Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 2 February 2024 - 8 February 2024

Kind of got some Oscar ennui going, how about you? Like, if I were really terribly interested in Poor Things, American Fiction, and The Zone of Interest, I'd have seen them by now, but I'm waiting for just the right mood to hit me even though they're just down the street.

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• Apparently a lot of people are more annoyed by the Argylle trailer than I am, but it goes away as the film comes out, with Bryce Dallas Howard as a writer who is being chased by the world's intelligence services because the events in her spy adventures have, unbeknownst to her, actually happened. Henry Cavill is the fictional (or is he?) spy, Sam Rockwell the one protecting her, and a stacked cast all around. It's at the Somerville, Fresh Pond, Jordan's Furniture (Imax), Boston Common (including Imax Xenon & Dolby Cinema), Causeway Street, the Seaport, Kendall Square, South Bay (including Imax Xenon & Dolby Cinema), Assembly Row (including Imax Laser & Dolby Cinema), Arsenal Yards (including CWX), and Chestnut Hill.
  
  Scrambled stars writer/director Leah McKendrick as a woman in her thirties considering freezing her eggs as she finds that her life is not moving to its next stage as quickly as the friends whose endless stream of bridal showers, weddings, and baby showers take up her every weekend. It's at Boston Common, Causeway Street, and Assembly Row.
  
  One that I really liked at Fantasia last summer, Sometimes I Think About Dying, opens at Boston Common; it stars Daisy Ridley as an asocial young woman ill-prepared when she finds herself returning a new co-workers interest.
  
  For reasons I cannot quite comprehend, The Equalizer 3 returns to Boston Common and South Bay. I guess Sony's trying to push to gross over $100M and get better terms from pay-cable or something.
  
  60th Anniversary shows of My Fair Lady play Boston Common, South Bay, and Arsenal Yards Sunday & Monday. Pet Shop Boys concert film "Dreamworld": The Hits Live has encore screenings at Boston Common and Kendall Square on Sunday. There's an AMC "Scream" Unseen mystery preview at Boston Common, Causeway Street, Assembly Row on Monday. A weekly series of A24 returns starts Wednesday with Pearl at Boston Common, Causeway Street.
• Landmark Kendall Square and Boston Common open The Promised Land, with Mad Mikkelsen back in his native Denmark for Niklaj Arcel's story of a veteran in the 1700s who aims to start an agricultural colony in the name of the king, but soon butts heads with a nobleman who is just as intense as he is.
  
  Bonnie & Clyde plays Tuesday night at the Kendall, part of a "New Hollywood" series that looks to run through at least April.
• The Alamo Seaport has a one-week booking of She Is Conann, which reimagines fictions most famous barbarian as a woman played by six different actresses at various stages of her life as she travels from the Hyperborean age to the future. Filmmaker Bertrand Mandico can be an acquired taste, but even with the odd premise, it's probably his best and least obscure film.
  
  Their rep calendar has 1999 Time Capsules of Notting Hill (Friday), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Saturday/Tuesday). There's also World of Animation shows of The Corpse Bride (Friday/Sunday/Monday/Wednesday), a "Black Voices" screening of Malcolm X on Saturday and a movie party for the 2004 version of The Phantom of the Opera on Sunday, and an early-access show of The Taste of Things on Thursday.
• Four new films from South Asia open at Apple Fresh Pond on Friday: Tamil language drama Marakkuma Nenjam has the students from a convent school return ten years later to retake their final exams after a court order; also in Tamil, Vadakkupatti Ramasamy is a comedic story with Santhanam Neelamegam in the title role. Ambajipeta Marriage Band is in Telugu, with a pair of twins seeing their life turned upside down after "unexpected events". Pakistani film Nayab is in Urdu, starring Yumna Zaidi as a woman trying to join the national cricket team with the help of her brother but against her parents' wishes. Marathi romance Sridevi Prasanna and Bengali gangster biography Hubba also play Saturday and Sunday. Telugu drama Yatra 2 opens Wednesday.
  
  Fighter adds Causeway Street and continues at Fresh Pond and Boston Common (including RealD 3D at the latter).
  
  In Chinese film, Johnny Keep Walking! is also held over at Causeway Street. Oddly, no indications of what's coming for Lunar New Year yet.
  
