Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 21 January 2021 - 27 January 2022

I think this is the week when Morbius would have opened, but Sony kicked it down the road, and nothing big has exactly filled the vacuum, to the point where multiplexes seem to be like "I had three screens including the Imax set aside for this; what the heck am I supposed to fill them with?".

• We do get an awards contender in Flee, which seems like it could score nominations in foreign, animation, and documentary categories. It's the story of a man who came to Europe as a refugee from Afghanistan as a child, which he had previously kept to himself. It's at The Coolidge Corner Theatre, Kendall Square, Boston Common.
  
  The Coolidge's month of Kubrick midnight shows finishes off with The Shining on Friday, in 35mm; the final January Giallo on Saturday, Dario Argento's Creepers (aka Phenomena), also runs on film. For those who would rather get up earlier and play things safe, the Sunday masked matinee is Drive My Car. For Big Screen Classics, My Neighbor Totoro plays subtitled on Monday evening after showing dubbed last weekend, and John Carpenter's The Thing plays on 35mm on Thursday.
• With the expected major release not playing, the biggest release looks to be Redeeming Love, a PureFlix-produced thing that has a romantic poster but is apparently a period piece about human trafficking. It's directed by DJ Caruso with a few folks you might know in the supporting cast (Famke Janssen!), and plays at Boston Common, Fenway, Assembly Row, and Chestnut Hill.
  
  There are also two family-oriented pictures that probably wouldn't do well in a more competitive situation. The King's Daughter looks like it's been sitting on the shelf for something like seven years, with Kaya Scodelario (who has done the whole Maze Runner trilogy since this) as the title character, Pierce Brosnan as King Louis XIV, and Fan Bingbing as the mermaid held prisoner under the castle. It's at Fresh Pond, Fenway, and Arsenal Yards. The Tiger Rising follows a couple of kids who have to deal with a tiger being held in a small town. Dennis Quaid, Queen Latifah, and Katharine McPhee are in the cast. That one plays Fresh Pond and Boston Common.
  
  With the expected thing not opening on the giant screens and Spider-Man maybe starting to slow down, some places with Imax screens bring back No Time to Die for at least the next week, including Boston Common and South Bay. Boston Common also has The Tragedy of Macbeth in Imax on Wednesday. I'm not sure if Nightmare Alley ever left many of the theaters it plays in this weekend, but Kendall Square and Boston Common (including Dolby Cinema) will be playing a "Visions in Darkness in Light" version converted to black and white. Boston Common also re-opens The Souvenir: Part II.
  
  Casablanca plays Sunday and Wednesday at Fenway, South Bay (Wednesday only), and Arsenal Yards, meaning its regular Brattle Valentine's showings will be pushed later in February to give this a one month window.
• Another week, another anime, with Sing a Bit of Harmony playing Sunday (subtitled) and Tuesday (dubbed) at Boston Common, Fenway, and Kendall Square (dubbed show on Wednesday); this one from Time of Eve and Patema Inverted director Yasuhiro Yoshiura and involving an AI transfer student joining a school's music club. That makes it kind of Belle-adjacent, with that one continuing to plays the Somerville, Fresh Pond, Boston Common, Fenway, South Bay, Assembly Row, and Arsenal Yards. Most theaters have both dubbed and subtitled versions; check the listings.
  
  It looked like Egyptian imports could become a regular thing right before Covid hit, and the first to play theaters here is For Zeko, a comedy about a screwy family on a road trip to bring their son to a national competition. It's at Fenway, Friday to Sunday. They also have Russian comedy Swingers on Thursday - not a remake of the Vince Vaughn/Jon Favreau movie, but of a Latvian farce which has also had Estonian, Ukrainian, Norwegian, Polish, and Dutch versions in the past six years.
  
  Apple Fresh Pond continues to play Indian films Bangarraju and'83.
• The Brattle Theatre has more of "Some of the Best of 2021", with About Endlessness (Friday), In the Earth (Friday), Censor (Saturday), Last Night in Soho (Saturday), The Mitchells vs the Machines (Sunday), Cryptozoo (Sunday), Identifying Features (Monday), John and the Hole (Monday/Tuesday), Atlantis (Tuesday), The Green Knight (Wednesday), and Night of the Kings (Thursday).
• Part of the The Somerville Theatre's repertory shows include Weekend at Bogie's with 35mm double features on Friday (Key Largo & The Maltese Falcon) and Saturday (The Treasure of the Sierra Madre & Dark Passage). Drive My Car plays Monday through Thursday (with director Ryusuke Hamaguchi's Wheel of Fortune and Fantasy on the schedule next week).
  
  Their sister cinema, The Capitol in Arlington, opens documentary The Velvet Queen.
• Landmark Theatre Kendall Square also picks up Drive My Car.
• Unless things change before then, Bright Lights is back to in-person screenings in the Paramount Theater's Bright Screening Room on Thursday evening with Fanny: Right to Rock, a documentary about a 1960s band started by Filipino-American sisters who have reunited to record a new album 50 years later. It's been a while, but I believe tickets are still free on the day of the show. Co-founder/lead guitarist June Millington will be part of the post-film discussion.
• The Harvard Film Archive is still not open to the public yet, but they will be presenting "Tabooed Initiation: Two Early Films by Mou Tun-Fei" online from Friday through the 30th. Both films in the program - I Didn't Dare Tell You and The End of the Track - are free to stream and also include lectures by Victor Fan and Wood Lin.
• Belmont World Film continues the annual Family Film Festival through Sunday. There are no in-person events this weekend, and note that the Aardman modeling workshops have been pushed to next weekend
• GlobeDocs is streaming "Earth Emergency" and offering a Q&A with the filmmakers on Monday afternoon. RSVP here and you'll be sent URLs to view the film over the weekend and then join the Zoom discussion.
• The West Newton Cinema keeps the schedule of Parallel Mothers, Sing 2, Licorice Pizza, Spider-Man, West Side Story, and Saturday/Sunday matinees of Encanto; The Lexington Venue is closed this weekend.
• Cinema Salem has Belle, Scream '22, and West Side Story playing Friday to Sunday. Charade plays as part of their Audrey Hepburn series on Saturday & Sunday.
  
  The Luna Theater has The Tragedy of Macbeth Friday and Saturday evenings, Red Rocket as the masked matinee on Saturday afternoon, the Luhrmann/DiCaprio/Danes Romeo + Juliet on Sunday, and a Weirdo Wednesday show.
• The Museum of Science has The Matrix Resurrections on the Omni screen through the end of the month (once on Friday, twice on Saturday).
• 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.

Obviously doing a bunch of Bogart and Drive My Car while they're an easy walk away, then tempted by the anime, the Egyptian comedy and maybe even the mermaid thing.