Author: Amy Diaz

Amy Diaz is the executive editor and writes about movies and compiles the Kiddie Pool column. Reach her at [email protected].

Kiddie Pool 21/09/09

Family fun for the weekend

Movie night

Nashua’s SummerFun program wraps up for the year with an outdoor screening of this year’s excellent animated featureRaya and the Last Dragon (PG, 2021), a Disney movie featuring the voices of Awkwafina (as a dragon), Kelly Marie Tran (Raya), Sandra Oh, Gemma Chan and Daniel Dae Kim. The movie screens on Friday, Sept. 10, at dusk at the Greeley Park Bandshell (100 Concord St.).

Outside the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center (2 Institute Dr. in Concord; starhop.com, 271-7827) on Friday, Sept. 10, you can sit under the stars and watch a robot come from the stars in WALL-E(G, 2008), that Pixar classic featuring the voices of Sigourney Weaver and Jeff Garlin and an interstellar opening segment scored to (as Wikipedia reminded me) “Put on Your Sunday Clothes” from Hello, Dolly!. The movie starts at 7 p.m.

Catch Honey I Shrunk the Kids (PG, 1989) on Tuesday, Sept. 14, at 7 p.m. at the Rex Theatre (23 Amherst St. in Manchester; palacetheatre.org) as part of the ongoing Movies For a Cause. Tickets cost $12. This week’s movies (1989’s PG movie Field of Dreams screens Wednesday, Sept. 15) benefit CASA.

Playtime can recommence

The Children’s Museum of New Hampshire (6 Washington St. in Dover; childrens-museum.org, 742-2002) reopens Tuesday, Sept. 14, after its regular end-of-summer refresh. The museum will also feature its annual Toddlerfest, with drop-in activities for younger visitors (now that older kids are back in school) such as wacky art projects, bubble dance parties, science experiments and bug investigation in the museum’s Learning Garden, according to a press release.

And make plans now for the NH Maker Fest, scheduled for Saturday, Sept. 18, from 10 a.m. to 3 p.m., which will be held inside and outside the museum with no tickets required, the press release said. The museum is open Tuesdays through Saturdays with timed tickets for 9 a.m. to noon or 1 to 4 p.m. and Sunday 9 a.m. to noon. Buy tickets in advance online; masks are required for all visitors over 24 months. Admission costs $11 for everyone over a year of age ($9 for seniors).

Fireworks & a parade

Hollis will hold its Old Home Days on Friday, Sept. 10, and Saturday, Sept. 11. On Friday, events run from 5 to 10 p.m. and include a midway and rides, exhibitors and food vendors and DJ Carryl Roy, at Nichols Track and Field. On Saturday, Sept. 11, the midway and rides are open from 10 a.m. to 10 p.m. The Old Home Day parade starts at 10:30 a.m. and runs from the middle school to Nichols Field. A firemen’s muster will be held from 1 to 2 p.m., also at Nichols. A pet pageant takes place at 3 p.m., live music is scheduled throughout the afternoon and into the evening and fireworks are scheduled for 8 p.m., all according to hollisoldhomedays.org.

CODA

CODA (PG-13)

High school senior Ruby discovers her talent for singing but she is conflicted about leaving her family to go to music school in CODA, a sweet and extremely charming coming of age story.

Unlike her mom Jackie (Marlee Matlin), dad Frank (Troy Kotsur) and older brother Leo (Daniel Durant), Ruby (Emilia Jones) is hearing (the “child of deaf adults” of the movie’s title). Ruby works with her dad and brother on their fishing boat, often serving as the one to negotiate the price for the day’s catch, before heading to school.

On a whim — and as an excuse to hang out around Miles (Ferdia Walsh-Peelo), a fellow senior she’s crushing on — Ruby joins the school’s choir. Though able to belt out Motown classics on the fishing boat, Ruby is shy singing in front of other students, particularly since she was bullied for the way she talked as a child and is still picked on for her family generally. But choir teacher Bernardo Villalobos (Eugenio Derbez) pulls her past this and helps her let loose her love of singing and her natural talent. He also picks Ruby and Miles to sing a duet at an upcoming recital — leading her to break out of her shell with him as well.

