Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 11 February 2021 - 17 February 2022

Not going this weekend, because there's tons of stuff here, but kind of keeping tabs on a theater in NYC to see how long they'll have a 70mm print of a new release. Be nice if it were just down the street, but that's not how it works, apparently.

• After a ton of rotten merger/coronavirus luck, Death on the Nile finally hits screens, with Kenneth Branagh returning as the spectacularly mustachioed detective, once again shooting in 65mm with a new all-star cast of suspects. It's at The Capitol, Fresh Pond, West Newton, Boston Common (including Imax Xenon & Dolby Cinema), Fenway, Kendall Square, South Bay (including Imax Xenon & Dolby Cinema), Assembly Row (including Imax Xenon & Dolby Cinema), the Embassy, Arsenal Yards (including CWX), and Chestnut Hill.
  
  Marry Me features Jennifer Lopez as a pop star who, planning to marry her fiancé on stage until he's caught with another woman and impulsively brings a single father played by Owen Wilson up to take his place. It's at the Capitol, Fresh Pond, Boston Common, Fenway, South Bay, Assembly Row, Arsenal Yards, the Embassy, Chestnut Hill, and on Peacock.
  
  Liam Neeson is still putting his "tall with an intimidating voice" bona fides to work in what look like middling action-thriller things, reuniting with Honest Thief director Mark Williams for Blacklight, playing another shady government agent who has become a loose end in a conspiracy. It's at Fresh Pond, Boston Common, Fenway, South Bay (including Dolby Cinema), Assembly Row (including Dolby Cinema). There's also a few daily screenings of The Beatles: Get Back - The Rooftop Concert in Imax Xenon at Boston Common and Assembly Row.
  
  The Oscar nominations bring about some re-releases/expansions: King Richard and Dune return to Boston Common with Drive My Car there for the first time, Belfast to Fenway and Kendall Square, and The Hand of God to the Embassy. Boston Common and South Bay bring back American Underdog ahead of the Super Bowl.
  
  Boston Common also has a surprise "Thrills and Chills" screening on Friday with Rocky Horror on Saturday. For fans of Channing Tatum, there's a "Galentine's Day" show of Magic Mike at Boston Common, Assembly Row, and Arsenal Yards on Sunday and a preview show of Dog playing Boston Common, Fenway, Assembly Row, and Chestnut Hill on Monday. Arsenal Yards shows Love & Basketball on Monday.
• The Worst Person in the World opens at The Coolidge Corner Theatre (including a Sunday Masked Matinee), Kendall Square, and Boston Common this weekend; the latest from Joachim Trier has been racking up awards and praise since Cannes, particularly for star Renate Reinsve, and it even picked up a Best Screenplay Oscar nomination this week (in addition to one for Best International Film).
  
  The Coolidge celebrates Women in Horror month with its midnights, including Aaliyah in Queen of the Damned on 35mm on Friday and Jada Pinkett Smith & CCH Pounder in Tales from the Crypt: Demon Night on Saturday. Saturday morning, on the other hand, offers a kids' show of Mary Poppins. "Love Hurts" features The Princess Bride on Valentine's Day and continues past that with Drive on Tuesday, and Bound on Wednesday. On Thursday, they present Spike Lee's Malcom X on 35mm with a special introduction by nephew Rodnell P. Collins, president of the Malcolm X-Ella L. Little Collins Foundation and House.
• Landmark Theatre Kendall Square aso opens Breaking Bread, a documentary about Jewish and Arab chefs working together in Haifa, featuring Dr. Nof Atamna-Ismaeel, noteworthy for being the first Muslim Arab to win MasterChef in Israel.
  
