Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 26 September 2025 - 2 October 2024

I'm pretty sure that all of the people who run Boston area's independent/art-house theaters are friendly and work together, but if they are competitive, the Coolidge just escalated things.

• The new film by Paul Thomas Anderson, One Battle After Another, is opening all over the place, but The Coolidge Corner Theatre is one of four theaters in the world showing it in VistaVision - the other three are in New York City, Los Angeles, and London. It stars Leonardo DiCaprio as a former revolutionary who has mostly laid low to raise his daughter pulled back into action when an old nemesis captures her. It also plays at the Somerivlle (including 70mm film), Fresh Pond, Jordan's Furniture (Imax Friday-Sunday), West Newton, Boston Common (including Imax Laser & Dolby Cinema), Causeway Street, 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.
  
  For rep at the Coolidge, it's the last weekend of Shout's restored Hong Kong classics at midnight, with all-timer Hard Boiled on Friday and another John Woo classic, Bullet in the Head on Saturday (Rocky Horror also plays Saturday at midnight). There's also M for the Big Screen Classic on Monday night, and they kick off an "Art House of Horror" series with Ingmar Bergman's Hour of the Wolf on Tuesday. There's also a "Panorma" show of Heightened Scrutiny with post-film discussion, plus Rope, with a pre-film seminar led by Kyle Stevens, on Thursday.
• Gabby's Dollhouse: The Movie is a spinoff of the TV show, with Gabby and her grandmother (Gloria Estefan) on a road trip that has them lose their special dollhouse with and have to retrieve it from a weirdo played by Kristen Wiig. It's at the Capitol, Fresh Pond, West Newton, Boston Common, Causeway Street, South Bay, Assembly Row, Arsenal Yards, and Chestnut Hill.
  
  Speaking of movies from TV shows, The Strangers: Chapter 2 must have originally been part of something originally planned as one, right? All three were shot at once, but this arrives a year after the first and is by itself longer than the movie they remake. Bizarre. It's playing at Fresh Pond, Boston Common, Causeway Street, the Seaport, South Bay, Assembly Row, and Chestnut Hill.
  
  Eleanor the Great has Scarlett Johansson behind the camera and June Squibb in front of it, playing a nonagenarian returning to New York after the death of her best friend and roommate, and things get uncomfortable when she walks into a Holocaust survivors' group and does not back out when she realizes she's in the wrong place, to say the least. It's at the Coolidge, the Capitol, West Newton, Boston Common, Kendall Square, the Seaport, and South Bay.
  
  Boston Common seems like a small opening for Dead of Winter, starring Emma Thompson as an ice fisher who stumbles upon a kidnapping far from anyone else who can help in northern Minnesota, after all the times I've seen the trailer. He playing a midwesterner looks weird but good. Also just at Boston Common is Bau: Artist at War, starring Emile Hirsch in the title role as a man trying to keep his spirits up at a concentration camp and directed by the guy that did the Reagan movie.
  
  Dude Perfect: The Hero Tour, which is the latest iteration of a YouTube thing about doing basketball trick shots that made it to TV and then a live show, plays Boston Common.
  
  The Sam Raimi Spider-Man movies get another theatrical re-release this weekend at Boston Common and Arsenal Yards - #1 on Friday, #2.1 on Saturday, #3 on Sunday. Mystery previews at Boston Common, Causeway Street, Kendall Square, South Bay, and Assembly Row on Monday (note that the AMC theaters have an R-Rated "scream unseen" while Kendall's is PG-13). Satisfied, a documentary about Hamilton co-star Renée Elise Goldsberry, plays Boston Common Tuesday to Thursday, just after the play has left screens. The Life of Chuck plays Boston Common and Assembly Row Wednesday in Dolby Cinema; A Nightmare on Elm Street also plays Boston Common and Assembly Row on Wednesday. Boston Common and the Seaport have an Early Access show of Good Boy, a ghost story from a dog's point of view, on Wednesday.
• Telugu-language action movie They Call Him OG opened on Wednesday at Apple Fresh Pond, Boston Common and Causeway Street. Friday brings Fresh Pond Hindi-language drama Homebound, Malayalam-language action-comedy Balti and thriller Karam (both through Sunday); Hindi-language Akshay Kumar courtroom comedy Jolly LLB 3 is held over. Marathi-language thriller Dashavatar has an encores Saturday & Sunday afternoons, and then Nepali-language comedy Hari Bahadur Ko Jutta opens Monday. Tamil-language musical drama Idly Kadai opens Tuesday, and period action prequel Kantara A Legend: Chapter 1 opens Wednesday with showtimes in Kannada and Telugu at Fresh Pond and Telugu at Causeway Street.
  
  Chinese comedy The Adventure stars Jia Bing as a man who exchanges lives with his 18-year-old self (Wang Hao); it's playing limited matinees at Boston Common. World War II drama 731 also continues with scattered shows at Boston Common.
  
  A 4K upgrade of Mamoru Hosoda's The Girl Who Leapt Through Time plays Boston Common subtitled Sunday & Tuesday and dubbed Monday. Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle continues at Fresh Pond, The Museum of Science (Omnimax Friday/Saturday), Boston Common, Causeway Street, Kendall Square, the Seaport, South Bay, Assembly Row, Arsenal Yards, and Chestnut Hill.
  
  K-Pop concert film Kygo: Back at the Bowl plays Boston Common Friday night (and hangs around at the Liberty Tree Mall through Monday). The two remastered BTS concerts, 2016's The Most Beautiful Moment in Life and 2017's The Wings Tour, play Sunday afternoon at Assembly Row (separate admissions), while 2019's Love Yourself: Speak Yourself plays Wednesday, and 2021's Muster Sowoozoo plays Thursday.
  
  Vietnamese drama Face Off 8: Embrace of Light continues at South Bay.
• Landmark Kendall Square opens Apple film All of You, starring Brett Goldstein and Imogen Poots as friends who drift apart after she takes a test that locates her soulmate. They're also keeping Netflix film Steve for another week and offering package deals for all the October and November Netflix theatrical releases.
  
  Tuesday's anniversary screening is Clueless.
• The Seaport Alamo plays Megadoc, Mike Figgis's making-of documentary for Francis Ford Coppola's Megalopolis, Friday/Sunday/Tuesday. The restored Re-Animator plays Friday/Saturday/Sunday/Tuesday, A Room with a View runs on Saturday, and there's a Van Helsing "movie party" on Monday.
• In addition to most showtimes of One Battle After Another at The Somerville Theatre being on the main screen in 70mm, they also open Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror, supported by the rare Friday midnight show of The Rocky Horror Picture Show, on 35mm film with Teseracte Players.
  