As she finds her footing in choir, the family’s fishing business grows more precarious. Their earnings for each catch are decreasing and government oversight is increasing. Leo wants to start a co-op with the other fishermen that will get them better prices but Frank is uncertain about getting involved with the hearing fishermen. Leo also struggles with the family’s reliance on Ruby to interpret, as does Ruby. She wants to pursue singing and the possibility of getting in to Berklee School of Music, which Bernardo says he will help her apply for. But she also feels obligated to help her parents.

Delightfully, the movie builds a relationship between Ruby and her family that features her fierce love of them as well as her thorough (and realistic) teenage “mom!” annoyance — when they play music too loud as they pick her up from school (her dad loves the loud bass of rap), when they have a wonderfully (purposefully) awkward conversation with Miles, when her mother gets on her about how she’s dressed. It’s so perfectly teenage-parent, so much meaning-well and love and delighting at her embarrassment and “gah, back off” all rolled up into the moment. Likewise, Ruby’s loving sibling relationship with Leo is highlighted by a series of excellent insults (not one of which I can repeat in print). Because of the movie’s well-drawn relationships and fully realized characters, CODA feels as much like a family coming of age as much as it is the story of Ruby’s coming of age. Not only is Ruby making decisions about her life and what she wants to do; each member of the family is taking steps in new directions in a way that also feels very real.

There are excellent performances all the way around in this movie — Jones but also Kostur, Durant and Matlin. And it was really a joy to watch Derbez in this kind of role. I mostly know him from big, broad comedies but here he hits the right note as a caring and talented teacher.

CODA is a joy throughout. A

Rated PG-13 for strong sexual content and language and drug use, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Written and directed by Sian Heder (and based on a French film from 2014 called La Famille Bélier), CODA is an hour and 51 minutes long and is distributed by Apple on Apple TV+. CODA is screening in theaters (in Massachusetts as of Aug. 31) and on Apple TV+.

Candyman (R)

An artist living in a recently gentrified Chicago neighborhood finds himself and his work tied up in local lore in Candyman, a sequel to the 1992 horror movie.

Anthony McCoy (Yahya Abdul-Mateen II), whose name comes with backstory for people who have seen the original movie (I haven’t), has recently moved with his girlfriend, Brianna (Teyonah Parris), to an airy apartment in the gentrifying neighborhood of Cabrini-Green, the onetime home of housing projects (that were the setting of the first movie). He is blocked, artistically, presenting pieces to an art gallery operator that are just riffs on earlier work. After Brianna’s brother, Troy (Nathan Stewart-Jarrett), tells a story about a series of murders involving a woman named Helen Lyle, Anthony decides to dig into the history of the area, hoping he’ll find some inspiration.

He meets William (Colman Domingo), a longtime resident, who tells Anthony about the legend of Candyman, a presence who appears after saying his name in a mirror five times and who then kills those who summoned him. But the legend isn’t just a local boogeyman tale; the more Anthony digs in to the story the more he learns about the various men who are considered to be the figure’s origin, all the way back to Daniel Robitaille (Tony Todd) in the 19th century — all killed by police or lynch mobs. This investigation of Candyman takes Anthony’s work in strange directions and seems to be messing with his head. He is also having an extremely bad reaction to a bee sting. Anthony’s deteriorating mental and physical states have Brianna concerned. And then acquaintances of the couple start dying.

I think I generally like where this movie starts out, the various issues it sets up: Anthony’s artistic block, Brianna’s career ambitions, Brianna’s current status as the breadwinner of the couple and how that clearly bugs Anthony, the gentrification of the neighborhood they now live in. And I like where the movie seems to be wanting to go with its overall message. But in the middle, the movie seems to wander a bit and lose the threads at times.

