Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 16 August 2024 - 22 August 2024

Even the release that will likely sell a bunch of tickets looks kind of "sure, it's August, whatever".

• Alien: Romulus, the latest film in the series, is directed by Fede Alvarez and sure looks like "more Alien(s)", which I guess may be enough, although this used to be a series where up-and-coming filmmakers switched things up with each new entry. It's at the Capitol, Fresh Pond, Jordan's Furniture (Imax), Embassy Waltham, CinemaSalem, Boston Common (including Imax Xenon & Dolby Cinema & Mandarin-subtitled shows), Causeway Street (including Mandarin-subtitled shows), Kendall Square, the Seaport (including Dolby Atmos), South Bay (including Imax Xenon & Dolby Cinema), Assembly Row (including Imax Laser & Dolby Cinema), Arsenal Yards (including CWX), and Chestnut Hill.
  
  Chiiwetel Ejiofor writes, directs, and co-stars in Rob Peace, with Jay Will as the title character, a young man risking a bright future to defend his father in court. It's at Fresh Pond, Boston Common, and South Bay.
  
  Jean Reno stars in My Penguin Friend as a Brazilian fisherman who rescues and befriends a penguin who has wound up very far from the Arctic, although scientists are tracking and intending to return the little guy to his natural habitat. It's at Fresh Pond, the Embassy, the Lexington Venue, West Newton, and Boston Common.
  
  Ryan's World the Movie: Titan Universe Adventure is based on a YouTube series about a kid who, in this movie, follows his twin sisters into a magic comic book, that goes back to 2015, which has me wondering just how young he was at the start. It's at Boston Common, Causeway Street, and South Bay.
  
  Laika's first stop-motion animated feature, Coraline gets a 15th-anniversary rerelease, and, yeah, it's kind of a bummer Neil Gaiman couldn't wait a couple of months to be revealed as a creep, because that takes some of the fun out of it. It's at Boston Common (including RealD 3D), Causeway Street (including RealD 3D), South Bay (including RealD 3D), Assembly Row (including RealD 3D), and Arsenal Yards (no 3D).
  
  Good Bad Things has an encore screening at Boston Common Sunday afternoon. A24's Wednesday show at Boston Common this week is The Bling Ring.
• The Coolidge Corner Theatre starts their regular run of IFFBoston selection Good One, which follows a 17-year-old girl on a camping trip with her father and his best friend, which starts out kind of fun, but then… Well, there's enough drama for a movie.
  
  The Coolidge also opens documentary How to Come Alive with Norman Mailer, with Monday's 7pm show on screen #2 rather than #6 with the subject's daughter Maggie on-hand for a Q&A afterward.
  
  They've got what seems to be their first "Box Office Babies" screening in a while on Friday, with Didi showing in the morning with the lights up and other accommodations for parents of young children, and are also advertising screenings of Longlegs and Cuckoo on screen #1 (mostly on the weekends) as being 35mm prints. The weekend's medieval-ish midnights are Knightriders on Friday (35mm) and Monty Python and the Holy Grail on Saturday. Saturday also has Mass Mini Con presenting a Mutant Mystery Movie, which is not necessarily about mutants, but has a custom poster giveaway by an unknown artist in the collective for an unknown movie. The week's "Out of Time 1999" movie is Beau Travail on Sunday afternoon, there's a Sound of Silents collaboration with the Tanglewood Music Center presenting new scores for four silent short films on Tuesday; and Sorcerer is Thursday's Big Screen Classic with UConn professor Justin Liberman leading a seminar before the film.
• Landmark Kendall Square, Boston Common, Causeway Street, the Seaport, South Bay open Skincare, a dark comedy/thriller with Elizabeth Banks as an esthetician whose life begins going into a tailspin as she prepares to launch her own line of beauty products.
  
  Kendall Square also has a mystery first look preview on Monday and a Retro Replay screening of Three Kings on Tuesday.
• The Capitol picks up Didi and has Trolls: Band Together as their kids' matinee. They've also one of 14 cinemas where PlutoTV is paying for all tickets on Saturday & Sunday; no advance sales for those days. They also wrap their "Throwback Thursday" series with Mamma Mia!, and if Abba is not your jam, they've got a premiere screening of music doc/concert film This Is New Tone.
  
