Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 17 May 2024 -23 May 2024

A lot of movies coming out this week for me to be this indifferent. Unusual!

• Family fantasy IF comes from writer/director John Krasinski, though he mostly does voice work, with Ryan Reynolds starring as a man who can see outgrown imaginary friends ("IFs") and tries to get new kids to bond with them. It's at the Capitol, Fresh Pond, West Newton, CinemaSalem, Boston Common (including Dolby Cinema & Spanish subs), Causeway Street, Landmark Kendall Square (including a Saturday "popcorn & pickles" matinee that maybe makes sense if you've seen the movie?), the Seaport, South Bay (including Dolby Cinema), Assembly Row (including Dolby Cinema), Arsenal Yards (including CWX), and Chestnut Hill.
  
  I gather Back to Black is about both Amy Winehouse's early life and the creation of that particular album, with Marissa Abela as Amy, Jack O'Connell as the love of her life, and Eddie Marsan & Lesley Manville as her parents. It's at the Coolidge, the Capitol, Fresh Pond, West Newton, Boston Common, Causeway Street, Kendall Square, the Seaport, South Bay, Assembly Row, and Arsenal Yards.
  
  Comedy Babes stars Ilana Glazer and Michelle Muteau as two young women and best friends who don't seem particularly ready for pregnancy and all the bizarre effects on their life and bodies that John Hughes probably wouldn't have thought to put into She's Having a Baby. That plays the Coolidge, Kendall Square, Boston Common. It looks like it expands to Causeway Street, South Bay, and Assembly Row next weekend, and the Seaport the weekend after that.
  
  The marketing of The Strangers: Chapter 1 makes it look like a prequel, but apparently it's the first of a remake trilogy that director Renny Harlin shot simultaneously, which is confidence, I guess. It's at Fresh Pond, Boston Common, Causeway Street, the Seaport, South Bay, Assembly Row, and Arsenal Yards.
  
  The Blue Angels is an old-style Imax documentary (though feature length) about the Navy's precision-flying group; it plays the giant screens at Jordan's Furniture and Assembly Row.
  
  Evil Does Not Exist, already playing at the Coolidge, the Kendall, and Boston Common, expands to the Seaport and The Embassy.
  
  There are early screenings of The Garfield Movie at Boston Common (RealD 3D) and Assembly Row Sunday. There's an AMC Screen Unseen show at Boston Common, Causeway Street, and Assembly Row on Monday. Spider-Mondays are up to the Marvel Studios era, with Spider-Man: Homecoming at the Coolidge, Boston Common (through Thursday), the Seaport (through Tuesday), and Assembly Row (through Thursday). The monthly A24 Imax presentation is Uncut Gems at Jordan's, Boston Common, South Bay, and Assembly Row on Wednesday.
• This week's Indian movies at Apple Fresh Pond include two Malayalam-language comedies: Guruvayoor Ambalanadayil, about a man who winds up marrying a woman who hates him (is it me, or have there been a lot more movies about arranged marriages lately?), and Sureshinteyum Sumalathayudeyum Hridayahariyaya Pranayakatha, with three takes on a man staging a play to woo his crush in different time periods. Hindi-language bio Srikanth continues as well. From Nepal comes Mansarra, which apparently uses the idea of a sort of rice usually planted with other varieties as a comedic metaphor for a woman looking to live independently.
  
  Chinese drama The Last Frenzy plays Causeway Street; it stars Jia Bing as a man who has been dutifully saving his money who decides to go on a spree once a stroke leaves him with days to live.
  
  Korean action film The Roundup: Punishment continues at Causeway Street.
  
  There are two (non-Coolidge) Ghiblibest films playing Boston Common, South Bay, Assembly Row this week: Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind Sunday (dubbed) and Tuesday (subtitled), and Castle in the Sky Monday (dubbed) and Wednesday (subtitled). Anime hit Spy X Family - Code: White continues at Boston Common with subtitles.
• The Brattle Theatre teams with the ART (opening Gatsby next week) for a program celebrating "Fitzgerald & the Jazz Age": Chaplin's The Kid (35mm Friday/Sunday), The Three Musketeers '21 (Saturday), F. Scott Fitzgerald's only credited screenplay Three Comrades (35mm Saturday),a double feature of The Last Tycoon & Babylon (Saturday), The Roaring Twenties (Sunday/Monday), The Immigrant (Sunday), Metropolis (Monday), and The Big Parade (Tuesday).
  
  After that, they start their Reunion Weekend shows with Young Frankenstein '74 on Wednesday and a double feature of The Third Man '49 & The Parallax View '74.
• The Coolidge Corner Theatre opens Babes and Back to Black.and also has more presentations from the National Center for Jewish Film, with Blind at Heart Friday afternoon, Stella: A Life on Sunday morning (co-presented by Goethe-Institut), Revenge: Our Dad the Nazi Killer Sunday afternoon, and Seven Blessings Tuesday evening.
  
