Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 9 February 2024 - 13 February 2024

Valentine's Day is on a Wednesday this year, with a fair amount of turnover, so we'll treat it kind of like Thanksgiving with a short Next Week leading up to it and then cover 9 days next week.

• I don't think I've ever seen a movie promote a writer in the trailers so much as Lisa Frankenstein, which very much wants you to know it comes from Jennifer's Body screenwriter Diablo Cody, and stars Kathryn Newton as a teenager in the 1980s who revives the handsome corpse (Cole Sprouse) she has been pining over but must gather body parts to make him whole. Zelda Williams directs. It's at the Capitol, Fresh Pond, CinemaSalem, Boston Common, Causeway Street, the Seaport, Kendall Square, South Bay, Assembly Row, and Arsenal Yards.
  
  Out of Darkness appears to play its horror straighter but is eccentric in its own way, focusing on a Stone Age tribe (speaking a conlang based on Basque) confronting an unknown danger in the woods. It's at Boston Common, Causeway Street, the Seaport, South Bay, and Assembly Row.
  
  At least part of the upcoming week before Valentine's Day is filled with returns for various reasons: Dune: Part One lets one get caught up for the conclusion arriving in a couple weeks, playing Jordan's Furniture (Imax), Boston Common (Imax Xenon), Causeway Street, the Seaport, South Bay (Imax Xenon), Assembly Row (Imax Laser), and Arsenal Yards (including CWX). The second pandemic Pixar to get a bleated cinema release, Turning Red, plays the Capitol, Fresh Pond, and South Bay. Anyone But You, which I don't think actually left any screens since opening around Christmas, is being advertised as a "Valentine Encore", apparently with a few more minutes added (raunchier jokes? bloopers? special introduction?), at Fresh Pond, Boston Common, Causeway Street, the Seaport, South Bay, Assembly Row, and Chestnut Hill.
  
  There's a new Peppa's Cinema Party at Boston Common starting Saturday to celebrate 20 years of Peppa Pig (seems like only yesterday when the niece headed to college in the fall was picking up a posh British accent from those cartoons).
  
  Music doc Gloria Gaynor: I Will Survive plays South Bay on Tuesday.
• The Lunar New Year is this weekend, and that means some big Chinese films. Hong Kong comedy Table for Six 2 has a poster with 8 faces on it, so maybe it's a table for six plus two? It reunites the cast of the first, with all three couples having a joint wedding, and plays at Causeway Street starting Friday. Over at Boston Common, Mainland film Pegasus 2 opens Friday and has the first film's rally-car driver once again having to get a fresh start, this time helping to save a small auto manufacturer; The Movie Emperor opens Saturday and has Andy Lau playing an exaggerated version of himself in a Ning Hao comedy that is apparently more barbed than is often the case. Johnny Keep Walking! is also held over at Causeway Street.
  
  Telugu drama Yatra 2 opened Wednesday Apple Fresh Pond. Also opening this week are Hindi-language romance Teri Baaton Mein Aisa Uljha Jiya (also at Boston Common), which stars Shahid Kapoor and Kriti Sanon in an "impossible love story" about a pair who meet while one is assigned to a post in America; Tamil-language sports drama Lal Salaam stars Rajinikanth as a man trying to restore his reputation in his hometown (and the game of cricket); Tamil drama Lover, which stars Sri Gouri Priya and Manikandan K. as two people whose relationship is feeling the strain after six years; and Eagle, a thriller which stars Anupama Parameswaran as a journalist on the trail of an assassin played by Ravi Teja. Fighter continues at Fresh Pond and Boston Common (including RealD 3D at the latter).
  
  An AXCN show of Satoshi Kon's Paprika plays dubbed at Boston Common on Sunday. The Boy and the Heron is still at West Newton, Fresh Pond, Boston Common, and the Embassy (Friday only).
• The Alamo Seaport has How to Have Sex for a week, Manning Walker's film starring Mia McKenna-Bruce as one of three girlfriends on vacation in Greece whose life is thrown upside down after a drunken party.
  
  Their rep calendar has Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon (Friday), a Twilight Movie Party (Friday/Tuesday with a regular screening Sunday), Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind (Saturday), 1980s rarity Blonde Death (Saturday), The Blair Witch Project (Saturday/Monday), Mississippi Masala (Sunday), She's All That (Sunday), and a 1980s costume party for Lisa Frankenstein on Saturday.
• There have been emails going around talking about the opening of the expansion to The Coolidge Corner Theatre being "imminent", but we're not quite there yet. Which means there's not a whole lot of room for Menus-Plaisirs - Les Troisgros, the latest deep-dive documentary from Frederick Wiseman, which immerses the audience in the operations of a restaurant in central France that has 3 Michelin stars and whose third-generation chef has recently handed the reins over to his son. At four hours, it plays once daily, in the Goldscreen on weekdays and screen #2 on Saturday and Sunday.
  
  They've also announced regular open-captioned screenings on Thursday afternoons and Tuesday evenings for regular bookings, with the exception of 35mm/70mm and repertory programs.
  
