Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 2 March 2018 - 8 March 2018

Someone offhandedly mentioned that they might let us out of work early for a holiday on Friday, and I can't remember anything this weekend. Then again, two hours gets you one more movie seen before the Academy Awards on Sunday.

• While the art houses are generally holding on to all the nominees, Kendall Square does make room for Bombshell: The Hedy Lamarr Story, a documentary about a woman who lived a pretty darn remarkable life, becoming a movie star, fleeing Nazi Germany, and, when her new country put out the call for ideas to help the war effort, she came up with a way to secure radio transmission by shifting frequencies in a way that wasn't practical at the time but which would later become the basis of computer and cellular networks.
• Over at The Coolidge Corner Theatre, the only new thing opening up is Mohawk, and that's just for midnight shows on Friday and Saturday. Kind of a bummer, because Ted Geoghegan's follow-up to We Are Still Here is something different, a run-and-gun thriller set against the backdrop of the War of 1812. That's what's late; what's early is 10:30am shows of My Neighbor Totoro on Saturday and Sunday, both dubbed in English. There's also a Goethe-Institut movie on Sunday morning, Wild Mouse, with Josef Hader as a fired music critic getting revenge on his former employers and renovating a roller coaster. On Wednesday, they continue their tribute to Coolidge Award winner Werner Herzog with a 35mm print of Fitzcarraldo. Then on Thursday, they start the annual Francophone Film Festival with two short documentaries from Quebec, "Un Film avec Toi" & "Un Village au Nunavik".
  
  They also switch from showing the Oscar-nominated short documentaries to the live-action shorts and the animated shorts, which also play at the Kendall and The West Newton Cinema, while the ICA has docs on Saturday and the narrative shorts on Sunday.
• Jennifer Lawrence reunites with her Hunger Games sequel director Francis Lawrence (no relation) for Red Sparrow, playing a Russian ballerina recruited to be a seductress/assassin. That one's at the Somerville, Fresh Pond, the Embassy, Boston Common, Fenway, the Seaport (including Icon-X), South Bay, Assembly Row, and Revere. There's also the remake of Death Wish, directed by Eli Roth and starring Bruce Willis in what is being promoted as Willis's big return, because who really wants to advertise it as "angry white man with a gun" in the current climate? It's already been delayed once for that reason, and I guess it's being quietly offloaded at Fresh Pond, Boston Common, Fenway, the Seaport, South Bay, Assembly Row, Revere, and the SuperLux.
  
  Fenway also continues Regal's "Best Picture Film Festival", while Boston Common as the second half of their marathon of the nominees on Saturday. There are also screenings of The Dark Crystal at Fenway and Assembly Row on Sunday and Tuesday, while Revere shows Shin Godzilla Friday night and Sixteen Candles on Sunday and Thursday.
• The Chinese New Year stuff keeps chugging on at Boston Common, with Operation Red Sea, Monster Hunt 2, and Detective Chinatown 2 all sticking around and Agent Mr. Chan joining them; that one hails from Hong Kong rather than the mainland, so expect loopy comedy with Dayo Wong as a one-time ladykiller of a spy who is now just a bit past his prime. Jeff Cheung makes his directorial debut after having done a lot of work for Johnnie To and other big-name HK projects.
  
  Over at Apple Fresh Pond, it looks like Padmaavat is on its last week while Sonu ke Titu ki Sweety also continues. The new Bollywood film is Pari, a horror-thriller with Parambrata Chatterjee on his way to an arranged marriage when an auto accident makes his path cross with an abused woman played by Anushka Sharma. They also offer late shows of The Lullaby, an English-language movie from South Africa about a young woman who becomes paranoid and hyper-vigilant soon after giving birth.
• The Brattle Theatre welcome found footage guys Everything Is Terrible for a special show on Friday (that's already sold out) and has their Oscar party on Sunday. Around that, they continue their tribute to cinematographer extraordinaire Roger Deakins: A matinee of Rango (DCP) on Saturday afternoon is followed by a Denis Villeneuve double feature of Sicario (DCP) & Prisoners, shifting to the Coen Brothers' O Brother, Where Art Thou? & No Country for Old Men on Monday, and single features the rest of the week: Kundun & Skyfall on Tuesday, The Secret Garden & Passion Fish on Wednesday, and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford & Sid and Nancy (DCP) on Thursday. All in 35mm unless otherwise noted.
• The Harvard Film Archive welcomes McMillan-Stewart Fellow Alain Gomis for two free screenings of his films this weekend: His latest, Félicité, plays Friday night, while Aujourd'hui plays on 35mm Saturday. The rest of the weekend wraps up their Agnès Varda retrospective: Separate shows of Documenteur & Jacquot de Nantes (35mm) on Sunday and Happiness on Monday.
• The start of a new month means The Museum of Fine Arts has an "On the Fringe" show - in this case, Miller's Crossing on Friday night - and starts a new calendar generally. The March edition features screenings of David Hockney at the Royal Academy of Arts (Friday/Wednesday) and Palestinian drama Wajib (Sunday/Thursday), but the bulk of this first week is a repertory program focussing on Femmes Fatales, including Gilda (35mm Friday/Saturday), Double Indemnity (35mm Saturday), Under the Skin (Sunday), Dishonored (35mm Wednesday), La Femme Nikita (Wednesday), and A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (Thursday).
• The Somerville Theatre has Jonathan Richman on the main stage on Friday, and then the Alloy Orchestra on Saturday, with an unusual double feature - Buster Keaton in The General at 4:30pm and Japanese rarity A Page of Madness at 8pm, the first time they are performing their new score in the Boston area. It means they have just one Sidney Poitier film this week, with The Defiant Ones playing on 35mm Thursday night.
• Bright Lights is off this week for spring break, but ArtsEmerson and the Wicked Queer Cinema Club use the Bright Screening Room at the Paramount Theater to show The Wound on Friday, a Xhosa-language film telling the tale of a forbidden romance contrasted with a traditional ritual.
• CinemaSalem uses their small room for two films apparently not playing elsewhere in the area this week, splitting it between Vietnamese thriller The Housemaid and A Ciambra, an Italian coming-of-age story set in a Romany community.
• For those who want to catch a "cult classic" but don't necessarily feel like they're up to staying up late to do so, The Regent Theatre has The Room at a reasonable 7:30pm on Friday, Wednesday, and Thursday this week, and also welcomes "The MADS from MST3K" for a live show on Saturday evening.

Still got two features and two shorts to catch up on before the Oscars, plus I've not only got tickets the Alloy Orchestra, but I was actually kind of intrigued by Wild Mouse when I walked through the amusement park in Vienna last fall. Which leaves Bombshell, the Chinese films, and Red Sparrow to squeeze in there. Oh, and Skyfall on 35mm!