Your weekly guide to staying entertained any day of the week

December 20, 2024

Welcome back to The Big To-Do. The countdown to Chrismukkah is on — Hanukkah starts on Christmas night — and Saturday is the winter solstice. That means the days start growing longer on Sunday, and this cool interactive shows how much. Also cool: the addition of an accessibility feature to the ArtsBoston Calendar. In the works for nearly two years, it “allows users to find arts performances, events, and venues according to accessibility,” reports the Globe’s Julian E.J. Sorapuru.

Meanwhile, 2024 featured so much great entertainment that last week’s Year in Review coverage spills over into this week, with two sets of movie superlatives and 50 of the year’s best albums shining through. We do love lists, and Devra First’s 2024 Boston-area restaurant awards are out, too.

Not feeling nostalgic? The Globe’s experts have lots of thoughts about new diversions, too.

Film & Movies

Young Mufasa (voiced by Braelyn Rankins) in "Mufasa: The Lion King." DISNEY

“Mufasa: The Lion King” earns 3 stars from Globe film critic Odie Henderson, who acknowledges that the prequel “is critic-proof anyway.” The “photorealistic CGI” feature, directed by Barry Jenkins (“Moonlight”) and with songs by Lin-Manuel Miranda (”Hamilton”), is “an enjoyable spectacle, and Disney gives us an old-school, flesh-and-blood villain to be defeated.”

Writer-director Robert Eggers brings a unique take on vampires to “Nosferatu,” opening Wednesday. “The vampire of early folklore is a walking, undead, putrid corpse,” Eggers, who grew up in New Hampshire, tells the Globe’s Matt Juul. “So the question then became, well, what would a dead Transylvanian nobleman look like?”

In 2024, 10 great performances stood out, Henderson writes, “even if I didn’t like the movie overall!” Among them are turns by Richard Roundtree as June Squibb’s sidekick in “Thelma”; “The Last Showgirl” star Pamela Anderson; and Dan Stevens, emanating “all manner of sinister vibes” in “Cuckoo.” Missed last week’s list of the 10 best movies of the year? It’s here.

The year’s notable documentaries give viewers an inside look at controversies, careers, and communities. Henderson’s list of 10 includes “Dahomey,” a story of art repatriation with a memorable twist; “Music by John Williams,” about the Boston Pops luminary and prolific film composer; and “Daughters,” centered on a quartet of girls whose fathers are incarcerated.

TV & Streaming

The Doctor (Ncuti Gatwa) and Joy (Nicola Couglan) in the "Doctor Who" Christmas special "Joy to the World." DISNEY+

This year’s holiday specials run the gamut: “broadcast and cable and streaming; specials and series episodes and movies; music and drama and comedy.” After offering an overview — Dolly Parton! Sister Boniface! Nate Bargatze! — the Globe’s Mark Feeney brings up “a very bah, very humbug antidote” to all that holiday merriment, and it’s a good one.

“No Good Deed” combines “family drama, murder mystery, and real estate satire” with sitcom royalty. The eight-episode miniseries stars Ray Romano and Lisa Kudrow, and when they’re on screen, ‘the pulse of “No Good Deed’ quickens, the stakes become more apparent, the sense of urgency grows,” writes the Globe’s Don Aucoin. “Kudrow’s performance is simply haunting.”

Three successful shows share a trait that adds depth to their procedural structure: “the woman at the center is often ignored or not taken seriously.” In “Elsbeth” (Carrie Preston), “Matlock” (Kathy Bates), and “High Potential” (Kaitlin Olson), the leads, “either deliberately or implicitly, are able to use society’s innate biases against them to their advantage,” writes Globe correspondent Tom Smyth.

The Big Day

Melbey Flores and Mark Castillo married on Nov. 11, 2024, in an elopement ceremony on Plum Island. Besides the wedding professionals who helped execute the day, they were the only two present. MEAGAN EXPLORES (@MEAGANEXPLORES)

The Globe’s weddings column, The Big Day, tells stories of how couples found each other, fell in love, and said “I do.” This week’s couple, Melbey Flores and Mark Castillo, give new meaning to the phrase “alone together.” The pair, who met in 2020, eloped to Plum Island in November with just a photographer, videographer, and justice of the peace. “We did it in the most stress-free way,” Melbey tells Globe correspondent Rachel Kim Raczka.

To apply to be featured, recently married and engaged couples (vow renewals and commitment ceremonies, too!) with ties to New England can click here for the application form.

