The Sunday Night Film Club (SNFC) will NOT be meeting this Sunday, August 28th.  The National Weather Service is predicting that Hurricane Irene will be hitting the Boston area some time Sunday evening, and I’d rather be overly cautious.

Join the Boston Sunday Night Film Club this Sunday, Aug 21st at 7pm for 5 Fingers at the Harvard Film Archive . Look for Sean wearing a nametag in the theatre lobby about 15 minutes before the film. As always, after the film we will descend on a local establishment for dinner/drinks/discussion.

Featuring one of James Mason’s standout roles as a dashing and immoral spy, 5 Fingers is a deliciously arch espionage thriller whose sharp satiric edge slices through the wonderful screenplay co-written by blacklisted writer Michael Wilson and Mankiewicz, who surrendered his screenwriting credit in order to direct the film. Mankiewicz is once again enamored by the lush yet fragile opulence of the upper class, peopling his films with fallen aristocrats such as Danielle Darrieux’s vanquished countess with questionable allegiances. Mankiewicz himself directed the stunning Ankara and Istanbul location shoots that strengthen the exotic mood expressed by Bernard Herrmann’s marvelous Orientalist-tinged score. Print courtesy of the Academy Film Archive.

Join the Boston Sunday Night Film Club this Sunday, Aug 14th at 7:15p for The Help at the AMC Harvard Square 5 . Look for Howard wearing a nametag in the theatre lobby about 15 minutes before the film. As always, after the film we will descend on a local establishment for dinner/drinks/discussion.

Set in Mississippi during the 1960s, Skeeter (Stone) is a southern society girl who returns from college determined to become a writer, but turns her friends’ lives – and a Mississippi town – upside down when she decides to interview the black women who have spent their lives taking care of prominent southern families. Aibileen (Davis), Skeeter’s best friend’s housekeeper, is the first to open up – to the dismay of her friends in the tight-knit black community. Despite Skeeter’s life-long friendships hanging in the balance, she and Aibileen continue their collaboration and soon more women come forward to tell their stories – and as it turns out, they have a lot to say. Along the way, unlikely friendships are forged and a new sisterhood emerges, but not before everyone in town has a thing or two to say themselves when they become unwittingly – and unwillingly – caught up in the changing times.

Join the Boston Sunday Night Film Club this Sunday, Aug 7th at 4pm for Jaws at the Somerville Theatre . Look for Sean wearing a nametag in the theatre lobby about 15 minutes before the film. As always, after the film we will descend on a local establishment for dinner/drinks/discussion.

How about we break up this streak of mediocre-at-best “Summer Movies” with the original blockbuster:

The peaceful community of Amity island is being terrorised. There is something in the sea that is attacking swimmers. They can no longer enjoy the sea and the sun as they used to, and the spreading fear is affecting the numbers of tourists that are normally attracted to this island. After many attempts the great white shark won’t go away and sheriff Brody, with friends Hooper and Quint decide to go after the shark and kill it.

Join the Boston Sunday Night Film Club this Sunday, Jul 31st at 7:15p for Cowboys & Aliens at the AMC Boston Common 19 . Look for Sean wearing a nametag in the theatre lobby about 15 minutes before the film. As always, after the film we will descend on a local establishment for dinner/drinks/discussion.

(Note: We had talked last week about seeing Jaws at the Somerville this week. It turns out that Jaws isn’t showing this week, it’s next, so we’ll likely see it next weekend).

The Old West.. where a lone cowboy leads an uprising against a terror from beyond our world. 1873. Arizona Territory. A stranger with no memory of his past stumbles into the hard desert town of Absolution. The only hint to his history is a mysterious shackle that encircles one wrist. What he discovers is that the people of Absolution don’t welcome strangers, and nobody makes a move on its streets unless ordered to do so by the iron-fisted Colonel Dolarhyde (Ford). It’s a town that lives in fear. But Absolution is about to experience fear it can scarcely comprehend as the desolate city is attacked by marauders from the sky. Screaming down with breathtaking velocity and blinding lights to abduct the helpless one by one, these monsters challenge everything the residents have ever known. Now, the stranger they rejected is their only hope for salvation. As this gunslinger slowly starts to remember who he is and where he’s been, he realizes he holds a secret that could give the town a fighting chance against the alien force. With the help of the elusive traveler Ella (Olivia Wilde), he pulls together a posse comprised of former opponents-townsfolk, Dolarhyde and his boys, outlaws and Apache warriors-all in danger of annihilation. United against a common enemy, they will prepare for an epic showdown for survival.

