DVD Roundup - Pirates, Hope Springs, Arbitrage, Salmon Fishing in the Yemen, Killer Joe, Red Lights

THE PIRATES!: BAND OF MISFITS (★★½) Starring the voices of Hugh Grant, Martin Freeman, Imelda Staunton, Brendan Gleeson and Anton Yelchin.  Directed by Peter Lord & Jeff Newitt.

From the makers of Wallace & Gromit comes this late cash-in on the Pirates craze.  Hugh Grant ventures into voicework as a Pirate Captain who wants to win this year's Pirate of the Year award, but things have been slow going for him and his crew.  It takes the movie a while to find its groove, but there are some laughs to be had after some slow parts.

----

HOPE SPRINGS (★★★) Starring Meryl Streep, Tommy Lee Jones and Steve Carell.  Directed by David Frankel.

This movie's a great excuse to showcase the acting chops of Streep and Jones.  They played an old couple who lost physical intimacy years ago, and so they take couples therapy to rekindle that spark. At least, she pays for the course without asking permission, and he grumpily decides to go along. Carell plays it straight as the therapist.

----

SALMON FISHING IN THE YEMEN (★★½) Starring Ewan McGregor, Emily Blunt and Kristin Scott Thomas.  Directed by Lasse Hallstrom.

This pleasant enough diversion is about a shiek who wants to bring salmon fishing to the Yemen.  Cue some existential moments of peace via A River Runs Through It.  McGregor and Blunt make a cute couple. The story's as light as a feather, and most of it's forgotten a few days after viewing. The fact that it was nominated for Best Comedy at the Golden Globes tells me it was a weak year for comedy.

----

ARBITRAGE (★★★½) Starring Richard Gere, Susan Sarandon, Tim Roth and Brit Marling.  Directed by Nicholas Jarecki.

Richard Gere has rarely been better in this story of a hedge-fund billionaire trying to keep all of his balls in the air even as his world crumbles around him.  The triumph of the movie, and of Gere, is that the central character is sympathetic even though all of his acts are villainous. He's hiding a $400 million discrepancy in the books so he can sell the company, and if caught it'll not only ruin him but his CFO, who's also his daughter.  He's having an affair, hiding that from everyone, and then there's a criminal investigation he's the target of where we wonder how he's going to squirm out of it. Sarandon plays his long-suffering wife who enjoys the high-life he provides, and Tim Roth plays the police detective who knows Gere's guilty, but he just needs to find the proof.

----

KILLER JOE (★★) Starring Matthew McConaughey, Emile Hirsch, Juno Temple and Gina Gershon.  Directed by William Friedkin.

The subject matter of this movie is gutter level.  A trailer-trash family decides to hire a hitman named Killer Joe to kill the mother so the rest can collect the insurance money.  We know early that this stupid family is going to get on Joe's wrong side eventually.  But McConaughey's performance as Killer Joe is hypnotic.  He's a calm, dangerous man. I wound up feeling sorry for the other actors. Not the characters, the actors.

----

RED LIGHTS (★½) Starring Cillian Murphy, Sigourney Weaver, Robert DeNiro, Toby Jones, Elizabeth Olsen and Joely Richardson.  Directed by Rodrigo Cortez.

The first half of this would-be psychological thriller is well done, following two skeptics (Weaver, Murphy) who work at a university and debunk fraudulent clairvoyants in their spare time.  When one of the world's most famous psychics (Robert DeNiro) comes out of retirement, they decide he needs to be investigated.  The movie's strengths disappear as the plot gets more convoluted, the dialogue more nonsensical, and the twist ending doesn't have near the impact the filmmakers hoped it would have.  It's a great cast but a lost opportunity.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey - Movie Review

Starring Ian McKellen, Martin Freeman, Richard Armitage, James Nesbitt, Ken Stott, Aidan Turner, Sylvester McCoy, Cate Blanchett, Ian Holm, Hugo Weaving and Andy Serkis.
Directed by Peter Jackson.

★★★

I decided to read The Hobbit last month. I've made it through six chapters, approximately 120 pages.  That covered this 170-minute movie.

