Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 6 January 2023 - 12 January 2023

Last week's "dead period after Christmas" gives way to "awards contenders making their way to other markets after opening in New York/Los Angeles (plus a goofy-looking horror movie)". It's how the change from one year to another works.

• The three awards hopefuls opening at The Coolidge Corner Theatre all played the IFFBoston Fall Focus. Women Talking is likely the most eagerly anticipated, with Sarah Polley adapting a novel about a group of Mennonite women deciding among themselves how to respond to abuse by the men in their colony, featuring Rooney Mara, Jessie Buckley, Claire Foy, Frances McDormand, and others. It also plays Kendall Square and Boston Common.
  
  Also opening is Broker, the latest bit of international art-house cross-pollination which has Hirokazu Kore-eda making a film about well-meaning human traffickers in South Korea, with Song Kang-ho as the head of the ring and Bae Doo-na as the world-weary cop tracking them down. It's at the Coolidge, Kendall Square, and Boston Common. The last of the three Fall Focus alumni opening this weekend is Corsage, with Vicky Krieps as Austria's famed "Princess Sisi", whose influence as Empress is beginning to wane in 1877 as her beauty fades and her husband seeks younger partners. It's at the Coolidge, Kendall Square, CinemaSalem, and Boston Common.
  
  The Coolidge's "giallo January" begins at midnight Friday with a 35mm print of Pieces (Boston-set and Spanish-made, so maybe not truly giallo), while Cinematic Void programmer Jim Branscome is in town to present a 35mm print of Torso the next night. Monday's Big Screen Classic is In Bruges. There's Open Screen on Tuesday, and the "Projections" series of art-house sci-fi continues with Sun Ra's Space Is the Place on Tuesday and Tarkovsky's Solaris on wednesday (with optional seminar from Emerson College professor John Gianvito). There's also a free "Panorama" screening of IFFBoston selection The Janes on Thursday, with filmmaker Tia Lessin in attendance.
• The less-fancy opening is M3GAN, a sci-fi horror thing in which a toy designer (Allison Williams) has her recently-orphaned niece (Violet McGraw) test an autonomous, artificially-intelligent doll, and that never ends well. I liked director Gerard Johnstone's Housebound, and writer Akela Cooper also did the script for Malignant, so this could be wild. It's at the Somerville, Fresh Pond, CinemaSalem, Boston Common, Fenway, South Bay, Kendall Square, Assembly Row, Arsenal Yards.
  
  I'm not going to lie, when I first saw the early-January date for A Man Called Otto (an American remake/New adaptation of Sweden'sA Man Called Ove), I thought it was a dead-period dump, but apparently it's an awards expansion and they're pushing Tom Hanks as the grumpy title character for Best Actor. It's at West Newton, Boston Common, Fenway, Assembly Row, and Chestnut Hill.
  
  Nicolas Cage's latest VOD-looking piece is The Old Way, a Western co-starring Clint Howard, getting limited screenings at Fresh Pond. Fenway has a Monday Mystery Movie preview, while Plane gets an early-access screening at Boston Common on Wednesday (plus the regular Thursday screenings).
• Quiet week for Indian cinema, as Apple Fresh Pond only opens Malikappuram on Friday, a Malayalam-language film which plays through Monday and follows a young girl and her family who wish to visit the Sabarimala Temple in Kerala. Tamil heist actioner Thunivu opens Wednesday at Fresh Pond and Boston Common. Dhamaka continues at Fresh Pond through Monday. If you can get out to the Liberty Tree Mall, Gujarati-language musical Lakiro also opens on Friday.
  
  Two from different parts of Africa play at Fenway this weekend: Shalaby is an Egyptian family comedy about a man who has quit his job to become a marionette performer and who connects with a 9-year-old girl who lost her voice. Battle on Buka Street, meanwhile, is the first film from Nigeria that I can recall playing locally despite the Nigerian film industry being huge throughout Africa; it follows to women who have been longtime rivals and now set up competing food businesses on the same street. Note that Battle only appears to have matinee shows, even during the week.
  
  Shin Ultraman, a film adaptation of the long-running Japanese superhero-versus-kaiju franchise that manages to be both slick and tongue-in-cheek, plays Boston Common, Fenway, South Bay, Assembly Row, and Arsenal Yards on Wednesday (subtitled) and Thursday (dubbed/not at Arsenal Yards). I had a good time at Fantasia with that one.
• The Brattle Theatre continues this run of "Refreshed, Renewed, Restored" films with The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (Friday/Saturday), Flaming Ears (late Friday/Saturday afternoon), Solomon King (Late Saturday/Sunday afternoon), The Last Waltz (Sunday), What's Up Connection & Robinson's Garden (Monday), Tales from Gimli Hospital (Tuesday), The Double Life of Veronique (Tuesday), and binges of The Kingdom (Wednesday) and The Kingdom II.
• In addition to the new releases, Landmark Theatres Kendall Square has a Retro Replay of 2001: A Space Odyssey on Tuesday, part of the Kubrick series
• The Somerville Theatre also welcomes back an IFFBoston film on Thursday, as locally-produced (and decent-enough) thriller How to Rob plays on the main screen with filmmakers on hand for a Q&A.
• The Lexington Venue is open through Sunday with Puss in Boots and The Fabelmans.
  
  The West Newton Cinema adds A Man Called Otto and Everything Everywhere All at Once (no show Thursday) to Avatar 2, The Fabelmans, Aftersun, The Banshees of Inisherin, and Tár. Closed Monday.
  
  The Luna Theater has the annual A24 retrospective with X and its prequel Pearl paired Friday & Saturday, Marcel the Shell with Shoes On Saturday afternoon, and Everything Everywhere All at Once Saturday evening and all day Sunday. There's a Weirdo Wednesday show, and All the Beauty and the Bloodshed plays thursday.
  
  Cinema Salem has M3GAN, Corsage, and Avatar: The Way of Water from Friday to Monday. American Graffiti plays those days for free in their new fourth screen, although since it's a small room, it may behoove folks to reserve their seats. Like the Coolidge, they're also having a January Giallo series, with a double feature of Blood and Black Lace & Stripped to Kill on Thursday.
• For those still not ready to join random people in a room for two hours, theater rentals are available at Kendall Square, West Newton, the Capitol and Somerville, The Venue, CinemaSalem, and many of the multiplexes.

I've got to travel for work next week, and we'll see whether I can easily walk to the nearby resto-cinema from the hotel or if there's "Mandatory Fun" that keeps me busy. Before I go, I'll probably try to catch Battle on Buka Street, The Old Way, and maybe Flaming Ears.