Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 24 January 2025 - 30 January 2024

Happy Oscar-Noms-Finally-Announced Day and Lunar New Year for those who celebrate either!

• The first of two films directed by Steven Soderbergh from David Koepp scripts in less than two months is Presence, a haunted-house drama featuring Lucy Liu. It's at The Somerville Theatre, Boston Common (including Dolby Cinema), Causeway Street, Kendall Square, the Seaport, South Bay (including Dolby Cinema), and Assembly Row (including Dolby Cinema).
  
  Flight Risk, a thriller starring Michelle Dockery as a Marshal transporting a witness (Topher Grace) in a small plane only to find their pilot is an impostor, has been amusingly coy about the director being Mel Gibson, but even funnier is centering the advertising around Mark Wahlberg delivering the line "y'all need a pilot?" when he's the towniest townie you can imagine. It's at Fresh Pond, Boston Common, Causeway Street, the Seaport, South Bay, Assembly Row, Arsenal Yards (CWX), and Chestnut Hill.
  
  Drama Brave the Dark has Damian Harris directing brother Jared as a teacher who takes a wayward student into his home. It's at Fresh Pond, Boston Common, Causeway Street, and South Bay.
  
  The trailer for Inheritance has sure played a lot for something that's getting one show late Friday at Boston Common (and the site is giving me trouble trying to reserve a seat); it stars Bridgerton's Phoebe Dynevor as a woman who finds herself in over her head when she joins her father's family business of international espionage.
  
  Among expansions: The Brutalist, already at the Somerville, the Coolidge, Boston Common,the Seaport, Kendall Square, Assembly Row (including Imax Laser), expands to South Bay, Lexington, West Newton, Jordan's Furniture (Imax), and CinemaSalem; Hard Truths expands to the Seaport (already at Boston Common); September 5 to Arsenal Yards (already at Kendall Square, Chestnut Hill, and Boston Common) Films returning include Conclave to Boston Common (Friday), Dune Part Two to Boston Common (Saturday/Sunday), A Real Pain to Boston Common (Wednesday); and The Substance to the Seaport (already back at Kendall Square and Boston Common). Drama Between Borders plays Boston Common on Sunday, and Arsenal Yards from Sunday to Tuesday. There's an AMC "Scream Unseen" horror movie preview at Boston Common, Causeway Street, South Bay, and Assembly Row on Monday (Heart Eyes, maybe?). Dig! XX, an updated version of 2004's Dig! with 40 minutes of new footage and new perspectives, plays Boston Common and Assembly Row on Thursday.
• No nominations for All We Imagine as Light, though the film about three co-workers and roommates in Mumbai won the Grand Prize at Cannes. It plays at The Coolidge Corner Theatre, Fresh Pond, and West Newton.
  
  The French Cult midnight at the Coolidge on Friday is well-timed, showing The Substancewriter/director Coralie Fargeat's debut feature Revenge; Saturday's Giallo January midnight is Opera. March of the Penguins plays as a kids' show on Saturday morning, and then on Sunday, a double feature of Denis Villeneuve's Dune bumps The Brutalist off the main screen for the day, with Part Two screening on 70mm film. Monday' Big Screen Classic is Roberto Rossellini's Journey to Italy; Tuesday has a 35mm "Projections" screening of Snowpiercer, with the series wrapping on Thursday with a 35mm print of Stargate.
• In addition to All We Imagine as Light, a few other Indian films open in more conventional manner, with two (other) new releases at Apple Fresh Pond: Sky Force (also at Boston Common) is a big Hindi-language blockbuster with Akshay Kumar and Veer Pahariya in a thriller built around a 1965 confrontation between India and Pakistan; Dominic and the Ladies' Purse as a Malayalam-language comic mystery with Mammootty as a former cop turned private eye who finds himself down a rabbit hole on a trivial-seeming case; and plays Friday to Sunday.
  
  Held over are Telugu-language Sankranthiki Vasthunam (also at Boston Common), and Hindi-language biography Emergency.
  
  Anime The Colors Within (which I swore had already plated the USA) opens at Boston Common, the Embassy with subtitled and dubbed shows, following a teenage girl who can read auras but joins a band rather than fortune-telling.
  
  Mainland Chinese thriller Octopus with Broken Arms continues at Causeway Street through Tuesday, with Lunar New Year movies hitting Wednesday: Detective Chinatown 1900 is a spin-off/reimagining/prequel to the popular series taking place 120 years earlier, with Liu Haoran as what I presume is an ancestor of the series protagonist investigating the murder of a white woman in San Francisco's Chinatown and Wang Baoqing as his Native American sidekick (potential oof!), with "guest stars" Tony Jaa, John Cusack, and Chow Yun-Fat. That one plays Causeway Street and the Seaport; Hit N Fun, which looks like a traditional star-studded Hong Kong New Year's Comedy, features Louis Koo, Philip Ng, Chrissie Chau, and Gigi Leung and is directed by Albert Mak Kai-Kwong (last year's Rob N Roll. That one plays Causeway Street. Creation of the Gods II: Demon Force opens at Boston Common on Thursday.
  