The movie is tightly focused on Anthony at first but somewhere around the two-thirds point it just sort of drops him as a person we’re in the mystery with, which makes his story feel unfinished. Not that a movie like this needs to make perfect sense but there are elements that felt like they needed more explanation — or maybe just a more organic explanation. Frequently it feels like plot points connect in that “puzzle pieces smashed together” sense, resulting in information having to be told to us rather than more naturally revealing itself.

I’m a sucker for this particular kind of horror, though, one that puts dread and spookiness ahead of gore (though this movie has gore). And this movie has a great visual style, particularly in the way it uses shadow puppets to illustrate exposition — they are both eerie and very pretty. Candyman may not perfectly click together for me with its plot but it delivers on atmospherics. B-

Rated R for bloody horror violence, and language including some sexual references, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Directed by Nia DaCosta with a screenplay by Jordan Peele & Win Rosenfeld and Nia DaCosta, Candyman (that’s six; do computer screens count as mirrors?) is an hour and 31 minutes long and is distributed by Universal Pictures in theaters.

FILM

Venues

Cinemark Rockingham Park
15 Mall Road, Salem
cinemark.com/theatres/nh-salem

Red River Theatres
11 S. Main St., Concord
224-4600, redrivertheatres.org

Regal Fox Run Stadium 15
45 Gosling Road, Newington
regmovies.com

Shows

• Stripes (R, 1981) 40th anniversary screening at Cinemark in Salem and Regal Fox Run in Newington on Thursday, Sept. 2, at 7 p.m.

• The Green Knight (R, 2021) screening at the Red River Theatres in Concord Friday, Sept. 3, through Monday, Sept. 6, at 3:15 p.m. and 6:30 p.m.

• Stillwater (R, 2021) screening at the Red River Theatres in Concord Friday, Sept. 3, through Monday, Sept. 6, 12:30, 3:45 and 7 p.m.

• Together (R, 2021) screening at the Red River Theatres in Concord Friday, Sept. 3, through Monday, Sept. 6, at 1 p.m.

• Backdraft (R, 1991) 30th anniversary screening on Sunday, Sept. 5, at Cinemark in Salem at 3 p.m. and Regal Fox Run in Newington at 3 and 7 p.m., and on Wednesday, Sept. 8, at both locations at 7 p.m.

• The Alpinist (PG-13, 2020) screens on Tuesday, Sept. 7, at 7 p.m. at AMC Londonderry and Cinemark in Salem.

Featured photo: CODA. Courtesy photo.

Kiddie Pool 21/09/02

Family fun for the weekend

Family fun ideas

Looking for some entertainment ideas for the whole gang this weekend? Check out some of our recent stories (see e-editions of issues at hippopress.com.). In our July 8 issue we looked at mini golf, with a rundown of some of the area courses. A note for people with littler kids: Mel’s Funway Park in Litchfield (melsfunwaypark.com.) has added a Mini Mel’s Kiddie Land set of attractions geared toward kids ages 2 to 9. For the more adventurous, we looked at water fun (paddleboarding, canoeing, kayaking and cruising on New Hampshire waterways) in the Aug. 5 issue and adventures aloft (ziplining, hot air ballooning and parasailing) in the July 15 issue.

Space!

AerospaceFest returns to McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center (2 Institute Drive, Concord; starhop.com, 271-7827) on Saturday, Sept. 4, from 10:30 a.m. to 4 p.m. Admission is free for the outdoor event. The NH Astronomical Society will have a telescope set up, Millstone Wildlife Center will bring ambassador animals, robotics teams will do robot demos and local STEM organizations will attend, the website said. No pre-registration is required.

