Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 11 November 2016 - 17 November 2016

Been a week, huh? The good news is that a movie a lot of folks are saying is one of the best of the year opens this weekend (and it's pretty great).

• That would be Arrival, Denis Villeneuve's sci-fi drama featuring Amy Adams as a linguist charged with finding a away to communicate with the massive spaceships that have appeared around the world. It's also got Jeremy Renner and Forest Whitaker, and having seen the Thursday night show, I'm not going to say much more, because it deserves fresh eyes. It's at the Somerville, Kendall Square, the Embassy, Boston Common, Assembly Row, Fenway, and Revere.
  
  Less heralded is Shut In, one of those EuropaCorp thrillers that hopefully gives a bump to an actor who deserves better than he or she has received of late; in this case, it's Naomi Watts, who plays an agoraphobic psychologist who has to venture outside in a snowstorm to rescue the kid from Room. Not having advanced screenings isn't a good sign, but on the other hand, odds are good that it's got the Valerian teaser. It's at Apple Fresh Pond, Boston Common, Assembly Row, Fenway, and Revere.
  
  And for those looking for laughter, there's Almost Christmas, featuring Danny Glover as the patriarch of a family who just wants them all to get along during the holidays, which may be challenging. They include Kimberly Elise, Mo'Nique, Gabrielle Union, Omar Epps, Nicole Ari Parker, J.B. Smoove, and more. That's at Apple Fresh Pond, Boston Common, Fenway, Assembly Row, and Revere.
  
  Special screenings include a couple of very different animation and live action back after a while. The anniversary re-release is Space Jam, playing Sunday and Wednesday at Boston Common, Fenway, Revere, and the SuperLux. On Monday, it's Doctor Who: Power of the Daleks, which takes the soundtrack of the lost first story featuring Patrick Troughton as The Doctor and reconstructs it as well as the BBC can. It's at Assembly Row, Fenway, Revere,and the SuperLux.
• Kendall Square gets IFFBoston Fall Focus favorite Loving, with Joel Edgerton and Ruth Negga as the an interracial couple who challenged Virginia's laws against their marrying. It comes from director Jeff Nichols, and is very sweet; it also plays Boston Common (another Fall Focus selection, Moonlight, expands to the Embassy).
  
  They also get The Eagle Huntress, a documentary on a Kazakh girl who aims to be the first in generations to be an expert falconer. Daisy Ridley narrates, and the cinematography look gorgeous; it also plays West Newton. They also have a one-week booking of the new restoration of Tampopo
• The Brattle Theatre has a pair of new releases this weekend if you feel like punching your cinematic passport. Guatemala sends Ixcanul, telling the story of a girl who lives in a village by an active volcano, and starts to find a man who intends to travel to the U.S. an appealing alternative to an arranged marriage. It shares the screen with We Are X, a documentary about rock super-group X Japan, legends in Japan but almost unknown elsewhere. Those all run Friday through Monday. After that, Tuesday is Trash Night, and Wednesday is An Art That Nature Makes, a documentary on photographer Rosamond Purcell, who finds beauty in "the discarded and decayed", with Ms. Purcell there to discuss.
• Thursday, they host the Boston Jewish Film Festival, which also has shows at The Coolidge, the Museum of Fine Arts, the Somerville, the JCC Riemer-Goldstein Theater in Newton, West Newton, Foxboro Patriot Place, Maynard Fine Arts, AMC Framingham, and the Arlington Capitol.
• Apple Cinemas Fresh Pond has a fair slate of Indian movies, including subtitled action-romance Achcham Yenbadhu Madamaiyada (Tamil)/Sahasam Swasaga Sagipo (Telugu), with Hindi movie Ae Dil Hai Mushkil still kicking around and late, apparently-unsubtitled screenings of Deyyam Nakem Bhayam (Telugu horror-comedy) over the weeend.
• The Coolidge Corner Theatre keeps the same schedule as last week, and also continues its 1980s comic-book movie midnights, with the Michael Keaton/Tim Burton Batman on Friday and Superman III on Saturday. Saturday's midnights also include a make-up screening of The Cabin in the Woods, which got rained out at their off-site show a few weeks ago. There's also a "Stage & Screen" presentation of Bob & Carol & Ted & Alice on Monday to tie in with the Huntington Theatre's production of Bedroom Farce.
• The Handmaiden expands to The Somerville Theatre and Lexington Venue, which is some nice staying power. The Somerville also has a Friday night double feature of Rebel Without a Cause and Jailhouse Rock on Friday, a lecture and book release for The Fall of the American Movie Palace on Sunday, and multiple screenings of Warren Miller's Here, There, and Eveywhere on Wednesday and Thursday. That stuff pushes Inferno to The Capitol, which also gets A Man Called Ove.
• The Harvard Film Archive continues a weekend series paying tribute to Peter Hutton, with on set of 16mm shorts on Friday evening and another on Sunday afternoon, the latter introduced by Fern Silva. They finish off their Pam Grier series later Friday night with the aptly-scheduled Friday Foster. Saturday welcomes filmmaker Ryusuke Hamaguchi to present his drama Happy Hour, clocking in at over five hours plus intermission. The weekend finishes with two programs of African-American short films, one on Sunday and and a free program introduced by Kent Garrett, including a work-in-progress look at his latest.
• In addition to the BJFF, The Museum of Fine Arts has more programs from the Boston Turkish Festival's Documentary & Short Film Compeition on Friday and Saturday.
• ArtsEmerson has a broadcast from the Alvin Ailey Dance Theater on Friday night at Paramount Theater's Bright Screening Room, with a special "Reel Life Experience" presentation of South Side With You on Saturday. Bright Lights just has one free screening this week, with a special guest on hand to introduce Genius on Tuesday.
• The Regent Theatre has a free screening of an upcoming episode of NOVA, "Can Alzheimer's Be Stopped", including Q&A with Dr. Brent Forester, MD, MSc, Chief of Geriatric Psychiatry Division at McLean Hospital afterward. Then on Wednesday they have ChuckTV: The Movie, with tickets available as a contest from WZLX, but it's a big theater, so if you enter you've got a pretty good chance.

Having already done Arrival, I'll probably go for Shut In, Doctor Who, and some catch-up.