Movie Muse

There are plenty of Holiday movies that look good. The trouble is there are too many of them. We’re forced to sort through them; we wait to hear what critics have to say before we announce, “I have to see that!” The action blockbuster types we need little convincing on, but as for all the dramas, it’s a tough business, even for me, to predict the ones that are going to get the Oscar buzz come January.

There were more than a handful, but I’ve picked five films that will get wide releases and compete for your attention and money (and some of them have started already). As tempted as I was to include more artsy films, I’ve stuck mostly to the mainstream “?” movies.

The Fantastic Mr. Fox (Wide on Nov. 25)

The Word: Dry/bizarre humor director Wes Anderson (The Royal Tenenbaums, The Darjeeling Limited) takes his same crew of actors (Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Jason Schwartzman) and adds George Clooney and Meryl Streep to voice the cast of his first stop-motion animation project, The Fantastic Mr. Fox, based on the Roald Dahl book. We’ve seen better stop-motion before in Tim Burton-produced movies, but Anderson has given “Fox” a distinct look and it’s guaranteed that the humor you’ll get in this family movie will be unlike any you’ve seen before. Moving a dark comedy director into family movie territory seems risky, but this film could pay off, especially being released wide Thanksgiving week. (View trailer)

My View: Early reviews (many critics got a chance to see this film prior to its limited release on Nov. 13) have been positive for Wes Anderson, some calling it his best since Rushmore, so I’m game for seeing this movie amid all the Thanksgiving week clutter – once I see The Road of course. In a strange way I see how Anderson’s sense of humor can work at the family level and the trailer convinced me with the whispery weirdo voice of Schwartzman. Not being close to the source material or nostalgic about the film in general, it was hard to sneak this on to my list over The Princess and the Frog, but when all is said and done it could be just as deserving.

Twilight Saga: New Moon (Nov. 20)

The Word: The vampire craze that swept the nation post-Twilight last year at this time gets another boost. Kristen Stewart and Rob Pattinson might have become the most searched people on the Internet only, that move wasn’t good. Now, the series gets Chris Weitz (The Golden Compass), a guy who has experience doing fantasy and made “Compass” look beautiful to say the least. Could Twilight finally garner critical success to go with all the fan hype? It would be a tremendous step forward for the young Summit Entertainment to get a positive buzz around this film. Those who tried the film and not the books are probably in the “pass” column for this one, but some positive word of mouth would do wonders. (View trailer)

My View: Catherine Hardwicke’s Twilight was cheesy and half-assed, like a bad CW TV show. By virtue of the effort to get Chris Weitz, I respect New Moon that much more. I am still refusing to see this in theaters and probably will even if everyone says it’s so much better because I have no connection to the series, but for those of you who would consider it upon hearing it’s miles better, here’s your notice to pay attention come next Friday for those reviews. Read the rest of this entry »

Here are the top five movies I recommend this coming Holiday season. If you missed numbers 6 – 10, CLICK HERE.

Keep in mind that Oscar-buzz movies got a bit of an advantage over the action blockbusters in this list.

5. Avatar (Dec. 18)

The Word: James Cameron, the father of technologically progressive filmmaking, returns with his first notable directorial effort since Titanic – and it’s in 3D. That’s right, live action 3D. Apparently production costs have reached the level of an unheard of $500 million dollars, so Fox is playing this one close to the chest. The film is also banking on star Sam Worthington, the Australian actor who Hollywood has unceremoniously anointed a star (he plays the lead, Perseus, in March’s Clash of the Titans) The film is a sci-fi adventure that takes place on the planet Pandora where Earth’s military is at odds with the native population, the Navi. Wheelchair-bound Lt. Sulley gets a chance to enter an Avatar of himself as a Navi to work his way in with the tall blue aliens. (View trailer)

My View: The anticipation of live-action 3D has always and might just be enough for Avatar to become the hit it absolutely needs to be. It’s a tough time to ask moviegoers to pony up the extra cash for 3D, especially when the premise isn’t based on any kind of source material or familiar concept, but Cameron has earned audiences trust when it comes to groundbreaking action movies. The hope is that even with a geeky sort of premise that Avatar will be remembered as a cinematic milestone. I can say, however, that it doesn’t easily land on my list if it’s not in 3D based on the trailer alone.
4. A Single Man (Ltd. on Dec. 11, Wide on Dec. 25)

The Word: If you have yet to hear about A Single Man, you’ll be as shocked as most people were to hear that Tom Ford, the fashion designer famous for making Gucci what it is today, directed and adapted this film about a gay English professor who suddenly loses his partner and struggles to go about business as usual. Star Colin Firth won best actor at the Venice Film Festival which jumpstarted Oscar talk and the buzz is also strong for co-star Julianne Moore. I probably don’t even need to mention that this ‘60s period drama is a surefire Best Costumes contender if not winner already, especially with the help it received from the Mad Men wardrobe department. (View trailer)

My View: The wordless trailer for this film, a late pick-up for The Weinstein Company, is breathtaking. If the ‘60s haven’t been deemed the pop culture retro fashion of the next decade yet thanks to Mad Men and the coincidentally similarly titled A Serious Man from the Coen brothers, they will be after this film makes some noise. If that’s not enough, A Single Man looks to finally bring homosexuality to the mainstream in a way that’s not too awkwardly forced (Brokeback Mountain) or issue-focused (Milk). Read the rest of this entry »

There aren’t as many bad eggs in the Holiday basket as there are at other times during the year. You can generally find some upside in just about any film.

