Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 29 September 2023 - 5 October 2023

So, what're you getting me for my birthday, theaters and studios?

• Maybe the big present is The Creator, the new film from Gareth Edwards that, despite its very generic title and trailer, is apparently in the vein of his feature debut Monsters, including being shot on location with a tight crew but built up to something epic, with John David Washington as a soldier who can't bring himself to fulfill his mission to kill an android child. It's at the Capitol, Fresh Pond, Jordan's Furniture (Imax), West Newton, Boston Common (including Imax Xenon/Dolby Cinema), Kendall Square, South Bay (including Imax Xenon/Dolby Cinema), Assembly Row (including Imax Laser/Dolby Cinema), Arsenal Yards (including CWX), and Chestnut Hill.
  
  After a couple attempts to reboot the series or downplay its elaborate continuity, Saw X apparently gets right back into it, setting the new entry, said to be among the bloodiest, in between previous films. It plays Fresh Pond, Boston Common (including Dolby Cinema), South Bay (including Dolby Cinema), Assembly Row (including Dolby Cinema), and Arsenal Yards.
  
  And, for the kids, Paw Patrol: The Mighty Movie is the latest movie spin-off of the popular Nickelodeon animated series, this time giving the police puppies superpowers from a magic meteor. It's at the Capitol, Fresh Pond, West Newton, Boston Common, South Bay, Assembly Row, Arsenal Yards, and Chestnut Hill.
  
  Thriller On Fire, which has a wildfire surrounding an isolated family, plays Boston Common. The Blind, which looks at the life of Duck Dynasty's Phil Robertson during the 1960s, opens at Boston Common and South Bay; Carlos: The Santana Journey, plays Boston Common after last week's "premiere shows", although note that the latter two are Fathom presentations and not eligible for A-List.
  
  The next Disney100 special at Boston Common is the original The Lion King (notice how it's never the remakes they bring in).
  
  50th Anniversary shows of William Friedkin's The Exorcist (an "expanded director's cut") play Boston Common and South Bay on Sunday and Wednesday. Drama Surprised by Oxford has an encore showing at Boston Common on Sunday afternoon. 1521, a romance set in the weeks before a major battle between Philippine natives and the Spanish, plays South Bay and Assembly Row on Monday; it features Danny Trejo as Magellan. Documentary Into the Weeds, about a San Francisco-area man who sues Monsanto after being diagnosed with cancer, is at South Bay and Assembly Row on Tuesday.
• After having a week exclusive to Imax, Stop Making Sense opens on regular screens at The Brattle Theatre, the Somerville (4K laser), Kendall Square, CinemaSalem, Boston Common, South Bay, and Assembly Row.
  
  The Brattle also celebrates Silent Movie Day all weekend, with a collection of 16mm shorts from their own collection on Friday, Buster Keaton in The Three Ages on Saturday, and Lois Weber's Shoes on Sunday. Music documentary Mutiny in Heaven: The Birthday Party also plays Tuesday to Thursday.
• Flora and Son, the latest music-centered film from Once director John Carney, opens at The Capitol, Landmark Kendall Square, the Lexington Venue, West Newton.
  
  Landmark's Scorsese & DiCaprio series continues with $5 tickets to Shutter Island on Saturday, Sunday, and Wednesday. Uncharitable, a documentary about how the non-profit world has had to change, plays Monday, and the Retro Replay series switches to 1980s slashers for October, kicking off with Friday the 13th on Tuesday.
• Fair Play opens at The Coolidge Corner Theatre and Kendall Square; it's a drama starring Phoebe Dynevor and Alden Ehrenreich as a couple working for the same hedge fund whose relationship is strained when one is promoted. They also have a special screening on Friday night with Ben Mezrich, the author of Dumb Money, signing books and leading a Q&A after the film made from his book.
  
  Also Friday, at midnight, they have a 35mm print of 2001: A Space Odyssey. The late shows on Saturday are an "annotated" screening of Showgirls with David Schmader at 10pm a 35mm print of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre just ahead of its 50th anniversary. It will probably be October by the time the film starts, so it kicks off the Halloween programming, which continues on Monday with Night of the Living Dead accompanied by a live score by Morricone Youth, on Tuesday with the Nicholas Roeg version of The Witches. They continue to spotlight Coolidge Award winner Ruth E. Carter with Selma on Wednesday evening, as well as IFFBoston selection 26.2 to Life on Thursday, with post-film discussion for this Panorama show. There's also "Baby, I Don't Care: The Artistry of Robert Mitchum", a five week lecture series kicking off Tuesday morning.
• Big week for Indian film, as Monday is Gandhi Jayanti, a national holiday commemorating the birth of Mahatma Gandhi. Hindi caper comedy Fukrey 3, play Fresh Pond and Boston Common. Apple Fresh Pond has seven more new releases on top of that: Hindi drama The Vaccine War, which looks at the challenges of getting a country of 1.4 billion people vaccinated during Covid, Malayalam action flick Kannur Squad, Telugu revenge pic Skanda: The Attaker, Telugu drama Peddha Kapu 1, fantasy-comedy-romance Chandramukhi 2 with times in both Tamil and Telugu, Tamil crime film Iraivan, and Tamil missing-child drama Chithha. On top of that, Jawan hangs around (also at Boston Common).
  
