Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 2 July 2021 - 8 July 2021

t's Fourth of July weekend, the target for things being back to normal, and it's kind of weird that the big event movies are staking out weekends on the other side. Like, Will Smith is just looking at that and shaking his head, although I suppose they don't want to upstage the weekend's big event.

• That, of course, would be The Brattle Theatre reopening for business. They've been kind of soft-opening for the past few weeks and, folks, it is all kinds of great to be there, although the distancing rules and online-everything (even concessions) make it a different experience. The first week of special shows includes 35mm prints of Casablanca (Friday/Saturday but sold out), Better Luck Tomorrow (Friday), Harriet the Spy (Saturday/Tuesday), Jaws (Saturday/Sunday but sold out), Cocteau's Beauty and the Beast (Sunday/Wednesday), and the original Shaft (Monday). Thursday, they kick off the belated "Some of the Best of 2020" series with the restoration of Jazz on a Summer's Day.
  
  That played in the virtual cinema, which is going to keep going for now. This week's new addition is Lydia Lunch: The War Is Never Over, a documentary on the New York-based feminist "No Wave" musician/spoken word artist. It joins Sweet Thing, The American Sector, Take Me Somewhere Nice, Slow Machine, "Who Will Start Another Fire", and The Power of Kangwon Province.
• Follow the 66 bus a little ways and get to The Coolidge Corner Theatre where they've got IFFBoston opener Summer of Soul (...Or, When the Revolution Could Not Be Televised), a pretty darn delightful documentary about the 1969 Harlem Cultural Festival which had just a staggering amount of great music, enough that Ahmir "Questlove" Thompson has a hard time cramming it all in and also talking about the time and the event. I'm sure it's a blast on the big screen and boy, I wish super-deluxe DVD/Blu-ray box sets were still a thing. It also plays at The Capitol, West Newton, Kendall Square, Boston Common, South Bay (including Dolby Cinema), Assembly Row, and on Hulu.
  
  Meanwhile, the After Midnite crew is getting back into theme months, which for July means alien invasions, starting (of course) with Independence Day, which plays at 11:30pm on Friday and Saturday.
• Over at Landmark Theatres Kendall Square, they keep pride going with a couple new releases: I Carry You with Me is the first fiction feature from Heidi Weing of Jesus Camp fame, in which two men from rural Mexico follow their dreams (and each other) to New York. There's also Truman & Tennessee: An Intimate Conversation, a documentary that traces the lives and careers of Truman Capote and Tennessee Williams, which often intersected. The 7pm show on Friday also features a live Q&A with critic Gerald Peary and Harvard Theatre curator Dale Stinchcomb, a Tennessee Williams expert. They also get back into the "theater on screen" business on Wednesday with the Kenneth Branagh Theatre adaptation of Romeo and Juliet, co-directed by Branagh, shot in B&W Cinemascope, and featuring Lily James, Richard Madden, and Derek Jacobi. They've also started doing $7 Tuesdays, and appear to be open all week for the duration now.
• The mutiplexes go with sequels to things that were kind of big at one point but maybe not so much any more. For the younger crew, there's The Boss Baby: Family Business, in which the now-adult kids from the first movie get zapped back to toddler-hood to complete some mission because babies are apparently secretly super-intelligent. It's at The Capitol, Apple Fresh Pond, Boston Common (including Dolby Cinema), Fenway, South Bay, Assembly Row (including Dolby Cinema), Arsenal Yards, Chestnut Hill, and on Peacock.
  
  For the older folks, there's The Forever Purge, in which some folks either decide to keep doing crimes after the 24 hour period or society just breaks down because apparently this really isn't a good thing. That plays Apple Fresh Pond, Boston Common, Fenway, South Bay, Assembly Row, and Arsenal Yards.
  
  Documentary The Price of Freedom, a documentary on the inner workings of the NRA, plays Boston Common and Fenway on Wednesday, while they go for something a bit lighter at Fenway, South Bay, Assembly Row, and Chestnut Hill, with Yannick: An Artist's Journey telling the story of New York Metropolitan Opera music director Yannick Nézet-Séguin. Fenway also has Stage Russia: Stanislavski, Lust for Life and the Quiet Place double feature that day.
  
  Also, note that a lot of the showtimes for Boston Common are marked "Sold Out" after 7pm or so on the 4th; the fireworks are on the Common this year and I'm guessing they do not want to mess with that.
• South Bay opens another Vietnamese film this weekend, with Lat Mat: 48H which is the fifth in a popular action comedy series (also known as "Face Off", which doesn't make Googling more information about it difficult at all) that has made a detour into horror and may be one of those where they give the cast new characters each time. It joins Bo Gia (Dad, I'm Sorry) there, while anime hit Demon Slayer does a really impressive job lengthening its run at Boston Common.
• The Regent Theatre isn't quite back into holiday sing-alongs with all the bells and whistles yet, but they will be showing 1776 on Friday and Saturday, and I wouldn't necessarily be surprised if some folks sing anyway.
• The West Newton Cinema is open through Monday, what with the holiday, and has Summer of Soul, In the Heights, Cruella, and Nomadland all weekend, with Raya and the Last Dragon playing at 1pm Saturday through Monday.
• It's looking like The Harvard Film Archive, like much of the campus, is planning to be closed for the fall term, with a recent email talking about a Spring 2022 return. The Somerville Theatre is hopefully just a few weeks off, while The Lexington Venue still seems to be targeting mid-July. Not sure what the deal is with the Belmont Studio, whose homepage still says "temporarily closed until April 6", which initially referred to 2020 but would now mean 2022. Anyone who lives nearby want to take a look?
  
  Theater rentals are available at the Brattle, Kendall Square, West Newton, the Capitol, The Lexington Venue, and many of the multiplexes.

Got a long weekend to catch up on stuff, and, yeah, I'm curious about the Vietnamese film. Plus Shaft on Monday!