Fair weekend

If you’ve been missing the summer/fall fair experience, you’re in luck. The Hopkinton State Fair kicks off Thursday, Sept. 2, and runs through Monday, Sept. 6. (Free parking at 905 Park Ave., Contoocook.) The fair is open Thursday, 5 to 10 p.m.; Friday through Sunday, 8 a.m. to 11 p.m., and Monday, 8 a.m. to 7 p.m. Thursday is “Townie Night,” when Hopkinton residents get in for free between 5 and 8 p.m. Admission for non-residents is $8 for ages 3 and up. One-day passes Friday through Monday cost $14 for ages 13 to 59, $12 for ages 60+ and $8 for ages 3 to 12, according to the fair website, hsfair.org, where you can also buy a pass for all five days for ages 3 to 60+ for $39 per person. You can also find tickets for a one-day megapass (allows unlimited admission to mechanical rides) and grandstand shows including demolition derby, monster trucks and Northeast Six Shooters’ horseback shooting demonstration show. Military (active or retired) with a valid photo ID are admitted free.

Find rides and games on the midway, open 5 p.m. to close on Thursday, noon to close on Friday and 10 a.m. to close Saturday through Monday. Catch demonstrations from the NH Canine Troopers Association (4 and 6 p.m., Friday), Axe Women Loggers of Maine (noon and 3 and 5 p.m.,daily), Dock Dogs (daily), Ben Risney Wood Sculpture (10 a.m., and 1 and 4 p.m., daily) and John Deere Skid Steer Rodeo (Monday. 11 a.m. to 3 p.m.). There’s also a lineup of live music and juggling. At the Ag Stage, catch Dan Morgan (11 a.m. to 3 p.m., daily) and Nicole Knox Murphy (3 to 7 p.m.). Get kids interested in 4-H (or maybe just some light gardening and chicken tending) with the agriculture displays and competitions (livestock shows, horse show, pulling competitions and the home arts hall).

The fair also has educational displays, such as the maple sugar house, the NH Fish and Game building and a Charmingfare Farm petting zoo (Friday through Sunday, 9 a.m. to 9 p.m.; Monday, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.) with daily animal magic shows (noon, and 2 and 5 p.m.), the website said.

And, of course, the fair will help you get your fried dough fix. Other food options include sausages with peppers and onions, apple crisp with ice cream, turkey legs, bison burgers and giant doughnuts, according to the fair website.

At the Sofaplex 21/08/26

The Ice Road (PG-13)

Liam Neeson, Laurence Fishburne.

This movie is so exactly-as-advertised that sometimes it almost feels too simple: Mike (Neeson) is part of a group of people driving three trucks with heavy equipment across an ice road in Manitoba. At least one of the trucks needs to make it to a collapsed mine within some 30 hours to save the lives of 26 miners stuck inside. The roads have technically been closed because it is now early spring, so the first challenge the truckers face is the potential for the ice to crack and send them and their trucks very quickly into the freezing waters. As you’d expect, more challenges develop along the way.

The team includes Mike’s brother Gurty (Marcus Thomas), a veteran who requires Mike’s constant care due to PTSD and aphasia that jumbles his words; Goldenrod (Fishburne), the man who put together the team; Tantoo (Amber Midthunder), a young trucker who has worked with Goldenrod in the past, and Varnay (Benjamin Walker), the insurance guy connected to the mine.

Trucks drive on ice, complications arise — that’s pretty much the movie. And that’s fine! For all that not every performance or line of dialogue feels particularly Oscar-winning, it’s a movie that holds your attention and provides a solid mix of action, suspense and “huh, ice roads, cool.” This isn’t Neeson’s best “late-career action Neeson” performance but he knows this territory well and turns in a perfectly workable performance. B- Available on Netflix.

The Last Letter from Your Lover (TV-MA)

Shailene Woodley, Felicity Jones.

Also Nabhaan Rizwan and Callum Turner (who I couldn’t place until I looked him up on IMDb; you may know him as Frank Churchill from 2020’s Emma.).

Present-day newspaper writer Ellie (Jones) finds letters from the 1960s between J, whom we learn is Jennifer Stirling (Woodley), and Boot, her pet name for Anthony O’Hare (Turner), a then-newspaper reporter. They meeton the Riviera, where Jennifer and her wet-blanket husband Lawrence (Joe Alwyn) are sort of vacationing. Mostly, he runs off to deal with work things and she’s left alone, which is how Anthony finds things when he shows up at their house to interview Lawrence for a profile. J and Boot, as they start to call each other, end up spending time together, forming a friendship that, when they return to London, turns into an affair.