Join the Boston Sunday Night Film Club this Sunday, Jul 24th at 6:50p for Captain America: The First Avenger at the Regal Fenway Stadium 13 . Look for Sean wearing a nametag in the theatre lobby about 15 minutes before the film. As always, after the film we will descend on a local establishment for dinner/drinks/discussion.

“After being deemed unfit for military service, Steve Rogers volunteers for a top secret research project that turns him into Captain America, a superhero dedicated to defending America’s ideals.”

Join the Boston Sunday Night Film Club this Sunday, Jul 17th at 7:20p for Project Nim at the Coolidge Corner Theatre . Look for Sean wearing a nametag in the theatre lobby about 15 minutes before the film. As always, after the film we will descend on a local establishment for dinner/drinks/discussion.

From the Oscar-winning team behind Man On Wire comes the story of Nim, the chimpanzee who in the 1970s became the focus of a landmark experiment which aimed to show that an ape could learn to communicate with language if raised and nurtured like a human child. Following Nim’s extraordinary journey through human society, and the enduring impact he makes on the people he meets along the way, the film is an unflinching and unsentimental biography of an animal we tried to make human. What we learn about his true nature - and indeed our own - is comic, revealing and profoundly unsettling.

Join the Boston Sunday Night Film Club this Sunday, Jul 10th at 7:30p for Horrible Bosses at the AMC Harvard Square 5 . Look for Corinna wearing a nametag in the theatre lobby about 15 minutes before the film. As always, after the film we will descend on a local establishment for dinner/drinks/discussion.

Nick (Jason Bateman), Dale (Charlie Day) and Kurt (Jason Sudeikis) are workers who would like nothing better than to grind their oppressive employers into the dirt. Quitting their jobs is not an option, so – fueled by alcohol and dubious advice from a shady ex-convict (Jamie Foxx) – the men devise a complex and seemingly foolproof plan to permanently rid themselves of their terrible bosses. The problem is, any plan is only as clever as the brains behind it.

The Sunday Night Film Club (SNFC) is taking this Sunday, July 3rd off to celebrate the national holiday.  We will return the following Sunday, July 10th.

Join the Boston Sunday Night Film Club this Sunday, Jun 26th at 7:15p for The African Queen at the Brattle Theatre . Look for Dan wearing a multicolored shirt in the theatre lobby about 15 minutes before the film. As always, after the film we will descend on a local establishment for dinner/drinks/discussion.

East Africa during World War I: after British missionary Robert Morley dies in the wake of a German attack, his prissy spinster sister Rose (Hepburn) hitches a ride on the African Queen, a rundown riverboat operated by gin-sodden Canadian Charlie Allnut (Bogart) who later finds shes got a formidable agenda: whip up a few homemade torpedoes to get revenge on a German gunboat floating on a lake, with only a hair-raising ride down the rapids, an enemy fort, and Deutsch officer Theodore Bikels noose in the way. Shot on location in the Belgian Congo and Uganda by Technicolor specialist par excellence Jack Cardiff (The Red Shoes), THE AFRICAN QUEEN had its own set of off-camera adventures: Mrs. Bogie, Lauren Bacall, came along on the trip as probably the most glamorous waitress in the world; the boat sank in the river and had to be salvaged; Huston kept the camera turning when a hippo nearly capsized it during the final scene; and virtually the entire crew came down with dysentery, except for the strictly whiskey-imbibing Huston and Bogart. Oscar nominations to Hepburn, Huston, and screenplay with Bogart winning for Best Actor, beating out Fredric March, Montgomery Clift, and Marlon Brandos Stanley Kowalski. Seen for decades only in washed-out prints (the original 3-strip Technicolor negatives had long since shrunk), THE AFRICAN QUEEN, in this new 35mm restoration, once again looks magnificent, with deep, burnished browns and yellows and a level of detail that picks out every drop of sweat on Bogarts brow (Dave Kehr). Restored by ITV Global Entertainment and Paramount Pictures. notes adapted from the Film Forum, NYC