  Also opening is The Sky Is Everywhere the new film from indie favorite Josephine Decker, this one focusing on a teenager mourning her older sister even as she meets a nice boy. It also appears to be available on AppleTV+.
• The Brattle Theatre won't be showing Casablanca until the end of the month, but have plenty more Great Romances this week: Only Lovers Left Alive (35mm) on Friday, Harold and Maude (35mm) on Saturday, The Philadelphia Story (35mm) and The Princess Bride on Sunday and Monday, The Bride of Frankenstein (35mm) and The Shape of Water on Tuesday, Portrait of a Lady on Fire on Wednesday, and Your Name on Thursday.
• It looks like the Chinese Lunar New Year movies are being released one at a time over here rather than all at once, with the big one - The Battle of Lake Changjin II - hitting this week. The sequel to last National Day's massive hit starring Wu Jing and directed by Tsui Hark, Chen Kaige, and Dante Lam (though IMDB suggests that only Tsui gets on-screen credit this time). I've read that very little of its 149-minute runtime is newly-shot footage. Only Fools Rush In sticks around for limited shows as well, with Too Cool to Kill opening Thursday.
  
  I don't see any major Indian holiday on the calendar, but there's a lot from the subcontinent opening this weekend. The biggest release is Hindi comedy Badhaai Do, playing both Boston Common and Apple Fresh Pond, with Rajkummar Rao and Bhumi Pednekar as a pair entering a marriage of convenience which becomes less so when the wife's girlfriend comes to stay (the poster features a literal closet). Fresh Pond also gets six other movies playing a show or two a day: Kadaisi Vivasayi is a comedy about an 80-year-old farmer accused of killing peacocks, perhaps by the developer trying to buy his land; FIR - Faizal Ibrahim Rais, is a Tamil-language thriller about a man falsely accused of being a terrorist; Khiladi is a Telegu crime movie with Ravi Teja in a dual role; Kallan D'Souza looks like a Malayalam caper comedy; Sehari is a Telugu romantic comedy starring Harsh Kanumilli; and DJ Tillu is another Telugu romantic comedy.
• The Somerville Theatre keeps the new restoration of The Conversation around to fill in for other programs, with shows Friday, Monday, and Tuesday. Those shows include an early 35mm matinee of The Ghost & Mr. Chicken on Saturday and 70mm screenings of Lawrence of Arabia on Saturday and Sunday. Later in the week, the in-person portion of The Boston Sci-Fi Film Festival moves in, with Hydrometta, Beyond Existence, and Shot in the Dark on Wednesday and Cocokazoid, Madelines, and Ike Boys on Thursday.
• This Thursday's Bright Lights show in the Paramount Theater's Bright Screening Room is Bulletproof, a documentary directed by Todd Chandler on how American schools are adapting to gun violence potentially being imminent at any moment. Chandler and Dr. Chana A Sacks of the MGH Center for Gun Violence will participate in a Q&A afterward, with tickets free on the day of the show.
• The Regent Theatre has a second screening of Music, Money, Madness… Jimi Hendrix in Mauion Friday. The Flying Ace, one of the few surviving silent films made with a Black cast, plays on Friday the 18th.
• The West Newton Cinema adds Death on the Nile to Parallel Mothers, Sing 2, Licorice Pizza, Spider-Man, West Side Story (no show Monday), and matinees of Encanto (Saturday/Sunday); The Lexington Venue has Parallel Mothers, The Tragedy of Macbeth, and West Side Story (no show Friday) this weekend; note that they are unable to sell tickets online at the moment but "have plenty at the box office".
• The Luna Theater has The Tragedy of Macbeth Friday evening, The Love Witch on Saturday, and The Princess Bride on Sunday, and the Weirdo Wednesday show.
  
  Cinema Salem is still closed for renovations.
• 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.

Is this the time I get through Lawrence of Arabia without conking out? Maybe! I'll probably also go for Marry Me, some of the Boston Sci-Fi films, The Worst Person in the World, Lake Changjin II... Crap, I'm running out of week, and I probably also want to get to Death on the Nile because who knows if it will still be in 70mm at the Village East when I can maybe get there on the 25th?