Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 11 April 2025 - 17 April 2024

Ooh, it looks like Boston Common's upgraded Imax screen is finally open! I'm guessing bigger seats on top of using lasers now.

• Alex Garland teams with his Civil War military consultant Ray Mendoza to write and direct Warfare, which depicts an operation in the Iraq war that goes sideways from various soldiers' points of view. It's at the Coolidge, The Capitol Theatre, Fresh Pond, Boston Common (including Dolby Cinema), Causeway Street, Kendall Square, the Seaport, South Bay (including Dolby Cinema), and Assembly Row (including Dolby Cinema).
  
  Drop is the new film from Christopher Landon, in which a woman on a blind date gets a series of messages on her phone showing that her son is being held hostage and she is to kill the man she's having dinner with. The preview makes it look like kind of a stretch, but Landon has proven pretty trustworthy. It's at the Capitol, Fresh Pond, CinemaSalem, Boston Common (including Dolby Cinema), Causeway Street, Kendall Square, the Seaport, South Bay (including Dolby Cinema), Assembly Row (including Dolby Cinema), and Arsenal Yards (including CWX).
  
  Rami Malek and Laurence Fishburne star in a remake of The Amateur, although most of us probably didn't know the ubiquitous trailer was for a remake until recently (and, hey, don't we want folks remaking-decent-but-not-famous movies rather than classics?). It's got CIA tech guy Malek proving surprisingly capable chasing the people who killed his wife, and plays the Capitol, Fresh Pond, Jordan's Furniture (Imax), CinemaSalem, Boston Common (including Imax Laser), Causeway Street, Kendall Square, the Seaport, South Bay (including Imax Xenon), Assembly Row (including Imax Laser), Arsenal Yards, and Chestnut Hill.
  
  Sacramento, an indie that features writer/director/star Michael Angarano as a free spirit who coaxes a more settled friend (Michael Cera) to go on a road trip, plays Boston Common.
  
  I guess we're doing religious stuff for Easter, with a disappointingly good cast voicing the awful-looking Angel Studios The King of Kings at Fresh Pond, Boston Common, Causeway Street, South Bay, and Assembly Row.
  
  There's a Screen Unseen preview at Boston Common, Causeway Street, South Bay, and Assembly Row Monday, and early "Tax Day" Dolby Cinema screenings of The Accountant 2 on Tuesday at Boston Common, South Bay, and Assembly Row. Neil Young: Coastal, a documentary about Young going back on the road after Covid and playing songs he seldom played live before, plays Boston Common and Kendall Square on Thursday evening.
• A Nice Indian Boy, starring Karan Soni as a Desi-American doctor who falls for Jay (Jonathan Groff), a white man adopted into an Indian family, opens at The Coolidge Corner Theatre, Boston Common, and the Seaport, . The Coolidge has Soni and filmmaker Roshan Sethi on-hand for a Friday night show, although that's marked as already sold out.
  
  Also at the Coolidge, Friday night's Denzel Washington midnight movie is Fallen in 35mm, while Saturday night's Russell Crowe selection is The Nice Guys. On Sunday, they've got Boston Turkish Film and Music Festival Best Documentary winner Game Changers, which looks at a second generation of Turkish girls playing soccer in the Berlin area, as a Goethe-Institut German film. They also have a 35mm print of Night Moves as part of the Gene Hackman tribute on Sunday afternoon with a 35mm print of Mississippi Burning on Tuesday evening; a Monday Science on Screen show of Shakespeare in Love in 35mm with Dr. John Ross talking about public health in Shakespeare's time; and a Panorama show of documentary Left Behind, featuring mothers who advocated for a school for dyslexic children, on Tuesday with filmmakers and others in attendance.
• The Somerville Theatre opens last year's IFFBoston closer, Secret Mall Apartment, with director Jeremy Workman and "main instigator" Michael Townsend on hand for Q&As Friday and Saturday evenings. It's a very fun documentary about not just the secret room a group of young artists carved out of Providence Place, but the other projects they worked on and the desire to create even (or especially) when one knows it will be ephemeral. It also opens at West Newton and the Lexington Venue.
  
  They also have a Saturday night screening of Re-Animator which is also included with a ticket to "GASH: Haunted Sausage Factory", a mini-con and drag show in the Crystal Ballroom that day. On Tuesday, there's a Frederick Wiseman documentary, Aspen, and then on Wednesday they kick off their tribute to David Lynch with a just-discovered pristine 70mm print of his version of Dune. That continues on Thursday with Mulholland Drive (paired with Episode 8 of Twin Peaks: The Return).
• The week's new Indian films at Apple Fresh Pond include Hindi-language actioner Jaat (also at Causeway Street), Malayalam-language crime flick Bazooka (through Sunday), and Malayalam-language dark comedy Marana Mass (through Sunday), with Tamil-language action flick Good Bad Ugly (also at Boston Common) and Telugu-language action-comedy Jack (also at Causeway Street) having opened midweek.
  