With that said, I’m only really convinced that the top three movies on this list will be genuinely bad. The other two simply don’t match up to their competition in one way or another.

That’s really what red flags are all about during the holidays. It’s not so much that these films are low in quality, but that they won’t be as good as you might think, especially with the competition they’re up against.

5. Armored (Dec. 4)

The Word: Vacancy director Nimrod Antal (there’s an accent above the “o,” but feel free to giggle anyway) gets a cast full of action badasses such as Lawrence Fishbourne and Jean Reno, but the attention is on Stomp the Yard star Columbus Short who plays the morally conflicted rookie of a group of armored car guards who decide to steal one of their shipments. (View trailer)

My View: This armored car inside-job heist film doesn’t look bad, but it lands on my list for being a tired genre film in a season full of more innovative action movies such as Avatar, Sherlock Holmes and arguably even Ninja Assassin. As free spending as we like to be during the Holiday season, I think a dirty officers heist film is something best reserved for an early summer DVD rental. It could be good, but I doubt good enough.

I debated between flagging this movie and Nicholas Cage dirty cop film Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleansbecause I hate colon titles and it reunites the stars of the horrific Ghost Rider (Eva Mendes co-stars), but that film is directed by Werner Herzog and could serve to be a fresh genre twist by backing up a protagonist who enters a spiral of corruption. It’s also going to probably see very limited release, whereas Armored is competing only against dramas and will tempt a lot of filmgoers. Read the rest of this entry »

Magazines, newspapers and websites have all been publishing something they refer to as a “Winter Movie Preview,” lately. How strange, you wonder, that I’m posting something called a “Holiday Movie Preview.”

Let me explain. “Holiday Movie Preview” refers to the six weeks of awesomeness at the movie theaters from the weekend before Thanksgiving until the Christmas releases. This is the best 8.6 repeating percent of the year for movies. You might not get as many blockbusters as the lengthy summer season, but you get a handful of them plus all the Oscar-caliber films that never come out any other time of year.

This is different than winter. Entertainment publications will have you believe there are four movies seasons: Summer, Fall, Winter and Oscar. They ignore the crap that usually comes out between Jan. 1 and the Oscars because they know the only films people really care about are the ones getting nominated. Then they try and ignore the ones between the Oscars and May 1 thinking you’re so ready for summer.

I’m not going to deny that the early year movies aren’t crap or that the March/April gems are few and far between, but I’m not going to pretend they don’t exist. There will be Holiday season; there will be winter season; there will be Oscar season with predictions; there will be Spring. Between Christmas and New Years I will publish the winter preview, when Oscar nominations come out, that will get its due and as the Academy Awards approach, I’ll preview the spring.

Now that we’ve got that straight … Holiday movies. As with any Holiday season, it’s hard to pick a Top 10, but I feel good about this list.

To preface, in ranking these movies I went for Oscar-quality above entertainment. Sherlock Holmes for example, as excited as I will be when that movie comes out, is much lower on my list than Invictus.

I’m organizing this much like I did for the fall. Today are films 10 through 6 on my list. Tomorrow will be my red flags list. Thursday I will finish up with 5 through 1 and either later Thursday or Friday I will put up my honorable mentions. I’ve linked to the trailers on YouTube for you to compare your thoughts.

10. The Princess and the Frog (Ltd Nov. 25, Wide Dec. 11)

The Buzz: Walt Disney’s highly anticipated return to traditional animation musicals after a five-year hiatus. The new film features Disney’s first black princess in a story set in New Orleans during the Jazz Age. Tiana is a wealthy princess who ends up locking lips with a frog expecting him to turn back into a prince only she ends up a frog herself. The movie features songs from Disney collaborator Randy Newman as well as numerous amusing talking animals of the Cajun swamp variety. (View trailer)

My View: Has it only been five years since Disney last gave us a 2D product? If you’re talking quality, they haven’t delivered anything since 1999’s Tarzan. By the looks of the trailer, Disney appears to want to re-establish its early ‘90s dynasty, having dusted off that old formula of princess, prince, villain and singing animal sidekicks that it lost faith in ten years ago. But are they really committed to storytelling quality or are they just hoping we needed a break?

It’s hard to say right away if Disney will recapture any of the magic with “Frog,” but the effort appears to be there and the promise of reliving my childhood and that one-of-a-kind feeling one only gets from watching a Disney animated musical appears worth the risk. Critics will be an all important piece in determining whether this attempted comeback is a success and so will the children of today who’ve been spoiled with CGI.

9. The Imaginarium of Dr. Parnassus (Dec. 25)

The Buzz: Heath Ledger’s final performance in former-Monty Python surrealist Terry Gilliam’s most talked-about film in at least ten years. Ledger died during filming, so Johnny Depp, Colin Ferrell and Jude Law stepped in to complete the project, playing various incarnations of Ledger’s character when he enters the imaginarium. In a plot that’s hard to summarize, Christopher Plummer stars as the doctor who’s made a deal with the devil for immortality and has a traveling stage show that offers its audience more than meets the eye. (View trailer)

My View: The story sounds mysterious, intriguing and altogether quite fascinating. But, like other Gilliam films, will this one end up being more about visual creativity that borders on insanity, or will the story be just as rewarding as the beautifully imaginative images presented in the trailer? The film will certainly benefit from the star power and magic dust Ledger’s death has still somehow left behind. I’ll even admit that the prospect of seeing Ledger’s talents on the screen again is tempting. All in all, the ceiling is very high for Gilliam’s latest cinematic Dali painting, which was well-received at the fall festivals. Read the rest of this entry »