School is officially back in session, and with it a new season at the Harvard Film Archive. The venerable institution this week raises the curtain on not one but two repertory series bearing all the insight and loving curation that is its hallmark. First up is “Gore Vidal’s Hollywood,” a retrospective highlighting some of the renowned novelist’s screen credits, kicking off Friday with Arthur Penn’s revisionist Western “The Left Handed Gun” (1958), for which Vidal wrote the screenplay, and Federico Fellini’s “Roma” (1972), in which the author memorably cameos as himself; the series continues Sunday with Richard Brooks’ “The Catered Affair” (1956), which Vidal adapted from a teleplay by Paddy . Saturday, meanwhile, sees the beginning of the self-explanatory series “New Dog, New Tricks: Youth in Cinema,” with a double feature of Yasujiro Ozu’s silent comedy “I Was Born, But …” (1932, with live musical accompaniment by Jeff Rapsis) and Héctor Babenco’s critically acclaimed “Pixote” (1980). Both series continue into December.
The Brattle Theatre’s marathon screenings of David Lynch’s “Twin Peaks: The Return” (2017) continue throughout this week, with episodic double features staggered through Sept. 18. Viewers interested in taking in some of the spectacle but whose schedule (or stamina) doesn’t allow for the whole shebang should set aside time Saturday or Sunday for the series’ centerpiece Episode 8, subtitled “Gotta Light?” (screening in a double bill with the preceding Episode 7). Following a brief bit of business involving Agent Cooper’s evil doppelganger and a roadhouse performance by “The” Nine Inch Nails, Episode 8 descends into a jaw-dropping, black-and-white nightmare flashback, spinning the 1945 nuclear tests at Los Alamos into a phantasmagorical creation myth for the show’s forces of good and evil. Abstract and nearly dialogue-free, Episode 8 is a high point – of “Twin Peaks,” of Lynch’s career and of the very medium of television.
One of the most talked-about cinematic rediscoveries of the year comes to the Somerville Theatre in a new 4K restoration Saturday and Sunday. Released originally in 1980, “Night of the Juggler” is hailed by connoisseurs as one of the greatest and grittiest of the era’s New York psycho thrillers, ranking among the likes of “Death Wish” and “The Taking of Pelham One Two Three.” James Brolin stars as an ex-cop who must take the law into his own hands when his daughter is mistaken for an heiress and kidnapped by psychopath Cliff Gorman (“The Boys in the Band”). “Juggler” was plagued by production difficulties (shooting had to be shut down after Brolin broke his foot, leading to the departure of director Sidney J. Furie), but it became a cult item in reruns on the early days of cable. Due to muddy legal issues that have only recently been resolved, it has gone virtually unseen since the days of VHS. Now, at long last, “Juggler” is back on the loose, ready to claim a new generation of fans among seen-it-all genre aficionados.
Those looking for something even more unusual this weekend can choose between two unique single-day film festivals. On Saturday, local synth-pop/exotica band Hidden Fountain debuts its latest music video at The French Club with what members have dubbed The Fontana Occulta Film Fest ’25, a free outdoor exhibition of shorts by local filmmakers A.V. Carraway (who directed the band’s new video) and Coco Roy (who helmed their last). Then, on Sunday, The Brattle welcomes back the Found Footage Film Festival with another program of immaculately curated treasures from the depths of the VHS bargain bin. Though the programming between the two nights will be very different, one thing is clear: Both will show you something you’ve never seen before.
The Brattle offers a once-in-a-lifetime moviegoing experience – literally – on Wednesday. Few figures in the past 50 years of pop music have been more influential than Brian Eno, the legendary musician-producer whose diverse accomplishments range from playing keyboards for Roxy Music and producing landmark albums for David Bowie and Talking Heads to composing the Windows ’95 startup jingle and singlehandedly inventing the concept of ambient music. No conventional feature film could encompass Eno’s flair for musical futurism, but “Eno” (2024) is no conventional film: Director Gary Hustwit employs a custom-built generative software program to select randomly from hundreds of hours of footage, meaning no two screenings of the film are the same. Some viewers have reported seeing a film that focuses extensively on Eno’s work with U2, while others have gotten one dominated by the artist’s unique philosophies on electronic music. Given the film’s uniquely fluid nature, a streaming or home video release is thus far out of the question, making this screening a rare chance to take in this singular experiment.
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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