I don't mind at all being transported back into the world of J.R.R. Tolkein by way of Peter Jackson, and it's nice to be a lighter adventure than the broody end-of-the-world Lord of the Rings.  Here we meet a younger Bilbo Baggins, played here by Martin Freeman (The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Love Actually).  Gandalf shows up on his doorstep one day and volunteers him for an adventure.  Bilbo will join the wizard and thirteen dwarves on a quest to help the dwarves reclaim their homeland from a greedy dragon.

I wanted to be able to name all the dwarves and tell them apart, but unfortunately it'll probably take a couple viewings and seeing Part 2 before I'll be able to do that.  We're given all their names; we're just no introduced to half of them as distinctly as some others.  For instance, within the first hour I could tell you who Thorin, Balin, Dwalin, Fili, Kili, Dori, Bofur and Bombur were.  It's taking me going through the IMDB pics to put the names with faces of the other dwarves.

Once the fourteen set on their quest, it becomes a series of one darn thing after another.  They run into trolls, goblins, orcs, storm giants, elves, eagles, etc.  They're in danger, they get out. They're in danger again, they get out.  Any time a dwarf gets injured, he shakes it off for the next scene.  Even for dwarves, half of them would need weeks to just rest in a hospital somewhere and let their bones mend.

The highlight of the movie is deep into the movie, when Bilbo meets Gollum.  I don't remember if he shows up again in the book, but it wouldn't surprise me if Jackson didn't find a way to get him in a sequel or two somehow.

Looking forward to Part 2. Curious to see how Jackson's going to stretch it out.  But I think most folks are going to feel like this could have been a half-hour shorter without losing much.

Les Miserables - Movie Review

Starring Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe, Anne Hathaway, Amanda Seyfried, Eddie Redmayne, Aaron Tveit, Samantha Barks, Daniel Huttlestone, Colm Wilkinson, Helena Bonham Carter and Sacha Baron Cohen.  Directed by Tom Hooper.

★★★½

This didn't feel like its own movie. It's an enhancement, part of a package to the Les Miserables experience.  It's another way to live through the material.  Les Miz the play is still the way to see this, but the film allows more acting to move to the fore.

Tom Hooper's decision to do lots of close-ups pays off more often than it doesn't. It also means the actors are singing live for the camera without the benefit of being dubbed in a studio. It means that the acting matters more than the singing.  Russell Crowe, for instance, gives a very good physical performance as Javert, but singing-wise most of his songs are beyond what he's capable of nailing. He'd go in and out of nasal quality and strain for those higher pitches, which is a good two-thirds of Javert's lines.  More than once I felt bad for him.

The majority of the cast comes off quite well.  Hugh Jackman, I thought, was tremendous. Vocally he's there (even if he isn't Alfie Boe), and we really feel the pain behind songs like "Who Am I" and "Bring Him Home."  It'd be a crime if he weren't nominated for this.  Anne Hathaway is as good as you've heard. Her "I Dreamed A Dream" is heartbreaking, and by my eye, done in one take.

Eddie Redmayne (My Week with Marilyn) is also the first time I kind of liked Marius.  It's easy not to like him when he falls in love so easily with Cosette and ignores Eponine, but I credit Redmayne's performance. The first tear the movie got from me was when Marius sings his final note in his "Little Fall of Rain" duet with Eponine. (Eponine is played by Samantha Barks, who also played the role in Les Miserables in Concert 25th Anniversary.)

Faring the worst were the Thenardiers. I expected Sacha Baron Cohen and Helena Bonham Carter to be over the top, but all the close-ups for them ruined the humor of "Master of the House." It actually reminded me of A Funny Thing Happened on the Way to the Forum, a hilarious musical that made for a bad movie under Richard Lester's direction in 1966.

This movie is an experience. It's flawed, but it leaves an impact, and it let me see Les Miz in a new light. That must count for something.

My Worst Ten Films of 2012

For the record, I never saw such (alleged) stinkers as One for the Money, W.E., Project X, A Thousand Words, Damsels in Distress, The Raven, LOL, A Little Bit of Heaven, What to Expect When You're Expecting, Bel Ami, That's My Boy, People Like Us, The Watch, Cosmopolis, The Apparition, The Oogieloves Movie, The Words, The Cold Light of Day, Stolen, House at the End of the Street, Bringing Up Baby, Butter, Here Comes the Boom, Atlas Shrugged Part 2, The Man with the Iron Fists, Red Dawn, Playing for Keeps, Parental Guidance or anything with Tyler Perry.