We see this story play out in flashback as Ellie, who thinks maybe there’s a good feature in this story, finds letters in the newspaper’s archives with the help of archivist Rory (Rizwan). Naturally, reading all these love letters together causes these modern people to start to feel some feelings.

If you generally like romances (particularly with this kind of The Guernsey Literary and Potato Peel Pie Society events in the past/events in the present structure) and enjoy period wardrobe (I could fill up an online shopping cart with Woodley’s dresses and accessories) and need something on in the background while you fold a bunch of towels or pay bills, The Last Letter from Your Lover is fine. I feel like some very good naps could be generated by the scenes of well-dressed people drinking cocktails and listening to period music. If you need something more, like heat generated between any of the couples or really compelling characters or interesting dialogue, you probably need to look elsewhere. C+ Available on Netflix.

Reminiscence

Reminiscence (PG-13)

There are millions of stories in the drowned city and Hugh Jackman is privy to many of them via his special memory machine in Reminiscence, a stylish and boring film noir.

Nick Bannister (Jackman) is like a PI of your mind. With the help of his coworker/longtime friend Watts (Thandiwe Newton), he hooks his clients up to a mind-visualization-thingy to help them go back to a memory — the memory of a person who is no longer around, the memory of where they last saw something they lost, the memory of happier times. (While they remember, Nick can also see the memory.) And the past seems like the place where people find more happiness than in the present (which is sometime in the nonspecific future), where rising seas have half-submerged the city of Miami and people seem to be forever sloshing through water. Some sunken buildings have become a kind of Venice-y city of water taxis; some places are behind dams but still constantly damp. There was a war, troubles at the border and now people seem to live in a kind of haunted state.

When Mae (Rebecca Ferguson), styled as sort of a live-action Jessica Rabbit, comes into Nick’s business, she isn’t looking to dwell in some dry and sunny past — she just wants to go back a day or two to figure out where her lost keys are. But something about her captivates Nick and he finds himself hanging out in her memory, watching her sing an American songbook classic “Where or When,” a song that takes him back to happier days. He quickly falls in love (or lust or plot contrivance) with Mae, only to find himself bereft when she suddenly vanishes. Where did she go? Why hasn’t she contacted him? Who was she really? These are the questions that drive Nick back through his own memories even though there is a danger in always lingering in the past.

Reminiscence is very pretty to look at with its watery city, where daytime heat is so hot that people now sleep during the day and live their lives at night. It is the perfect setting for this kind of tale — all grizzled detective-type, mysterious lady, shady and desperate people in a fallen world. Unfortunately, this particular tale just never clicked together for me. I found myself way more interested in all the peripherals — the wars, the soggy state of the world, the public transportation that is suddenly everywhere, the nighttime existence, the state of the justice system, Thandiwe Newton’s character — than I ever was in Jackman’s and Ferguson’s characters, who have very superficial “hot people in a perfume commercial” chemistry but very little person-to-person chemistry. The stylized setting, all 1930s gumshoe grit, is also fun but requires a lot of mental effort to tamp down all the “but why” and “but what about” questions it gins up — a state of things that I feel wouldn’t be so pronounced if the central plot and its core relationship was more interesting.

Reminiscence has potential but it quickly turns into a slow and tedious soggy slog. C

Rated PG-13 for strong violence, drug material throughout, sexual content and some strong language, according to the MPA on filmratings.com. Written and directed by Lisa Joy, Reminiscence is an hour and 56 minutes long and distributed by Warner Bros. in theaters and on HBO Max.

Paw Patrol: The Movie (G)

Human boy Ryder and his team of talking pups head to the metropolis of Adventure City to put an end to Mayor Humdinger’s tomfoolery in Paw Patrol: The Movie, a more fancily animated, feature-length adventure of the Nick Jr. series’ characters.