  An AXCN show of Satoshi Kon's Paprika plays subtitled at Boston Common on Wednesday and dubbed on Thursday. The Boy and the Heron is still at West Newton, Fresh Pond, Boston Common, and returns to the Embassy and CinemaSalem.
• The Brattle Theatre has the first of what promises to be multiple series celebrating the 100th anniversary of Columbia Pictures, with "Jean Arthur, Sweetness with Spine" focusing on one of their contract stars of the 1930s and 1940s. It's mostly double features, with Mr. Smith Goes to Washington (Friday/Saturday) & Mr. Deeds Goes to Town (Saturday), Only Angels Have Wings & The Talk of the Town (Sunday), If Only You Could Cook (35mm) & The Whole Town's Talking (Monday), More than a Secretary & Too Many Husbands (both 35mm Tuesday), You Can't Take it With You (Wednesday), , and Adventure in Manhattan (35mm) & The More the Merrier wrapping things up on Thursday.
• The Coolidge Corner Theatre holds more or less steady with the nominees, but gets a little friskier with rep. The theme for midnights is not quite Blaxploitation History Month, but it's mostly led by African American folks, with this weekend featuring Danny Glover in B>Predator 2 on Friday and Cotton Comes to Harlem on Saturday, both playing on 35mm film. For those not inclined to stay up late, Coffy is the Big Screen Classic Thursday night with Globe critic Odie Henderson introducing it (and pitching his book, Black Casars and Foxy Cleopatras: A History of Blaxploitation Cinema) There's a special "Panorama" screening of Origin on Sunday, as well as a 35mm print of Romancing the Stone as part of "Destination Romance", which doesn't technically include Tuesday's Medicine for Melancholy. There's also a Science on Screen showing of Escape from New York on Monday, with Olin College of Engineering professor talking about how the movie demonstrates the perils of decaying infrastructure, and a Big Screen Classing show of Reservoir Dogs on Wednesday with pre-show seminar from Jake Mulligan...
• The Harvard Film Archive has more of "Ousmane Sembène, Cinematic Revolutionary" with a 35mm print of Moolaadé on Friday evening; "Afterimage" screenings of Deux Fois and The Inner Scar, both on 35mm, on Saturday (listed as separate admissions although both are roughly an hour and the turn-around between them is tight); and Victor Erice's Close Your Eyes, on Sunday afternoon. They also welcome filmmaker Ana Vaz, presenting a series of short films on Sunday evening and her first feature It Is Night in America on Monday.
  
  Joe's Free Films also has them presenting a program of short films by recent graduates on Wednesday; it's an Alumni & Faculty series but open to the public.
• The Museum of Fine Arts has a New European Cinema presentation of Aki Kaurismäki's Falling Leaves on Friday night, and another two art documentaries over the weekend: Hopper: An American Love Story plays on Saturday and Mary Cassatt: Painting the Modern Womanscreens on Sunday.
• The Somerville Theatre has a couple more screenings of Oppenheimer in 70mm at noon on Saturday & Sunday. They will also be screening child-care documentary Fair Play with the Chamber of Mothers Boston, with alternate programming for kids if folks cannot find a babysitter.
• Thursday's Bright Lights presentation upstairs at the Paramount is So Unreal, a look at the first 20 years of cyberspace cinema, from 1981 to 2001. Free and open to the public, with director Amanda Kramer on hand for discussion afterward.
• The Boston Globe is presenting a mostly-virtual GlobeDocs Black History Month Film Festival throughout January, with If Beale Street Could Talk streaming through the weekend and a panel discussion at noon on Monday.
• Heads up that The Museum of Science will have Nope on the Omnimax screen next weekend, so get your tickets early!
• The Lexington Venue is open Friday to Sunday plus Thursday with The Zone of Interest, Driving Madeleine, and American Fiction.
  
  The West Newton Cinema also opens The Zone of Interest, keeping The Boys in the Boat, American Fiction, The Boy and the Heron (subtitled all week, dubbed matinees Saturday/Sunday), Migration, Poor Things, and The Holdovers. If you're reading this really early, Belmont World Film will be showing two programs Friday morning.
  
  The Luna Theater has The Iron Claw Friday & Saturday evenings, Anatomy of a Fall on Saturday, and The Princess Bride on Sunday.
  
  Cinema Salem is open through Monday with All of Us Strangers, Past Lives, The Zone of Interest, American Fiction, and Poor Things.
  
  If you can make it to the Liberty Tree Mall, they've got The Jungle Bunch: Operation Meltdown, which is a dubbed version of a French film that's apparently part of a big franchise over there.

My plan is to basically live at the Brattle for the next week, maybe catching Argylle, Poor Things, and perhaps something else around that. Of course, I could decide I've had enough of Jean Arthur sometime Saturday and change plans completely!