Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 30 August 2024 - 5 September 2024

And so August ends as used to be traditional, before streamers and pandemic shortages and the like changed how movies are released, culminating in not treating Labor Day weekend like holiday time, but dumping long-shelved movies and squeezing things where they should really know better in.

• Consider 1992, for instance. Kind of a nice cast with Tyrese Gibson & Christopher Ammanuel and Ray Liotta & Scott Eastwood as fathers and sons at cross-purposes during the post-Rodney King riots in Los Angeles, but Liotta died over two years ago; so what took distribution so long? Find out at Fresh Pond, Boston Common, Causeway Street, South Bay, and Assembly Row.
  
  Also kicking around looking for distribution since a few years ago is Reagan, with Dennis Quaid playing the 40th President of the United States in a production that doesn't exactly look like a particularly strenuous interrogation of his work and legacy, to say the least. It's at Fresh Pond, Boston Common, Causeway Street, South Bay, and Assembly Row.
  
  Another one that first started showing up at festivals in 2022 is Across the River and Into the Woods, an adaptation of Ernest Hemingway's novel about a dying officer in post-World War II Italy, played by Liev Schriber. Limited showtimes at Boston Common. Mexican drama City of Dreams, about a soccer-loving boy from Mexico trafficked to a Los Angeles sweatshop, has only been kicking around a year, and plays Boston Common.
  
  Afraid, meanwhile, just looks kind of conventionally bad, with writer/director Chris Weitz going for a Blumhouse-produced career resurrection like M. Night Shyamalan got with his tale of a sinister version of Alexa starring John Cho & Katherine Waterston, playing Fresh Pond, Boston Common, the Seaport, South Bay, Assembly Row, and Arsenal Yards. Slingshot, meanwhile, seems to be sneaking into theaters despite a cast including Casey Affleck and Laurence Fishburne as part of the crew of a mission to Saturn whose ship may have been compromised while they were in cryo sleep; it's at Causeway Street, Boston Common, Kendall Square, and the Seaport.
  
  You Gotta Believe looks like a pretty standard inspirational sports movie, with Luke Wilson and Greg Kinnear as Little League coaches whose team makes it to Williamsport, although the trailer sure hits the "somehow, their faith in each other fuels the team and keeps the coach's tumor from killing him" stuff hard. It plays Boston Common.
  
  Shaun of the Dead gets an anniversary re-release on the Dolby Cinema screens at Boston Common, Assembly Row. National Geographic Documentary Fly has a two-day "Imax Experience" run at Assembly Row on Monday & Tuesday. Twisters gets some bonus showtimes on fancy screens (Imax at Jordan's Furniture, South Bay, and Assembly Row; CWX at Arsenal Yards).
  
  First Shift plays one show a day at Fresh Pond, following a veteran cop and his new rookie partner , and it's directed by Uwe Boll, a filmmaker generally bad enough and allegedly mostly just pocketing tax incentives to be counted as "infamous". Could have sworn he buggered back off to Germany a decade ago, but apparently not!
  
  They're playing the Harry Potter movies again at Boston Common, with Half-Blood Prince and Prisoner of Azkaban Friday to Monday; Beetlejuice Beetlejuice has extra-early screenings at Jordan's (Imax), Boston Common (Dolby Cinema), South Bay (Imax Xenon & Dolby Cinema), Assembly Row (Imax Laser & Dolby Cinema), and Arsenal Yards (CWX) on Wednesday
• The Coolidge Corner Theatre looks like they're trying to program some good stuff: Mountains, the debut film from Monica Sorelle, takes place in Miami's Little Haiti and has parents struggling to relate to their son who has spent just enough time in college to not wish to speak Creole or otherwise engage with their culture; meanwhile, the father is literally dismantling the neighborhood as a demolition worker.
  
  War Game plays mostly in the Screening Room/screen #3, except for the Friday 7:15pm show, where filmmaker Tony Gerber will be on hand for a Q&A. What he has shot is a role-play/"war game" session where intelligence and defense professionals try to play out how to handle an insurrection that goes farther than that of 6 January 2021.
  