  The Capitol Theatre continues its 100th anniversary celebration with Slingin' in the Rain Friday night and Shane on Saturday. And since it's the end of the month, there's a Disasterpiece Theatre tape-trade and viewing on Monday.
• The Brattle Theatre starts the weekend with The Muppets Take Manhattan on 35mm for the Friday Film Matinee before diving in "Cinephile Heaven: Cinema Ritrovato on Tour", bringing a full slate of restorations that played the festival in Bologna to their screen. This year, that's 8½ (35mm Friday/Saturday), Don't Torture a Duckling (Friday), "Fleisher Fairy Tales" (Saturday), The Big Heat & Thief (Saturday), Pink Narcissus (Saturday), Christopher Strong (Sunday), The Sealed Soil (Sunday/Wednesday), Shanghai Express (Sunday), Four Nights of a Dreamer (Sunday), The Gold Rush & 7th Heaven (Monday), Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid (Monday), Lifeboat (free Elements of Cinema show Tuesday), Golden Eighties (Tuesday), Amores Perros (Thursday), and Carrie (Thursday).
• It's a 35mm Mikio Naruse weekend at The Harvard Film Archive, with Late Chrysanthemums Friday evening & Sunday afternoon, Wife Friday night & Sunday evening, Lightning Saturday evening, Repast Saturday night & Monday evening. Then, on Wednesday evening, they welcome Alice Diop and her new short film "Fragments for Venus". It's a free screening but first-come-first-serve, with the box office opening at 5:30pm for a 6pm show.
• CineFest Latino 2025 continues with shows in ArtsEmerson's Bright Screening Room (Friday/Saturday/Sunday) and the MFA (Friday/Saturday), and the Boston Public Library (Saturday), closing with Mistura at the Coolidge on Sunday.
• After hosting CineLatino Friday and Saturday, The Museum of Fine Arts plays Sugarcane, a focused and determined documentary about the Native boarding schools run by the Catholic Church and First Nations work to bring them to the world's attention.
• The Regent Theatre hosts the Manhattan Short Film festival Sunday and Wednesday; it's also at The Embassy in Waltham Friday to Sunday & Thursday. There's also an encore screening of Unfinished Business with filmmaker Michael Connolly on hand Tuesday at the Regent; again, it is not the Vince Vaughn film nor apparently the best-selling author Michael Connoly.
• Joe's Free Films shows Time After Time at MIT Open Space as part of the MIT Museum's "Time Travel on Screen" series (the MIT Museum will also be playing Cosmic Coda with pre-screening panel discussion; I liked it at IFFBoston although there was no entry for it on Letterboxd at the time). They also show a couple of programs at Boston University - a package of student films Friday night, and documentary featurette "Cathy & Harry" with both long-married pairs of subjects and filmmakers on hand for Q&A.
• The in-person portion of The Taiwan Film Festival of Boston is completed, but a virtual film festival will be running through 12 October (actually, it's more like passes will be on sale through then unless they hit their max, and then you've got 30 days from when you buy the pass).
• The Lexington Venue has Eleanor the Great and Downton Abbey all week (except Monday), plus late-ish shows of Strange Journey: The Story of Rocky Horror Friday to Sunday. Documentary Between the Mountain and the Sky plays Thursday, including a discussion with aid worker Suzy Becker, who has worked with and documented subject Maggie Doyne.
  
  The West Newton Cinema opens One Battle After Another (including a "Behind the Screen" show on Sunday), Eleanor the Great,Gabby's Dollhouse, and continues Kerouac's Road: The Beat of a Nation, The History of Sound, A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, Downton Abbey, and The Baltimorons. John Cassevetes' Opening Night plays as a Staff Selection on Friday, while the 1916 Snow White plays with sisters Leslie & Barbara McMichael on harp & viola for Silent Movie Day on Monday.
  
  Cinema Salem has Him and Downton Abbey Friday to Monday plus Hocus Pocus on those days plus Wednesday & Thursday, plus "Spelltacular Cabarets" with costumes encouraged from Friday to Sunday. There's also a Night Light show of Yokai Monsters: 100 Monsters on Friday, a Murder, She Wrote Whodunnit Watch Party on Sunday, plus Modern Times and the Sherlock Jr./REM "Silents Synced" on for Silent Film Day on Monday. Stage Fright is the Wednesday Classic, with Weirdo Wednesdays on another screen.
  
  Netflix movie The Lost Bus, with Paul Greengrass directing Matthew McConaughey and America Ferrera trying to get a class out of a massive fire, plays at the Showcases in Woburn & Dedham. The Liberty Tree Mall in Danvers has BFFs with director Constantine Paraskevopoulos playing a man trying to keep tight with his best friend played by writer Adam Rifkin, and a whole bunch of bigger names in supporting parts.

Movie-seeing time will be a bit cramped by getting to what could be two of the last games at Fenway this weekend, but I will probably try to catch One Battle After Another in VistaVision, catch up on Spinal Tap II and A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, and maybe All of You. Maybe the Chinese movies and/or something for Silent Movie Day as well.

(Follow my Letterboxd page to see if I follow through!)

This Week in Tickets: 15 September 2025 - 21 September 2025 (Well, That Could've Been Better)

Hey, let's try to get back on this horse! If only because I've got a mildly amusing story that goes with it.

Basically, I thought I'd be at Fenway four times in six days, between a ballgame the Friday before, the two this week, and the Elvis Costello concert Ticketmaster was sending me constant reminders for, but apparently I was a week off, which I discovered by getting there at 7:40pm and seeing a sign that said some other band was playing that night. It's amusing that I'm usually late for stuff but apparently managed to be twenty minutes and seven days early.

Fortunately, I had a plan B, in that I'd kind of wanted to see the preview of Play Dirty but Elvis was blocking it. I was mildly surprised it was so quiet, even for being late-ish - scheduled start time was 9pm, probably to accommodate the post-screening Q&A that was happening on the west coast (and presumably everyone at that location getting to their seats was why it started 20 minutes late or so) - because I figured Mark Wahlberg would have some local fans and there were probably people like me who wanted to see "Shane Black doing Richard Stark's Parker" on the big screen rather than Amazon. Pretty quiet, though; the front section was folks who go to enough previews that they not only know what Allied is but local reps' names and some people who seemed to have walked in just looking to see whatever was playing at 8:30 or so, when that theater isn't usually open on weekdays. Anyway, glad to see folks are apparently still thinking "let's see a movie" and showing up to see what it is.

The next two days were at Fenway Park, though: a frustrating loss to the A's on Tuesday, the second game in a row where I watched Greg Weissert let inherited runners score and ruin a fun game with a young pitcher making their first start at Fenway Park; then a 10-inning walk-off win on Wednesday. Only a little baseball left at Fenway this year, so I'm catching a fair amount while I can.

Thursday night, I hit the night-before show of Afterburn, which has a premise that probably deserves a bigger budget than it got. The next night was the rare second trip to the Seaport in a week because the Alamo was actually playing things I couldn't see without getting on the airport bus, for Adulthood.