  (Also, if you can make it out to the Liberty Tree Mall in Danvers, last year's Boonie Bears movie, Time Twist, is playing dubbed into English, although the new one stays in China)
  
  K-Pop concert film (G)I-dle World Tour (iDol) plays Boston Common on Wednesday.
• The Brattle Theatre has a 35mm print of Pale Rider as the Friday Film Matinee, then more (Some of) The Best of 2024: Challengers & Anora on Friday & Saturday (the latter on 35mm film); Flow for Saturday & Sunday matinees; The Substance & A Different Man on Sunday; Do Not Expect Too Much from the End of the World and Problemista separately on Monday; Evil Does Not Exist on Tuesday; Humanist Vampire Seeks Consenting Suicidal Person & I Saw the TV Glow on Wednesday; and an encore of Soundtrack to a Coup d'Etat on Thursday with a 35mm print of Longlegs playing separately.
  
  They also team with RPM Fest for 10 Films by Saul Levine on Sunday afternoon, with "Avant-Garde Cinema Icon" Levine there for a chat after the screening.
• The Seaport Alamo holds over Grand Theft Hamlet for shows on Friday, Sunday, and Wednesday. They also start weekly shows of the Lord of the Rings extended editions, with The Fellowship of the Ring playing Friday, Saturday, Sunday, and Wednesday. Other rep includes To Kill a Mockingbird (Saturday/Sunday), Macgruber (Saturday), a Labyrinth movie party sing-along Monday. They are closed on Tuesday (does it take shuttering the entire building to install a milkshake mixer that works?), and have an advance screening of Companion on Wednesday.
• The Harvard Film Archive continues "The Reincarnations of Delphine Seyrig" with Maso and Miso Go Boating (Friday), Muriel, of the Time of Return (Friday), Be Pretty and Shut Up (Saturday), Baxter, Vera Baxter (Saturday), The Discreet Charm of the Bourgeoisie (Sunday)., and Last Year at Marienbad (35mm Sunday). On Monday, they have the first of five features from 2025's McMillan-Stewart Fellow, Rosine Mbakam, 2016's The Two Faces of a Bamiléké Woman, with short "Doors of the Past" playing before.
• The Capitol Theatre has a screening of Clay Zombies 3D on Saturday night, with live music by Your Friends in Hell beforehand and a Q&A with director Jake Jolley afterward. Monday is their monthly Disasterpiece Theater show/tape trading night.
• Belmont World Film has one more day for their Family Film Festival at the Regent in Arlington on Sunday for Curious Tobi and the Treasure Hunt to the Flying Rivers and Block 5.
• The Landmark Kendall Square Tuesday Best Picture Retro Replay this week is Driving Miss Daisy.
• The Regent Theatre has two mid-week music movies this week! On Wednesday, Born Innocent… The Redd Kross Story, with Red Sox organist Josh Kantor playing Redd Kross songs before the film and hosting a panel with Dan Epstein, author of a book on the band (available to purchase) afterwards. Then on Thursday, they show 1-800-ON-HER-OWN, a look at the life and career of Ani DiFranco.
• The Museum of Fine Arts continues their Festival of Films From Iran with My Favorite Cake Friday night (sold out) and The Stranger and the Fog Saturday afternoon.
• The Embassy has The Colors Within and A Complete Unknown Friday to Sunday, and though it's not listed on the website yet, free "Community Classics" screenings of An American in Paris on Monday morning and afternoon.
• The Lexington Venue is open Friday to Monday plus Wednesday with Flow, The Brutalist, and A Completed Unknown. They also have matinee screenings of documentary Bob Mackie: Naked Illusion on Saturday & Sunday.
  
  The West Newton Cinema opens All We Imagine as Light, and picks up The Brutalist; held over are The Room Next Door, The Last Showgirl, Flow, A Complete Unknown, and Babygirl.
  
  The Luna Theater has Babygirl on Friday, Saturday, and Thursday; Anora on Saturday; Queer on Saturday; Moonrise Kingdom on Sunday, and a Weirdo Wednesday show.
  
  Cinema Salem has Wolf Man, The Last Showgirl, The Brutalist, and Nosferatu from Friday to Monday, and a Whodunit watch party on Sunday, Beat the Devil on Wednesday, and Lost Highway on Thursday.

Will hit Presence, Inheritance (if AMC lets me), Detective Chinatown 1900, Hit N Fun, Clay Zombies 3D, and some Oscar stuff, at least.