Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 26 April 2024 - 2 May2024

On the one hand, the fact that there are crazy amounts of things playing very limited showtimes this weekend is kind of a real pain in the neck. On the other, it's good practice for picking and choosing which things you want to see at IFFBoston this week!

• Let's get ahead of ourselves, then, and note that Independant Film Festival Boston starts at the Somerville Wednesday night with Ghostlight; three short packages, My Last Nerve, The In-Between, and Dandelion play there Thursday. It expands to the Brattle on Thursday with I Saw the TV Glow and "Ren Faire", and continues through the 8th of May.
• Challengers gets an impressively splashy release for a melodrama from art-house/cult guy Luca Guadagnino, starring Zendaya as a former tennis prodigy turned coach after her career was cut short by injury, who encourages her top-level husband to enter a low-level tournament that his one-time best friend and romantic rival is playing in. Co-stars Mike Faist & Josh O'Connor look like Hollywood trying to reinvent Damon & Affleck for a new generation, which isn't a bad thing, actually. It's at the Coolidge, the Capitol, Fresh Pond, the Embassy, CinemaSalem, Boston Common (including Dolby Cinema), Causeway Street, Kendall Square, the Seaport, South Bay (including Imax Xenon & Dolby Cinema), Assembly Row (including Imax Laser & Dolby Cinema), Arsenal Yards (including CWX), and Chestnut Hill.
  
  BUFF closer Boy Kills World doesn't make the most of its fun cast but does have a fun cast and non-stop over-the-top action; it plays Fresh Pond, Boston Common, Causeway Street, and South Bay.
  
  Unsung Hero, a biopic about an Aussie family that makes it big in Nashville (produced by said family) plays Boston Common, Causeway Street, South Bay, Assembly Row, and Chestnut Hill.
  
  Alien gets a 45th-Anniversary re-release at the Capitol, Boston Common, the Seaport, South Bay, and CinemaSalem because 4/26 is "Alien day the way "May the 4th" is Star Wars day (teaser for next week). The Mummy gets a re-release for its 25th at Boston Common.
  
  Someone seems to have sprung for the smallest possible four-walling of Breathe, a sci-fi thriller with Jennifer Hundson & Quvenzhané Wallis as a mother and daughter in a post-apocalyptic world who suspect the couple who arrives at their bunker (Milla Jovovich & Sam Worthington) are not who they seem. Add Common, and that's a pretty decent B-movie cast, but it's playing Fresh Pond at noon Saturday & Sunday and 4pm Monday to Thursday.
  
  Spider-Mondays continue with the better-than-you-may-remember (or at least more interesting/ambitious) Spider-Man 3 at the Coolidge (35mm), Boston Common (through Thursday), the Seaport (also Wednesday), and Assembly Row (through Thursday). The Fall Guy has early access shows on Wednesday at Boston Common (Imax Xenon & Dolby Cinema), South Bay (Imax Xenon & Dolby Cinema), Assembly Row (Imax Laser & Dolby Cinema), and Arsenal Yards (CWX).
• Landmark Kendall Square and Boston Common open We Grown Now, a coming of age film set in and around a Chicago public housing project in 1992. Tke Kendall also gets Stress Positions for matinees only, with John Early as a man attempting to observe Covid quarantine in his ex-husband's house while also tending to his very popular model nephew, also laid-up (with a broken leg).
  
  For some reason, the Kendall shows as closed on Monday for the second week in a row (is this going to be a thing?), but has Blow Out for the New Hollywood Tuesday
• In addition to Challengers, The Coolidge Corner Theatre gets a new digital restoration of Le Samourai, which is cool because it looks like the HFA is going to be closed for renovations this summer despite having a Jean-Pierre Melville program planned. Limited showtimes.
  
  I don't know if the added screens are going to make this more common or if it's just because they're away-from-Salem presentations of the Salem Horror Fest, but you can catch both of the weekend's After Midnite shows before midnight as well, with Night of the Living Dead (Friday) and Dawn of the Dead (Saturday) showing at both 9:45pm and 11:59pm. As a person who doesn't like tripling the cost of the movie with a cab ride home, I'd be in favor!
  
  Monday's Big Screen Classic is Desperately Seeking Susan on 35mm film with Maria San Filippo doing a pre-film seminar. They also begin the May "Ghiblitheque" series on Wednesday with Miyazaki's latest final film, The Boy and the Heron, including a seminar by Susan Napier
• Big turnover for the imports at Apple Fresh Pond this weekend. Ruslaan is a hind-language spy movie where the title character moonlights as a musician; Malayalam comedy Pavi Caretaker has the title character seeing his lie change when he form a bond (with the dog on the poster?) through Sunday, and Tamil-language actioner Rathnam has a low-level gangster rescuing a girl in town for an interview.
  
  Nepali caper Mahajatra has a full-week booking after last weekend's one-off; Malayalam comedy Aavesham plays Saturday, Varshangalkku Shesham on Sunday, and Bollywood caper Crew is still hanging around.
  
  Indonesian horror movie Dancing Village: The Curse Begins plays Boston Common; it's one of the biggest movies from the archipelago with Mo Brother Kimo Stamboei helming the stand-alone sequel/prequel, which looks wild.
  
  Hong Kong action comedy We 12, which features the members of Canto-pop Mirror as a former crime-fighting group teaming up for One Last Job plays at Causeway Street. It's the third movie built around this band in four months, which seems kind of crazy to me.
  