  With the month ending, so do the quasi-medieval midnight shows, wrapping with 35mm prints of A Knight's Tale on Friday and The Dark Knight on Saturday (get yourself some Heath Ledger, I guess). Monday offers the traditional Labor Day Big Screen Classic, a 35mm print of Jaws, while Thursday's is a print of the original 1988 Hairspray.
• The Brattle Theatre has the New restoration of 1982 French animated sci-fi adventure The Time Masters, which is also its first US release, at various times throughout the week, and it kind of looks amazing. It's directed by René Laloux of Fantastic Planet and has visuals designed by Jean "Mœbius" Giraud, so it's surprising to see this just showing up!
  
  It plays around "Hello, I'm Shelley Duvall", a selection of the late actress's body of work including The Shining (35mm Friday & Monday), Brewster McCloud (35mm Saturday & Wednesday), Nashville (Saturday & Sunday), Twilight of the Ice Nymphs (Saturday), "Bernice Bobs Her Hair" (free 16mm screening Sunday), Time Bandits (35mm Sunday/Monday), Popeye (Monday/Tuesday), Roxanne (Tuesday), and The Portrait of a Lady (35mm Wednesday). Then, on Thursday, they have the latest short film compilation from Grrl Haus Cinema.
• Apple Fresh Pond opened Saripodhaa Sanivaarm, about a man who only acts on his rage on Saturdays, opened Telugu action-comedy last week (it also opened at Boston Common). On Sunday, they have a one-day re-release of another Telugu-language police action=comedy, Gabbar Singh, while The Greatest of All Time, an action flick about top hostage negotiators, arrives with Telugu screenings starting on Wednesday and Tamil shows starting Thursday (Boston Common has Tamil shows on Wednesday but nothing further out yet).
  
  Held over are Hindi horror-comedy Stree 2 (also at Boston Common) and Tamil mystery Vaazhai.
• The Somerville Theatre and IFFBoston finish Summer Nights with Cruel Intentions & Wild Things on Friday and Eyes Wide Shut on 35mm film on Saturday, with an intro py critic Jake Mulligan and an after party upstairs at the Crystal Ballroom. That finishing frees the main screen up for a couple of 4K reissues, with the new 40th anniversary restoration of The Terminator playing midnight Saturday and normal hours Sunday & Monday and The Conversation Sunday to Tuesday (the pair can be seen as a twin bill on Sunday & Monday). On Wednesday, they have a back-to-school show of Hundreds of Beavers with discounts for students.
  
  The Capitol picks up Between the Temples; they also host a special screening of indie Advanced Chemistry on Tuesday, with the filmmakers on hand. The 4th Wall Show is on Saturday this week, with Warpark, Fat Randy, Trash Sun, Rain House, and visuals by Digital Awareness.
• The Seaport Alamo has Jackie Chan's Police Story Friday and Saturday, for folks who hate unbroken glass. The "Final Cut" of Apocalypse Now plays Friday/Sunday/Tuesday (with Hearts of Darkness: A Filmmaker's Apocalypse on Tuesday); The Terminator on Friday/Monday/Tuesday/Wednesday; Repo Man Saturday/Sunday/Monday/Wednesday; The Conversation Sunday & Tuesday; Electric Lady Studios: A Jimi Hendrix Vision on Tuesday; Point Break '91 on Wednesday, and a free-for-members preview of The Front Room on Wednesday.
• Landmark Kendall Square has a Retro Replay screening of Being John Malkovich on Tuesday.
• The Lexington Venueis open Friday to Sunday with Between the Temples and Sing Sing.
  
  The West Newton Cinema continues screening Between the Temples, Sing Sing, It Ends with Us, Deadpool & Wolverine, Thelma, and Inside Out 2.
  
  The Luna Theater has Longlegs on Friday/Saturday/Sunday and CatVideoFest 2024 Saturday/Sunday; presumably a Weirdo Wednesday Show will be added to the schedule.
  
  Cinema Salem has It Ends with Us, Alien: Romulus, Didi, Deadpool & Wolverine, and Strange Darling from Friday through Monday. Drop Dead Gorgeous plays Saturday and Seven Samurai plays Thursday.
• Outdoor films on the Joe's Free Films calendar this week are Spirited Away on Friday at MIT Open Space, Transformers: Rise of the Beasts in the Seaport on Monday, Napoleon Dynamite at the Speedway in Allston on Wednesday, and The Mighty Ducks at Boston Common on Thursday.

Probably going to use the long weekend (and beyond) on Slingshot, The Time Masters, Popeye, The Terminator, and maybe Eyes Wide Shut or giant-screen Twisters if they fit (what is the point otherwise?), plus the things I missed last week and somehow haven't had spoiled.