Saturday night, I opted to head to the Coolidge for the late show of Peking Opera Blues, knowing full well from a couple weeks ago that the MBTA's new later hour(s) are kind of unevenly applied and I (a) had a Hong Kong Blu-ray still in the plastic and (b) would be receiving the new Shout Factory UHD on Tuesday. No regrets, though; it's great with a crowd and on the big screen. I really hope the Brattle or Somerville has the Shout restorations at a reasonable hour sometime later this fall, because you've got to think people would show up for Hard Boiled projected in 4K laser if they could get home afterward.

Because those later trains are kind of only good in one direction at 2am, as people try to get from downtown to the suburbs: Both times, there were a couple more outbound green line trains at Coolidge Corner but no more inbound, so my route home was "take the 66 bus to Harvard and then walk 45 minutes at 3am"), and, yeah, that messed me up for the next day or so, such that I finally got to the second-to-last show of Honey Don't!", and, yeah, I'd like to see the Coens working together rather than separately.


So that's one week caught up; follow my Letterboxd account for first (and, sadly, sometimes the only) drafts.

Play Dirty

* * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 15 September 2025 in Alamo Seaport #5 (preview, laser DCP)
Where to stream it (when available) (Prime link)

I suppose that Play Dirty mostly suffers in comparison to other things, and not writer/director Shane Black's other movies or Point Blank (not just one of my favorite Stark adaptations, but one of my favorite movies, period): I saw it 24 hours after Night of the Juggler and, boy, does the difference between that movie's real cars scraping and smashing each other while this one's digital simulations fly through the air not favor the newer movie. That's on top of Mark Wahlberg just not being in Lee Marvin's league as Parker, even if Marvin didn't use the name. That was a given, after all.

But then, Shane Black seems to be channeling Donald E. Westlake more than his alias Richard Stark, throwing off smart aleck comments and smirking at mayhem in a way that doesn't quite work if you're expecting a story about a cool, professional thief. It's not up there with his best; the Christmas setting seems more obligatory than mood-enhancing, for instance, and there's almost too much action before the big finale. It's still a Shane Black film, at least, with some fun characters, wry genre-awareness, and enough love of pulp to build a heist around sunken treasure.

Maybe coming in without expectations would help, but it just feels second-rate in a lot of ways. Wahlberg isn't just no Parker, but his character with that name isn't really anything, apparently by design (during the live-streamed Q&A, Black talked about giving him an origin story that makes him more likable, something Westlake avoided), not the guy for a story where the suspense seems to be built out of what sort of amorality will win Parker over: Will he team with Zen because the score is big enough to put past differences behind them, or take her out because not looking out for your partners is bad for business? Rosa Salazar gives a performance as Zen that suggests her talk about falling for Parker by the end is real, but everything that would make the audience believe it is cut out. The action is big but flimsy-looking, and there's never really a space where it slows down enough to get at the characters or genre trappings the way Black's best movies do.

I do kind of love LaKeith Stanfield's Grofield, though I haven't read enough of the books to tell how true he is to the source material. He's great, though, easy to believe as both Parker's trusted ally, and someone who approaches his life of crime from a completely different direction. He just wants to run a little experimental theater that can't possibly turn a profit, so the way to fund it is by being good at stealing. In a lot of ways, that's something an audience can connect with a lot better than Parker, and Stanfield's energetic performance easily steals the show.


Afterburn

* * (out of four)
Seen 18 September 2025 in AMC Boston Common #12 (first-run, laser DCP)
Where to stream it (when available)

Hey, Nimród Antal with a screenplay credit! Seems like it's been a while, but Retribution was just a couple years ago. Not that he and the other writers necessarily turned in a great script, but it's kind of let down by the execution.

That comes right at the start, as the opening narration is kind of the movie in miniature: Dave Bautista more or less sells a pretty roughly-scripted bit about how his character is probably the greatest treasure hunter in a post-apocalyptic world, where a massive solar flare has burned out all modern electronics and seen an almost universal collapse of the world's governments. The next couple hours is all going to be Bautista making what seems like much more of an effort than seemingly anyone else involved, or at least being the guy whose natural charisma comes through in the edit, as he gets sent to France to recover the Mona Lisa for "King" August (Samuel L. Jackson), who feels re-opening museums will give him more legitimacy than other pretenders who are only trying to use force. He's to hook up with local resistance fighter Drea (Olga Kurylenko) and avoid the forces of Vokov (Kristofer Hivju), the Russian warlord who controls most of France.

I kind of wonder if the original comic is a bit more ambitious, with missions to recognizable locations and crazier MacGyvering when he gets there. That feels like the fun high concept being crammed into what would have been a direct to video production if there weren't theaters with 19 screens to fill in 2025. It feels like the same industrial park in Slovakia is being used for three or four different set pieces and every French "city" looks like the European equivalent of a Wild West Town standing set for WWI/WWII movies. It's not cheap, exactly, and director J.J. Perry is a stunt/action pro - there are some decently-staged fights - but he's seemingly very limited in what can be done, and it's clear that he maybe has Samuel L. Jackson for something like two days to shoot four or five scenes.

The film's got Bautista, at least, who pulls off the eccentric hero thing fairly well, dropping dry one-liners that work whether he's in a cynical-badass position or not knowing what he's wound up in the middle of. The action is mostly capable, with a comic book bloodiness that the filmmakers seemingly couldn't decide whether they were leaning into it or playing it down once they got to the editing room as the film cuts mid-mayhem. They've got the right idea seeing the finale on a train in a way that plays into how the baddie is supposed to be a larger-than-life supervillain, though he doesn't have the charisma for it.

This feels like it could have been a really fun late-1990s blockbuster - think something like Judge Dredd or The Fifth Element with big world-building and practical effects at their peak - but maybe doesn't make for great D2V fare in any era.


Adulthood

* * (out of four)
Seen 19 September 2025 in Alamo Seaport #5 (first-run, laser DCP)
Where to stream it (Prime link)

I honestly can't remember whether I dislike Josh Gad in general or if I just get him confused with Jonah Hill, but it's possible that both things are true because he's sort of who you get when Hill isn't available. This thought is probably not the best mindset to bring into a movie, and, yes, he got on my nerves early in this one and never offered much more than obnoxiousness, and the rest of the movie tended to follow suit. His character is a screenwriter, and I'll bet he's one who thinks his best work involves characters who are dark or amoral even if they're not exactly resonant or interesting.

There's an interesting setup here, with the adult children (Gad, Kaya Scodelario) of a woman who has suffered a stroke discovering a long-hidden corpse in the basement, and soon find themselves blackmailed by their home-care worker (Billie Lourd). It's Dumb Crime from there, but without much in the way of humanizing details that make people falling short of their ideals compelling. At every step it looks like it should be good - you can see the way this is being structured with twists and screw-ups - but it's only occasionally darkly funny or urgent. The plans these folks come up with are neither clever with a massive hidden flaw nor foolish enough that one is waiting for them to fall apart. It's just the first thing one would think of once one has decided they're not calling the cops.

