Next Week in Tickets: Films playing Boston 15 December 2023 - 21 December 2023

Still kind of a bunch of nothing this weekend, although, as a result, how crazy is it that we have three films from Japan, two from Korea, and one from Vietnam, and that's just at the big multiplexes?

• We do get a major release this week, Wonka, a prequel to 1971's Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory (and, I suppose, every other version of that story), with Timothée Chalamet as the chocolatier when he was just getting started. It looks like a bad idea, but it's from Paddington director Paul King, and those two movies are the sort of adorable this needs to be. It's at The Capitol, Fresh Pond, Jordan's Furniture (Imax), West Newton, CinemaSalem, Boston Common (including Imax Xenon/Dolby Cinema), Causeway Street, the Seaport, Kendall Square, South Bay (including Imax Xenon/Dolby Cinema), Assembly Row (including Imax Laser/Dolby Cinema), Arsenal Yards (including CWX), The Embassy, and Chestnut Hill.
  
  For Christmas shows, Die Hard continues at Boston Common, Causeway Street, South Bay, (and maybe Assembly Row); The Polar Express plays Arsenal Yards; Elf plays Boston Common (Friday-Wednesday); the 2018 Grinch is at Boston Common (Friday-Wednesday); National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation shows at Boston Common (Monday-Wednesday); and Just Friends plays Arsenal Yards (Friday-Sunday).
  
  There's a preview screening of The Boys in the Boat at Boston Common, Causeway Street, South Bay, and Assembly Row on Saturday and one at the Seaport on Sunday. There's also a Dolby Cinema preview of Ferrari at Boston Common, South Bay, and Assembly Row on Wednesday.
• Yorgos Lanthimos's riff on Frankenstein (among, I assume, other things), Poor Things, has Emma Stone as a young woman resurrected as a blank slate, who leaves her benefactor (Willem Dafoe) to see the world with a lover (Mark Ruffalo), and the previews are anything to go by, it will at least be gorgeous. It's at The Coolidge Corner Theatre, Landmark Kendall Square, and Boston Common, before expanding next week.
  
  Midnights at the Coolidge feature a new restoration of the 1974 Black Christmas and Fando y Lis, Alejandro Jodorowsky's first film, on Friday (the latter in the screening room), with a 35mm print of Gummo on Saturday. Monday's Big Screen Classic is a digital restoration of the 1994 LIttle Women, Tuesday's Big Screen Debut is François Truffaut’s The 400 Blows, with a pre-show seminar from critic Jake Mulligan, Wednesday has a 35mm print of Big Night, and Thursday's "Rewind!" is Jingle All the Way.
• The latest film from Hirokazu Kore-eda, Monster, opens at Boston Common, Causeway Street; it digs into school bullying, with a mother discovering that the source in this case may be faculty. Also from Japan: Godzilla Minus One at Fresh Pond, CinemaSalem, Boston Common, Causeway Street, the Seaport, South Bay, Assembly Row, Arsenal Yards; as well as The Boy and the Heron at the Coolidge, the Somerville, Fresh Pond, CinemaSalem (dubbed only), Boston Common, Causeway Street, the Seaport, Assembly Row, Arsenal Yards, and the Embassy (dubbed only).
  
  Korean blockbuster (and Oscar submission) Concrete Utopia, starring Lee Byung-hun, Park Seo-joon, and Park Bo-young as residents of the only apartment block left standing in Seoul after a cataclysmic earthquake, opens at Boston Common. Up the Green and Orange Line at Causeway Street, 12.12: The Day, a drama which takes place in the aftermath of the 1979 Presidential assassination, following an officer who does not want the military to become involved in politics.
  
  Kaathal - The Core, a Malayalam drama about a couple whose husband runs for local office, opens at Apple Fresh Pond. Held over at Fresh Pond are Animal (also at Boston Common), Sam Bahadur (also at Boston Common); and Hi Nanna. If you can make it to the Liberty Tree Mall in Danvers, they have Telugu-language horror movie Pindam.
  
  Vietnamese drama The Last Wife continues at South Bay.
• The Brattle Theatre has its annual screenings of It's a Wonderful Life this weekend, Friday to Monday, from a 35mm print. When that's not playing, they have the "Holiday Adjacent" program, including Die Hard (35mm Friday), Go (35mm Saturday), Rare Exports (Sunday), Eyes Wide Shut (Tuesday), Night on Earth (35mm Wednesday), and The Green Knight (Thursday).
• The Alamo Drafthouse Seaport picks up Eileen (I guess they're going to be a screen things expand to rather than from), with the rep calendar including shows of Night of the Hunter (Friday/Tuesday), Brazil: The Director's Cut (Monday/sold out Sunday), Deep Cover (Monday), Elf (Tuesday/sold out Sunday), 2046 (Wednesday), and a preview of The Iron Claw with live-streamed Q&A Tuesday.
• The Harvard Film Archive has its last screening of the semester on Friday with a 35mm print of The Go-Between, but has also begun streaming Cinema Before 1300, an expanded lecture by Jerome Hier that considers stained glass as a precursor to cinema, on their website; it will be available for all through 15 March.
• The Somerville Theatre takes this month's "Attack of the B-Movies" double feature, Santa Claus Conquers the Martians & Little Shop of Horrors '60, downstairs, what with the Slutcracker on the main stage, for a matinee on Saturday and an evening show on Tuesday.
• The Regent Theatre has documentary Full Circle, which follows two skiers, Barry Corbet and Trevor Kennison on parallel journeys fifty years apart after each suffered broken backs, on Wednesday.
• The Museum of Science continues to show Oppenheimer on the dome on Friday and Saturday evenings through the end of the year.
• The Lexington Venue is open Friday to Sunday with Eileen, Maestro, and The Holdovers, plus captioned shows of the latter two on Thursday. There's also a Friday night show of The Rocky Horror Picture show (with the request folks don't throw crap).
  
  The West Newton Cinema picks up Wonka and Maestro, also keeping Wish, Saltburn (no show Friday), The Holdovers, Eras (Friday/Saturday), and Barbie (Saturday).
  
  The Luna Theater has It's a Wonderful LIfe Friday to Sunday, Weirdo Wednesday, and Black Christmas '74 on Thursday.
  
  Cinema Salem is open Friday to Monday with Wonka Eileen, The Holdovers, The Boy and the Heron, and Godzilla Minus One. They haveBlack Christmas '74 on Friday night, a Miz Diamond Wigfall show of Elf on Saturday (and a regular one Sunday), a free mystery-movie (in two senses of the word) ugly sweater party on Wednesday (RSVP recommended), and Scrooged on Thursday.
• Joe's Free Films shows BU screening two sets of student films at the George Sherman Union on Friday afternoon (animation) and Tuesday afternoon (presumably live-action).

Not often I get to use the whole AMC A-List allotment on foreign films without China being involved, but that looks to be the plan here, with 12.22: The Day, Concrete Utopia, and Monster all on tap. I'll probably also catch Wonka on a fancy screen, maybe finally see Eyes Wide Shut, and one or two other things.