This Sunday marks the 100th birthday of Mel Brooks, the legendary comedian, filmmaker and all-around bon vivant, who, by all appearances, remains as sprightly and charming as ever. To celebrate this living legend as he enters his second century, the Brattle Theatre has curated a weekend-long series of some of his most beloved work. Present, of course, are “Young Frankenstein” (1974, screening Saturday and Sunday) and “The Producers” (1968, Sunday), which rank by any estimation among the finest studio comedies ever made. Also on the docket are the VHS-era rental staples “History of the World: Part I” (1981, Saturday) and “Spaceballs” (1987, Monday), which find Brooks at his most irrepressible both behind and in front of the camera. The series is rounded out by a pair of decidedly non-comedic auteurist classics: David Lynch’s “The Elephant Man” (1980, Friday) and David Cronenberg’s “The Fly” (1986, Saturday and Sunday), both of which Brooks produced and championed under his Brooksfilms shingle. We at the Day wish Mel Brooks the happiest of 100th birthdays and hope for nothing but the best until his 2000th.
On Saturday, the Somerville Theatre’s “Midnight Specials” program shines a spotlight on the 60th anniversary of one of the most influential spaghetti westerns of all time. In Sergio Corbucci’s “Django” (1966), Franco Nero plays a former Union soldier turned Wild West outlaw who arrives in a rough-and-tumble town dragging a coffin. The plot roughly follows that of Sergio Leone’s “A Fistful of Dollars” (1964) — itself a riff on Akira Kurosawa’s “Yojimbo” (1961) — as Django finds himself in the middle of a bitter feud, playing both sides against each other as he decides who to support. What it lacks in originality, however, “Django” makes up for in excess, exemplifying the tawdry violence that makes the spaghetti western such a midnight-movie delight. Quentin Tarantino is certainly a fan: he named his Oscar-winning “Django Unchained” (2012) after Corbucci’s film (casting Nero himself in a winking cameo), and namechecked Corbucci in “Once Upon a Time in Hollywood” (2019) as “the second-best director of Italian westerns” — presumably second only to Leone himself.
Also on Saturday, the good folks at the Somerville Cine-Club return to the Somerville Public Library Central Branch for a rarely screened gem from one of our greatest filmmakers. It’s probably safe to say that much of the Cine-Club’s audience is familiar with “Twin Peaks” (1990), the groundbreaking ‘90s TV show from David Lynch. What audiences who first watched “Twin Peaks” via streaming might not know, however, is that Lynch shot an alternate version of the pilot episode to screen theatrically in European markets, complete with an entirely different ending. Some of the footage from these scenes made it into the series as broadcast (most notably the first appearance of villain Killer BOB and the infamous Red Room scene), while other moments can be seen nowhere else. The Cine-Club will screen this so-called “Euro-pilot” from an original Laserdisc, presenting this Lynchian curio in the clearest definition possible. As always, admission is free, but you may want to show up early, as seating will likely go faster than the Double R Diner’s famous cherry pies.
In the annals of great Boston films, one title stands alone: Peter Yates’ crime classic “The Friends of Eddie Coyle” (1973), which screens for free Tuesday as part of the Brattle’s ongoing “Elements of Cinema” series. Robert Mitchum stars as the titular down-and-out gangster in Quincy, navigating his own fading relevance at the end of an ignominious career. “Eddie Coyle” is a classic of downbeat neo-noir, no matter where you watch it, filled with hardboiled dialogue and such great character actors as Peter Boyle and Alex Rocco (the latter a real-life onetime member of the Winter Hill Gang). But it’s cherished by locals for its priceless footage of Boston, Cambridge, and the surrounding area at its scuzzy ’70s best, capturing for posterity the dive bars and lunch counters Coyle and his friends undoubtedly would have frequented. While plenty of contemporary period pieces have attempted to recreate the old, dirty Boston, “The Friends of Eddie Coyle” is the real deal.
On the new release front, adventurous moviegoers have their choice between two fascinating independent features not coming to a multiplex near you. From Friday through Thursday, the Brattle presents the local premiere run of “Mare’s Nest” (2026), the latest from experimental filmmaker (and frequent Harvard Film Archive guest programmer) Ben Rivers, which combines a parable about children wandering a fantasy landscape with a faithful adaptation of Don DeLillo’s one-act play “The Word for Snow.” Then, on Wednesday and Thursday, the Somerville presents “Down by the Riverside” (2023), a documentary about folksinger and activist Pete Seeger’s unconventional campaign to clean up the polluted Hudson River, with filmmakers Jodie Childers and Dan Messina in person for a Q&A following Wednesday’s screening. Anyone who says no interesting movies are being released these days simply isn’t looking hard enough.
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