While the big story this week in Cambridge’s cinema scene is the return of IFFBoston’s Fall Focus series, there are plenty of repertory screenings to keep the classic-minded cinephile busy as well. On Saturday, the dogged programmers of the Somerville Ciné-Club kick off their second annual “Cormania” series, dedicated to the films of the renowned B-movie producer and director Roger Corman.
Apart from his mastery of exploitation movie schlock, Corman is remembered for his eye for talent; his low-budget movie factory served as an unofficial film school for countless actors and directors of the “New Hollywood” of the 1970s. Francis Ford Coppola cut his teeth as Corman’s all-purpose assistant before directing his first film, the Corman-produced gothic horror “Dementia 13” (1963), which the Ciné-Club screens Saturday at the Somerville Community Growing Center. Is it as good as “The Godfather?” Perhaps not, but everyone had to start somewhere, and Coppola’s debut is more entertaining than many.
Musically inclined moviegoers are spoiled for options this week, with no fewer than three screenings with live musical accompaniment.
- On Saturday, the Harvard Film Archive screens a pair of silent comedy classics from Buster Keaton — the short subject “The Balloonatic” (1923) and the groundbreaking feature “Sherlock Jr.” (1924) — with a live score by current Harvard undergrad Blake Hullinger.
- Also Saturday, the Somerville Theatre welcomes the New England Film Orchestra for a screening of the original Lon Chaney version of “The Phantom of the Opera” (1925), where they will perform Carl Davis’s acclaimed symphonic score.
- On Wednesday, The Apostrophebeats return to the Somerville Public Library Central Branch to accompany Carl Theodor Dreyer’s expressionistic masterwork “Vampyr” (1932). It’s always a treat to take in a silent film with live music as originally intended — even if the music itself is something the filmmakers couldn’t have dreamed of.
On Monday, moviegoers have a choice between two very different films featuring the late, great, Christopher Pummer. On one end of Plummer’s career, the Somerville Theatre’s F**K the Nazis series continues with the beloved musical “The Sound of Music” (1963), in which Plummer’s handsome Captain Von Trapp takes a stand against the invading German forces, alongside his musical children and their governess, Julie Andrews’ effervescent Maria. At the same time, the Brattle Theatre, in association with gather here, presents a lights-up, craft-friendly screening of Rian Johnson’s delightful whodunnit comedy “Knives Out” (2019), in which Plummer plays a venerated mystery writer whose own untimely demise attracts the attention of detective Benoit Blanc. Two classics, separated by more 50 years, featuring one intergenerational icon.
On Wednesday, the Brattle kicks off a fascinating new series titled Fablecore & More, celebrating the rising tide of filmmakers adopting the aesthetics and signifiers of fairy tales and fantasy to tell unconventional, often deeply personal stories. The series begins with a precursor to this subgenre, Terry Gilliam’s wildly inventive “The Adventures of Baron Munchausen” (1989), which realizes the outlandish adventures of the German folk hero via gargantuan visuals and wicked, Pythonesque comedy. On Thursday, the series jumps decades and shifts gears to Jane Schoenbrun’s “I Saw the TV Glow” (2024), which filters the confusions of adolescence and gender dysphoria through two teens’ obsession with a cult ’90s TV show. The series continues next week, with more weird and wonderful tales from the fringes of Storyland.
This week, local indie rockers Gollylagging will release their latest full-length album “Real Life.” To celebrate, the band, in association with Allston Pudding, take up residence at the Brattle on Thursday for a screening of Albert Brooks’ similarly titled comedy classic, “Real Life” (1979). Inspired by the then-recent proto-reality TV experiment “An American Family,” Brooks, as a fictionalized version of himself, intrudes upon an unsuspecting family, filming their daily lives with not-terribly-hidden cameras. What does all this have to do with Gollylagging’s brand of old school alt-rock riffs? Perhaps not much, but there’s never a bad reason to take in some great comedy and killer tunes, and this event promises plenty of both.
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