See this film series: Movies Matter at ArtsEmerson at the Paramount

Me and My Gal (1932)

These days the title of the ArtsEmerson series Movies Matter seems a bit naive. Aren't movies just mindless entertainment whose sole purpose is making money at the box office? Dave Kehr, one of America's best film critics, doesn't think so, and in a recently published collection of his film criticism written between 1974 and 1986, When Movies Mattered, he makes a strong case. He's appearing this week at ArtsEmerson to show some of the movies he thinks matter most and talk about why they do, starting this weekend with Raoul Walsh's hardboiled Me and My Gal (1932; tonight @ 6 pm, Saturday @ 2 pm), starring Spencer Tracy and Joan Bennett as a New York cop and a waterfront waitress who fall in love but face tragedy when the latter's sister falls for a gangster. That's at ArtsEmerson's Paramount Center, 559 Washington St, Boston |  Friday, September 16 @ 6 pm | $10; $7.50 seniors; $5 students | 617.824.8400 or artsemerson.org. 

[In a previous version of this item I confused this film with the similarly titled but significantly different 1942 Busby Berkeley musical "For Me and My Gal." Which is just another example of why we need erudite and illuminating critics like Dave Kehr to show us the way.]