WARPED TOUR: Their services no longer required by the bigwigs at Mercury, the Mighty Mighty Bosstones have a new disc titled A Jackknife to a Swan due out in July on the indie-punk label SideOneDummy. And as if to prove that nothing’s changed, they’re once again among the headliners for punk’s rite of summer, the Warped Tour. Their compadres on this year’s outing include Bad Religion, New Found Glory, Thursday, the Alkaline Trio, MXPX, Lagwagon, Flogging Molly, No Use for a Name, the Damned, Reel Big Fish, Good Charlotte, the Casualties, Total Chaos, and about a dozen more. The tour hits Suffolk Downs in East Boston on August 15. Tickets go on sale this Saturday, May 4, at 10 a.m.; call (800) 477-6849.
CARDINAL SIN? If Catholic parishioners thought the last round of scandal left a bad taste in their mouth, wait’ll Father Guido Sarducci hits town. SNL’s chain-smoking cleric takes a break from his day gig — officially he’s the "gossip columnist and rock critic for the Vatican rag" — to hold forth on the current crisis "ripping at the Church." Sarducci — known to his mother as Don Novello — shows up at the Comedy Connection at Faneuil Hall next Friday and Saturday. Call (617) 248-9700.
NEXT WEEKEND:
Face/off
The venerable façade of Brookline’s grand old lady of independent cinema, the Coolidge Corner Theatre, is getting more than just a nip and a tuck. Next Friday marks the unveiling of a towering art-deco marquee at the theater accompanied by a gala celebration complete with red carpet and klieg lights. And in a manner befitting her stature, the Coolidge gets a week-long rededication festival that brings to her stage and screens a mix of new stars, old favorites, trash classics, and camp delights — including appearances by Janeane Garofalo and Jonathan Katz, as well as John Waters and the queen of the heavy-lifting makeover herself, Tammy Faye Bakker.
"The idea was that if we changed the look from the outside, if we created this art-deco-fabulous structure, it would be a bold statement about the health of this theater and the commitment of the community," says Joe Zina, the Coolidge’s executive director, who has supervised the theater’s substantial capital improvements over the past three years. "We don’t have a big corporation that oversees the Coolidge. It’s the community’s theater, and everyone wants to help because it is good thing."
Case in point: the new marquee (still being completed, and seen here in an artist’s mock-up) was designed by Brookline resident Mark Favermann, president and CEO of Favermann Design, who donated his time and worked closely with the non-profit theater’s board of directors in creating the new exterior sign. The neighborhood will get its first look at Favermann’s work at an official marquee-lighting ceremony next Friday immediately after the 7:30 p.m. premiere of the new "mockumentary" film The Independent, which will be attended by stars Garofalo and Katz.
The celebration week continues through May 18 with favorite films, guest appearances, and special events that cater to all aspects of the Coolidge audience. A Bogart double feature, Casablanca and The Maltese Falcon, screens on May 11. Later in the day, John Waters will show the director’s cut of his cult classic Female Trouble; that will be followed, at 8:30, by "An Evening with John Waters: The World of Trash," this peerless raconteur’s new one-man show, part stand-up comedy, part gossip fest.
On May 12 at 2 p.m., local theater impresario Ryan Landry hosts the return of one of last year’s Coolidge coups, the campy "Sing-Along Sound of Music." A Hitchcock double feature, Vertigo and Rear Window, follows at 6 p.m. Musicals take center stage on May 13 with the double bill of An American in Paris (a new print) and Swing Time. A pair of Fellini films, 8-1/2 and Giulietta degli spiriti (another new print), screen on May 14. Jean-Luc Godard’s Nouvelle Vague classics A bout de souffle (a/k/a Breathless) and Bande à part screen on May 15; retiring Boston Globe film critic Jay Carr will introduce these films and sign copies of The A List: The National Society of Film Critics’ 100 Essential Films, which he edited.
May 17 will see the premiere of a new screen adaptation of Oscar Wilde’s The Importance of Being Earnest. Directed by Oliver Parker, who previously adapted Wilde’s An Ideal Husband (one of the Coolidge’s highest-grossing bookings ever), this version stars Rupert Everett, Colin Firth, Reese Witherspoon, and Judi Dench. The festivities conclude in inimitable fashion on May 18 as Tammy Faye Bakker presents a midnight showing of the cult documentary The Eyes of Tammy Faye, an event sponsored by the Governor’s Commission on Gay and Lesbian Youth as part of the eighth annual Gay/Straight Youth Pride celebration.
Advance tickets for The Independent, the "Sing-Along Sound of Music," "An Evening with John Waters," and The Eyes of Tammy Faye Bakker are available through the Coolidge Corner box office or by calling TicketWeb at (866) 468-7619. The free outdoor marquee-lighting ceremony takes place next Friday, May 10, at 9:30 p.m. at the Coolidge, 290 Harvard Street in Brookline; call (617) 734-2501.
BY LOREN KING