Like a lot of movies that flop around like this one, there's some good stuff underneath. The set-up seems to represent the conditionality of a middle-class suburb a lot more than many movies that are specifically about it - it's implied that a great deal of the town's population has turned over since the siblings left school, but there are just enough old-timers to make things really difficult. There's tension between where one is now and the cousins with whom you were close as kids who haven't risen socially. It's not about health care, but that can ruin them, between how damages could ruin the ability to pay for their mother's care and how dangerous outsourcing it winds up being. Unfortunately, this is mostly just mentioned as explanation for what they're doing, and only rarely comes to the fore - there's a scene where cousin Bodie (Anthony Carrigan) joins family dinner that gets the sense of discomfort right even if the jokes don't really land, but that's mostly it.

And, ultimately, the points being hammered home at the end aren't really what the movie has been about - it suddenly becomes about Meg seizing the position of head of the family, but it sure takes a roundabout route to get there - but there's a long monologue anyway. There's the outline of a good crime movie here, but none of the details.


Do ma daan (Peking Opera Blues)

* * * ¾ (out of four)
Seen 20-21 September 2025 in Coolidge Corner Theatre #5 (After Midnite, DCP)
Where to stream it (Prime link), or buy the UHD/Blu-ray at Amazon

This may just have become my favorite Tsui Hark film. Peking Opera Blues feels almost effortless in how it slides between its thriller and comedy elements, with just enough characters to make the juggling act impressive but never losing track of anyone. It's a simple plot with constant forward motion, with the little shell games that play out keeping one attentive where the larger ones are concerned. It's three clever ladies all have distinct goals that the filmmakers intertwine exceptionally well; even if Brigitte Lin's story winds up driving the story by the end, the others have been pulled in.

And, just for a bit of fun, I dig the gender-bending on display - Lin plays a general's androgynous but sexy daughter, there are actors playing women and insisting nobody would actually want to see actual ladies in an opera, except the girl pretending to be a man playing a woman - especially since it's not just kinky, but keeps the idea that folks may not be who they seem front and center but playful. Hark also seems to be having a great time with how the choreographed swordplay in the opera reflects the chaotic, but ultimately operatic, violence outside of it. It's not quite overt enough to be meta, but on some level he's connecting how much we in the audience enjoy this action but have to recognize it as life-and-death for the characters.

The only downside, maybe, is that all that action means you can kind of lose track of the villains by the end, as all the guys with competing agendas turn on each other so that the heroes have new opponents to deal with, and it can kind of make one forget what this is all about again. It's a thrilling run, and Hark eventually does the quick Shaw Brothers ending, which is fun, so one can't really complain too much.

Throw in a really enjoyable cast that sells the heck out of this group becoming close enough to put themselves in danger for each other by the end, and the whole thing is a real delight.


Honey Don't!

* * ¼ (out of four)
Seen 21 July 2025 in Somerville Theatre #2 (first-run, DCP)
Where to stream it (Prime link), or pre-order the Blu-rayat Amazon

It's going to be interesting the next time the Coen Brothers make a movie together, isn't it, depending on how the one Joel's currently shooting in Scotland turns out, especially since Ace of Spades sounds like it could be a Chandler-esque mystery? Both of the movies Ethan Coen and his wife Tricia Cooke have are genuinely messy in the way that the brothers' films only have the appearance of shagginess, and this one in particular feels like the sort of riff on Raymond Chandler that folks often describe The Big Lebowski as being. Honey is Chandler's knight-errant, seemingly stumbling around Bakersfield without an actual case because she can't help trying to do the right thing even though she knows it's not her actual job.

It's not messy in the right way, though, inasmuch as there is a right way and a wrong way. One can sense Honey (Margaret Qualley) trying to find reasons to be involved in something, and this other thing going on which is being set up as part of something bigger, and then there's this whole other couple of things. It makes me wonder if what's going on in the last act was the material Coen and Cooke started with - the wisecracking private eye having to dig into something close to home - but wound up spending a lot of time on the ramp-up and shift that comes after is fairly unsatisfying.

I kind of think I'd like a Honey Don't! TV series starring Margaret Qualley, though; she's doing a bit of a James Garner thing with her cool confidence and between her family, assistant, and the amiable cop who doesn't let her liking girls stop his flirting, there's a solid supporting cast. Come up with a dozen cases a year - maybe she's the only P.I. in the area that specializes in cases involving the LGBTQ+ community - and you've got the bones of a good mystery-of-the-week show. The movie's plot threads could be unwound into two episodes and maybe be stronger for it, but it doesn't quite work as 90 minutes of movie.

Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 19 September 2025 - 25 September 2024

Movies!

• As cute as A Big Bold Beautiful Journey looked in previews, seeing that this fantasy about a couple very attractive people (Colin Farrell & Margot Robbie) exploring magical doors into their past together looks even more interesting seeing that it's directed by Kogonada and written by Seth Reiss (of The Menu) and has some nifty supporting players. It's at the Capitol, Fresh Pond, West Newton, Boston Common (including Dolby Cinema), Causeway Street, Kendall Square, the Seaport, South Bay (including Dolby Cinema), Assembly Row (including Dolby Cinema), Arsenal Yards, and Chestnut Hill.
  
  Him has a unique and intriguing genre mix - sports horror, as a potential superstar athlete (Tyriq Withers) finds his coach (Marlon Wayans) exhibits malevolence and terrorizing even beyond the level typical of college athletics - which is at least interesting. It's at the Capitol, Fresh Pond, Jordan's, CinemaSalem, Boston Common (including Imax Laser), Causeway Street, Kendall Square, the Seaport, South Bay (including Imax Xenon & Dolby Cinema), Assembly Row (including Imax Laser & Dolby Cinema), Arsenal Yards (CWX), and Chestnut Hill. There's even more college football on tap with Michael Chiklis as The Senior, who is completing his college education - and athletic eligibility - after a forty-year gap. It's at Fresh Pond, Boston Common, South Bay, and Assembly Row.
  
  Documentary In Whose Name? has director Nico Ballestero following Kanye "Ye" West for what have been six very tumultuous years. It's at Boston Common, South Bay, and Assembly Row.
  
  Post-apocalyptic action movie Afterburn has Dave Bautista and Olga Kurylenko seeking the Mona Lisa at the behest of warlord Samuel L. Jackson, but sadly isn't nearly as cool as it sounds. It's at Boston Common. London Calling also plays Boston Common, with Josh Duhamel as a hitman paired with a novice crime boss.
  
  the Imax re-issue of Apollo 13 (first time not cut to fit on a platter) plays Jordan's Furniture (and the Liberty Tree Mall in Danvers),. Boston Common has Robert Redford tributes with All The President's Men and The Natural from Saturday to Wednesday, which seems unnervingly fast.
  
