OPENINGS
Oct. 18
“Jim Allison: Breakthrough”
“Maleficent: Mistress of Evil”
“Midnight Traveler”
“Pain and Glory”
“Parasite”
“The Lighthouse”
“Zombieland: Double Tap”
SERIES, REVIVALS, ONE-OFFS
Coolidge Corner
OPEN SCREEN
October Open Screen, Oct. 15, 7 p.m.
NT LIVE
“A Midsummer Night’s Dream,” Oct. 17, 7 p.m.
CABIN OF HORROR IN THE ROCKY WOODS II (outdoor screening at Rocky Woods, Medfield)
“The Blair Witch Project” (1999)/“Sleepaway Camp” (1983), Oct. 18, 8 p.m.
Harvard Film Archive
THE B-FILM: LOW-BUDGET HOLLYWOOD CINEMA 1935-1959
“Gun Crazy” (1950), Oct. 13, 4:30 p.m.
“It Happened in Hollywood” (1937)/“The Fargo Kid” (1940), Oct. 13, 7 p.m.
“My Name Is Julia Ross” (1945)/“So Dark the Night” (1946), Oct. 18, 7 p.m.
Godfrey Reggio, Cinematic Seer
“Evidence” (1995)/“Visitors” (2013), Oct. 14, 7 p.m.
Four Films by François Ozon
“Swimming Pool” (2003), Oct. 19, 7 p.m.
Uncomfortably Yours: The Films of Alex Ross Perry
“The Color Wheel” (2012)/“The Magic Land of Mother Goose” (1967), Oct. 19, 9 p.m.
Museum of Fine Arts
“Hyman Bloom: The Beauty of All Things” (2010), Oct. 17, 6:30 p.m.
“I Do Not Care If We Go Down in History as Barbarians” (2018), Oct. 18, 3:30 p.m.
New Cinema From Portugal
Short Films From Portugal, Oct. 13, 12:30 p.m.
“Sadness and Joy in the Life of Giraffes,” Oct. 16, 8 p.m.
Fenway, Assembly Row
“Alien” (1979), Oct. 13, 1 p.m.; Oct. 15, 7 p.m.; Oct. 16, 7 p.m.
FESTIVAL JUNCTION
Melanin Pride Festival, through Oct. 13, at MFA and Brattle
Boston Palestine Film Festival, Oct. 18-27, at MFA
STREAMING
“Toy Story 4”
Available on Amazon, Apple, Google Play, Vudu, YouTube
TWO YEARS AGO PEOPLE WERE WATCHING
★★★★ The Florida Project Sean Baker, who made “Tangerine” on an iPhone in 2015, returns with this beautiful, funny, and heartbreaking tale of American poverty hard by the gates of Orlando’s Disney World, anchored by a wonderful performance by 6-year-old Brooklynn Prince. Time will tell, but this already looks like one of the great movies about childhood. With Willem Dafoe, who earned a best supporting actor Oscar nomination. (115 min., R) (Ty Burr) Available on Amazon Prime, Vudu, YouTube Google Play
HAPPY BIRTHDAY . . .
Angela Lansbury (Oct. 16, 1925)
A smile of fond (if slightly condescending) recognition crosses the reader’s face: Jessica Fletcher, on “Murder, She Wrote”! The voice of Mrs. Potts, in “Beauty and the Beast” (1991)! Oh, that Angela Lansbury, she’s just so ... lovable, albeit in an uninteresting sort of way.
Think again. Perhaps no living actress or actor has had a more varied, and impressive, career.
So expect more exclamation marks.
Her grandfather, George Lansbury, helped found Britain’s Labor Party. In 1944, she made her screen debut, at 18 (!), in “Gaslight” (!). That same year, in “National Velvet,” she played the sister of Elizabeth Taylor (!). Don’t tell Renée Zellweger, but in “The Harvey Girls” (1946) she slaps Judy Garland (!). It’s a different kind of slap when she almost does the unthinkable, breaking up Tracy and Hepburn, in “State of the Union” (1948).
In the ’60s, Lansbury earned a Tony as the title character in “Mame.” In the ’70s, she won two: playing Mama Rose (!) in a revival of “Gypsy”; and as the first Mrs. Lovett, in “Sweeney Todd” (!). Lansbury’s won a total of five acting Tonys (!), a number matched only by Julie Harris.
Mama Rose wasn’t her first mother, which brings us back to the movies. Within 11 months, Lansbury played the mother of Elvis (!), in “Blue Hawaii” (1961), then of Laurence Harvey, in “The Manchurian Candidate” (1962). She was only two years older than Harvey! Doesn’t matter. Lansbury’s performance may be the single most chilling in American film. Her Mrs. Shaw is unswerving, implacable, as evil as vodka laced with anti-freeze. Yet when you find out what she actually is, and the vengeance she will seek for how she was once deceived, it’s a scene worthy of Greek tragedy: Medea in a double strand of pearls. See for yourself; it’s available on Amazon and iTunes.
The career continues. The Balloon Lady, in “Mary Poppins Returns” (2018)? That was Lansbury. Lovable, lovable, lovable. Among other qualities. Exclamation mark.