The Fourth of July normally brings about a bunch of free and fun things to do, but at a cost. You can spend five days waiting for a good position on the green for the Pops concert on the Esplanade, but at the cost of spending time with your family and friends and just watching the damn thing on TV. You could skip the line at the Cambridge swimming pools and jump in the Charles, but your skin would melt off your bones. You could go to the beach, but then you’d be stuck at the beach! You’d probably get sunburned!
We’re happy to say that we have a solution for you, and it involves seeing footage from Christopher Nolan’s new war epic Dunkirk.
Yes, that’s right — the Dunkirk cinetransformer tour rolls into Copley Square at 10 a.m. tomorrow (July 4), where it’ll be showing the film’s five-minute prologue to the public until 4 p.m. It’s a real, honest-to-christ theater on wheels, too; a DCP projector from the good folks at Barco and 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound will ensure that you’re seeing this footage in crystal-clear quality. As an added bonus, active-duty and retired military personnel will be given preferential treatment in line. We’re pretty sure that this is the prologue that showed in front of IMAX prints of Rogue One, so be warned if you saw that movie at Jordan’s or Assembly Row last year. As odd as it may be to celebrate the heroism of the English people and the Royal Air Force/Navy/Army on the Fourth of July, there’s something lovely about celebrating the kindness and compassion between countrymen on a day like the Fourth.
All in all, it’s a pretty great (and free) experience to have on the Fourth, and if you like what you see, please buy a ticket to see Dunkirk at either the Coolidge or Somerville theaters, which will be showing the full feature on glorious 70mm film when it hits on July 21. This is the way Christopher Nolan wants you to see it (outside of potentially finding an IMAX theater that isn’t going to be showing it in digital, which is a difficult task up here), so support local theaters that are still keeping it OG on celluloid.
THE ‘DUNKIRK’ CINETRANSFOMER :: Tuesday, July 4 in Copley Square, near Trinity Church :: 10 a.m. to 4 p.m., all ages, free admission