  Surprise previews Monday at Cuseway Street, Kendall Square, the Seaport, South Bay, and Assembly Row. Concert film David Gilmour Live at the Circus Maximus has an encore at Kendall Square, Boston Common, the Seaport, and South Bay on Sunday. Two BTS concert films play Boston Common and Assembly Row - one from 2016 on Wednesday and one from 2017 on Thursday - remastered in 4K. There are Imax previews of The Smashing Machine at Boston Common on Monday. It plays Wednesday in Dolby Cinema with a special preview of the Welcome to Derry series at Boston Common, South Bay, and Assembly Row.
• The History of Sound, with Paul Mescal and Josh O'Connor as a pair of men who would never find anyone else they loved quite so much after meeting in 1917 and collecting Maine folks songs, opens at The Coolidge Corner Theatre, West Newton, Boston Common, Kendall Square, and the Seaport.
  
  The After Midnight crew makes field trips the the USS Salem in Quincy to show Ghost Ship & The Fog this weekend; Frida & Saturday are sold out but a third night has been added on Sunday. Back in Brookline, the Golden Princess midnight screenings are A Chinese Ghost Story on Friday and Peking Opera Blues on Saturday, when they also have the monthly screening of Eraserhead. Sunday morning's Goethe-Institut film is Impatience of the Heart; Monday's Big Screen Classic is M*A*S*H (with Emerson professor and TV writer Andy Mira presenting a seminar beforehand); Tuesday has a (sold-out) Science On Screen presentation of WALL-E; and Magic Mike XXL is the Cult Classic on Thursday.
• Apple Fresh Pond opens Hindi-language Akshay Kumar courtroom comedy Jolly LLB 3; Hindi-language horror sequel Vash Level 2; Tamil-language romantic fantasy Kiss; Malayalam-language thriller Mirage; Malayalam-language action-comedy Vala: The Story of a Bangle; and Telugu-language romance Beauty (through Sunday). Mirai continues with Hindi & Telugu showtimes (also in Telugu at Causeway Street and South Bay); Marathi-language thriller Dashavatar has an encore Sunday afternoon; and Telugu-language action movie They Call Him OG opens on Wednesday (also at Boston Common and Causeway Street).
  
  The third Chinese movie this summer about Japanese war crimes during World War II, and the one most explicitly about them, is 731, named for the Japanese medical unit that conducted horrifying experiments. It's at Boston Common starting Friday. Chinese drama Fishes Flew Away opens Saturday at Causeway Street, starring Song Jia and Tong Liya as the former and current wife of a recently-deceased man clashing over ownership of the former's house. Animated Chinese adventure The Legend of Hei 2 continues at Boston Common.
  
  Vietnamese drama Face Off 8: Embrace of Light opens at Causeway Street and South Bay. There's no relation to the famous American action movie or the other seven from director Ly Hai; he just calls all his movies "Face Off X". This one is about a boy who wants to dance and a father set against it.
  
  This week's Ghibli Fest movie is Howl's Moving Castle playing Boston Common and Assembly Row dubbed Saturday/Sunday/Wednesday and subtitled Monday/Tuesday. Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle continues at Fresh Pond, The Museum of Science (Omnimax Friday/Saturday), Boston Common (including Imax Laser & Dolby Cinema), Causeway Street, Kendall Square, the Seaport (including Dolby Atmos), South Bay (including Imax Xenon & Dolby Cinema), Assembly Row (including Imax Laser & Dolby Cinema), Arsenal Yards, and Chestnut Hill
• Landmark Kendall Square opens Netflix film Steve, which apparently inverts the novel Shy to make Cillian Murphy's teacher the lead and Jay Lycurgo's student Shy a supporting character.
  
  Tuesday's Anniversary Screening is Cinema Paradiso.
• The Seaport Alamo has Adulthood, with Josh Gad and Kaya Scodelario as siblings who find a corpse in their parents basement, for one show a day through Thursday. They also conclude the Nightmare on Elm Street series with #6 (Freddy's Dead) Friday and #5 (The Dream Child) Saturday, and the Harry Potter movies with #7 (Deathly Hallows Part II) on Friday/Saturday/Sunday/Tuesday. There are 25th anniversary shows of Bring It On Friday, Sunday, and Tuesday, with Sunday featuring a livestreamed Q&A with the cast; plus All That Heaven Allows on Saturday
• The Somerville Theatre has an Akira Kurosawa double feature of Rashomon & Yojimbo Friday night, a Sunday matinee of Indie comedy D(e)ad, Crumb late Sunday afternoon with Ghost World playing Monday evening. They also fire up the 70mm projector for One Battle After Another starting on Wednesday.
  