But of what I have seen, these were the worst.

Dishonorable Mentions:

360 - I only watched the first forty minutes, and I'd seen enough.  Just a slow, slow slog meeting a bunch of boring or unpleasant people, and supposedly all their storylines tie together in the end, but even with a cast of Anthony Hopkins, Rachel Weisz, Jude Law, etc., I just didn't care.

AMERICAN REUNION - These kids are too old for this excrement.

LOCKOUT - Guy Pearce gives a great tough-guy performance in an "Escape from New York in Space" movie that might have been cool to me if I'd seen it in 1990.

MAN ON A LEDGE - Sam Worthington's star power's faded.  The whole thing felt predictable and cheap, and it really falls apart if you think about it. ("Please don't think about it!" pleads the studio.)

THE PAPERBOY - Matthew McConaughey, Nicole Kidman and John Cusack all give great performances in a story not worth telling.  (Why am I watching Kidman pee on Zac Efron?)  This slice of Southern Gothic is not enough Lee "Precious" Daniels and too much Lee "Shadowboxer" Daniels.

RED LIGHTS - Starts off promising but gets progressively worse until we hit our twist ending that has no impact whatsoever.

ROCK OF AGES - Not counting any scene that had Tom Cruise.  It's worth seeing on DVD or cable to just watch Tom Cruise's scenes. Everything else about the movie is terrible.  Had it come out in the 1970's, it'd be the next cult midnight show where people yell at the screen.  Who on Earth thought having three Foreigner tracks on the soundtrack was a good idea?

TOTAL RECALL - Director Len Wiseman and wife Kate Beckinsale probably shouldn't make movies together anymore.

And now...

... My Worst Ten

10. Taylor Kitsch in JOHN CARTER and BATTLESHIP - Neither movie is as bad as you may have heard. I actually kinda liked John Carter, whereas Battleship only ceased being the worst movie of the year once the aliens showed up.  But Kitsch is the worst thing about both movies, and he was the lead.  His movie career will go the way of Josh Hartnett.

9. ABRAHAM LINCOLN: VAMPIRE HUNTER - This movie could have, should have been campy fun, but it's poorly lit and surprisingly uncreative.  I credit them for casting Benjamin Walker, who looks like a young Liam Neeson, but I thought it might have more creative weaving into history while Abe slaughters vampires on the side.

8. THE EXPENDABLES 2 - The first movie was a fun reunion of all these old muscle-headed action stars.  Now while it's cool that Jean-Claude Van Damme shows up, and he's a villain, this sequel wears out its welcome early.  Just empty-headed mindless gunfire at a bunch of faceless foreigners.

7. THE DEEP BLUE SEA - Poorly-paced melodrama about a woman who leaves her affluent husband for a younger man who doesn't love her back. But they have passion. On the days that he likes her.  There's a three-second pause after every line.

6. & 5. GHOST RIDER: SPIRIT OF VENGEANCE and SEEKING JUSTICE - How far hath Nicolas Cage fallen. Dude won an Academy Award, you know.  Academy. Award.   First, he's starring in arguably the worst comic-book hero franchise, and then he's doing these VOD projects that make about $75,000 in theaters before disappearing.  We know he doesn't manage his money well, so maybe that's it.

4. THE DEVIL INSIDE - A low-budget horror movie where the characters don't behave rationally. I know, they make a hundred of these a year. But have you ever watched one that ends on a cliffhanger then directs you to its website to what happens next. Its website?!

3. UNDERWORLD AWAKENING - The fourth time is not the charm. Kate Beckinsale is back, but it doesn't matter. It's the future where vampires are known and the humans are trying to exterminate them.  The plot's the thinnest yet.

2. BENEATH THE DARKNESS - Dennis Quaid tries his hand at playing a psychopath in this trifle where the mystery is obvious from the beginning, but the participants on screen pretend that it isn't.

