Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 8 July 2022 - 14 July 2022

Marvel on the one end, Montreal on the other. Good week coming up!

• By and large, everyone gets out of the way of Marvel when they've got a new one, and this week brings Thor: Love and Thunder, and folks, if you'd asked me to guess which character would have the most movies where they're the headliner after the first round, there's no way I would have guessed Thor. But here we are, with Chris Hemsworth and director Taika Waititi back, with this installment featuring the return of Natalie Portman's Jane Foster, who now wields the power of a god, and Christian Bale playing a villain who murders gods who don't answer prayers. It's playing at the Capitol; Jordan's Furniture (Imax Laser/Xenon 2D/3D); Fresh Pond; West Newton; CinemaSalem; Boston Common (including Imax Xenon 2D/3D, Dolby Cinema & RealD 3D); Fenway (including RealD 3D); Kendall Square; South Bay (including Imax Xenon 2D/3D, Dolby Cinema & RealD 3D); Assembly Row (including Imax 2D/3D, Dolby Cinema & RealD 3D); Arsenal Yards (including CWX); the Embassy; and Chestnut Hill.
  
  There are also 15th anniversary shows of the first Michael Bay Transformers at Fenway, Assembly Row on Sunday and Thursday. Where the Crawdads Sing gets early Wednesday shows at Boston Common in addition to the normal Thursday previews.
• I was wondering if Thor might get the special shows Strange did, what with it also being directed by an indie fave, but nah. The Coolidge Corner Theatre instead opens Beba, a "cinematic memori" by Rebecca Huntt in which she reminisces about growing up as a Latina in New York.
  
  The Coolidge midnight shows this weekend are the messy but fun live-action Scooby Doo (35mm Friday) and Pennywise: The Story of IT, a look at the making and legacy of the TV miniseries based on Steven King's novel It, with documentary filmmaker John Campopiano on-hand to introduce it (and maybe do a Q&A afterward). CatVideoFest 2022 plays Sunday afternoon, while the weeks's 35mm Big Screen Classics are Terry Gilliam's Brazil (Monday), Sleepless in Seattle (Tuesday). There's also a Cinema Jukebox show of the restored The Harder They Come on Thursday, including a pre-show musical performance by Brookline Music School students.
• This week's "Road Life" Retro Replay at Landmark Theatres Kendall Square is The Hangover, with shows Tuesday afternoon and evening.
  
  There are special preview screenings of Gabby Giffords Won't Back Down at the Coolidge, Kendall Square on Wednesday; the film opens Friday (with previews Thursday), though the Wednesday shows include pre-recorded before-and-after segments with directors Julie Cohen & Betsy West, plus subjects Gabby Giffords and Mark Kelly.
• Apple Fresh Pond opens Telugu comedy Happy Birthday, an over-the-top satire on what sort of mayhem erupts when India changes its laws so that everybody could own a gun, on Friday. Malayalam-language thriller Kaduva opens Saturday, telling the story of a rivalry between a rubber farmer and a high-ranking cop. Hindi comedy Jugjugg Jeeyo continues at Fresh Pond and Boston Common.
  
  Taiwanese film One Week Friends, adapting a manga that has already had animated and live-action versions in Japan, opens at Boston Common, starring Zhao Jinmai as a high-school student whose memories only last seven days. It's from More than Blue director Gavin Lin Xiao-Qian, and that drew a pretty good crowd.
  
  Korean action movie The Killer has no relation to the John Woo classic, but reunites Jang Hyuk with his Swordsman director Choi Jae-Hun as a former assassin after the traffickers who have kidnapped the daughter of his wife's best friend. It opens at Boston Common on Wednesday (two weeks before I get to see it at Fantasia).
  
  Egyptian action flick Kira & El Gin continues at Fenway.
  
  Anime The Deer King, in which a once-enslaved warrior wanders a plague-savaged land, plays Wednesday (subtitled) and Thursday (dubbed) at Boston Common, Fenway, South Bay, and Assembly Row
• The Brattle Theatre's "Lost in America" series includes its Albert-Brooks directed/starring namesake on Friday, plus The Hitcher (35mm Friday), Powwow Highway (Saturday/Sunday), American Honey (Saturday), Near Dark (35mm Saturday), The Wizard of Oz (35mm Sunday/Monday), North by Northwest (35mm Sunday), and The Living End (Monday/Tuesday).
  
