Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 23 December 2022 - 29 December 2022

Huh - no Christmas Day openings this year. There were some last year, even though it was just one day off a normal Friday opening rather than two. I wonder if studios have just sort of en masse decided it doesn't get them much, or if there's just fewer movies to do that with between Avatar being a juggernaut and production being slow during a pandemic.

• Babylon, the new three-hour-plus juggernaut from Damian Chazelle, with Margot Robbie, Diego Calva, Brad Pitt, and many more as movie stars and others in the business during the silent era, when Hollywood was anything-goes and chaotic. It's opens Friday at the Coolidge, the Somerville, the Kendall, West Newton, Boston Common, Fenway, South Bay, Assembly Row, Arsenal Yards, and Chestnut Hill.
  
  Also opening is I Wanna Dance with Somebody, with Naomi Ackie playing Whitney Houston as Whitney Houston in a biopic directed by Kasi Lemmons, which from the trailer looks to focus more on her rise than the end of her life (although I tend to trust Lemmons not to make omit anything important). It's at the Capitol, Fresh Pond, West Newton, Boston Common, Fenway, South Bay, Assembly Row, Arsenal Yards, and Chestnut Hill.
  
  The Whale opened last week at the Coolidge (with a Saturday masked matinee this weekend), the Kendall, the Somerville, Boston Common, Fenway, South Bay, and Assembly Row.; Puss in Boots: The Last Wish at Boston Common (including RealD 3D/Spanish language), Fenway, South Bay (including RealD 3D), Assembly Row (including RealD 3D), Arsenal Yards, Lexington, and Chestnut Hill, adding the Capitol, West Newton, and CinemaSalem on Friday.
• The Coolidge Corner Theatre has EO in the screening room, telling the life story of a donkey from the animal's point of view.
  
  There's also one last Christmas midnight at the Coolidge with Rare Exports playing on 35mm Friday night.
• Six new South Asian movies at Apple Fresh Pond this week: Cirkus (also at Boston Common) looks to be the big one; directed by Rohit Shetty and starring Ranveer Singh as one of two sets of identical twins separated at birth and just missing each other when they arrive at the same down; it co-stars Pooja Hegde and Jacqueline Fernandez. 18 Pages (also at Boston Common) is a Telugu romance in which a man finds the diary used by a woman with short-term memory issues; Dhamaka is a Telugu-language thriller where a radio news anchor gets threatening phone calls on the air; Connect is a Telugu (?) exorcism thriller; Laththi is a Tamil (?) movie where a cop and his son must escape from a besieged building; Kaapa is a Malayalam-language crime flick.
• Landmark Theatres Kendall Square opens The Pale Blue Eye on Friday, before its Netflix run; the new film by Scott Cooper features Augustus Landor as a detective trying to solve a murder at West Point in 1830 with the help of Edgar Allen Poe. Documentary Wildcat opened on Wednesday.
• The Brattle Theatre rings out the year with "Everything Everything Everywhere All at Once", with daily(*) shows of the Daniels' flick paired with its influences: Ratatouille on Friday (with their prior movie, Swiss Army Man, playing separately); The Goonies on Sunday & Monday; a 35mm print of In the Mood for Love on Monday; Big Trouble in Little China on Tuesday; A Fish Called Wanda and Police Story 3: Supercop, both on 35mm Wednesday; Holy Motors and Mind Game on Thursday.
  
  (*) Note that, as is tradition, they are dark on Christmas Eve so employees can do last-minute shopping, and it doesn't look like they're open to sell gifts as they have been in previous years.
• The Regent Theatre has sing-along shows of The Sound of Music from Monday to Thursday - matinees all week, evening shows Monday and Tuesday.
• The Somerville Theatre is back up to three screens this week (although the Slutcracker will be back next weekend), with The Whale getting the main screen.
• The Museum of Science has Wakanda Forever on the Murgar Omni dome this and next Friday, with no more Saturday shows scheduled.
• The Lexington Venue is open all week (except Christmas Day) with Puss in Boots and The Fabelmans.
  
  The West Newton Cinema gets Avatar 2, The Fabelmans, and the CGI Grinch (Saturday/Sunday). Hanging around are Strange World, Aftersun (no show Friday/Saturday), The Menu, The Banshees of Inisherin (Saturday/Sunday), Lyle Lyle Crocodile (Saturday/Sunday), and Tár. Closed Monday.
  
  The Luna Theater has Decision to Leave and The Inspection on Friday afternoon and Home Alone Friday evening/Saturday morning, then takes the holiday off until Weirdo Wednesday.
  
  Cinema Salem has Babyon, Pus in Boots, and Avatar: The Way of Water from Friday to Monday. There's also a special screening of Billy Wilder's The Apartment on Thursday.
• For those still not ready to join random people in a room for two hours, theater rentals are available at Kendall Square, West Newton, the Capitol and Somerville, The Venue, CinemaSalem, and many of the multiplexes.

I will likely hit The Whale, Puss in Boots, I Wanna Dance with Somebody, Cirkus, The Pale Blue Eye and some of the goodies at the Brattle, since I'm on a use-it-or-lose-it-PTO staycation next week. May also head out to the furniture store to see The Way of Water on that screen.