Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 5 August 2022 - 11 August 2022

Coming home Monday, so I guess I'd better start paying attention to what I'm writing here.

(Fantasia was, as always, a blast. Highly recommended for folks who like genre film, foreign mainstream stuff, and other films off the beaten path.

• The big opening this week is Bullet Train, which has nothing to do with the 1975 Sonny Chiba flick but instead stars Brad Pitt as an unlucky criminal tasked with a simple task on Japan that goes completely out of control, with David Leitch (of John Wick and Atomic Blonde fame) directing. It's at the Coolidge, the Somerville (4K laser), Fresh Pond, Jordan's Furniture Reading/Natick (Imax), West Newton, CinemaSalem, Boston Common (including Imax Xenon/Dolby Cinema), Fenway, Kendall Square, South Bay (including Imax Xenon/Dolby Cinema), Assembly Row (including Imax Xenon/Dolby Cinema), Arsenal Yards (including CWX), the Embassy, and Chestnut Hill.
  
  It's an odd time of year to release Easter Sunday, with comic Jo Koy being run ragged getting ready for the holiday and family gathering that goes with it. It's at Fresh Pond, Boston Common, Fenway, South Bay, Assembly Row, and Arsenal Yards.
  
  Wednesday has an early screening of Fantasia closing night film Bodies Bodies Bodies ahead of the Thursday sneaks before the Friday "opening" at Boston Common, Fenway.
• Landmark Theatres Kendall Square picks up a couple IFFBoston selections this week, with I Love My Dad featuring Patton Oswalt posing as a young woman online to connect with his son; it also opens at the Somerville. A Love Song has Dale Dickey sitting at a campground, waiting for the arrival of her high-school sweetheart (Wes Studi). A Love Song also plays Boston Common. Kendall Square also picks up Sharp Stick, the new film from Lena Dunham.
  
  The Tuesday Hitchcock Retro Replay at Kendall Square is Strangers on a Train.
  
  The Landmark Embassy in Waltham also opens Luck, the first film from Skydance's animation studio that has an unlucky woman wind up in the Land of Luck. Some fun voices, including John Ratzenberger apparently following John Lasseter from Pixar, although Emma Thompson dropped out when they hired Lasseter.
• A new film from China, Lighting Up the Stars, opens at Boston Common this weekend; it appears to be a thing where the man responsible for an accidental death meets one of the people left behind, although she doesn't realize who he is. They also hang on to Hong Kong's Detective Vs. Sleuths, a crazy and fast-paced thriller, and South Korea's Hansan: Rising Dragon, a prequel to The Admiral: Roaring Currents where wooden ships blow the hell out of each other with cannons at short range.
  
  Apple Fresh Pond opens several new Indian films. Sita Ramam plays in Telugu (its native language) and Malayalam, with Dulquer Salmaan and Murnal Thakur as two lovers whose paths diverge due to a letter not being delivered. There's also Bimbisara, a Telugu adventure with Nandamuri Kalyan Ram as a man from an ancient kingdom transported to the present, and Paapan, a Malayalam-language crime story with Suresh Gopi as an ex-cop pulled into a new case. Hindi-language thriller Ek Villain Returns continues at Boston Common. Bangladeshi film Golui, apparently the first film to reach North America for the country's biggest star Sakib Khan, plays Fresh Pond Saturday and Sunday.
  
  Laal Singh Chaddha, a Hindi-language remake of Forrest Gump with Aamir Khan in the title role and Kareena Kapoor as the Jenny-equivalent, opens Thursday and Boston Common, and Fenway.
• The Brattle Theatre runs The Tsugua Diaries, a lockdown-shot film told in reverse order that turns the camera on the crew as well as the protagonists, from Friday to Sunday. They also bring back Phil Tippett's jaw-dropping stop-motion journey into Hell, Mad God, for mostly-late shows from Friday to Tuesday.
  
  That means arriving in the afternoon if you want to see Monday and Tuesday's Judy Garland Centennial movies, In the Good Old Summertime & Easter Parade (the latter on 35mm film), as a double feature, although they switch times on the two dates Wednesday has a special premiere of Holding These Moments, documenting the final tour of hardcore band Bane, with band members in person for a Q&A afterward. Thursday's "Midnighters" are a 35mm double feature of the Alejandro Jodorowsky movies that more or less created the idea of midnight movies, El Topo & The Holy Mountain.
• The Coolidge Corner Theatre is looking pretty mainstream this week, although it's nice to see Marcel the Shell and Everything Everywhere hanging around. They've still got their rep stuff going, with midnights including a 35mm print of Little Nicky on Friday and one of Hellbound: Hellraiser II on Saturday. Monday's Big Screen Classic is a 35mm print of Menace II Society, and there's a Cinema Jukebox show of Dolly Parton & Sylvester Stallone in Rhinestone on 35mm Thursday, including a performance from students at the Brookline Music School.
• With two new releases, The Somerville Theatre also plays off Bullet Train on the main screen by having Saturday's Midnight Special be a 35mm print of Midnight Train (starring Jon Voigt, Eric Roberts, and Rebecca De Mornay).
  
  The "Feel Good Flick" at The Capitol this weekend is Midnight Run, playing Friday evening and Saturday afternoon.
• The Harvard Film Archive has a couple more weeks of The Complete Federico Fellini to go, playing And the Ship Sails On (Friday), Satyricon (Saturday), Amarcord (Sunday), and Ginger & Fred (Monday) this week.
• The Regent Theatre has a 50th-anniversary screening surfing movie Five Summer Stories (Laird Hamilton called it the best of all time) on Friday night, with Tsunami of Sound playing a live set before the film.
• The Boston Jewish Film Summer Cinematheque continues virtually, with Cinema Sabaya available through Tuesday and American Birthright coming online on Wednesday (rentals are 48 hours).
• The Lexington Venue has Nope and Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris from Friday to Sunday. They also host O! Melodious Movie Side 1, in which a guy tries to find a way to change his best friend, who has turned into a pet rock, back into a human; Melodious Zach Benton does pretty much everything behind the scenes as well as appearing. It plays Saturday afternoon, with a portion of the proceeds donated to Children's Hospital.
  
  The West Newton Cinema gets Bullet Train and otherwise pares down to DC League of Super-Pets, Hallelujah: Leonard Cohen A Journey, A Song, Mrs. Harris Goes to Paris, Where the Crawdads Sing, and Minions.
  
  The Luna Theater is kind of like a regular theater this weekend, with Marcel the Shell with Shoes On playing Friday to Sunday, plus Thursday evening. There's a Weirdo Wednesday show in between.
  
  Cinema Salem Friday-Monday line-up is Bullet Train, League of Super-Pets, and Nope. There's a late Friday screening of Sleepaway Camp presented by "Heavy Leather Horror Show", while Thursday's Summer Rewind show is Boyz N The Hood.
• The big outdoor entry on the Joe's Free Films calendar is the Coolidge showing Fast Five in 35mm on the Rose Kennedy Greenway on Wednesday, which is also a Science on Screen event (somehow). There's plenty of other usual suspects, plus Goethe-Institute showing German film I Was I Am I Will Be 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.

I'm coming home Monday and though I may be movie-d out, I'll probably try and catch Bullet Train on the spiffy screen at the Somerville and maybe catch up with Nope, Black Phone, and/or a few others. Maybe while I'm up here, since it looks like rain on Sunday.