Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 7 January 2021 - 13 January 2022

Welp, we're starting to see release dates pushed out again and film festivals are announcing that they're going virtual after planning to be in-person. Not ideal! At least January's usually pretty quiet.

• Part of the January doldrums is stuff the studio doesn't have much faith in getting quiet releases, and The 355 had been scheduled for January 2020 before getting pushed out. It's got Jessica Chastain, Penelope Cruz, Diane Kruger, Lupita Nyong'o, and Fan Bingbing as the top spies in their respective countries working together to stop a terrorist plot, and that's a heck of a cast, at least. It's at The Capitol Theatre, Fresh Pond, Boston Common (including Dolby Cinema), Fenway, South Bay (including Dolby Cinema), Assembly Row (including Dolby Cinema), Arsenal Yards, and the Embassy.
  
  Among the previews for Scream 5 on Thursday is one marked "live fan event" at Arsenal Yards and South Bay.
• Award expansions are also part of early January, which this year includes A Hero, the new one from Asghar Farhadi and Iran's submission for the Oscars. It stars Amir Jadidi as a man given a two-day furlough from a debtor's prison, with unexpected results. It's at The Coolidge Corner Theatre, The Somerville Theatre, and Landmark Theatre Kendall Square; it's also an Amazon acquisition which will be on Prime in a couple of weeks.
  
  The Coolidge's midnights this weekend include Eyes Wide Shut and Rocky Horror on Friday, with Mario Bava's Blood and Black Lace on Sunday. Sunday's Goethe-Institut film is Fabian: Going to the Dogs, an acclaimed adaptation of a German novel from 1931. The Sunday Masked Matinee is Licorice Pizza, and note that some of its showtimes (including this one) are now on a DCP rather than 70mm film. Some of those gaps, though, are to make way for 70mm screenings of 2001: A Space Odyssey on the big film; it plays Monday and Wednesday evening. There's also a special screening of Toni Morrison: The Pieces I Am on Tuesday, and a special "Shakespeare Reimagined" show of The Tragedy of Macbeth with post-film Q&A and discussion on Thursday.
• Poupelle of Chimney Town, which caught my eye at Fantasia last year though I couldn't get a screener, opens at Boston Common and Fenway with both subtitled and dubbed showtimes; it's a surprisingly colorful-looking animated fantasy from Japan set in a town whose 4km wall and chimneys have blotted out the stars for centuries. There's also an Imax preview screening of the new one from Mamoru Hosoda, Belle at Boston Common, on Wednesday (the "regular" preview on Thursday at Boston Common and South Bay is a regular screen and dubbed, though Fenway shows both subtitled and dubbed shows on Thursday).
  
  From China, there's Embrace Again, the latest from Xue Xiaolu (Ocean Heaven, The Whistleblower, with Huang Bo and Jia Ling among those involved in various love stories in Wuhan during their three-month Covid-19 lockdown. It's at Boston Common; Hong Kong's G Storm sticks around the Common as well.
  
  The big opening from India, RRR, has been kicked down the road because of Omicron, but 1945, another Telugu-language anti-colonial thriller, is supposed to open on Friday at Boston Common (though it's listed as sold out through Sunday) and Apple Fresh Pond. '83 continues at Boston Common and Fresh Pond.
• The Brattle Theatre fcontinues their series of "Refreshed, Renewed, Restored" features with Chess of the World and Chameleon Street (separately) on Friday and Saturday, Def by Temptation on Saturday and Sunday, The Secret Life of Plants on Sunday, Goodbye, Dragon Inn on Monday, Cure on Tuesday, and the original Nightmare Alley on Wednesday and Thursday.
• The West Newton Cinema sticks with Sing 2, Licorice Pizza, Spider-Man, West Side Story, and Encanto; The Lexington Venue holds over Licorice Pizza and Sing 2.
• Cinema Salem has Spider-Man, West Side Story, Red Rocket and C'mon C'mon playing Friday to Monday (open-caption shows Monday afternoon). There's a "Cinema Sounds" screening of Back to the Future with an introduction from Richard Guérin on Thursday evening.
  
  The Luna Theater looks to be closed this weekend, with just a Weirdo Wednesday show on the 12th.
• The Museum of Science has The Matrix Resurrections on the Omni screen for the next four weekends (once on Friday, twice on Saturday); do not do what I did with Dune and try to watch from the front row. They also add "Back from the Brink: Saved from Extinction" to their Omnimax rotation starting on Tuesday.
• Belmont World Film will present their annual family film festival starting next weekend; mostly on-line but their site is already up for browsing and pre-ordering.
• For those still not ready to join random people in a room for two hours, theater rentals are available at Kendall Square, The Embassy, West Newton, the Capitol, The Venue, and many of the multiplexes.

Did I grab my phone when I saw that Belle screening? Yeah. I'm also looking to hit Poupelle and The 355, maybe catch up on some of the stragglers, and some of the restorations at the Brattle. Oh, and note that beyond Covid, several theaters have already canceled early shows for Friday the 7th, what with the snow on the way (or coming down, or already fallen, depending when you read this).