The Brattle Theatre this week continues its repertory series “Give Thanks for Chicago,” a weeklong celebration of the Windy City’s indomitable spirit. On Thursday, those choosing to stay home for the holiday can spend Thanksgiving with a pair of kindred spirits in a double feature of “Home Alone” (1990) and “Risky Business” (1983). From there, the series runs the gamut from crime pictures (a double header of “The Fugitive” [1993] and “The Untouchables” [1987] on Saturday) to horror (“Child’s Play” [1988] and “Poltergeist III” [1988] on Friday, plus Nia DaCosta’s remake of “Candyman” [2021] Monday), from slices of life (“Cooley High” [1975] Monday, “High Fidelity” [2000] Wednesday) to the farthest reaches of the stars (the Wachowski sisters’ “Jupiter Rising” [2015], playing the late show Wednesday). There’s a lot to love in the Second City, and this is the perfect way to send appreciation from our own.
Of course, Thanksgiving isn’t the only holiday this week: on Friday, shopkeepers and retail workers brace themselves for the annual Black Friday blitzkrieg. To “celebrate” this “holiday,” the Brattle has lined up a double feature of two of Hollywood’s most subversive takedowns of mass consumerism. John Carpenter’s “They Live” (1988) has entered the cultural lexicon thanks to the high-tech sunglasses that allow “Rowdy” Roddy Piper to see the subliminal messages hidden in plain sight by our alien overlords: Billboards and TV ads are revealed to say simply “consume” or “obey,” while glossy magazines bear giant letters reading “marry and reproduce.” One would not expect “Josie and the Pussycats” (2001), the big-screen adaptation of the Archie Comics spinoff, to have much in common with the master of horror’s black comedy, but one would be mistaken – directors Harry Elfont and Deborah Kaplan use the film’s kitschy sheen to skewer the maximalist consumerism and reactionary undertones of the “Total Request Live” era. It’s enough to make you swear off big-box stores and e-tail for good. (As long as you keep your sunglasses on.)
The Harvard Film Archive’s tribute to the cinematic output of legendary author Gore Vidal comes to a close this weekend with two extremely different films. On one end of the spectrum is the Oscar-winning sword-and-sandals epic “Ben-Hur” (1959), screening in matinee Saturday and Sunday, on which Vidal was the most notable of a legion of script doctors (Vidal would later claim his major contribution was an undercurrent of sexual tension between the titular protagonist and his male Roman nemesis). On the other end is “Myra Breckinridge” (1970), the camp-classic adaptation of Vidal’s infamous novel about a sexually voracious trans woman (played “before” by film critic Rex Reed, and “after” by ’60s bombshell Raquel Welch), screening Monday. The film version was roundly panned and disowned by the author, but it quickly became a midnight movie staple thanks to its outré sensibility (as well as a late-career role from the great Mae West). Vidal’s impact on the movies was as eclectic as his literary shadow was profound, but, as the HFA’s program has shown, it was certainly not boring.
On Sunday, MIT welcomes back the Boston Japan Film Festival for its 15th anniversary edition. This year’s theme is “From Journalism to Dialogue,” collecting three documentaries about Japan’s history of crusading journalists. Also featured will be “The Dream of a Falling Egg,” a CG-animated short made by a seventh grade student, as well as a panel featuring filmmaker Ari Beser and journalist Hiromichi Ugaya. It’s as timely a topic as could be at this moment, and a great opportunity to see films off the beaten track.
At this point, the debate of “Is ‘Die Hard’ a Christmas movie?” has been roundly settled (short answer: It is if you want it to be). But what about “Hundreds of Beavers” (2022)? Mike Cheslik’s instant cult classic neo-silent comedy may not technically be about the Yuletide holiday, but it certainly looks the part: the snowy expanses of its Canadian setting, hapless fur-trapper Jean Kayak’s Santa-like getup, the sight of dozens of extras in oversized beaver costumes engaging in gleeful violence and wanton destruction (okay, maybe not that part). What’s more, it’s the sort of enthusiastically silly nonsense that can be enjoyed by kids of all ages, making it the perfect viewing experience for sugar-rushed tots and their most sophomoric aunts and uncles. To that end, the Somerville Theatre brings “Beavers” back to the screen for two holiday-themed showings on Wednesday. It’s the perfect precursor to your yearly bout of holiday cheer – or at least an approximation of a delirious eggnog buzz.
If buck-toothed animals don’t get you into the Christmas spirit, how about a film about a mysterious fat man who breezes into a quaint European village, sending his helper across the rooftops while the townspeople are nestled snugly in their beds? I’m speaking, of course, of “The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari” (1920), Robert Wiene’s silent masterpiece of German expressionist terror. One of cinema’s first true nightmares (and a pointed critique of the authoritarianism that began creeping into Germany in the years after World War I), “Caligari” remains a dazzling viewing experience thanks to its imaginative, deliberately antirealistic production design; its echoes can be seen everywhere from the 1930s Frankenstein films of James Whale to the pop-goth aesthetic of Tim Burton (to say nothing of Rob Zombie’s “Living Dead Girl” music video, which is a direct homage). “Caligari” screens for free Wednesday at the Somerville Public Library West Branch, with an appropriately spooky live score by Brooklyn-based electronic ensemble Apostrophebeats.
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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