This movie is roughly three-Paw Patrol-episodes in length — “one Paw Patrol” being a standardized unit of time measurement in my house as it likely is in many houses for whom Paw Patrol is on regular TV-watching rotation. As several special episodes of the show have, this movie introduces a new pup character in a kind of extended universe location. Most episodes of the show take place in Adventure Bay, a vaguely northern California-ish town on the ocean (where there are sometimes pirates) and that is within driving distance of a snowy mountain range and a jungle and sometimes they fly to a London-like city-state called Barkingburg that has a monarchy. Also there’s a dinosaur land, I think? I’m not always watching super closely; I am not the intended audience.

This movie is the first time, as far as I can remember, that the Paw Patrol (as the six core pups and the human, elementary-school-ish aged boy Ryder are known) has ventured to Adventure City. Ryder (voice of Will Brisbin) is the leader of this rescue-team of pups: police dog Chase (voice of Iain Armitage), fire dog Marshall (voice of Kingsley Marshall), bulldozer-driving dog Rubble (voice of Keegan Hedley), recycling/fix-it dog Rocky (voice of Callum Shoniker), water rescue dog Zuma (voice of Shayle Simons) and pilot dog Skye (voice of Lilly Bartlam), who was the only girl pup for a while. Even if you’ve never seen the show, you’ve probably still seen the pups — as the movie itself jokes, pretty much any kid item (lunch boxes, band-aids, T-shirts and, of course, so many toys) has a licensed Paw Patrol version. Each pup has their own special vehicle and their own colors — so that whatever your toddler-through-elementary-schooler’s interest/favorite color, there is a pup (and accompanying merchandise) for them.

Mayor Humdinger (voice of Ron Pardo, who also does the Cap’n Turbot voice) is the series’ most frequent baddie — though like all the “villains” of Paw Patrol he is not so much bad as inept, inconsiderate and vain. Here, he and his band of self-absorbed cats have apparently relocated from Foggy Bottom (the town he’s usually referred to as the mayor of) to Adventure City, where he has become the mayor sort of by accident. Now, this dog-disliking buffoon is poised to cause all sorts of mayhem in the city, from locking up every dog his henchmen (voiced by Randall Park and Dax Shepard) can find to trying to make the subway more adventurous by adding a shoddily constructed roller coaster loop-the-loop. This is why Liberty (voice of Marsai Martin), a friendly neighborhood helper-pup who lives in Adventure City, calls on the Paw Patrol to come and save the day.

Some of the TV show’s episodes will have a particular pup as the focus; here, that’s Chase, who is given a backstory of being found and adopted by Ryder when he was a young, scared pup wandering Adventure City. Returning to the city brings up all sorts of anxieties and the movie has a subplot about Chase learning to face his fear. This isn’t Sesame Street-level “learning to deal with emotions” stuff. When my kids first started venturing beyond PBS Kids’ programming to watch Paw Patrol I found the show loud and shallow when it came to messaging. But it’s fine, the pups are nice and nice to each other, and consideration for friends and the greater public is a much-lauded quality in the show. And it’s 30 minutes of entertainment/distraction, which is always appreciated.

This movie hits all those similar points to me, which is to say, this movie didn’t wow me (which, I suspect, who cares if it wows anybody over the age of 8 or 9) but is totally fine. The “dealing with fear” stuff is unobjectionable, if very thinly drawn. Humdinger is goofy rather than evil. Liberty is a solid additional Paw Patrol member/licensable character. She is a spunky, can-do pup (they’re all spunky, can-do pups), and she gets a spiffy motorcycle (and, yes, both a toy and a Halloween costume for her character are already available for purchase). My kids watched the movie with interest throughout. While I (a person seeing this movie for work) stayed awake through the whole movie, you (a parent who just needs a break) could definitely sleep while your kids watched it (either in one of those big reclining theater chairs or in the comfort of your own couch, as it has been released simultaneously in theaters and on Paramount+). Or read a magazine, or catch up on dishes — just as you probably do while your kids watch the Paw Patrol TV show.