  Speaking of repertory programs, the midnights this weekend are both on 35mm film, with Demolition Man on Friday and Super Fly on Saturday. Disney's The Princess and the Frog plays Saturday morning, and you can say they're both Black History Month things if you squint a fair amount. On Sunday, the day starts with Goethe-Institut presenting The Universal Theory, a thriller set against a physics conference where nothing is as expected; there's also the monthly Sunday marathon, tying in with "Destination Romance" by presenting The Before Trilogy; that is, all three of Richard Linklater's walk-and-talks featuring Ethan Hawke and Julie Delpy. Monday's Stage & Screen presentation is a 35mm print of the 1996 version of The Crucible, and Tuesday's Big Screen Debut show is A Girl Walks Home at Night. Tuesday also features Open Screen upstairs.
• The Brattle Theatre presents the newly rediscovered Bushman from Friday to Sunday; this film from 1971 started out with Nigerian scholar Paul Eyam Nzie Okpokam portraying a character much like himself, but became a documentary during filming as Okpokam is set to be deported for a crime he did not commit.
  
  They also have a tribute to the late Ryan O'Neal, including The Driver (Friday/Saturday), Barry Lyndon (35mm Saturday/Sunday), and a 35mm double feature of What's Up Doc & Paper Moon on Monday. On Sunday, there's both an RPM Fest presentation, "Hymn to Her", with six films by Stan Brakhage and Barbara Hammer that pay tribute to Jane Wodening, and a 35mm show of Twin Peaks: Fire Walk With Me for "Superb Owl Sunday". On Tuesday, they begin three days of Valentin's screenings of Casablanca and The Princess Bride, both on 35mm film.
• The Harvard Film Archive brings the latest two from Hong Sang-soo to town, with in water on Friday following a film crew led by an indecisive actor on Jeju Island and In Our Day on Friday and Sunday telling two parallel stories of burnt-out artists. They've opened up the 35mm Undergraduate Cinematheque screening of Women on the Verge of a Nervous Breakdown on Saturday afternoon to the public, continue the "Afterimage" series with The Hour of Furnaces on 16mm Saturday evening and Film About a Woman Who… (with short "Breakfast (Table Top Dolly)") on Monday, also on 16mm. There's also the new restoration of Ousmane Sembène's Emitaï on Sunday evening.
• The Museum of Fine Arts has brash comedy Joy Ride on Friday night, a "Created Worlds: Animation from Around the Globe" show of The Painting on Saturday, and Pearl as part of "Bloody Gorgeous: The Art of Horror" on Sunday.
• The Somerville Theatre has three last screenings of Oppenheimer in 70mm this weekend (and they mean it this time; the booth will get crowded with the other big prints coming in)! They also have their first "Silents, Please!" screening of the new year, with Jeff Rapsis accompanying a 35mm print of the original 1924 adaptation of Peter Pan (made with J.M. Barries' approval and involvement) on Sunday afternoon.
  
  Sister theater The Capitol in Arlington brings back Past Lives and The Holdovers for the weekend.
• The Museum of Science has Nope on the Omnimax screen Friday and Saturday; note that it is likely not included in the free screenings in the room on Saturday (walk-ups only, first-come first-served).
• The Embassy in Waltham has a special Grand Opening Event for In the Whale on Saturday, with director David Abel on-hand for a Q&A and to be presented with the theater's inaugural Embassy Director of the Year award. The film itself is a documentary of a Cap Cod lobster diver who survived being ingested by a humpback whale. The film will also play Thursday.
• The week's New Hollywood special at Landmark Kendall Square this Tuesday is The Graduate.
• The Regent Theatre has documentary Who Can See Forever with subject Sam Beam on-hand for a live performance and short post-film Q&A on Friday, although it is listed as sold out; the film will screen on its own on Thursday.
• The GlobeDocs Black History Month Film Festival continues in virtual fashion this weekend with Crooklyn streaming in a lead-up to a Monday panel discussion.
• Joe's Free Films includes a show of Straight Outta Compton at the Mattapan branch of the Boston Public Library late Tuesday afternoon (RSVP required).
• The Lexington Venue is open Friday to Sunday plus Thursday with The Holdovers (no show Thursday), The Zone of Interest, Driving Madeleine, and American Fiction.
  
  The West Newton Cinema opens Driving Madeleine, brings back Wonka (Saturday/Sunday matinees), and continues The Zone of Interest, 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. No shows Monday.
  
  The Luna Theater has The Iron Claw Friday evening, Past Lives on Saturday, and Casablanca on Sunday.
  
  Cinema Salem is open through Monday with Lisa Frankenstein, All of Us Strangers, The Zone of Interest, American Fiction, and Poor Things. The Friday Night Light show is Ken Russell's Crimes of Passion.
  
  If you can make it to the Liberty Tree Mall (or Framingham), they have The Monk and the Gun, which has an American adventurer meeting a young monk in the isolated Himalayan nation..

I'll be checking out the three Lunar New Year releases (and streaming the original Pegasus), plus looking to fit in a couple other things, although it may be tight before One Love, Madame.Web, and The Taste of Things grab screens Wednesday.