1. TAKEN 2 - The first movie had a visceral satisfaction to it. A great trailer, and a movie that lived up to it.  Even though it's the same director, the sequel is almost a parody of the first one. After the traumatic events of the first movie, the wife and daughter decide to surprise Dad by showing up... in Istanbul?  You'd think the daughter would never leave the mainland USA again.  Relatives of all the dead Eurotrach from the first movie seek revenge in the second, and several of them get dispatched with ease.  The whole thing has an unpleasant sheen to it.  It's a cynical cash-grab.

Hobbit stays #1 over Django, Les Miz

For the weekend of Dec. 28-30.

1. The Hobbit - $32.92 million ($222.7) - 3 wks (WB) -10.9%
 . . . 4100 screens / $8029 per screen
2. Django Unchained - $30.69 ($64) - 1 wk (Wein)
 . . . 3010 / $10,195
3. Les Misersables - $28.03 ($67.47) - 1 wk (U)
 . . . 2808 / $9981
4. Parental Guidance - $14.8 ($29.59) - 1 wk (Fox)
 . . . 3367 / $4396
5. Jack Reacher - $14.01 ($44.66) - 2 wks (Par) -10.2%
 . . . 3352 / $4180
6. This Is 40 - $13.19 ($37.12) - 2 wks (U) +13.9%
 . . . 2914 / $4525
7. Lincoln - $7.51 ($132.04) - 8 wks (BV) +35.9%
 . . . 1966 / $3819
8. The Guilt Trip - $6.7 ($21.1) - 2 wks (Par) +24.3%
 . . . 2431 / $2756
9. Monsters Inc. 3D - $6.36 ($18.49) - 2 wks (BV) +33.3%
 . . . 2618 / $2430
10. Rise of the Guardians - $4.9 ($90.23) - 6 wks (DW) -16.9%
 . . . 2055 / $2384
11. Skyfall - $4.6 ($289.6) - 8 wks (Sony) -2.1%
 . . . 1637 / $2810
12. Silver Linings Playbook - $4.11 ($27.36) - 7 wks (Wein) +130.7%
 . . . 745 / $5517
13. Life of Pi - $3.83 ($84.7) - 6 wks (Fox) -4.8%
 . . . 1178 / $3247
14. Breaking Dawn 2 - $2.45 ($286.13) - 7 wks (Sum) -6.7%
 . . . 1191 / $2057
15. Cirque de Soleil - $2.4 ($7.41) - 2 wks (Par) +12.4%
 . . . 840 / $2857
16. Wreck-It-Ralph - $2 ($175.66) - 9 wks (BV) +10.2%
 . . . 913 / $2196
17. Argo - $1.08 ($108.53) - 12 wks (WB) +19%
 . . . 345 / $3116

The actual number of theater tickets sold in 2012 is the highest it's been since 2002.

The Hobbit will join Skyfall and Twilight as the third movie this holiday season to pass $290 million.  Skyfall might squeak out $300 million, not sure if Twilight will get there, but all three are big hits overseas, so champagne corks are popping regardless (except it's sparkling cider for Stephenie Meyer).  Skyfall's at $1 billion total worldwide gross, and Twilight's at $800 million.

Quentin Tarantino's Django Unchained and Tom Hooper's Les Miserables will both easily get to $100 million domestic, and with awards season upon, they should get longer legs once the Academy Award nominations are announced.

Old shoes Billy Crystal and Bette Midler were able to get Parental Guidance into break-even territory.  Tom Cruise wasn't able to pull off Mission Impossible magic with Jack Reacher.

Frankenweenie - Movie Review

Starring the voices of Charlie Tahan, Catherine O'Hara, Martin Short, Martin Landau and Winona Ryder.  
Directed by Tim Burton.

★★★

Saw this at the $2 theater with the family.  Burton has taken his short from 1984 and expanded it to feature length.  It's about a boy whose dog Sparky gets killed.  Rather than accept this, he conducts a Frankenstein experiment on him and brings the dog back to life.  But this re-animation power has unforeseen consequences, especially when other kids want to know how to do it.

It's all very Burton-esque, and in animation, that's still a good thing.  It has that Nightmare Before Christmas / Corpse Bride vibe, with the neighborhood feel of Edward Scissorhands.  It's all in black and white, and it makes good use of the suspenseful setting.  There was one sequence in the night at school where all the kids held their breath, just knowing something was coming.