  The Capitol Theatre 100th anniversary shows of Captains Courageous Friday night and The Maltese Falcon on Saturday. Documentary Strange Journey: The Story of "Rocky Horror" plays Thursday night, including a performance by RH shadowcasters Teseracte Players There's also a 4th Wall set with The Burning Paris, Circus Tree, and Mancala on Friday
• The Brattle Theatre kicks off the weekend with Willy Wonka & The Chocolate Factory on 35mm for the Friday Film Matinee, and then digs into their "Found Footage Freakout", featuring It Doesn't Get Any Better Than This (Friday/Saturday/Tuesday), whose makers claim it will never be released online. Also included in the series are One Cut of the Dead (Friday/Saturday), Hell House LLC (Friday), Trollhunter (35mm) & Willow Creek (Saturday), Noroi: The Curse (Saturday), Ghostwatch (free matinee Sunday), The Midnight Swim (Sunday), Lake Mungo (Sunday w/ author intro), The Sacrament (Sunday), Eurpoa Report & The McPherson Tape (Monday), The Devil's Doorway & The Last Exorcism (35mm) Tuesday, V/H/S/2 (Wednesday), and Cloverfield (Thursday). They also preview next week's series with a set of Italian Silent Films at the Italian Consulate in Boston (RSVP required).
• 35mm Mikio Naruse films are back at The Harvard Film Archive this weekend, with Floating Clouds and Lightning playing separately on Friday and A Wanderer's Notebook on Monday. In between are a couple days of Hong Sang-soo with A Traveler's Needs and Walk Up playing digitally Saturday while Night and Day and On the Occasion of Remembering the Turning Gate are on 35mm film Sunday.
• The Taiwan Film Festival of Boston is longer and more spread out this year: They're at the Museum of Fine Arts with Daughter's Daughter on Friday and Ang Lee's Eat Drink Man Woman on Saturday. Then they move to the AMC at Causeway Street for Sunday, with three thematically linked shorts at 10:30am, a pair of documentary shorts at 1:30pm, and ping-pong drama Doubles Match at 4pm, with both short packages having filmmakers on hand. Romantic comedy Salli plays at the Coolidge on Monday with director Lien Chien-Hung, and drama Yen and Ai-Lee plays the Brattle on Thursday.
• The Boston Film Festival without adjectives is also this weekend, opening with The Fallow Few in the Bright Screening room on Friday; documentary shorts at the Boston Public LIbrary, animation at Mass School of Art & Design, nature docs Blue Zeus and Heart of a Lion in the Bright on Saturday; live-action shorts at MASAD plus Site and Remembering Big in the Bright on Sunday; and closing with The Last Dive and AMbleside in Rockport on Monday.
• CineFest Latino 2025 opens at the Coolidge on Wednesday with documentary Comparsa; directors Vickie Curtis & Doub Ganderson will be there to discuss their film about a Guatemalan festival borne out of a horrifying tragedy. It moves to ArtsEmerson's Bright Screening Room on Thursday with another doc, Uvalde Mom, with director Anayansi Prado there, then continues into next week.
• In addition to the Taiwan Film Festival, The Museum of Fine Arts starts a "Cozy Crime" series with The Trouble with Harry on Thursday. They will be hosting a virtual festival on streaming service Giloo starting next weekend.
• The Regent Theatre has an encore screening of Unfinished Business with filmmaker Michael Connolly on hand Tuesday. Again, it is not the Vince Vaught film or apparently the best-selling author Michael Connoly.
• Movies at MIT has American Psycho in 26-100 on Friday & Saturday; they'll be on an every-other-week schedule this semester, and still would like a head's up for attendees who aren't part of the MIT community.
• Joe's Free Films shows Akeelah and the Bee at MIT Open Space and Lilo & Stitch at Cambridgeside for Friday's outdoor movies.
• The Embassy looks like it's just renting screens out these days, with this year's edition of the Manhattan Short Film festival opening there on Thursday.
• The Lexington Venue has documentary Checkpoint Zoo and Downton Abbey all week (except Monday), and documentary Riefenstahl Friday/Saturday/Sunday/Thursday.
  
  The West Newton Cinema opens Kerouac's Road: The Beat of a Nation (or re-opens it; I don't remember if they had it in June), The History of Sound, and A Big Bold Beautiful Journey, holding over Downton Abbey, Spinal Tap II, The Long Walk, The Baltimorons, and Hamilton. There's a second show of Hello Beautiful with director Ziad Hamzeh on hand Friday night. Midnight Run plays Thursday.
  
  Cinema Salem has Him, Downton Abbey, and The Conjuring: Last Rites through Monday. Saturday features Evil Puddle with star Matt Farley doing a Q&A, a "Totally Witchin' Triple Feature" of Teen Witch, Elvira: Mistress of the Dark, & Warlock, and Rocky Horror with Teseracte Players (Full Body at Boston Common as per usual). Wednesday is also busy, with Now, Voyager for the Wednesday Classic, with Weirdo Wednesdays on another screen, and a premiere showing of documentary Deaf Santa Claus with subjects Charles & Karl Graves and director Anthony Mowl present for a Q&A.
  
  The Liberty Tree Mall in Danvers looks to be the closest place to see Megadoc, a making-of for Coppola' Megalopolis directed by Mike Figgis;Waltzing with Brando, starring Billy Zane as the actor and Jon Heder as the architect he hires to design an eco-friendly Tahiti mansion; kid-befriends-an-alien movie Xeno; and a re-release of Jackass 3 labeled "Jackass 3 in 2D" but with only 3D showtimes listed..

Saw Afterburn (eh), down for Big Bold Beautiful Journey and maybe London Calling, Steve, and Adulthood, the three of which figure to more or less disappear after these runs. Might try to do Peking Opera Blues at the Coolidge, though the last attempt at dealing T's late service still wrecked my sleeping schedule for days, but that one's legendary and I haven't seen it before.

Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 12 September 2025 - 18 September 2024

A lot of "hey, remember this?" this week

• It's hard to believe that the series that Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale supposedly concludes only started in 2010, even though ti sure seems "character whose birth was an event in the original series is an adult in the new movie" years old! Everybody returns, Paul Giamatti shows up, building probably doesn't get blown up with dynamite, at the Coolidge, the Capitol, the Lexington Venue, West Newton, CinemaSalem, Boston Common, Fresh Pond, Causeway Street, the Seaport (Dolby Atmos), South Bay, Assembly Row (including Dolby Cinema), Arsenal Yards (CWX), and Chestnut Hill.
  
  The main cast and director Rob Reiner also return for Spinal Tap II: The End Continues, and, honestly, I'm kind of surprised they haven't gone to the well sooner as a new mock-doc catches up with the band as they continue touring even as their eighties approach. It's at the Coolidge, West Newton, CinemaSalem, Boston Common, the Seaport, South Bay, and Arsenal Yards.
  
  Stephen King adaptation The Long Walk has one of those plots which used to seem unlikely but which I increasingly suppose could happen - officially sanctioned event where folks keep walking or get shot with a prize supposedly at the end - opens at West Newton, Boston Common (including Dolby Cinema), Causeway Street, the Seaport, South Bay, Assembly Row, and Arsenal Yards.
  
  The original Toy Story is back in theaters for its 30th anniversary, playing Fresh Pond, Boston Common, Assembly Row, and Arsenal Yards. The Sound of Music is at Boston Common for its 60th.
  
  Tin Soldier, which stars Scott Eastwood in a tale of PTSD-stricken soldiers being mobilized by a cult leader and also features a lot of folks who seemingly could afford not to be in it (Jamie Foxx, John Leguizamo, Robert De Niro, Rita Ora?), gets one show a day at Fresh Pond. Indie horror film Traumatika plays Boston Common; The Jester 2 plays Boston Common Monday & Tuesday.
  
  Polish Holocaust drama Triumph of the Heart plays Boston Common.
  
  Mystery movies at Boston Common, Causeway Street, Kendall Square, South Bay, and Assembly Row on Monday; may vary by chain, may not. Concert film David Gilmour Live at the Circus Maximus plays Kendall Square, Boston Common (Imax Laser), South Bay (Imax Xenon), and Assembly Row on Wednesday; possible last call for The Warning Live from Auditorio Nacional CDMX at Boston Common Thursday. Documentary Beyond the Gaze: Jule Campbell's Swimsuit Issue plays Boston Common on Thursday.
• The biggest opening, though, may be anime blockbuster Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle, whose trailers have been saying "final battle" things but I don't believe a word of it. It's at Fresh Pond, The Museum of Science (Omnimax), Jordan's Furniture (Imax), Boston Common (including Imax Laser & Dolby Cinema), Causeway Street, Kendall Square, the Seaport, South Bay (including Imax Xenon & Dolby Cinema), Assembly Row (including Imax Laser & Dolby Cinema), Arsenal Yards, Chestnut Hill.
  
