Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 3 July 2024 - 11 July 2024

Oh, these Wednesday pre-holiday openings can sneak up on you, can't they?

• Despicable Me 4, which counting the Minions movies is the sixth film in the series to come out in a 14-year period, pretty crazy turnaround time for major animated features, opens all over at the Capitol, Fresh Pond (including 3D), the Embassy, the Lexington Venue, Jordan's Furniture (Imax), West Newton, CinemaSalem, Boston Common (including Imax Xenon/Dolby Cinema/RealD 3D), Causeway Street (including RealD 3D), Kendall Square, the Seaport, South Bay (including Imax Xenon/Dolby Cinema/RealD 3D), Assembly Row (including Imax Laser/Dolby Cinema/RealD 3D), Arsenal Yards (including CWX), and Chestnut Hill. This time around, Gru and his adopted family must enter the witness protection program and the Minions are injected with super-soldier serum.
  
  The latest Angel Studios thing, Sound of Hope: The Story of Possum Trot, is about a church whose members adopt 77 children from the local foster-care system. It's at Fresh Pond, Boston Common, Causeway Street, South Bay, and Assembly Row.
  
  Ti West's third X-trilogy film, MaXXXine, doesn't exactly open Wednesday, but most places will have preview shows that night, nothing on the Fourth, and then regular opening at the Somerville, the Coolidge, CinemaSalem, Boston Common, Causeway Street, Kendall Square, the Seaport, and Assembly Row on Friday.
  
  There are early screenings of Fly Me to the Moon at Boston Common, Assembly Row, Arsenal Yards, and Chestnut Hill on Friday and Saturday. Close Encounters of the Third Kind gets anniversary shows at Boston Common, South Bay, and Assembly Row on Sunday and Wednesday. Arsenal Yards plays Caddyshack Sunday to Tuesday. The Lorax has matinees at Boston Common, Causeway Street, and South Bay today; Sing plays matinees at those locations on Monday and Wednesday the 10th. South Bay has documentary Watershed, about an athlete training for the Paralympics despite the pandemic and further injury, plays South Bay on Thursday the 11th.
• Two border-crossing films from South Korea open on Friday: Escape, at Causeway Street, has someone from the North trying to go South; Hijack 1971, at Boston Common and Causeway Street, has a man trying to force a Southern airliner to land in the North. They're on the same screen at Causeway Street, so you can do a double feature with time for a bathroom break and trip to the concession stand in between (although, given the setup, can you get a refill on a large drink there?).
  
  Indian action film Kill, a fight-your-way-from-one-end-of-a-train-to-the-other thing, opens at Boston Common and the Seaport.
  
  Kalki 2898-AD continues at Apple Fresh Pond (Telugu/Hindi/Tamil), Boston Common (Telugu/Hindi), and South Bay (Telugu/Hindi); Jatt & Juliet 3 closes at Fresh Pond but opens at Boston Common on Friday.
  
  Anime feature Blue Lock: Episode Nagi continues at Boston Common, Causeway Street, South Bay, and Assembly Row.
• Landmark Kendall Square opens June Zero, a drama which examines the 1961 trial of Adolf Eichmann from three perspectives at the periphery, on Friday.
  
  The Kendall also starts a month of music movies with Wattstax on Tuesday.
• The Coolidge Corner Theatre also opens MaXXXine, supported by midnight screenings of X (Friday) and Pearl (Saturday). The other midnights are 35mm prints of Serial Mom Friday and The Honeymoon Killers on Saturday.
  
  Other repertory presentations include a Big Screen Classic shows of Blow Out on 35mm on the Fourth and Some Like it Hot on Monday. Godzilla vs the Coolidge continues with Mothra vs. Godzilla on Tuesday, and there's a Cinema Jukebox presentation of Rock 'n' Roll High School on Thursday.
• The Fourth of July means The Brattle Theatre has Jaws on 35mm film on Wednesday and Thursday.
  
  For the next few days, they team with The Harvard Film Archive for a peek at the series the HFA would be dedicating the summer to if it weren't undergoing repairs and a "prologue" for the series at the reopened HFA this fall. "Melville and Company", featuring the films of French crime master Jean-Pierre Melville and others working the genre side of the nouvelle vague. That includes Le doublos (Friday/Saturday/Monday), the new 4K restoration of Le samouraï (Friday/Saturday/Sunday/Tuesday), Jacques Becker's The Hole (Saturday/Monday), a new 4K restoration of Claude Sautet's The Big Risk (Saturday/Tuesday), When You Read This Letter… (Sunday/Tuesday and not expected to be at the HFA this fall), and Léon Morin, Priest (Sunday/Monday).
  
  Wednesday offers up a 50th anniversary double feature of John Boorman's Zardoz & Brian De Palma's The Phantom of the Paradise, and on Thursday the films play on either side of the annual Trailer Treats party where they run an hour and a half of trailers, music videos, and short films on 35mm film.
• In addition to opening Maxxxine, The Somerville Theatre has the original Fright Night on 35mm film on Saturday.
  
  The Capitol hosts children's entertainer Brecky Breck on Saturday for a matinee that includes readings stories, crafting, and a short film.
• The Alamo rep calendar hosts a movie party for Jaws on the afternoon of the Fourth and starts their "Seaport Selects" program on Friday, showing Tsai Ming-liang's debut Rebels of the Neon God through Sunday. The Time Capsule series rolls back another five years to 1984 with Red Dawn (Saturday), Top Secret! (Sunday), and The Company of Wolves (Monday). There's also a preview screening of Sing Sing with a Q&A streamed afterward.
• The Museum of Fine Arts begins their annual Boston French Film Festival on Thursday with The Nature of Love, a romantic comedy from Quebec about a professor who leaves her husband for her handyman.
• The Regent Theatre has 1776 on Wednesday.
• The New England Aquarium has Jaws on their giant Imax screen for three night starting Thursday the 11th.
• The Museum of Science has Inside Out 2 on the Omnimax dome Fridays and Saturdays through 13 July, and then switch to Twisters the next weekend.
• The Lexington Venue has Despicable Me 4, Inside Out 2 (through Thursday) and Thelma (returning Friday), and is open all week except for Monday.
  
  The West Newton Cinema picks up Despicable Me 4, Kinds of Kindness, and A Quiet Place: Day One, alongside Paradise (Friday/Sunday), Thelma, Inside Out 2, If, and Janet Planet.
  
  The Luna Theater is dark until Thursday the 11th, when they show In a Violent Nature.
  
  Cinema Salem has Despicable Me 4, Maxxxine, Thelma, and Inside Out 2 from Friday through Monday. They also have locally-shot horror film Dead Whisper on Wednesday and a program of shorts made in New England on Thursday.
• Joe's Free Films shows Top Gun at the Navy Yard tonight; League of Super Pets at Hoyt Field in Cambridge, The Rock at the Speedway, and Dirty Dancing at the Navy Yard next Wednesday; and then Barbie at Lyman Estate in Waltham and Home Alone at Boston Landing on Thursday the 11th.

None of the mainstream new releases appeal to me, which is fine, because I've got two Korean movies, some Jean-Pierre Melville (that link to my review of Le Doulos says maybe I should mainline his movies sometime and thanks for making that easy, Cambridge film institutions!), and Kill along with the Trailer Treats and some catching up.