  Their friends at The Somerville Theatre have the new 4K restoration/reconstruction of Caligula: The Ultimate Cut, and also opens Sing Sing. They also have nearly a full week of "Hot Summer Nights" with Pretty Woman (35mm Friday), a double feature of Basic Instinct & Sliver (Saturday with Instinct on 35mm), Thelma & Louise (35mm Sunday), Poison Ivy & The Crush (Monday), The Last Seduction & Jade (Tuesday with Jade on 35mm), and Showgirls & You Don't Nomi (Wednesday with Showgirls on 35mm). There's also an early "Silents Please!" screening of Wings Sunday afternoon, with Jeff Rapsis on the organ at 12:30m rather than the usual 2pm.
• In addition to the Indian films that opened at Apple Fresh Pond for Parsi New Year - Hindi comedyKhel Khel Mein, action flick Vedaa (also at Boston Common), and horror-comedy sequel Stree 2 (also at Boston Common); Telgugu crime drama Mr. Bachchan and sci-fi flick Double Ismart; Tamil historical drama Thangalaan - they also open Tamil-language thriller Demonte Colony 2 and Telugu-lnaguage film #AAY
  
  Chinese comedy Successor is held over at Causeway Street.
  
  J-pop concert film Live Is Smile Always: Lander plays Boston Common, South Bay, Assembly Row on Saturday, Sunday, and Wednesday. K-pop concert film Seventeen Tour "Follow" Again to Cinemas also plays Boston Common on Wednesday.
• The Brattle Theatre has another IFFBoston alum, Last Summer, from Friday to Saturday; the latest from Cahterine Breillat, with Léa Drucker as a woman whose intention of growing closer to her husband's teenage son crosses a line. It shares the screen with Music, a new film by Angela Schanelec about two lovers who meet as prison guard and prisoner who bond and form a family based on their love of music.
  
  Columbia Musicals continue with a double feature of Annie & The 5000 Fingers of Dr. T. on Monday, and a matinee of Annie on Tuesday while School Daze takes the night shift. Wednesday's Summer of Sophia show is a 35mm print of Lost in Translation, while Thursday's Cruel Summer show is the start of a weekend run for the new 4K restoration of The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.
• The Seaport Alamo has CatVideoFest 2024 on Friday & Saturday afternoon, with Takashi Miike's Audition playing those evenings. The NeverEnding Story has matinee shows Saturday, Sunday, and Monday. They're apparently going to be doing Harry Potter movies Sunday afternoons, with Sorcerer's Stone this week (and also playing Tuesday). Footloose plays Monday. Wednesday also has a Hot Fuzz movie party and an advance screening of Blink Twice.
• The Regent Theatre plays host to Lonely Seal International Film, Screenplay, and Music Festival, with multiple programs Tuesday through Sunday the 25th. This includes a 45th Anniversary show of The Kids Are Alright, also part of the theater's regular "Midweek Music, Movies, and More" series.
• Boston Jewish Film screens Shalom Bollywood at The Vilna Shul on Thursday, with the $25 ticket including an Indian dinner before the show.
• Last call for Twisters Friday & Saturday evenings at The Museum of Science.
• The Lexington Venue opens My Penguin Friend and The Instigators, keeping It Ends with Us and showing the Cat Film Fest on Thursday evening as well. No shows Monday.
  
  The West Newton Cinema opens My Penguin Friend and The Fabulous Four, keeping It Ends with Us, Deadpool & Wolverine, Despicable Me 4, Thelma, and Inside Out 2.
  
  The Luna Theater has Longlegs on Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Thursday; and a Weirdo Wednesday Show.
  
  Cinema Salem has Alien: Romulus, Cuckoo, Deadpool & Wolverine, Twisters, and Despicable Me 4 from Friday through Monday. Rocky Horror shows with the Teseracte Players on Saturday night (Full Body is, as always, at Boston Common). There's a Whodunnit watch party Wednesday, and The Talented Mr. Ripley plays Thursday evening.
  
  If you can make it to the Liberty Tree Mall in Danvers, they have Close to You, starring Elliot Page as a trans man returning to his hometown for the first time since transitioning.
• Outdoor films on the Joe's Free Films calendar this week are Pirates of the Caribbean on Friday at Wright's Pond in Medford, something unannounced at MIT's Open Space the same night,, Migration Saturday at the Prudential Center, Aquaman and the Lost Kingdom Monday at Malcom X Park, How to Lose a Guy in 10 Days in the Seaport on Monday, The Parent Trap at TimeOut Market on Monday, Bob Marley: One Love at The Museum of Fine Arts on Tuesday, Ferris Bueller's Day Off at Peters Park on Wednesday, Apollo 13 on 35mm at the Greenway Wednesday, Run Lola Run at Goethe-Institut on Wednesday (RSVP required), Barbie at the Navy Yard on Wednesday, Footloose at Boston Landing on Thursday, Kung Fu Panda 4 at Iacono Playground on Thursday, and Timechasers at Seven Hills Park on Thursday.

I'll probably try and get to Alien, Successor, My Penguin Friend, and maybe Caligula and Skincare, although, geez, the lineups at the Somerville and Brattle are a whole bunch of "you should have already seen some of this stuff, Seaver" material.