When it comes to seeing movies, trying to plan ahead isn’t always easy. You might have a killer date set up—those new shoes you’ve been saving for a good occasion, a reservation at the local candlelight and wine joint, some flowers hidden in the car—only to discover that the single new feature out that week is Ernest Goes to Counseling. The next week—inevitably a week when you have no time to go to the movies, or no one to take—could provide a cornucopia of new releases. This is one of those weeks; buckle up for a quick run through some of what’s on offer, and keep notes for later.
Perhaps thinking of those couples out on awkward dates, Hadley’s Cinemark Theaters is screening The Switch, a Jennifer Aniston comedy about true love and artificial insemination. Aniston plays Kassie, a 30-something single woman who decides that, husband or no, she’s ready for a baby. Jason Bateman (Arrested Development) is Wally, the high-strung friend who tries to talk her out of it. But that’s before he accidentally spills her donor sperm at an “insemination party” and replaces it the only way he can. Seven years later, Kassie reenters Wally’s life with a suspiciously high-strung kid in tow. All together now: “Awww.”
Also at Cinemark: Piranha 3D. Forget Avatar. Please, please forget the multimillion dollar 3D IMAX porno that just made the news. If ever there were a reason for 3D motion pictures, it is obviously so that we can enjoy the spectacle of prehistoric man-eating fish, freed from their lair by an “underwater tremor,” feasting on the foolish frolickers at Lake Victoria. Director Alexandre Aja’s (The Hills Have Eyes) film has a nice bookend quality—Avatar director James Cameron directed the 1981 installment of the fish tale.
In Amherst, the local cinema brings in new fare and special screenings. Director Christian Carion’s Farewell opened this week; based on a little-known true story, the film is an intimate look at the spy game in the days before the fall of the Soviet Union. Depicting a pas de deux between KGB colonel and family man Sergei Grigoriev, codenamed “Farewell,” and the French company man he passes secrets to in Moscow, Farewell is a reminder that spy work is sometimes sparked less by love of country and more by love of family, and the desire to give them the chances you never had.
Also opening at Amherst is Mao’s Last Dancer, based on the bestselling autobiography of Li Cunxin and directed by Bruce Beresford (Driving Miss Daisy). Taken from his impoverished family by the Chinese government and sent to study ballet in Beijing, Li rose to international acclaim as a dancer, but remained stung by the pain of exile. And on Sunday, Aug. 29 at 7 p.m., the cinema hosts a benefit screening of Harvest of Grief, with producer Rasil Basu in attendance. A study of the suicide epidemic in the Indian state of Punjab—where declining soil fertility and predatory lending practices have left debt-ridden farmers with few options—the film sheds light on a woefully underreported state of affairs.
Another special screening takes place across the bridge in Northampton on Friday, Aug. 27, when local activists Sherrill Hogan and Carl Doerner help present a screening of Guazapa: Yesterday’s Enemies at the Media Education Foundation. In it, reporter Don North returns to his old beat in El Salvador to see how the nation has fared since his wartime stint there in the 1980s.
And finally this week, Pleasant Street Theater offers something different for filmgoers who enjoyed Audrey Tatou’s recent turn as iconic fashion designer Coco Chanel. Jan Kounan’s film Coco Chanel & Igor Stravinsky features another actress (Anna Mouglalis) in the lead role, and offers a glimpse of a slightly later period in Chanel’s life, when her brief but incendiary affair with the composer Stravinsky ignited their artistry.
Jack Brown can be reached at cinemadope@gmail.com.
