Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 10 December 2021 - 16 December 2021

New Steven Spielberg movie this week! Seems like studios are trying to cram a lot into the year's last few weeks after some skip weeks, but isn't that always the way?

• The new Spielberg is a remake of West Side Story, with a fine young cast, Rita Moreno along for the ride, a new script that is perhaps hable to look at the period with the benefit of hindsight. It's at Fresh Pond, West Newton, Boston Common (including Imax Xenon & Dolby Cinema), Fenway, South Bay (including Dolby Cinema), Kendall Square, Assembly Row (including Imax Xenon & Dolby Cinema), Arsenal Yards (including CWX), and Chestnut Hill.
  
  There's also National Champions, which follows Stephan James as a college quarterback leading a strike to call attention to how "amateur" athletes are exploited. J.K. Simmons is the coach, and the cast also includes Kristin Chenoweth, Timothy Olyphant, and more. It's at Boston Common, Fenway, South Bay, and Assembly Row.
  
  The Green Knight has a theatrical return engagement at Boston Common, while The Matrix plays Arsenal Yards (Friday and Monday) and South Bay (in Imax Xenon), and The Polar Express is at Fresh Pond.
  
  Boston Common has a "Thrills & Chills" Surprise Screening on Friday. Monsta X: The Dreaming has an encore at Boston Common and Fenway Saturday afternoon. There's another preview of A Journal for Jordan at Boston Common and Assembly Row on Sunday. Fenway, South Bay, and Arsenal Yards have a 40th Anniversary show of On Golden Pond Sunday and Wednesday. There's an "Imax fan event" show of Elf hosted by Gwen Stefani on Monday at Assembly Row, a presentation of the movie edition of Macross Plus at Fenway, South Bay, and Assembly Row on Tuesday. Nightmare Alley on Wednesday has previews at the Coolidge, Boston Common, the Kendall, Assembly Row.
• The Coolidge Corner Theatre gets in on the "streaming movie Oscar run" game with Don't Look Up, written and directed by Adam McKay and starring Jennifer Lawrence and Leonardo DiCaprio as astronomers trying to convince the world that there's a comet ready to hit planet, with an all-star cast. The Sunday afternoon show at the Coolidge is a masked matinee, and it also plays the Embassy in Waltham.
  
  The Coolidge also picks up Benedetta, with 9:15pm shows as well as Friday/Saturday midnights. Other midnights include holiday horror movies, with the digital restoration of Gremlins on Friday and Better Watch Out (and Rocky Horror) on Saturday. They get the 70mm projectors warmed up with an (already-sold-out) preview of Licorice Pizza on Saturday evening, Lawrence of Arabia Sunday afternoon and Tuesday evening, and Inherent Vice on Wednesday. There's a Science on Screen presentation of Black Narcissus with Northeastern neuroscience professor Rebeca Shansky talking about sex difference and brain function. There's a Rewind! show of Home Alone on Thursday with an after-party at Parlour.
• Landmark Theatres Kendall Square and the Embassy and Boston Common are also doing the pre-stream thing with Being the Ricardos, Aaron Sorkin's film about Lucille Ball and Desi Arnaz starring Nicole Kidman and Javier Bardem, who seem like okay matches visually but aren't necessarily known for being the right sort of funny.
• Bollywood romance Chandigarh Kare Aashiqui opens at Apple Fresh Pond and Boston Common, starring Ayushamann Khurrana and Vaani Kapoor as a bodybuilder and physical trainer who fall for each other, only to have something from their past arise. Fresh Pond also opens Telegu flick Lakshya, which appears to be about a legendary archer; Tamil thriller Jail and musical drama Gamanam, which has five languages listed (Telugu/Tamil/Malayalam/Kannada/Hindi); it is not clear whether it is available in five versions or uses all at some point.
  
  Nepali film Life in LA, Marathi film Zimma, and Tamil comedy Anti Indian play Saturday at Fresh Pond, with Bangledeshi action/adventure Mission Extreme on Sunday. Tadap continues at Boston Common while Fresh Pond holds on to Maanadu and Akhanda. Chinese comedic mystery Be Somebody continues at Fenway.
• The Brattle Theatre has a new restoration of Joan Micklin Silver's Hester Street, with Carol Kane Oscar-nominted as an immigrant from Eastern Europe at the turn of the Twentieth Century, from Friday to Monday.
  
  They also have "Let's Hear it for 1984!", with mostly 35mm prints: A Nightmare on Elm Street on Friday and Saturday, Beverly Hills Cop on Saturday and Sunday, The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai Across the 8th Dimension on Sunday, Stranger than Paradise on Wednesday, and Paris, Texas on DCP Thursday. The Velvet Vampire is the Weird Wednesday entry. The Brattlite brings back Detention (or maybe it never left).
  
  The DocYard closes their fall season at the Brattle on Monday with Faya Dayi, Jessica Beshir's look at her home town of Harar, Ethiopia and the psychotropic drug khat which is cultivated there.
• The West Newton Cinema adds West Side Story to the line-up of Encanto, House of Gucci, Belfast, and The French Dispatch. The Lexington Venue splits a screen between Julia and House of Gucci.
• Bright Lights has what is hopefully its last "At Home" session this week with IFFBoston selection The Gig Is Up available (to a limited number)for twenty-four hours starting at 7pm Wednesday, followed by a Zoom webinar including subject Annette Rivero at 7pm Thursday. The site has them returning to the Bright Screening Room for the Spring term; hopefully we'll be back in The Harvard Film Archive after nearly two years then as well!
• Cinema Salem has Belfast , Dune, and Encanto through Monday (with open-caption shows Monday afternoon). Krampus is the late-ish show on Friday with a matinee of the Ron Howard/Jim Carrey How the Grinch Stole Christmas on Sunday. There's a "Cinema Sounds" presentation of The Matrix with an introduction by classical music expert Richard Guérin highlighting Don Davis's score.
  
  The Luna Theater has Brian Wilson: Long Promised Road on Friday, the original Black Christmas three times Saturday (including a Masket Matinee), Spencer on Saturday, White Christmas all day Sunday, and a secret Weirdo Wednesdays show.
• The good folks at Subway Cinema are holding Old School Kung Fu Fest: Joseph Kuo Edition at the Museum of the Moving Image in New York City this weekend, which is likely going to be a blast (they're good folks and it's a cool place), but if you can't get to New York for the five films playing there, you can stream Shaolin Kung Fu, Shaolin Kids, The Old Master, and World of the Drunken Master for $6/pop via their webpage. Short notice, I know, but you've got a little more time for Hong-Kong-a-Thon Part III: Hong Kong Never Dies! come January.
• For those still not ready to join random people in a room for two hours, theater rentals are available at Kendall Square, The Embassy, West Newton, the Capitol, The Venue, and many of the multiplexes.

Oh, gads, I've got so much to check out before Spider-Man and Nightmare Alley wipe screens clean-ish: West Side Story in Imax, Belfast, King Richard, The Power of the Dog, Encounter, maybe Be Somebody... I've been very lazy!