  They've got more midnights than usual this weekend, with Harmony Korine night-vision oddity Aggro Dr1ft playing in one of the new rooms Friday & Saturday, Action jackson in 35mm on the main screen Friday (and The Room upstairs, if that's your thing), plus Over the Top in 35mm Saturday. Ghibli stuff this week includes a dubbed 35mm prints of Porco Rosso (Saturday afternoon) and My Neighbor Totoro (Sunday afternoon), and a subtitled print of Princess Mononoke on Wednesday. There's a Stage & Screen show of A League of Their Own Monday evening with Spider-Man: Homecoming later, a "Sound of Silents" presentation of Chaplin's The Gold Rush with Jeff Rapsis on the organ Tuesday. Writer/directorEthan Hawke is on-hand for a Q&A after his new movie Wildcat on Thursday (and next Friday), but those look sold out.
• The Alamo Seaport picks up Evil Does Not Exist, has a preview screening of Hit Man with a live-streamed Q&A (featuring Richard Linklater, Glen Powell, and Adria Arjona) on Friday, late shows of Aggro Dr1ft Friday & Saturday nights, and a "preview" matinee of Babes on Tuesday. Their rep calendar has a fair amount of 1989 Time Capsule stuff: Batman (Friday/Saturday/Tuesday/Wednesday), The 'Burbs (Friday/Monday/Wednesday), Uncle Buck (Movie Party Sunday), and Sex, Lies, and Videotape (Sunday/Wednesday). There's also a (late!) World of Animation screening of The Wolf House on Monday and the original The Heartbreak Kid on Wednesday.
• ArtsEmerson and Boston Asian-American Film Festival present Liquor Store Dreams on Friday evening, a documentary about two second-generation Korean-Americans who have very different ambitions than their immigrant parents.
• BAAF also co-presents Starring Jerry as Himself in The Museum of Science's Omni theater on Saturday; that one's a documentary about a retired immigrant who was recruited by the Chinese police to be an undercover agent.
  
  The MOS also screens documentary Beautiful Was the Fight, a doc about local lady rock 'n rollers, on Wednesday with performances before and after the film.
• The Somerville Theatre picks up Evil Does Not Exist and I Saw the TV Glow, and also has a busy repertory schedule after Friday night's concert. On Saturday, they have a Fan Appreciation Screening of Hundreds of Beavers, with costumes encouraged, with their first Midnight Special of the summer season, the new 4K restoration of Cemetery Man, later that night. Sunday's B-movie double feature is Assignment Outer Space & The Phantom Planet; they're back to noir double features on Monday with Alfred Hitchcock's Suspicion & I Walk Alone on Monday, the first on 35mm film; Bull Durham plays in 35mm on Tuesday with Noah Gittell signing his new book Baseball: The Movie; and "A Tale of Two Studios" returns with The Philadelphia Story & Here Comes Mr. Jordan, both in 35mm, on Wednesday.
  
  Their sister cinema in Arlington, The Capitol is the host for the in-person portion of the Global Cinema Film Festival of Boston, hosting two feature documentaries on Friday and three more on Saturday, with three features, two shorts, and a miniseries available to stream through Tuesday.
• The Museum of Fine Arts has two entries in "Hallyu Hits: Korean Films that Moved the World" this weekend, with Burning on Saturday afternoon and Parasite on Sunday.
• Belmont World Film wraps their International Film Series with Bonjour Switzerland, a satire where a referendum declares French to be the country's only national language, which is not great for the nation's German and Italian-speaking populations! It's at West Newton on Monday, and available to stream starting Tuesday evening.
• The Regent Theatre has been hosting a play for the past few weeks, but has the A-Town Teen Video Awards on Monday and Ryuichi Sakamoto: Opus on Wednesday evening.
• The Lexington Venue gets Wildcat, Ethan Hawke's film about writer Flannery O'Connor starring his daughter Maya, and holds over The Old Oak. They're open Friday to Sunday and Thursday.
  
  The West Newton Cinema opens Back to Black and If and holds over Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes, Farewell Mr. Haffmann, The Fall Guy, Wicked Little Letters (no show Monday), Kung Fu Panda 4 (Saturday/Sunday), and American Fiction (Saturday/Sunday).
  
  The Luna Theater has Immaculate on Friday, Saturday, and Thursday, Love Lies Bleeding on Saturday; Pee-Wee's Big Adventure on Sunday; and a Weirdo Wednesday show.
  
  Cinema Salem adds IF, Wicked Little Letters, and Cabrini to Kingdom of the Planet of the Apes and The Fall Guy through Monday.

None of the week's new releases look particularly enticing, so I guess it's a good time to catch up with Civil War, Challengers, Evil Does Not Exist, and I Saw the TV Glow, plus maybe some silence, the classic double features at the Somerville, and The Parallax View.