  If it's spring, it must be time for GKids to do Ghibli Fest again, starting with Spirited Away from Saturday to Wednesday at Boston Common, South Bay, Assembly Row, and Arsenal Yards (different days at different locations). Anime hit Spy X Family - Code: White continues at Fresh Pond, Boston Common, Causeway Street, Kendall Square, South Bay, Assembly Row, and Arsenal Yards; check showtimes for subs vs dubs.
  
  South Korean concert film Asepa: World Tour in Cinemas has an encore show at Boston Common on Saturday.
• The Alamo Seaport straddles run and repo for a few movies this week. Do Not Expect Too Much From The End of the World hails from Romania and is a big media satire where a production assistant on a workplace safety video has to spin a scandal and plays once a day on Friday/Saturday/Monday/Tuesday. Humane, the first film from David Cronenberg's daughter Caitlin, has the wealthy patriarch of a family in a bunker after an ecological disaster announcing he plans to volunteer for the government's euthanasia program; it plays Friday/Saturday/Monday/Wednesday. Documentary Enter the Clones of Bruce is absolutely buried Monday and Wednesday mornings. They also pick up Femme and The Beast.
  
  Their rep calendar features Red Rock West (Friday/Sunday), The Shawshank Redemption (Friday/Saturday/Tuesday), Spider-Man 3 (Monday/Wednesday), and a quote-a-thon movie part for Monty Python and the Holy Grail (Wednesday). Any of these could also have shows Thursday but, obviously, don't plan on it.
• The Embassy gets Nowhere Special, with James Norton as a single father with terminal cancer trying to vet families for his four-year-old son.through Sunday and on Thursday (part of a mix with Challengers, Wicked LIttle Letters, and Farewell Mr. Haffmann.
• The Brattle Theatre continues their 35mm run of Riddle of Fire through Sunday, with a new 4K restoration of Days of Heaven also playing those days. Saturday night has the monthly screening of Stop Making Sense.
  
  During the week, they celebrate being "Halfway to Halloween" with the first three films of the franchise - Halloween '78 (Sunday/Monday/Wednesday), Halloween II (35mm Monday/Wednesday), and Halloween III: Season of the Witch (35mm Tuesday/Wednesday), with Wednesday a triple feature. In the same vein is Tuesday's free Elements of Cinema screening of The Creature from the Black Lagoon, on an anaglyph 3D print. Then, come Thursday, IFFBoston settles in for the weekend.
• The Somerville Theatre welcomes the creators of Mission Hill for a special retrospective on Friday, with restored episodes, Q&A, and a VIP package. On Friday and Saturday, they have Francis Ford Coppola's latest 4K restoration and reconfiguration, One from the Heart: Reprise, playing on the main screen. Sunday afternoon offers an "Attack of the B-Movies" matinee double feature of Gamera vs. Viras & Gamera vs Guiron, while Monday has the last film noir double for a bit with Dark Passage & White Heat.
  
  The Capitol (newly solar-powered!) wraps "Capitol Crimes" with Seven on Friday & Monday and "Good for Her" with the English-language remake of The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo on Saturday & Tuesday. There should be a Disasterpiece Theater even on Monday as well.
• Joe's Free Films shows a free screening of Apocalypse Now Friday & Saturday in room 26-100, from The MIT Lecture Series Committee.
• Wicked Queer 40 still has a number of things (mostly shorts programs)available on "pay what you can" streams through the 30th.
• Belmont World Film is at the Embassy in Waltham with Green Tide on Monday, with pastries from Brittany beforehand as well as a talk by John Rumpler of Environment America.
• The Lexington Venue appears to have Challengers, Remembering Gene Wilder, and Farewell, Mr. Haffman from Friday to Sunday, with Challengers Wednesday & Thursday, Wilder on Wednesday, and Haffmann on Thursday..
  
  The West Newton Cinema has documentary Growing Through Covid-19, a tracking a family-owned garden center with 140 years of history as it considers shutting down and then persevering in 2020; Saturday evening's show is a special event with filmmakers and subjects in attendance. There's apparently a free screening of Inundation District at 3:30pm on Sunday afternoon, though it's not listed on the schedule. Held over are Remembering Gene Wilder (Saturday/Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday), Civil War, Wicked Little Letters, One Life (Friday/Saturday/Monday/Wednesday), Kung Fu Panda 4, and Dune: Part Two, with American Fiction and The Boy and the Hero (no show Sunday) returning.
  
  The Luna Theater has Problemista Friday & Saturday), Poltergeist on Sunday, a Weirdo Wednesday show, and Immaculate on Thursday.
  
  Weird: Cinema Salem turns their schedule over completely, with Challengers, Alien, Abigail, Immaculate, and Sasquatch Sunset, a pretty horror-centric lineup despite not being host to the Salem Horror Fest. They also have a Night Light show of Cemetery Man on Friday.
  
  Salem Horror Fest, meanwhile, will be having shows and events around Salem (and at the Coolidge) from Friday to Saturday, including a rare chance to see three Stephen King "Dollar Babies".

Between a Red Sox game and IFFBoston, and the weird scheduling, it's going to be tough to put together a slate of We 12, One From the Heart, Humane, Breathe, Days of Heaven, Riddle of Fire and the Monday noirs. I'd like to see Do Not Expect Too Much and Clones, but Alamo ain't helping.