Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 31 January 2025 - 6 February 2024

February, huh? Seems fast.

• Dog Man, an animated adaptation of America's most popular comic book series (each graphic novel sells something like ten times its weight in Batman), opens at the Capitol, Fresh Pond, West Newton, Boston Common (including Dolby Digital), Causeway Street, the Seaport, South Bay (including Dolby Cinema), Assembly Row (including Dolby Cinema), Arsenal Yards (including CWX), and Chestnut Hill. It's the first DreamWorks animated feature in what seems like decades not to be in 3D, which is a real shame; they're good at it.
  
  Benefiting from a much more informative second trailer is Companion, in which a man buys a hyper-realistic companion android, abuses it, and then jailbreaks it enough to give it free will (seems like a mistake). It comes from the makers of Barbarian and plays the Capitol, Fresh Pond, Jordan's Furniture, Boston Common (including Dolby Digital), Causeway Street, Kendall Square, the Seaport, South Bay (including Imax Xenon & Dolby Cinema), Assembly Row (including Imax Laser & Dolby Cinema), and Arsenal Yards (including CWX).
  
  Valiant One, a thriller with Chase Stokes and Lana Condor as American soldiers who wind up on the wrong side of the DMZ in North Korea, opens at Boston Common and South Bay. Love Me, with Kristen Steward and Steven Yeun as the voices and eventual on-screen avatars of two computers that connect in a post-human world, also opens at Boston Common and South Bay.
  
  Boston Common rotates a number of nominated/noteworthy films, including Luther: Never Too Much, Piece by Piece, The Last Showgirl, mostly as matinees; the first two play South Bay daily. Boston Common has a remastered Hellraiser on Wednesday & Thursday. South Bay has an Early Access show of Becoming Led Zeppelin on the Imax screen on Wednesday, before the regular early shows the next night and weekend opening.
• Multiple Oscar-nominee I'm Still Here, starring Fernanda Torres as a woman who perseveres for decades in the wake of her husband being disappeared by the Brazilian military dictatorship in the 1970s, opens at The Coolidge Corner Theatre, Kendall Square, Boston Common. The Seaport.
  
  The end of the month means the end of the French cult midnights at the Coolidge with Irreversible: Straight Cut, with Gaspar Noé re-editing his most (in)famous film to be in chronological order. Saturday night, they start a February of (mostly) 35mm martial arts mayhem with John Woo directing Jean-Claude Van Damme in Hard Target. Indie horror Round the Decoy plays both nights, with director Adam Newman in person. Sunday morning offers a kids' show of Jumanji: Welcome to the Jungle, with the Black History Month "Icons" program starting that afternoon with Dorothy Dandridge and Harry Belafonte in Carmen Jones. Monday offers a 35mm screening of Barry Lyndon with Emerson's Barry Marshall leading a seminar beforehand; Tuesday both a preview screening of Armand with director Halfdan Ullmann Tøndel on-hand for a Q&A and the start of a Cary Grant series with a digital restoration of His Girl Friday, while Thursday's Icons show is a 35mm print of Super Fly. Also note that as of Monday, The Brutalist is moving upstairs and showing digitally rather than on 70mm film.
• The Landmark Kendall Square opens Rose, a French movie about a woman who reinvents herself after being widowed at 78. It originally opened in France back in '21, an almost inconceivable time getting her in today's terms (although that's just how it used to work, kids). There's also a first-look show on Monday and a Retro Replay show of The Lost Weekend on Tuesday.
• The next Lunar New Year movie to hit American screens is Creation of the Gods II: Demon Force, which plays Boston Common, Causeway Street, Assembly Row. The second in Wuershan's planned trilogy looks to be as gorgeous as the first but with all the giants, monsters, and magical weaponry that it only teased in its finale and credits up front at the start. Continuing from Wednesday are Detective Chinatown 1900, at Causeway Street and the Seaport, and Hit N Fun at Causeway Street.
  
  Apple Fresh Pond opens Hindi-language action film Deva, and Ponman, a Malayalam-language crime comedy about a gold dealer who supplies ornaments for a wedding only to find the groom attempt to rob him, on Friday. Malayalam-language drama Am Ah plays Saturday night, and You, Me & Her, an American indie comedy with an Indian-American lead, plays Sunday. Tamil thriller VidaaMuyarchi, with a husband searching for his missing wife, opens Wednesday, with Telugu-language drama Thandel opening Thursday. All We Imagine as Light and Sky Force (also at Boston Common) are hed over.
  
  There's an AXCN presentation of Cowboy Bebop: The Movie at Boston Common, South Bay, Assembly Row on Wednesday (subbed) and Thursday (dubbed).
  