Paw Patrol: The Movie “basically the show, but three times as long” is probably the best review, heck the only review, it needs. B

Rated G. Directed by Andrew Hickson and Cal Brunker with a screenplay by Billy Frolick and Cal Brunker & Bob Barlen, Paw Patrol: The Movie is an hour and 28 minutes long and is distributed by Paramount Pictures in theaters and on Paramount+.

FILM

Venues

Chunky’s Cinema Pub
707 Huse Road, Manchester;
151 Coliseum Ave., Nashua;
150 Bridge St., Pelham, chunkys.com

The Flying Monkey
39 Main St., Plymouth,
536-2551, flyingmonkeynh.com

O’neil Cinemas
24 Calef Highway, Epping,
679-3529, oneilcinemas.com

Red River Theatres
11 S. Main St., Concord
224-4600, redrivertheatres.org

Rex Theatre
23 Amherst St., Manchester
668-5588, palacetheatre.org

Wilton Town Hall Theatre
40 Main St., Wilton
wiltontownhalltheatre.com, 654-3456

Shows

• Gremlins (PG, 1984) at Rex Theatre on Wednesday, Aug. 25, 7 p.m.with a portion of the proceeds going to Motley Mutts Rescue. Tickets $12.

• Back to the Future (PG, 1985) screening at Chunky’s in Manchester, Nashua and Pelham on Wednesday, Aug. 25, at 7 p.m. Tickets cost $4.99.

• 21+ Screening of Back to the Future (PG, 1985) at Chunky’s in Manchester, Nashua and Pelham on Thursday, Aug. 26, at 7 p.m. Tickets cost $4.99 and a Back to the Future themed cocktail will be for sale.

• Together (R, 2021) screening at Red River Theatres in Concord Friday, Aug. 27, through Sunday, Aug. 29, at 1, 4:15 & 7:30 p.m.

• Stillwater (R, 2021) screening at Red River Theatres in Concord Friday, Aug. 27, through Sunday, Aug. 29, at 12:30, 3:45 & 7 p.m.

• Womanhandled(1925) andGo West (1925) silent film Westerns with live musical accompaniment by Jeff Rapsis, on Sunday, Aug. 29, 2 p.m. at Wilton Town Hall Theatres. Screenings are free but a $10 donation per person is suggested.

• Theater Candy Bingo on Sunday, Aug. 29, at 6:30 p.m. at Chunky’s in Pelham. Admission costs $4.99 plus a box of candy.

• The Shakedown (1929), a silent film with live musical accompaniment by Jeff Rapsis, on Thursday, Sept. 9, at 6:30 p.m. at the Flying Monkey in Plymouth. Tickets start at $10.

• Clifford the Big Red Dog (PG, 2021) sensory-friendly screening, with sound lowered and lights up, on Saturday, Sept. 18, 10 a.m. at O’neil Cinema in Epping.

• Hedwig and the Angry Inch (R, 2001) at Rex Theatre on Tuesday, Sept. 21, at 7 p.m. with a portion of the proceeds going to Motley Mutts Rescue. Tickets cost $12.

• National Theatre Live Follies,a broadcast of a play from London’s National Theatre, screening at the Bank of NH Stage in Concord on Sunday, Oct. 3, at 12:30 p.m. Tickets cost $15 ($12 for students).

• National Theatre Live Cyrano de Bergerac, a broadcast of a play from London’s National Theatre, screening at the Bank of NH Stage in Concord on Sunday, Oct. 17, at 12:30 p.m. Tickets cost $15 ($12 for students).

• Frankenweenie (PG, 2012) at the Rex Theatre on Sunday, Oct. 17, 7 p.m. with a portion of the proceeds going to Motley Mutts Rescue. Tickets cost $12.