  Apple Fresh Pond opens Hindi-language romantic comedy Aabeer Gulaal, Hindi-language romance Love in Vietnam, Hindi-language comedy Heer Express, Telugu-language fantasy adventure MiraI (also at Causeway Street and South Bay), and Telugu-language horror movie in a radio station Kishkindhapuri. Telugu-language romance Little Hearts returns after what was apparently a successful run last weekend, and Marathi-language thriller Dashavatar plays Sunday afternoon.
  
  Animated Chinese adventure The Legend of Hei 2 continues at Boston Common and Causeway Street.
• The Coolidge Corner Theatre also opens The Baltimorons, in which a struggling comic chips a tooth on Christmas Eve and winds up on a series of misadventures (and romance?) with the on-call dentist. It's also at the Lexington Venue, West Newton, Boston Common, the Seaport, and South Bay.
  
  Midnight Hong Kong classics at the Coolidge this weekend are A Better Tomorrow II on Friday and The Killer on Saturday; Saturday also features a mystery mutant movie at 9pm (with poster!) and Greg Sestro back with a pre-show Q&A for The Room (on 35mm film). Monday has the Huntington's Charles Haughland introducing Postcards from the Edge (thematically aligned with their production of The Hills of California), while Friday has a 35mm screening of Ray for Cinema Jukebox and a digital restoration of Blue Velvet for the Cult Classic show later.
• The Somerville Theatre brings Boys Go to Jupiter for a second weekend with shows Saturday & Sunday. Those days also feature two separate films about New York City in the 1970s - documentary Drop Dead City covers the 1975 fiscal crisis, and the new restoration of Night of the Juggler has James Brolin as a father chasing his daughter's kidnapper through the Bronx. The Rocketeer plays Monday, and Civil Rights documentary Ain't No Back to a Merry-Go-Round plays Wednesday & Thursday.
  
  The Capitol Theatre 100th anniversary shows with A Night at the Opera Saturday night.
• Landmark Kendall Square has a mystery preview on Monday and Better Off Dead for the Retro Replay on Tuesday.
• The Seaport Alamo continue Nightmare on Elm Street screenings with #4 (The Dream Master) Friday and #5 (The Dream CHild) Saturday, and Harry Potter movies with #6 (Deathly Hallows Part I) on Sunday/Tuesday. There's also a member preview of Play Dirty on Monday with Livestream Q&A.
• The Brattle Theatre has the complete series of Twin Peaks: The Return running through Thursday. Interrupting that are Sunday's Found Footage Festival, and open crafting screening of Clueless on Monday, a special screening of Eno on Wednesday (each screening being algorithmically generated and different), and the kickoff to next week's "Found Footage Freakout", Dude Bro Party Masscare III with filmmaker(s) in person, on Thursday.
• The Harvard Film Archive has a lot of different things this weekend: Saturday afternoon has the semester's first Student Cinematheque with a double feature of Ozu's I Was Born, But… on 35mm film followed by Héctor Babenco's Pixote (and a Chuck Jones cartoon to start). Steve McQueen's Small Axe featurettes Alex Wheatle & Education play Saturday night; a new series of "Gore Vidal on Film" starts on Sunday afternoon with a 35mm print of The Catered Affair, and the Hong Sang-soo series continues with Yourself and Yours Sunday evening and Like You Know It All on 35mm film Monday evening.
• The Museum of Fine Arts has an afternoon of films from Anawan Studios on Saturday.
• The Regent Theatre has Unfinished Business, a film about politics in 1980s Massachusetts, with filmmaker Michael Connolly on hand; it is not the Vince Vaught film or apparently the best-selling author Michael Connoly.
• Joe's Free Films has the Coolidge presenting the 1990 Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles at the Allston Speedway on Wednesday.
• The Lexington Venue has documentary Clemente through Monday and on Thursday, Downton Abbey all week, and The Baltimorons through Wednesday.
  
  The West Newton Cinema opens Downton Abbey, Spinal Tap II, The Long Walk, The Baltimorons, keeping Hamilton, Highest 2 Lowest, and *Rebel with a Clause. They show Castle in the Sky dubbed on Sunday, and the first of two shows of Hello Beautiful with director Ziad Hamzeh on hand on Thursday (Thursday's also features star Christine Handy and benefits the Junior League of Boston). Thursday also has The Pursuit of Happyness, as the start of an "American Dream and the Movies" series.
  
  Cinema Salem has Weapons, Downton Abbey, and The Conjuring: Last Rites through Monday. Stalag 17 has an encore Saturday afternoon, with An American in Paris the Wednesday Classic this week, with Weirdo Wednesdays on another screen.
  
  British horror film Rabbit Trap, paramedic comedy Code 3 , and German animated adventure Elli and the Ghostly Ghost Train (dubbed into English as Elli and Her Monster Team) open out at the Liberty Tree Mall in Danvers.

Got a lot of time booked out at Fenway this week, so maybe just catching up with The Legend of Hei 2 and Honey Don't.

Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 5 September 2025 - 11 September 2024

Big movie news: The MBTA is running service an hour later - and for free on weekends during September - so there are more options for seeing stuff that starts late!

• Big release this week is The Conjuring: Last Rites, which could be the finale of this series that treats a married pair of real-world "exorcists" like the real thing! Or not! It's at Fresh Pond, Jordan's Furniture (Imax), CinemaSalem, Boston Common (including Imax Laser & Dolby Cinema & Spanish subs), Causeway Street, 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.
  
  Also opening is The Threesome, in which a three-way hookup becomes truly ill-conceived as both women wind up pregnant. It's at Boston Common, Causeway Street, South Bay, and Assembly Row.
  
  After opening at the Coolidge, the Kendall, and Boston Common last week, Splitsville expands to the Somerville, Causeway Street, the Seaport, South Bay, and Assembly Row.
  
  The Broadway performance of Hamilton that went to Disney+ back when theaters were closed in 2020 gets a wide release, playing at West Newton, Boston Common, Causeway Street, Kendall Square, the Seaport, South Bay, Assembly Row, Arsenal Yards, and Chestnut Hill.
  
  Light of the World, an animated film about the life of Jesus (didn't we just have on of these?) told from the perspective of the apostle John, opens at Fresh Pond and Boston Common.
  
  The Breakfast Club has 40th anniversary shows at the Seaport Saturday & Monday and at Boston Common and South Bay on Sunday & Wednesday. There are Wednesday Early Access Screenings for Downton Abbey: The Grand Finale at Boston Common (Dolby Cinema), South Bay (Dolby Cinema), Assembly Row (Dolby Cinema), Arsenal Yards (CWX), and Spinal Tap II: The End Continues in Imax at Jordan's, Boston Common, South Bay, Assembly Row (probably the only Imax shows as Demon Slayer takes most screens Friday.
• Twinless opens at The Coolidge Corner Theatre; with writer/director James Sweeney co-starring as one of two folks who meet at a support group for people who have lost a twin. It also plays Kendall Square, the Lexington Venue, West Newton, Boston Common, and the Seaport.
  
