Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 18 February 2021 - 24 February 2022

I feel like I'm going to be rooting for Antonio Banderas in the movie where he's playing the villain this week. Anyway, happy President's Day and school vacation to those who celebrate!

• The big opening is Uncharted, a long-in-development video game adaptation (apparently a prequel) that has Tom Holland as the kid brother of a missing treasure hunter pulled into a quest to find the fortune that he disappeared seeking. It's at the Capitol, Fresh Pond, West Newton, Boston Common (including Imax Xenon & Dolby Cinema), Fenway, South Bay (including Imax Xenon & Dolby Cinema), Assembly Row (including Imax Xenon & Dolby Cinema), Arsenal Yards (including CWX), The Embassy, and Chestnut Hill. Kind of surprised there's no 3D.
  
  Also opening is Dog, with Channing Tatum starring and co-directing as a wounded soldier tasked with getting a bomb-sniffing dog to the family of his fallen handler. The producers of the movie would like viewers to know that the dog is going to be fine. It's at Fresh Pond, Boston Common, Fenway, South Bay, Assembly Row, Arsenal Yards, and Chestnut Hill.
  
  There's also The Cursed, which appears to have been sitting on a shelf for a year, withe Boyd Holbrook as a pathologist investigating a possibly-supernatural threat in 19th Century France. I wonder, idly, if it's based on the same incidents as Brotherhood of the Wolf. It's at Boston Common, Fenway, South Bay, Assembly Row.
  
  Encanto returns to Boston Common, South Bay, and Arsenal Yards, probably both for school vacation and Oscar nomination reasons. They've also got a Saturday night screening of The Rocky Horror Picture Show. Fenway and South Bay have Lady Sings the Blues for its 50th anniversary on Sunday afternoon and Wednesday evening. Arsenal Yards shows Just Mercy on Monday evening.
• The Brattle Theatre has their annual Bugs Bunny Film Festival this school vacation week, 80 minutes of 35mm Looney Tunes all week. They're not expecting kids to stay up that late, so the last show of the day (except on Monday) is Strawberry Mansion, a trippy sci-fi indie that was one of my favorites from IFFBoston last year.
  
  On Monday, The DocYard has a special 35mm screening of Rock Bottom Riser, Fern Silva's look at various subjects touching on Hawaii and Polynesia.
• The third Lunar New Year opening to make its way to North America this month is comedy Too Cool to Kill, starring Wei Xiang as a would-be actor and comedian who finds himself embroiled in multiple dangerous capers, with Ma Li as the femme fatale pulling him into one.
  
  Apple Fresh Pond opens three Indian movies in various languages: Virgin Story is a Telugu-language romantic comedy, Aarraattu is a Malayalam-language action flick, and Bahukrita Vesham is a Kannada-langague crime thriller, . They also hold over Badhaai Do (Hindi) and DJ Tillu (Telugu). Tamil-language action/adventure Valimai opens Wednesday evening, and Telugu-language Bheemla Nayak on Thursday.
• The New England Aquarium adds "Incredible Predators" to its rotation of short (22-minute) Imax films this weekend.
• The Coolidge Corner Theatre keeps the same lineup, but they have brought in a 35mm print for their screenings in Moviehouse #1 downstairs, which is about half of them.
  
  Midnights this weekend include the Ax Wound Film Festival Shorts Program on Friday and American Psycho on Saturday. There's a masked matinee of Drive My Car on Sunday, and a 35mm/Love Hurts/Big Screen Classics show of the original Point Break on Monday. Love Hurts also includes the Baz/DiCaprio/Danes Romeo + Juliet on Tuesday and Let the Right One In on 35mm Wednesday.
• The Somerville Theatre is home to the The Boston Sci-Fi Film Festival this weekend, with Abandoned Creatures, El Corazon de la Luna, We Are Living Things, and Crabs downstairs Friday; a matinee double feature of The Day the Earth Stood Still & Jason & The Argonauts upstairs,Nahuel & the Magic Book, Alien on Stage, Karmalink, and You Are Not My Mother, Alchemy of the Spirit, and several shorts programs downstairs on Saturday; plus the 24-hour marathon on the main screen and shorts in the Crystal Ballroom on Sunday.
  
  Their friends at The Capitol offers a bunch of matinees for kids and parents during school vacation week - The Muppet Movie, Shrek, and Despicable Me from Friday to Sunday, The Secret Life of Pets and Trolls: World Tour Monday & Tuesday, plus Sing & Madagascar Wednesday & Thursday.
• The Regent Theatre has The Flying Ace, one of the few surviving silent films made with a Black cast, playing on Friday evening. It was recently added to the National Film Registry and Jeff Rapsis will be on-hand for live accompaniment. They also have the 2022 edition of the Banff Mountain Film Festival, with two short programs of films focused on the great outdoors playing from Monday to next Friday.
• ArtsEmerson has a Friday night "Shared Stories" presentation of "Fannie Lou Farmer's America", with live discussion after the film, in the Paramount's Bright Screening Room, and also teams with The Boston Asian-American Film Festival to stream documentary Curtain Up! as part of their "Projecting Chinese American Experiences", with a post-film discussion part of the presentation.
  
  The Thursday Bright Lights show in the Bright is Spencer, with documentary filmmaker Annie Berman on-hand to discus Pablo Larraín's look at a pivotal weekend in the life of Princess Diana afterward. Tickets free on the day of the show.
• The West Newton Cinema adds Uncharted and Drive My Car to Death on the Nile, Parallel Mothers, Sing 2, Licorice Pizza, Spider-Man, West Side Story, and matinees of Encanto (no show Friday).
  
  The Lexington Venue has The Worst Person in the World, The Tragedy of Macbeth, and West Side Story this weekend, as well as a special premiere of I Wanna Be a Criminal on Sunday night, with Cristal Bella as a martial-arts instructor who decides to live a life of crime and finds it harder than it appears. Filmmaker Steve Belanger will be in attendance.
• The Luna Theater has Strawberry Mansion Friday & Saturday nights, The Tragedy of Macbeth at 3:40pm Saturday and Flee at 6pm that evening, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind plays Sunday, and there's also 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.

My plans include The Flying Ace, some Saturday selections from the sci-fi film festival, Licorice Pizza in 35mm, Uncharted, and maybe some other catching-up.