  After that, it's time for the summer "vertical calendar". Mondays and Tuesdays will be celebrating the Judy Garland centennial, kicking off with Oz on Monday and Ziegfeld Girl on Tuesday. Wednesdays celebrate the 20th anniversary of Independent Film Festival Boston, with the first entry Strawberry Mansion followed by a virtual Q&A with the filmmakers. And while Thursday is not technically part of the Midnighters series, it's in the same vein, with the annual 35mm Trailer Treats show at 7pm and Zardoz afterward at 9pm.
• The Somerville Theatre has the new 4K restoration of Giant on the big screen with their spiffy new projector on Friday and Saturday. Saturday night's Midnight Special is a new 4K DCP of David Cronenberg's Rabid. A double feature of Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf & The Thomas Crown Affair (the former on 35mm film) plays Sunday and Monday, while the Tuesday/Wednesday twin bill is Shaft & Coffy (again, the former on 35mm). Jackie Brown plays Thursday.
  
  The "Feel Good Flick" at The Capitol this weekend is Wet Hot American Summer, playing Friday evening and Saturday afternoon.
• The Harvard Film Archive has t-shirts available for their The Complete Federico Fellini series, with this weekend featuring new DCPs of featurettes "Toby Dammit" & "The Temptation of Dr. Antonion" on Friday, Juliet of the Spirits on Saturday (their 35mm print), Il bidone on Sunday, and Roberto Rossellini's Rome, Open City on Monday.
• The Regent Theatre has documentary The Long Breakup on Friday, with filmmaker Katya Soldak on hand for a post-film Q&A about her home village mere miles from the Ukrainian/Russian border over the course of the 2010s. Proceeds will go to Cash for Refugees
• The Museum of Science has extended weekend shows of Jurassic World: Dominion on the Omnimax dome through the end of July. They also add "Serengeti" to their regular Omnimax rotation.
• The Lexington Venue has Elvis and Minions: The Rise of Gru from Friday to Monday, and also plays host to the Arev Short Film Festival on Saturday (with the filmmakers selling tickets at the door).
  
  The West Newton Cinema picks up Jazz Fest: A New Orleans Story to go with Thor: Love & Thunder, Minions, Mr. Malcolm's List (Friday-Sunday), Elvis, Lightyear, Top Gun: Maverick, Downton Abbey: A New Era (no show Sunday), and The Bad Guys (Saturday). They also host the first show of the Boston Jewish Film Summer Cinematheque with Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen, A Journey, A Song on Wednesday.
  
  The Luna Theater has Crimes of the Future (Friday/Saturday/Thursday), Beba (Saturday) Jazz Fest: A New Orleans Story (Saturday), Moonrise Kingdom (all day Sunday), and a Weirdo Wednesday.
  
  Cinema Salem Friday-Monday line-up is Thor: Love & Thunder, Elvis, and Minions. Locally-shot Albanian-American production The Spark plays Wednesday and Thursday, with Thursday also offering Hackers as a Summer Rewind show.
• The big outdoor entry on the Joe's Free Films list this week is a 35mm Science on Screen presentation of Tremors on the Greenway presented by the Coolidge, with paleobotanist Paul K. Strother introducing the classic monster movie. There's also what feels like the fullest slate of outdoor shows in a while, with Sing at the Harbor Hotel on Friday, Space Jam 2 at Brighton Commons and Talk to Me at Groundworks Somerville the same night, Encanto at the Prudential Center on Saturday, and Ghostbusters Afterlife starting SomerMovie Fest in Somerville's Lincoln Park on Thursday.
• 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.

Already got a ticket for Thor, and there are a few things I want to catch up with before flying to Montreal and basically living at the Fantasia International Film Festival starting Wednesday. They've given me and this blog a media pass, so expect it to come more alive than it has been in a few months as I try to exploit that by giving reviews to (hopefully) cool genre movies that could use that sort of thing.