Hello, blog. Long time no see. Sometimes a week gets away from a movie critic, and between all the screenings and the copy deadlines, the youngest child (that would be you, blog) gets neglected. Please don't go through a rebellious stage in a desperate bid to get attention.
Everyone will be going to see "Pirates of the Caribbean: At World's End" this weekend. I mean everyone. Didn't you get the memo? This will assuredly break the box office record set by "Spider-Man 3," and it's everyone's duty to pitch in. Just go to the theater and throw money at the screen.
The critics are mixed-to-peevish, not that it matters with a juggernaut like this. Me, I liked it better than the second installment while acknowledging that it's not a patch on the first one -- but what threequel is?
If you want some beautifully noisy peace and quiet instead, I urge you to see "Once," the amazing Irish rock musical (sort of) romance (sort of) opening today at the Coolidge and the Harvard Square. All the actual human feeling that "Pirates" can't fit into its 168 minutes is here in half the running time, and, lord, the tunes soar. If you know the Irish band The Frames, whose Glen Hansard plays the anonymous male lead, you know what to expect. If not, think Damien Rice duetting with Keren Ann in a Dublin back alley.
"Day Night Day Night" is still at the Coolidge, too. Make it a double-bill and blow your mind out the back of the theater.
I haven't seen "Bug," but Wesley gives it three and a half and as a certified member of the Ashley Judd Guilty Pleasure Fan Club ("Eye of the Beholder"? A brilliant addition to world cinema) I consider it my duty to check it out in due time. Fans of the strange may want to as well. Warning: It's half horror movie, half Off Broadway play.
The Brattle is still acting like a grindhouse: Bruce Lee lands onscreen on Sunday. It's my personal opinion that if there's not a junkie shooting up in the third row, a couple having sex in the back, and a scary guy breathing hard in the seat directly behind you, it is faux grindhouse, not the real thing. But you take what you can get.
More Harold Pinter screenplays at the Harvard Film Archive: It's a good weekend to get your Joseph Losey freak on.