  Anime Kaiju No. 8, following up/condensing the first season of manga adaptation about a guy who dreamed of joining the giant-monster-hunting force who instead becomes a were-Godzilla, plays Boston Common, the Seaport, South Bay, Assembly Row on Sunday (dubbed), Monday (subtitled), and Wednesday (dubbed). There are encores of the 40th anniversary shows for Vampire Hunter D at Boston Common, Assembly Row Sunday (subbed). Last but not least, the re-release of Princess Mononoke continues at the Coolidge, Fresh Pond, plus a Saturday midnight show at the Somerville, on top of continuing at South Bay, Assembly Row. Another anime, Colorful Stage! The Movie: A Miku Who Can't Sing, appears to begin a four-day run at Boston Common, Causeway Street, South Bay on Thursday.
• The Brattle Theatre has a secret classic kung fu movie on 35mm film Friday afternoon, which is unkind because I am both working and not looking to spread a virus. The Elephant Man plays a Sunday matinee, and then Monday and Tuesday evenings. They also near the present in the Queer German Cinema series on Tuesday with 2019's I Am Anastasia, and then have two days of Marya E. Gates hosting films to tie in with the release of her book Cinema Her Way (illustrated by the Brattle's Alex Kittle!): Love & Basketball and Working Girls play Wednesday, withVariety and Luminous Motion on Thursday.
• The Brattle is also the hub for Wicked Queer, the annual festival of LGBTQ+ movies, starting Friday and into next weekend. They also have a special preview of The Wedding Banquet at The Museum of Fine Arts Friday evening (and other shows there Saturday/Sunday), plus shows at the Coolidge (Saturday/Sunday), and ArtsEmerson's Paramount Center (Saturday/Sunday), with a best-in-show showcase at BU Law School on Sunday. The Boston Internation Film Festival (not to be confused with the Independent or adjectivelss film festivals) will be taking place evenings at the Aquarium through Sunday.
• The Seaport Alamo has a mini-run for Columbia University protest doc The Encampments - single shows on Friday, Sunday, Monday and Wednesday - and pounce if you're interested, because those are all either sold out or nearly so. They also have an Across the Universe Movie Party on Friday night, Legally Blonde and Dazed and Confused Friday/Saturday/Sunday/Tuesday, and Creed on Wednesday.
• The Harvard Film Archive begins a "Planet at 50" series of selections from a remarkable Kobe film archive with a program of (mostly) pre-WWII animated shorts with live accompaniment by Robert Humphreville on 16mm/35mm film Friday evening, a 16mm print of To the J**ps: South Korean A-Bomb Survivors Speak Out (preceded by 35mm short "Tyosen") later Friday Night, and a pairing of short "Sea Palace" & featurette The Sea Demon on Land Saturday afternoon. Saturday evening, they have an encore of Albert Serra's Afternoons of Solitude. Sunday, they revisit last fall's "Yugoslav Junction" series with "Underground and in the Air: Musical Experiments in Yugoslavia", a five-short matinee program built around various musical genres, and Alpe-Adria Underground!, a documentary examining Slovenian filmmakers who worked outside official systems during the Communist era, which plays that evening along with a pre-recorded conversation with its makers. Monday night, they welcome "Subject to Review" director Theo Anthony to discuss his 30 for 30 episode about the introduction of tennis replay system Hawk-Eye, and also present another short, "Black Drop". On Thursday, they welcome Alice Diop & Amelie Galli for the latest iteration of their "The Ideal Cinematheque of the Outskirts of the World" program.
• Joe's Free Films shows five different programs from Revolutions Per Minute Fest at Boston City Hall on Saturday: "Program 5" (an animation package) at 11am, a film-scanning workshop at 1pm, "Program 6" at 3pm, "Program 7" (mature content) at 5pm, and "Comunitarios: Recent Experiment Cinema from Mexico" at 7pm. All are free but RSVPs are requested
• Movies at MIT has Stop Making Sense Friday and Saturday evening. As always, if you're not part of the MIT community, they'd appreciate an email at lsc-guest (at) MIT dot edu ahead of time.
• The ICA will be showing two documentary shorts on a loop Saturday to coincide with their new exhibit Believers: Artists and the Shakers, "The Quiet in the Land" and "Sacred Sheets". It's free with museum admission and wil be repeated next Saturday.
• Landmark Kendall Square has Blue Velvet on Tuesday as part of their April tribute to David Lynch.
• The Irish Film Festival presents a free screening of documentary featurette Mrs. Robinson at the Capitol Theatre on Tuesday; the subject is, among other things, Ireland's first female president. Admission is free but a ticket from this site is required, and I'm not sure if they'll stop issuing them when full or if it's first-come-first-serve on the night.
• The Regent Theatre has Janis Ian: Breaking Silence for the Midweek Music Movie on Wednesday.
• Belmont World Film sold out of Monday's screening of Czech thriller Waves at Fresh Pond early enough that they put a second one on. Note that this one starts 15 minutes before the other, so that when it finishes viewers can head down the hall for the discussion with BU Professor Igor Lukes.
• The Embassy holds over Misericordia and Eric LaRue through Sunday. Monday's free community matinees are The Breakfast Club.
• The Lexington Venue is open all week except Monday with The Friend and Secret Mall Apartment.
  
  The West Newton Cinema opens Secret Mall Aparrtment (with director Jeremy Workman and Michael Townsend on-hand for a Sunday afternoon "Behind the Screen" show), keeping A Minecraft Movie, Bob Trevino Likes It, The Friend, The Penguin Lessons, and No Other Land. Tangerine plays Friday evening, preceded by assistant manager Tim Leong's own short film, "AIRBAG". There's a "Producer's Circle" screening of documentary Echoes from Elaine on Thursday.
  
  Cinema Salem has Drop, The Amateur, A Minecraft Movie, and Hell of a Summer through Monday. Friday's Night Light film is Sailor Suit and Machine Gun, and Wednesday has both a Weirdo Wednesday show and a Wednesday Classics presentation of The Treasure of the Sierra Madre complete with a serial episode and other goodies in the pre-show.
  
  If you can make it to the Dedham Community Theatre, they appear the only place in the area playing That They May Face the Rising Sun, a drama that won Best Film at last year's Irish Film and Television Awards. Out at the Liberty Tree Mall in Danvers, they get indie horror movie Marshmallow.

My plans are all the way up in the air, since I was feeling lousy enough last weekend to do a Covid test before going out Sunday, didn't leave the apartment as a result, but am still coughing, so who knows when I'll decide it's okay to hit theaters? Looks like a rainy weekend anyway.