Dance

Ayodele Casel in ART’s world-premiere production of her "Diary of a Tap Dancer." NILE SCOTT STUDIOS AND MAGGIE HALL

Ayodele Casel’s “Diary of a Tap Dancer,” at the ART, is “disarmingly entertaining, and Casel is a marvel.” The writer-choreographer-performer is a “charming, engaging storyteller as well as a brilliant dancer,” and “she often taps into a playful, irreverent sense of humor and can rattle off wry asides with expert comic timing,” writes Globe reviewer Karen Campbell.

Museums & Visual Art

Display of tools in installation of new MIT Museum, part of "Moving Objects." ANNA OLIVELLA©2024

Selecting the 50 or so items included in “Moving Objects,” at the MIT Museum, meant bringing in outside experts. Consolidating the museum’s collection into a single location took five years, and the workers who had a front-row seat for the move weighed in. “The items in the show were chosen because in one way or another the movers found themselves affected by them,” writes the Globe’s Mark Feeney.

Theater

"Charles Dickens' 'A Christmas Carol'" from Commonwealth Shakespeare Company creates a pastiche of sumptuous holiday music and suggestive set pieces to enrich the color and sound of the loosely sketched Dickens story. NILE SCOTT STUDIOS

Commonwealth Shakespeare Company branches out into Dickens with “A Christmas Carol.” The production benefits immensely from the presence of “some of Boston’s best singer-actors ... and some jaw-droppingly talented ringers from Boston Lyric Opera,” writes Globe reviewer Terry Byrne. But overall, it’s “a little lean on the emotions needed for a believable retelling of the Dickens tale.”

Ireland and Cabo Verde share center stage in the Midwinter Revels’ production of “The Selkie Girl and the Seal Woman.” This year’s incarnation of the beloved holiday tradition is “an inspired melding of two seafaring peoples who share a love of song, dance, and storytelling as well as a longing for home,” writes Globe reviewer Jeffrey Gantz.

Music

Beyoncé appears at a campaign event for Democratic presidential nominee Vice President Kamala Harris in Houston, on Oct. 25, 2024. SUSAN WALSH/AP/FILE

From “folk pop to death metal to cumbia to pop,” Globe writers cast a wide net in naming 50 of the best albums of the year. They spotlight something for everyone, with picks that circle the globe and blur genre boundaries. Beyoncé and Charli XCX make the cut, of course, as do Shaboozey, Shakira, and a couple of oldies but goodies: The Cure and Nick Lowe.

Year’s end sees the shutdown of three Maine-based radio stations owned by Stephen and Tabitha King. WKIT, a.k.a. “Stephen King’s Rock ‘n’ Roll Radio Station,” “leans into King’s macabre reputation,” Globe correspondent Victoria Wasylak writes for Sound Check. “[T]here is a certain irony to the situation: New Englanders losing another shared cultural experience is a frightening reality, indeed.”

Books

Rachel Kanter stands under the silk flowers at the entrance to her new store, Lovestruck Books, in Harvard Square. SUZANNE KREITER/GLOBE STAFF

The stock at Lovestruck Books, newly opened in Harvard Square, is three-quarters romance. The popularity of the genre is a trend but not a fad, says owner Rachel Kanter. “Clearly, there is a demand for romance. This is not a fluke. This is not going anywhere.” The Globe’s Meredith Goldstein, “a romance reader who watches both love and publishing,” explains.

Nayantara Roy’s first novel, “The Magnificent Ruins,” is a lot. “A lot of characters, a lot of plots, a lot of secrets. Also a lot of delicious-sounding Indian food. Overstuffed? Perhaps,” writes Globe reviewer Marion Winik. “But if Nayantara Roy never saw a complication she didn’t like, she must also be credited with tying every single one of them up neatly in the end.”

Architecture

Maya Lin's landscape artwork in Kendall Square in Cambridge. It's an "undulating wave field" in front of the Volpe Transportation building on Binney Street. DAVID L. RYAN/GLOBE STAFF

A new project by Maya Lin, who designed the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C., is usually a big deal. So why does “The Sound we Travel at,” on Binney Street in Kendall Square, not even have a sign? Good question! Globe correspondent Scott Kirsner, who first noticed the $1.3 million piece, “a physical representation of the Doppler effect,” last year, investigates.

Gaming

A screenshot from the 2024 playing card-based video game "Balatro." PLAYSTACK GAMES

At last week’s Game Awards, “Balatro” — “a cross between solitaire and ‘Tetris,’ with a little bit of poker” — won best mobile game. “Rarely is a game so easy to recommend to anyone, no matter their demographic,” writes the Globe’s A.Z. Madonna. “Like ‘Tetris’ or ‘Pac-Man,’ “Balatro” is simple to get started in but very hard to get good at.”

Today's newsletter was written by Marie Morris and produced by the Globe Living/Arts staff. Marie Morris can be reached at marie.morris@globe.com. Thanks for reading.

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