• The Nightmare Before Christmas (PG, 1993) at the Rex Theatre on Monday, Oct. 18, 7 p.m. with a portion of the proceeds going to Motley Mutts Rescue. Tickets cost $12.

Featured photo: Reminiscence. Courtesy photo.

Kiddie Pool 21/08/26

Family fun for the weekend

Family fun day

Field of Dreams Community Park (48 Geremonty Drive in Salem; fieldofdreamsnh.org) will host Family Fun Day 2021 on Saturday, Aug. 28, from noon to 6 p.m. The day will feature a bounce house, a toddler bounce house, a petting zoo, photos with superheroes and princesses, food trucks and ice cream trucks, touch-a-truck, music, prizes and more. A wrist band so kids can have unlimited access to the bounce house, pictures with the characters, the petting zoo and an obstacle course costs $5, according to the website.

Ice cream and first responders

The Derry Fire and Police departments will hold a First Responder Freeze on Saturday, Aug. 28, from noon to 2 p.m., featuring a free kiddie cone ice cream for the first 100 kids under 12, according to a Facebook post about the event. The event will take place at Pete’s Scoop on Route 28 in Derry and will include games, giveaways and more, the post said.

Movie night

This Friday’s “Pics in the Park” film at Greeley Park in Nashua is Aladdin (PG, 2019), which will start screening at dusk on Friday, Aug. 27, at the park’s Bandshell, 100 Concord St. The screening is part of the city’s SummerFun lineup; see nashuanh.gov.

Live on stage

The Palace Theatre (80 Hanover St. in Manchester; palacetheatre.org, 668-5588) completes its 2021 Bank of New Hampshire Children’s Summer Series with Sleeping Beauty on Thursday, Aug. 26, at 10 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. Tickets cost $10 per person.

Student performers from the Palace’s summer camp program will also present their final production this weekend: Willy Wonka Kids will be performed Friday, Aug. 27, at 7 p.m. and Saturday, Aug. 28, at 11 a.m. Tickets cost $12 to $15.

Picnic with music

Pack a picnic and enjoy some live music this Sunday, Aug. 29, from 4 to 5 p.m. at the Canterbury Shaker Village (288 Shaker Road in Canterbury; shakers.org, 783-9511) on the lawn near the Meeting House. The suggested donation is $10 per person. This week’s entertainers are the Mink Hills Band, a five-member New Hampshire-based acoustic band playing bluegrass, swing and folk as well as originals, according to the website. The Music on the Meeting House Green series runs Sundays through September.

Day at the museum

You still have time to make a mid-week visit to the McAuliffe-Shepard Discovery Center (2 Institute Dr. in Concord; starhop.com, 271-7827). The center is open daily through Sunday, Sept. 5, from 10:30 a.m. to 1 p.m. and from 1:30 to 4 p.m. (Starting Sept. 6 and running through holiday vacation, the center is open Fridays through Sundays.) Buy timed tickets prior to your visit online, where you can also buy tickets for planetarium shows. Masks are required for all visitors age 3 and up, the website said. Admission costs $11.50 for adults, $10.50 for students and seniors and $85 for children ages 3 to 12, the website said.

The next few weeks are also a good time to get in a visit to the Children’s Museum of New Hampshire (6 Washington St. in Dover; childrens-museum.org, 742-2002), which will close for a week Sept. 6 through Sept. 13. The museum is open Tuesdays through Saturdays with timed tickets for 9 a.m. to noon or 1 to 4 p.m. and Sunday 9 a.m. to noon. Buy tickets in advance online; masks are required for all visitors over 24 months. Admission costs $11 for everyone over a year of age ($9 for seniors).

The SEE Science Center (200 Bedford St. in Manchester; see-sciencecenter.org, 669-0400) is open daily — 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. on weekdays and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. on weekends. Though walk-ins are available (when there is space), pre-registration is recommended, according to the website. Masks are required for ages 2 and up. Admission costs $10 per person ages 3 and up for walk-ins, $9 for people who pre-register.

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