Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 6 July 2018 -12 July 2018

I'm not sure what is the bigger surprise on an otherwise Marvel-dominated week - that an entry that kind of seemed tucked off to the side at IFFBoston is getting a decent-sized release, or that this week's mainstream Asian import comes from Thailand.

• That film getting the unexpectedly decent release is Three Identical Strangers, a documentary about identical triplets separated at birth that apparently gets more surprising with every twist, playing not just The Coolidge Corner Theatre but the Somerville, Kendall Square, West Newton, and Boston Common. It's not quite so big an opening as another documentary opening this week, but Whitney is telling the story of a beloved musician who died young, with exceptional access to Whitney Houston's family and friends to tell the story; that one's at the Coolidge, Kendall Square, the Embassy, Boston Common, South Bay, and Revere.
  
  Another IFFBoston selection, Leave No Trace, expands this weekend, adding the Coolidge and Boston Common to Kendall Square, with the Coolidge having producer Linda Reisman on hand for a Q&A at 7pm Friday. July also has the Coolidge switching up their midnight program to "Truly Killer", with Summer of Sam playing on 35mm Friday night and My Friend Dahmer on Saturday. Monday's Big Screen Classic is Apocalypse Now.
• The First Purge opened Wednesday at Fresh Pond, Boston Common, Fenway, South Bay, Assembly Row, and Revere; it serves as the origin story for the series. The big release 3D/deluxe is Ant-Man and the Wasp, a fun sequel where nobody is trying to rule or destroy the world and that lets a pretty great cast (Paul Rudd, Evangeline Lilly, Michael Pena, Hannah John-Kamen, Michael Douglas, Michelle Pfeiffer, Laurence Fishburne, and Walton Goggins) get dropped into a lot of size-changing, ant-summoning adventure. It's at the Capitol (2D only), Fresh Pond, Jordan's Furniture (Imax 2D/3D), The Studio Cinema (2D only), the Embassy, Boston Common (including Imax 2D), Fenway (including 2D/3D RPX), the Seaport (including Icon-X), South Bay (including Imax 2D & Dolby Cinema), Assembly Row (including Imax 3D), Revere (including XPlus & MX4D), and the SuperLux (2D only).
  
  Fenway has the last of three screening of Fireworks on Saturday, this one dubbed into English. Those who like their anime in more bite-sized morsels can catch the Attack on Titan Season 3 Premiere at Boston Common, Fenway, and Assembly Row on Tuesday and Wednesday.
• There's also a fair-sized opening for Boundaries, with Vera Farmiga as a frazzled single mother who winds up road-tripping with her irascible father (Christopher Plummer) after he is kicked out of his nursing home, only to find him arranging detours to unload a bunch of marijuana It's at the Somerville, Kendall Square, and West Newton. The Kendall also has a one-week booking of The Cakemaker, in which a German pastry chef goes to Israel to visit the grave of his lover, only to strike up a relationship with the man's widow.
• The Brattle Theatre opens Zama, a festival favorite directed by Lucretia Martel that follows Daniel Giménez Cacho as a colonial bureaucrat hoping for a transfer, presumably out of the New World, but mostly finding troubles of his own making. That plays Friday to Thursday (except for Wednesday), although the 9:30pm slot is given to a new restoration of horror classic The Changeling from Friday to Wednesday. Thursday serves as a preview of the summer's "Heroic!: Women Who Inspire Series", as Caitlin Moran sticks around after her author event earlier in the evening to introduce Juno.
• Apple Fresh Pond and Fenway both continue Bollywood bio Sanju, with Fenway also showing Kannada-language film Amma I Love You on Saturday evening and Sunday afternoon.
  
  Over at Boston Common, the Thai comedy Brother of the Year opens, courtesy of an Australian distributor, and from the preview, with Chinese subtitles. It's a cute-looking thing, about a young woman about to be married to a nice-enough guy, except that the adult brother who has been relying on her is apparently not ready to let her go and live on his own.
• The Somerville Theatre continues their Midnight Specials series, with 35mm prints of Good Burger on Friday (with giveaways from Tasty Burger) and Summer Camp Nightmare on Saturday. On Sunday, they've got a "Silents, Please!" 35mm screening of Docks of New York, a less-screened but well-respected drama by Josef von Sternberg, with Jeff Rapsis accompanying. Then on Wednesday, they start their "Play It Cool II" series, with this year's gimmick that half of each double feature is chosen by the Somerville's Ian Judge, and half by guest programmer Julia Marchese. To kick things off, Ian goes with Steve McQueen in Bullitt, while Julia picks Beyond the Valley of the Dolls (Roger Ebert's best-known screenplay).
• The Harvard Film Archive is nearing the end of their Luchino Visconti retrospective, but they'll work their projectionist hard on Friday with the 4-hour Ludwig before showing Conversation Piece on Saturday and Elia Kazan's Viva Zapata! (also the month's "Cinema of Resistance" selection) on Sunday.
• It's a very quiet week for The Museum of Fine Arts's film program: First Friday of a new month means an On The Fringe show, in this case a 35mm print of Welcome to the Dollhouse, but then they don't program anything until Thursday, when they open their French Film Festival with a "Sunset Cinema" screening of Faces Places by Agnès Varda & JR.
• The Regent Theatre will welcome Mickey Dolenz on Friday for a meet-and-greet and on-stage interview before screening Head, which is still a heck of a thing fifty years on. After that, they pick finish up their Independence Day screenings of 1776, with matinees and evening shows on Saturday & Sunday.
• After accompanying Docks of New York at the Somerville on Sunday, Jeff Rapsis will head across town for a silent-Western double feature at the Aeronaut Brewery: William S. Hart in romance Hell's Hinges & Buster Keaton in the comic Go West.
• The Boston Jewish Film Festival begins their "Summer Cinematheque" series with Longing at the The West Newton Cinema on Wednesday. It is listed as sold out with no indication of a rush line, so it may be worth checking to see if others in the series are of interest a few weeks in advance.
• In addition to Faces Places Joe's Free Films shows a full schedule of outdoor screenings this week, from Scott Pilgrim at Bloc Somerville to multiple places to see The Lion King and The Pacifier (of all things).

Busy week of non-movie events for me (part of why I hit the early Ant-Man and the Wasp yesterday), and I'm not exactly sure how to fit the stuff I'd like to catch (or catch up on) in before heading to Montreal & Fantasia on Thursday, but it's worth a shot.