Cinemas Paradiso
Sissy Spacek with a pre-Presidential Martin Sheen in Badlands.
We watch movies all the time, and the blackened sky is ours for the asking every single night. So why is the combination so special? Can’t really say, except that, like an outdoor shower, a movie viewed out-of-doors, under a nighttime sky, tastes ever-so-slightly of forbidden fruit. Another great aspect of this summer’s outdoor film series in our region is the programming: there’s not a stinker in the bunch.
The Images Cinema in Williamstown dubs its outdoor movie series Family Flicks Under the Stars, and screens them on Sundays, with Mondays as a back-up in case of rain. The series begins this week, July 20, with the incomparable Ghostbusters, followed on subsequent weeks by Rear Window (though utterly chaste, thus squeaking under the wire as Family Fare, it is perhaps the sexiest sex-scene-free film ever made), Singin’ in the Rain, and The Great Muppet Caper. Prior to each film, there’s half-hour of live music. In addition, at 7:30 on the night they screen Singin’ in the Rain, there will be a (be still, my heart) tap-dance workshop.
50 Spring Street, Williamstown; 413.458.5612
Time: dusk/8:30ish
Admission: Free
The selection at this year’s Moonlit Movies at MASS MoCA was influenced by Badlands: New Horizons in Landscape, the show currently on view in the galleries. All are characterized by dramatic landscapes or a specific sense of place. The series begins on Thursday, July 31, appropriately enough, with Terrence Malick’s Badlands, starring Martin Sheen and Sissy Spacek, followed on August 7 by Sidney Pollack’s Out of Africa, and on the following Thursday, August 14, by Alfred Hitchcock’s North by Northwest. The final film in the series, on Thursday, August 28, is Bagdad Cafe, a West German film set in the California Desert, about Bavarian tourists, a husband and wife, who become stranded when their car breaks down.
1040 MASS MoCA Way, North Adams; 413.662.2111
Time: 9
Admission: $7.
PS 21 in Chatham screens its films in an airy tent—perhaps not quite as glamorous as en plein aire, but certainly more waterproof. Another selling point: admission is free. Those who, last Tuesday, missed the rare opportunity to see Margaret Dumas shot from a cannon on the big screen in the Marx Brothers At the Circus, will want to be sure to mark their calendars for Tuesday, July 22 at 8:30, when Adjunct Professor of Communications at FIT Frank Farnham introduces the film The Red Balloon. Old Chatham resident Farnham will also be on hand with helpful commentary for subsequent screenings of such films as Shall We Dance, On the Riviera, Footloose, High Society, Billy Elliot, and Carlos Saura’s Tango.
2980 Route 66 (north of the village); Chatham; 518.392.6121
Time: 8:30
Admission: Free
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Posted by Marilyn Bethany on 07/17/08 at 12:49 AM • Permalink