  Two K-pop concert films this week: (G)I-Dle World Tour: i-Dol at Boston Common on Saturday and IU Concert: The Winning playing Boston Common, Assembly Row (Imax Laser) on Wednesday.
• The Brattle Theatre has a 35mm print of John Carpenter's The Thing as the Friday Film Matinee, about a week ahead of the series it likely belongs in. They also have a pair of special engagements starting on Friday: A new 4K restoration of The Wages of Fear, the original film about a team of truckers white-knuckling tankers full of nitroglycerin across dangerous terrain, plays through Monday; Timestalker, a dark comedy in which writer/director Alice Lowe plays a soul who may never find her love returned, no matter how many times she dies for a man, plays (mostly) late shows through Tuesday.
  
  Tuesday also features the first in a weekly series of "100 years of Queer German Cinema", silent featurette Different From the Others. Then on Wednesday, they start the annual "Dread of Winter" series with a 35mm print of Ang Lee's The Ice Storm, continuing on Thursday with a twin-bill of Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Cure & Bong Joon-ho's Memories of Murder.
• The Seaport Alamo continues Lord of the Rings extended editions with The Two Towers playing daily through Wednesday. Other rep includes sing-along movie parties for Popstar: Never Stop Never Stopping on Friday & Tuesday; Groundhog Day (once) on Sunday, Seven on Sunday/Tuesday/Wednesday; and Coming to America on Thursday.
• The Harvard Film Archive has three distinct eras of Francophone film this weekend: The Rosine Mbakam series continues with Chez jolie coiffure & "You Will Be My Ally" at 7pm Friday, Prism at 9:30pm Friday, and The Two Faces of a Bamiléké Woman & "Doors of the Past" on Sunday. There are two Georges Méliès programs - "The Optical Tricks of a Cinemagician" with accompaniment by Martin Marks on Saturday evening and "Only in Dreams: The Evils that Lurk" with Robert Humphreville on piano Sunday afternoon. The Delphine Seyrig series also continues with Daughters of Darkness on Saturday night. On Monday, they start a program of Korean Documentary cinema with Bu Chan Yong introducing Kim Dong-won's "Sanggyedong Olympic" and Jeong Yeo-reum's "Graeae: A Stationed Idea"
• The Museum of Science has free screenings of Black Panther on the Omnimax screen for Black History Month on Saturday evening.
• Movies at MIT returns for the spring semester with a sci-fi mini-marathon on Saturday, featuring Spaceballs, Galaxy Quest, and the Star Wars Holiday Specia.
• The Capitol Theatre has a special "craft corner" screening of 13 Going on 30 on Sunday evening, with the lights up so that you can knit, sew, and the like while watching the movie.
  
  The Somerville Theatre moves The Brutalist from the big 70mm screen on Sunday so that they can have a little more freedom for rep, starting with a Black History Month "Silents Please" screening of The Flying Ace with music by Jeff Rapsis Sunday afternoon, Jennifer's Body that night, Once Upon a Time in… Hollywood on 70mm film Monday & Tuesday, and a quick Italian thriller series of The Facts of Murder on Wednesday and a double feature of Blood and Black Lace & The Bird with the Crystal Plumage on Thursday.
• The Regent Theatre has an encore screening of The Last Seat in the House on Sunday afternoon, focused on sound engineer Bill Hanley, and a Midweek Music Movie of The Fuzztones vs The World on Thursday.
• The Museum of Fine Arts has more of the Festival of Films From Iran with Universal Language Friday night, My Stolen Planet Saturday afternoon, and Dead End on Sunday, with star Mary Apick among others on-hand for a post-film Q&A.
• The Embassy has The Colors Within and A Complete Unknown Friday to Sunday, and free "Community Classics" screenings of Seven Samurai on Monday morning and afternoon.
• The Lexington Venue is open Friday to Monday plus Wednesday & Thursday with Flow, The Brutalist, and A Complete Unknown. They also have a free Sunday-morning show of A Hard Day's Night.
  
  The West Newton Cinema opens Dog Man, picks up Nickel Boys and The Seed of the Sacred Fig, keeping All We Imagine as Light, The Brutalist; Flow, A Complete Unknown, and Babygirl. There are special sing-along shows of Wicked on Saturday and an "IRL Film Club" show of The Thinking Game on Sunday. Aso on Sunday, filmmaker John Sayles will be on hand to read from his latest novel To Save the Man and introduce a screening of Lone Star afterward. Finally, on Thursday, there's a Ty Burr movie club show of David Lynch's Mulholland Dr.
  
  The Luna Theater has Babygirl on Friday, Saturday, and Thursday; Anora on Saturday; and Queer on Saturday.
  
  Cinema Salem has Flow, Memoir of a Snail, The Girl with the Needle, The Seed of the Sacred Fig, The Last Showgirl, The Brutalist, and Nosferatu from Friday to Monday. Friday's "Night Light" show is Blow-Up, and Wednesday has both a Weirdo Wednesday mystery show and The Snows of Kilimanjaro.

Looking forward to Companion, Creation of the Gods II, maybe Wages of Fear and some of the other good rep at the Brattle and Somerville. Also, Sunday is the Boswords Winter Wondersolve, so that will cut into the movie-seeing time.