Christmas Forecast
By Craig Kennedy - December 24th, 2007; 12:01 am
I’m dreaming of an oily Christmas
The Christmas holiday has the movie schedule all ass over tea kettle so we’re hauling out the trusty old Weekend Forecast on Christmas Eve
- There Will Be Blood (NY, LA 12/26). Hey, did you hear? One of the best movies of the year opens on Wednesday. Paul Thomas Anderson directs the marvelous Daniel Day-Lewis as a turn of the century oil man consumed by competition. Are you sick to death of hearing me sing about it yet? Well, the sooner you see it, the sooner we can all move on. Don’t forget, if you don’t live in NY or LA, you still might have a chance to see a midnight screening on the 29th. Check out the official website for details.
I suppose I’m doing this kind of backwards, but I wanted to get your attention with the real movie of the week. Now here are the actual Christmas day releases:
- Persepolis (Limited). From France, this animated drama is showing up on a few Best Animated and Best Foreign Lists. It tells the story of a young girl resisting the Islamic Revolution in Iran. Featuring the voice of Catherine Deneuve.
- The Great Debaters. Denzel Washington in yet another Teacher Inspires Students movie. This time it’s a black college in the segregated South going up against the Harvard debate team. Denzel is so damn interesting to watch, he alone might raise this thing above the cliché it probably is. I don’t know, this probably further erodes my cynical street cred, but if you can’t see There Will Be Blood or Persepolis and you’re caught up on everything else, you could do a lot worse than this. It could even be perfect Christmas family fare.
- Aliens vs. Predator - Requiem. If “Predaliens” sound like a good idea to you then A) you should be at home playing with your Xbox 360 instead of sneaking into an R rated movie and B) there is no way in hell I can talk you out of seeing this thing. It doesn’t even have friggin’ Lance Henriksen for crapsakes.
- The Water Horse: Legend of the Deep. I don’t think I’m quite the target audience for this one either, so I’ll let Pete Hammond tell you about it. “A fusion of humor, heart, and pure excitement merged into an incredible fantasy adventure for the kid in every one of us. It’s not only the perfect holiday movie, but perhaps the most wondrous film of its kind since E.T.: The Extra-Terrestrial touched down.” At last! The E.T. of enchanted Scottish water horse movies! Sorry Pete, I’m afraid there’s an Amber alert out for the kid inside me, but please feel free to use this handy moist toilette to clean yourself off.
- The Bucket List (NY, LA, Toronto. Expands 1/11). Ok, well Pete Hammond very nearly pulls a groin muscle bending over backwards to come up with an ad quote for this train wreck. He calls it “a winner that ought to top anyone’s own ‘list’ starting with the words ‘must-see.’ “ Get it? List? Must-see? Must-see list? Eww, I think I got Maxim on me digging that one up. I’ll grant you that if you’re 1000 or if your parents are 1000, you might want to have a look at this one. I mean, it’s got Jack Nicholson and Morgan Freeman so it has to have some redeeming value…doesn’t it?
Expanding Christmas day: Juno and The Savages.
Finally, opening in limited release on Friday, December 28:
- Honeydripper (NY, LA). Even minor John Sayles is worth seeing and I’d rate this one somewhere in the middle. A great cast led by Danny Glover as a piano player in 1950s Alabama trying to keep his club alive in the face of changing musical tastes. You can read my mini-review of it here.
- The Orphanage (Opens wider 1/4 and 1/11). Dolts who didn’t know Sweeney Todd was a musical because there was little singing in the trailer are going to be super pissed when they find out this little horror nugget isn’t in English. I could’ve told the woman in it who buys an abandoned orphanage with plans to turn it into a residence for disabled children that bad shit was going to happen, but I don’t speak Spanish very well.
Filed under: Upcoming
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- Weekend Forecast: 1/11/08
- eFilmCritic Calls a Whore a Whore
- Your Pete Hammond has been removed
But, Craig, you know we’re all not going to move on after we’ve seen it. We’ll be discussing it for days on end. :-)
I hope you have a wonderful Christmas.
It’s only too bad that Honeydripper and Orphanage will likely struggle to find an audience with Persepolis, There Will Be Blood, and the Great Debaters to compete with. Otherwise it’s an impressive list of releases, Bucket List and AVP2 not withstanding.
Have a wonderful Christmas yourself Alison. I’m almost as excited for you to see TWBB as you are to see it yourself! Almost.
Predaliens Joel. Predaliens.
Scarier than Waterhorsaliens I guess.
I think I may be able to attend a special TWBB screening in SA, on the 28th, if I get my way, with the real journo’s, which would be great. Persepolia looks great, very different, but interesting, The Great Debators’ trailer looks awfully cliche, but when it comes to Christmas time, I’m in for cliche.
so the when persepolis hits the states it will be dubbed ???
actually the bucket list is big accopmlishment. you have tow actors that in pretty much al there(recent) movies. seem to play the same danm charter each time./each film. hell freeman proably dresses the same each time too. hey that’s got to make it easy on the wardrobe people.
they just tell morgan to bring his own clothes.you know how you’re supposed to dress…
and did i steal this from a.d. it was something about how if jack n. got an oscar nod for his role in the departed they may as well give him one for his laker game court side persona. brilliant.
and i’m the only one that remimbers/loved the review segment that asked that if at some point during the departed did jack n. start doing the joker or the joker satire ???(why didn’t anyone else point that out??? funny funny)
well it’s easy to be confused since he does whatever it is he does pretty much everytime.
and forget the bucket list. it all about finishing the game.
it should be up for *every award*.
and yes craig. i don’t think i have any interest in there will be blood. i really don’t know how i do it…….
Merry Xmas or Happy Holidays to all the LiC regulars -Joel, Alison, Frankbooth, Hedwig, Glimmer, Chuck, Pierre, and Nicholas. And to the less frequent commenters. Thank you all for filling the joint with smart, funny, and passionate lovers of film. And a big thank you to Craig. You set the tone for comments through being deeply thoughtful about films, Coen Brothers-like funny, considerate, warm, and generous in spirit. And your already fine writing only gets better! Thanks for creating something out of your passion for film that helps others connect with their own.
thnaks for the kindness sartre.ah so it was all about your cat. :)
anyway sartr,e you should see finishing the game as soon as possible.putr the books and the shelf and see the film of the year. ;)
Merry Christmas to you too, Sartre :-)
Thanks sartre, you too:) Hears to another year of this amazing site and all the people that visit it, it’s really a unique place. Merry Christmas to everyone that celebrates it, and to those who don’t, just have a great day anyway.
Thanks, sartre, you too. And to everyone else here. I hope everyone is enjoying. :-)
Thank you Sartre and once again, thank you all.
Merry Christmas!
Merry Christmas guys, reading all of you here has been a real pleasure.
It’s a Festivus for the rest of us everyday at livingincinema.com. Thanks to all of you for you insightful, funny, and poetical comments. A special shout-out to glimmer for always offering the best stream-of-consciousness postings.
I look forward to 2008. Hopefully the movies will merit our efforts!
..and the ’streamy’ will continue in 2008.
thanks joel !!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! :)