Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 29 July 2022 - 4 August 2022

Can you believe Fantasia? I'm still here, still enjoying it, although there's some stuff I'd like to move around tomorrow. There's some stuff that played here heading to Boston this weekend, though!

• Two films that played Fantasia are opening at Boston Common this weekend: Hansan: Rising Dragon (from South Korea) is a prequel set five years before The Admiral: Roaring Currents with an absolutely fantastic final naval battle sequence, while Detective Vs. Sleuths is the current #1 film in China and Hong Kong, with Lau Ching-Wan playing another mad detective for writer/director Wai Ka-Fai, this time racing to get ahead of an army of vigilantes killing those they believe got away with murder. It's absurdly twisty and fast-paced, maybe the best action thriller of the summer.
  
  It's also a big weekend for Indian cinema, with six new movies. Hindi-language thriller Ek Villain Returns picks up eight years after the first, with a new cast and a copycat serial killer, playing Apple Fresh Pond and Boston Common. Vikrant Rona, playing Fresh Pond in Kannada & Telugu, features Sudeep as a cop in the early 1970s tasked with handling a threat the locals think may be supernatural in nature. Romaro on Duty is a Telugu action flick about a cop fighting corruption at Fresh Pond. Malayalam-language time-travel comedy Mahaveeryar also plays Fresh Pond, as does Gujarti-language comedy Vickida No Varghodo, in which two exes a man has never really moved on from appear at his wedding. I'm not sure which language The Legend is playing in; it's about a foreign-educated researcher fighting the "medical mafia" after returning home, also at Fresh Pond. Shamshera continues at Fresh Pond.
  
  This month's Ghibli film is one of my favorites, Kiki's Delivery Service, playing Boston Common, Fenway, South Bay, Assembly Row, and Arsenal Yards on Sunday (dubbed), Monday (subtitled), and Wednesday (dubbed/not at Arsenal Yards).
• DC League of Super-Pets is the family-oriented movie opening this weekend, with Dwayne Johnson voicing Superman's Best Friend, Krypto the Super-Dog, as he and a group of strays who have accidentally gained powers (including one voiced by Kevin Hart) must solve a case that the two-legged folks can't handle. It's at the Capitol, Fresh Pond, West Newton, CinemaSalem, Boston Common (including Dolby Cinema), Fenway, South Bay (including Dolby Cinema), Assembly Row (including Dolby Cinema), Arsenal Yards (including CWX), and Chestnut Hill.
  
  Vengeance comes from (and stars) B.J. Novak, here playing a podcaster who goes to an ex's funeral in Texas, only to get caught up in the family's conspiracies about her death - and they weren't even that serious! It's at the Coolidge, Boston Common, Kendall Square, South Bay, Assembly Row.
  
  IFFBoston selection My Old School, a documentary about an adult who posed as a high-school student for a new start, plays Boston Common. It's special gimmick is that the subject didn't want to be filmed, so you get the incongruous sight of well-past-25 Alan Cumming appearing as him in various recreations.
  
  There are special early screenings of Bullet Train on Tuesday at Boston Common (Dolby Cinema), South Bay (Dolby Cinema), Assembly Row (Dolby Cinema), and Arsenal Yards (CWX) in addition to the usual Thursday night previews. Some of the Thursday night previews of Easter Sunday at Fenway, South Bay, Assembly Row, and Arsenal Yards are being billed as "Live with Jo Koy", the star on whose experiences the comedy is based.
• The Brattle Theatre plays Earwig through Tuesday, with director Lucile Hadzihalilovic telling the story of a girl with ice cubes for teeth being cared for by a mysterious cabal. The weekend also features a twentieth-anniversary re-release of Nuri Bilge Ceylan's Distant, on a new 35mm print through Monday.
  
  The Judy Garland Centennial feature on Monday and Tuesday is The Clock Wednesdays return to celebrating IFFBosotn's 20th anniversary with Petit Maman this week. Thursday's "Midnighters" are The Rocky Horror Picture Show (no shadow cast listed, although Full Body Cast is still showing up at Boston Common every Saturday) and Derek Jarman's Jubilee.
• The Somerville Theatre has three midnight specials this weekend, with Wayne's World on Friday and both its sequel and Blazing Saddles on Saturday. They also show the new restoration of Lost Highway in 4K from Monday to Wednesday.
  
  The "Feel Good Flick" at The Capitol this weekend feels more on brand with Pitch Perfect, playing Friday evening and Saturday afternoon.
• Vengeance is the main opening at The Coolidge Corner Theatre this weekend, but they've got other fun things on tap, starting with a trip to the Rocky Woods on Friday night for an outdoor screening of the Evil Dead trilogy - The Evil Dead, Evil Dead 2: Dead by Dawn, and Army of Darkness. Great to watch that surrounded by trees. The After Midnight crew is back in theater on Saturday for silent horror classic The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari, with Jeff Rapsis on the piano. There's a 35mm screening of Roman Holiday on for Big Screen Classics on Monday, and they start a five-week "Coolidge Education" course on the Origins of American Independent Cinema on Thursday (you must register for the entire session; no drop-ins).
• The Harvard Film Archive continues with (mostly) the new DCPs of The Complete Federico Fellini; this week's selections are Roma (Friday), their own 35mm print of Casanova (Saturday), And the Ship Sails On (Sunday), and Intervista (Monday).
• Props to Everything Everywhere All At Once for its staying power - it's been on disc for almost a month (and probably on VOD for longe) and is still sticking around theaters! Landmark Theatres, at least, will be adding a filmmaker introduction and eight minutes of outtakes starting this weekend at Kendall Square and the Embassy. Kendall Square's Retro Replay series shifts to Alfred Hitchcock for August, with this Tuesday featuring North by Northwest.
• Last call for Jurassic World: Dominion on the Omnimax done at The Museum of Science; Saturday's shows are the last listed.
• The Boston Jewish Film Summer Cinematheque switches to virtual mode this week, with Cinema Sabaya coming online Wednesday and being available for a week (rentals are 48 hours).
• The Lexington Venue has Nope and Minions: The Rise of Gru from Friday to Sunday (and on Thursday as well).
  
  The West Newton Cinema get DC League of Super-Pets and Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen A Journey, A Song, keeping Nope, Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris, Where the Crawdads Sing, and Minions, with weekend matinees of The Bad Guys (Saturday) and Downton Abbey: A New Era (Sunday).
  
  The Luna Theater has the 2022 Cat Video Fest (Friday/Saturday/Thursday), Crimes of the Future (Saturday), The French Dispatch (all day Sunday), and a Weirdo Wednesday show.
  
  Cinema Salem Friday-Monday line-up is Thor: Love & Thunder, League of Super-Pets, and Nope. Thursday's Summer Rewind show is Can't Hardly Wait.
• Joe's Free Films shows plenty of outdoor screenings this week, with multiple spots showing Pixar's Luca and Onward, with the most unusual entry being German drama Goldfish at the Goethe-Institut on Sunday.
• 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 and Somerville, The Venue, CinemaSalem, and many of the multiplexes.

I'm still in Montreal (it's lovely); follow my Letterboxd page to see what I'm catching at Fantasia. The festival ends Wednesday, although I may see what's playing here that won't hit Boston (or try to catch the tail end of Nope's run on giant screens) afterward.