemporaries as Kurosawa or Ozu, Mikio Naruse was no less a master, specializing in humanist, often devastating melodramas highlighting the burdens placed upon women in Japanese society. Beginning Saturday and running until the beginning of November, “Floating Clouds … the Cinema of Naruse Mikio” collects rare film prints of 45 of the director’s works, several of which are making New England debuts. The series kicks off, naturally enough, with “Floating Clouds” (1955, screening Saturday and Sunday), which casts Naruse’s muse, the incredible Hideko Takamine, as a woman desperately trying to rekindle an affair with a married man in postwar Tokyo. Takamine is perhaps even more unforgettable in “Yearning” (1964, screening Sunday), in which her final moments are frequently cited as one of the greatest close-ups ever filmed. The first week of the series is rounded out with “Sudden Rain” (1956, on Saturday) and “Sound of the Mountain” (1954, on Monday), both of which find Naruse working with frequent Ozu leading lady Setsuko Hara. True to its location, the HFA is an unparalleled place to fill in gaps in one’s cinematic education – and, more often than not, to discover a new favorite filmmaker in the process.
In today’s climate of endless corporate IP extensions disguised as entertainment, the word “remake” gets an (often deserved) bad rap. There are plenty of exceptions, however, in which visionary filmmakers find genuine inspiration in films past and reimagine them in ways that equal – and, arguably, sometimes surpass – the originals. These are the films making up the Somerville Theatre’s new weekly series “The Great Remakes,” in which classics of yesteryear are paired in double features with their latter-day updates. The series kicks off Monday with what may be the sterling example of the phenomenon. The 1951 “The Thing from Another World” is often held up as a classic of atom-age creature-feature science fiction, thanks to its chilly antarctic setting and the involvement of producer Howard Hawks, who took an uncredited pass at the screenplay and is frequently rumored to have ghost-directed the film. It was also a favorite of horror maestro John Carpenter, who drew from the original film and its source material (the novella “Who Goes There?” by John W. Campbell) to create his own vision of “The Thing” (1982). Carpenter’s version has since outshone its predecessor thanks to its (literally) eye-popping special effects by Rob Bottin, but both films are well worth your while and should prove a fascinating study in contrasts taken back to back.
With social media and online automation driving us further and further into isolation, it has never been more important to find ways to connect with real people in your community who share your interests. To that end, the newly launched Somerville Ciné-Club promises to bring free monthly screenings to the Somerville Central Library in which local cinephiles can meet and discuss a wide range of favorite films. The club’s inaugural screening, on Tuesday, will be Walter Hill’s 1978 car-chase classic “The Driver,” a high-octane game of cat and mouse starring Ryan O’Neal and Bruce Dern (alongside the great Isabelle Adjani). Think of it as a monthly movie night with friends – even if they happen to be friends you have yet to meet in person.
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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