Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 15 January 2016 - 21 January 2016

Why aren't the Oscar nominations announced on Tuesday, so that theaters can easily book nominees that weekend? I mean, I figure that's what the whole thing is for.

• Along with the nominees, there's a fair amount of stuff that doesn't look so hot. Take 13 Hours: The Secret Soldiers of Benghazi, which is Michael Bay taking on a story that's not controversial at all in this election year. It's at Apple Fresh Pond, Fenway, Boston Common, Assembly Row, Revere, and the SuperLux.
  
  There's also Norm of the North, an animated flick about a polar bear who heads south to New York to protest arctic development (but, you know, condos, rather than something like global warming. It's at Apple Fresh Pond, Fenway, Boston Common, Assembly Row, and Revere. And, in the biggest release of the week, there's Ride Along 2, reuniting Kevin Hart and Ice Cube as a rookie and new cop who are now brothers-in-law. That's at Apple Fresh Pond, Fenway, Boston Common, Assembly Row, Revere, and the SuperLux.
  
  Meanwhile, The Capitol picks up Joy and Brooklyn, while Carol returns to a full schedule at Boston Common and Spotlight gets more shows as well. Meanwhile, Fenway and Revere will have screenings of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid on Sunday and Wednesday.
• In addition to bringing back the pretty-great and deservedly-nominated Room, Kendall Square also opens Mustang, the foreign-language film nominee from Turkey which depicts five sisters who are considered a little too free-spirited for their family's taste, leading their parents to clamp down hard.
• Apple Cinemas Fresh Pond is carrying the same group of Indian movies, but they've also got one of the odder American releases this week, Band of Outlaws, which reimagines Tom Sawyer (Adam Nee) and Huckleberry Finn (Kyle Gallner) as contemporary adults, but still searching for lost treasure. Just a couple shows per day, but a fun supporting cast (Melissa Benoist as Becky Thatcher, Stephen Lang has Injun Jow, Beth Grant as the Widow Douglas).
  
  Over at Boston Common, the week's Chinese opening is Detective Chinatown, with Wang Baoqiang as a reject accompanying his master detective cousin on a frantic case to Bangkok. A fair-sized hit when it came out in China on New Year's Eve, I think.
• The Harvard Film Archive gives a large chunk of their schedule to Miguel Gomes's Arabian Nights Trilogy this week: Volume 1 - The Restless One plays 9:30pm Friday, 4:30pm Sunday, and 7pm Thursday; Volume 2 - The Desolate One plays 7pm Friday and 9:30pm Saturday; and Volume 3 - The Enchanted One shows 7pm Saturday and 7pm Monday. They also start a (mostly) Sunday series of "Americans Abroad" this week with Terminal Station, Vittorio De Sica's 1954 neo-realist drama about a woman breaking up with her lover in the train station.
• The Brattle Theatre is presenting (Some of) The Best of 2015 this week, kicking off with a double feature of Mad Max: Fury Road (in 35mm!) and The Assassin on Friday & Saturday, single features of Tangerine and Roar on Sunday, a twin-bill of Girlhood and The Diary of a Teenage Girl on Monday, the pairing of The Pearl Button and The Look of Silence on Wednesday, and another double feature of Theeb and Jauja on Thursday. It will continue through next week, but first thre's that hole on Tuesday, being filled by Trash Night, which in this case is Star Knight, featuring Klaus Kinski and Harvey Keitel.
• The Coolidge Corner Theatre picks up Carol just in time for its Oscar nominations, which pushes The Hateful Eight into digital presentations upstairs, leaving the Somerville Theatre as the only place still showing it in 70mm around here. The midnight Tarantino screenings continue, though, this time with Django Unchained in 35mm at 11:30pm on Friday and Saturday.
  
  They'll also have a selection of short films from the 2015 Children's Film Festival Seattle on Saturday morning. They also begin their series of Coolidge Award tributes to Jane Fonda on Wednesday with a 35mm print of Barbarella, and let's face it, it will be all downhill from there.
• The Belmont World Film Family Film Festival happens this long weekend, with Friday and Saturday's programs at The Regent Theatre and Sunday's and Monday's at back at the Belmont Studio Cinema (which,you may recall, was closed during last year's festival). Some nifty-looking stuff in there.
  
  The Regent also has two documentaries later in the week - documentary The Last Monarch: The Rise and Fall of the Shah Dynasty (about the 240-year rule of the Nepali royal family) on Sunday evening and Run Free: The True Story of Caballo Blanco, which tells the story of "ultra-running" legend Micah True.
• The Museum of Fine Arts has their last weekend of Words in Motion: Graham Greene as Screenwriter, with final screenings of The Third Man (DCP, Friday), Our Man in Havana (DCP, Friday/Saturday), and The Comedians (digital, Sunday). They continue documetaryTroublemakers: The Story of Land Art on Friday/Saturday/Sunday/Wednesday/Thursday, and also begin the Boston Festival of Films from Iran on Thursday the 21st with The President, with a former dictator fleeing with his grandson afer being overthrown.
• This week's shorts at The Institute of Contemporary Art come courtesy of the Sundance Film Festival, showing award-winners and other notables from the 2015 edition. The program starts on Thursday the 21st and runs through next weekend.

My plans include the rest of Arabian Nights, Band of Robbers, Carol, The Revenant, Detective Chinatown and maybe one or two others. Don't know if I can make Barbarella,