  The last few screenings of Jaws, through Sunday, play on 35mm film at the Cooldige. The midnight series at the Coolidge for September is the first batch of restorations of the long-unavailable outside-Asia Golden Princess library, starting with A Better Tomorrow on Friday and City on Fire on Saturday, with Hundreds of Beavers also playing late Saturday. The 2025 CatVideoFest plays Sunday afternoon; Monday night offers a Panorama screening of Your Fat Friend; Tuesday has a special screening of Lesbian Space Princess; Wednesday has a "Page to Screen" show of the Cocteau Beauty of the Beast with Nicholas Elliott, who has translated a book about the film, on-hand; and Thursday has both a Rewind! Show of Clueless and an early show of The Baltimorons wite writer/producer/star Michael Strassner on-hand.
• Love, Brooklyn, a romance involving two connected couples in the titular borough, opens at Landmark Kendall Square and Boston Common. The Retro Replay series at Kendall Square for September is anniversary screenings, starting with Airplane! on Tuesday.
• The Somerville Theatre opens animated coming-of-age comedy Boys Go to Jupiter for a limited run Friday to Sunday. It gives way to rep shows during the week, with V for Vendetta on 35mm film Monday, and documentary featurette "Holding Up the Sky", with director Bob Nesson on hand to discuss his film about about two men who met in prison after killing their abusers as teenagers, on Wednesday. There's also a secret 35mm members' screening on Thursday.
  
  The Capitol Theatre opens A Little Prayer, with David Strathairn as a man who discovers his son is having an affair and finds himself mostly worried about how it will affect his daughter-in-law. They also begin a series of screenings celebrating their 100th anniversary, with a restored The Gold Rush playing Saturday night. Finally, there's a "Gothic Cabaret" with Velvet Dirtmunchers and Charming Disaster on Thursday.
• New South Asian movies at Apple Fresh Pond include Hindi-language historical drama The Bengal Files, Hindi-language thriller Baaghi 4 (also at Boston Common), Tamil-language thriller Madharasi, Telugu-language crime flick Ghaati, and Telugu-language romance Little Hearts (through Sunday). Held over are Malayalam-language action-fantasy Lokah Chapter 1: Chandra and Hindi-language romance Param Sundari.
  
  Animated Chinese adventure The Legend of Hei 2 opens at Boston Common, Causeway Street (the original is, thankfully, easily streamable). Chinese holdovers are Jackie Chan in The Shadow's Edge at Boston Common and Dead to Rights at Causeway Street.
  
  Vietnamese drama Leaving Mom (Mang Me Di Bo) continues at South Bay.
  
  Upcoming anime blockbuster Demon Slayer: Infinity Castle has a "Crunchroll Subscriber Early Access Screening" at Boston Common (Dolby Cinema), Assembly Row (Dolby Cinema) on Tuesday.
• The Seaport Alamo opens Preparation for the Next Life, a romantic drama about an Uyghur refugee and an American soldier who meet in New York, playing all week.
  
  In rep, they continue Nightmare on Elm Street screenings with #2 (Freddy's Revenge) Friday and #3 (Dream Warriors) Saturday, and Harry Potter movies with #5 (Half-Blood Prince) on Saturday/Sunday. There are member previews of Twinless on Tuesday and Preparation for the Next Life on Wednesday. There's one last show of Jaws on Sunday, and a movie party for the original This Is Spinal Tap on Tuesday.
• The Brattle Theatre has the Quay Brothers' first feature in 20 years, Sanatorium Under the Sign of the Hourglass, a surreal combination of live action and stop-motion with a man seeking his father in a strange asylum - in since it's not long for a feature, they're also showing the Quays' 1986 short "Street of Crocodiles" with it! Friday through Sunday, it splits the screen with a restoration of Leos Carax's The Lovers on the Bridge. On Tuesday, they have a new restoration of Tsui Hark's screwball comedy Shanghai Blues. Wednesday and Thursday feature two episodes Twin Peaks: The Return each, while Thursday offers a 35mm matinee of The Palm Beach Story and an evening show of The Darjeeling LImited.
• The Harvard Film Archive mostly spends the weekend with Hong Sang-soo: On the Occasion of Remembering the Turning Gate (35mm Friday evening), In Another Country (35mm Friday night), Hahaha (35mm Sunday afternoon), Hill of Freedom (Sunday evening), and A Traveler's Needs (Monday evening). The free series of Steve McQueen's Small Axe films with Lover's Rock and Red, White and Blue on Saturday.
• The rerelease of Jaws is held over for straggling shows at various places, most notably The Museum of Science and The New England Aquarium, who both have them on their Imax screens Friday & Saturday evenings.
• Movies at MIT has Conclave Friday & Saturday; open to the public but give them a heads-up if you're not part of the MIT community.
• Joe's Free Films has the sing-along version of Wicked outside at Boston Landing on Saturday evening.
• The Embassy in Waltham doesn't seem to be a regular going concern these days, but they've got a listing for indie Everyone Asked About You on Wednesday.
• The Lexington Venue is open all week but with Eden, My Mother's Wedding, and Jaws. They have another screening of Georgia O'Keeffe: The Brightness of Light on Saturday with art historian Nancy Scott, and also screen The Last Class Saturday, Sunday, and Thursday.
  
  The West Newton Cinema opens Twinless and Hamilton, holding over Shari & Lamb Chop, Caught Stealing, Honey Don't!, Highest 2 Lowest, and Rebel with a Clause. There's a "Behind the Screen" presentation and discussion of Caught By the Tides on Sunday afternoon and a Ty Burr's Movie Club screening of Michael Clayton on Thursday.
  
  Cinema Salem has Weapons, Jaws, The Roses, and The Conjuring: Last Rites through Monday. Stalag 17 is the Wednesday Classic with Weirdo Wednesdays down the hall, and Creepshow plays Thursday.
  
  Indie comedy Griffin in Summer joins drama A Little Prayer at the Dedham Community Theatre, with writer/direector Nicholas Colia on hand Sunday evening. The Liberty Tree Mall in Davers is playing Pools, which sounds like a modern distaff riff on The Swimmer, and Everything to Me, aka The Book of Jobs, about a girl growing up in Silicon Valley and idolizing Steve Jobs.

New Quay Brothers! Splitsville & The Threesome look like fun! Three restored Hong Kong movies I can get to and maybe even make it home afterwards! Boys Go to Jupiter looks neat! There's an actual reason to take the airport bus to the Alamo! It is a fun weekend even if you've never seen a Conjuring movie and grow more actively hostile to them the more you learn!