  Wuershan's Creation of the Gods I: Kingdom of Storms gets more showtimes in its second week. If you can make it out to the Liberty Tree Mall in Danvers, they may have The Ex Files 4: Marriage Plan, although the ticketing sites are showing all the times as sold out, so I won't be taking the three buses out there on spec.
• The Somerville Theatre picks up Limbo, a terrifically grimy Hong Kong crime film which finally hits American theaters a couple months after the film director Soi Cheang made after it (Mad Fate), but it's worth the wait. Late shows only, including a midnight on Saturday.
  
  Also playing at midnight on Saturday is a 35mm print of Death to Smoochy, while Tuesday has a special screening of Dario Argento's Demons ith Claudio Simonetti's band Goblin providing a live score (note that it's on the theater's "concerts & events" page rather than the films). That bumps Stop Making Sense downstairs and Limbo off the schedule for the night, but all shows downstairs will be $3 than night.
• The Harvard Film Archive has Música de Cåmara: The Cinema of Rita Azevedo Gomes all weekend with her Fragile as the World playing Saturday evening and her The Portuguese Woman Sunday afternoon. She also programs Ella Katappa on Friday (35mm, no English subtitles), featurettes "D. Jaime ou a Noite Portuguesa" & "Padres" Saturday night (16mm, no English subtitles), Splendor in the Grass Sunday evening (35mm), and La vie de bohème Monday evening (35mm).
• The Regent Theatre four more screenings of the 2023 Manhattan Short Film Festival, where people across the country vote on the best short films - two on Friday, one each on Tuesday and Wednesday. Wednesday and Thursday also have the first two programs of the Lonely Seal International FIlm, Screenplay, and Music Festival, with a package of musical short films on Wednesday and comedy shorts on Thursday.
• Cinefest Latino Boston continues with The Eternal Memory playing Museum of Fine Arts plus on Friday, a full slate of programming at Emerson's Bright Screening Room (in the Paramount) from Friday to Sunday, Going to Mars: The Nikki Giovanni Project at the Coolidge on Sunday, and three free shows in the Civic Pavillion at City Hall Plaza on Thursday.
• This week's Bright Lights presentation in the Bright Screening Room is "Radical Imagination: Responding to an Environmental Crisis in Motion", a program of four documentary shorts with curator Homa Sarabi leading a discussion with the filmmakers afterward. As always, free and open to the public.
• The Boston Film Festival continues streaming a number of films via EventBrite through Saturday.
• The Lexington Venue opens A Haunting in Venice and Flora and Son, Friday to Sunday.
  
  The West Newton Cinema brings in Flora and Son, Paw Patrol, The Creator, and Dumb Money, keeping Bottoms (Saturday/Sunday matinees), Golda (no show Thursday), Elemental (Saturday matinee), Past Lives (Saturday/Sunday), Barbie, and Oppenheimer. Closed on Monday.
  
  The Luna Theater has CatVideoFest 2023Friday evening & Saturday afternoon, Sundance Short Films Saturday, Talk to Me Saturday evening, a UMass Lowell Philosophy & Film presentation of 28 Days Later on Thursday, and apparently no Sunday feature or Weirdo Wednesday show.
  
  Cinema Salem has Stop Making Sense, A Haunting in Venice, Bottoms, The Nun II, and Golda through Monday. Their Halloween stuff gets started in earnest with Event Horizon (hosted by Trivia Time Bitch with Kelly Kapow doing an intro) Friday night and a Night of the Demons triple feature on Saturday. There's a Miz Diamond Wigfall Presents show of Mean Girls on Tuesday.
• Joe's Free Films shows screenings of Argentina, 1985 at MIT on Friday and Saturday, although if you're not part of the MIT community, they need you to email an RSVP ahead of time.

Time to finally see Stop Making Sense, I guess. I'm also excited to see Limbo again, and am hearing good things about The Creator, on top of being curious what the Brattle pulls out of the closet for silents.