My Top Ten in TV 2012

Good stuff not in my top ten:

Kelsey Grammer on Boss (STARZ), the whole cast of Modern Family (ABC), the increased importance of the women of The Big Bang Theory (CBS), the guys of New Girl (FOX), the improved Boardwalk Empire (HBO), the funny melancholia of Louie (FX), the intense second season of Homeland (SHO), the costly season finale of Dexter (SHO), the dry satire Veep (HBO), the still-good-after-all-these-years Survivor (CBS), the still-occasionally funny The Office (NBC), Larry Hagman's comeback on Dallas (TNT), Christopher Heyerdahl's twin creeps on True Blood (HBO) and Hell on Wheels (AMC), Jay Pharaoh's Obama on Saturday Night Live (NBC), Jon Stewart's bad impressions on The Daily Show (COM), the psychotic mess known as American Horror Story: Asylum (FX), and the suspenseful, debatable actual Presidential Debates.

Best:

10. HATFIELDS & McCOYS (HIST) - Kevin Costner and Bill Paxton brought movie-star heft to this mini-series that documents the famous feud.  Enough crazy stuff happens, it could have been a regular series, if Costner wanted to settle on a project for that long.

9. EPISODES (SHO) - Matt LeBlanc has never been better than playing an exaggerated version of himself on this show-within-a-show.  That's right, folks. Matt LeBlanc.

8. JUSTIFIED (FX) - Timothy Olyphant's Raylen Givens is still the coolest marshal on TV. This third season saw the stakes raised when out-of-town mobster Neal McDonough moved in on Raylen's territory.

7. THE GOOD WIFE (CBS) - This show uses guest stars better than any other.  Everyone from the lawyers played by Michael J. Fox and Martha Plimpton and Brian Dennehy to the judges played by David Paymer and Denis O'Hare and Stephen Root gets moments to shine, and the regular cast gets to dig down with their own work. Only downside this season has been Kalinda's out-of-nowhere husband showing up.

6. MAD MEN (AMC) - As this show gets deeper into the 1960's, we see the culture clashes creeping into Sterling Cooper Draper Pryce, and we saw the tragic end to Pryce.  There's only two seasons to go, and I'd wager by the end, Don will get hired by Peggy.  Just watch.

5. THE WALKING DEAD (AMC) - This was a good show but not a great show until this year.  The writers have learned the lessons of the first two seasons, killing off the more annoying characters, adding some cool ones, ramping up the actions, and demonstrating how humans still make the best villains.

4. COMMUNITY/PARKS & RECREATION (NBC) - Amazing how far Must-See Thursday has fallen on NBC's schedule, not for lack of quality but certainly for lack of viewers.  Community continues to push boundaries on where a sitcom can go, producing instant classics like the video-game episode, the Glee-club as body snatchers, and the annual paintball war.  Parks & Rec meanwhile is doing the mockumentary format better than anything the Office has done since Steve Carell left.

3. DOWNTON ABBEY (PBS) - It started with the sinking of the Titanic. Season 2 took the Crawleys through World War I.  It's been the quintessential period British upstairs-downstairs melodrama, with a great cast down to the last maid.  Maggie Smith's a hoot as the Dowager Countess, but I'm also a big fan of Lord & Lady Crawley (Hugh Bonneville, Elizabeth McGovern), the perfectionist Mr. Carson (Jim Carter), the troubled Mr. Bates (Brendan Coyle)... eh, pretty much everyone.

2. GAME OF THRONES (HBO) - Season 1 introduced the epic, and after killing off some of its main characters (shocking those who don't know the books), Season 2 has allowed the survivors new maneuvers and Plan B's.  Peter Dinklage is now in front of the action as the dwarf Tyrion, using his brain to stay ahead in a world where might makes right.

1. BREAKING BAD (AMC) - This show isn't for everyone, but those who've been on the journey know what I'm talking about.  It started with Bryan Cranston as frustrated chemistry Mr. Walter White, trying to make some extra money cooking meth to make sure his family's provided for once he dies from cancer.  But his cancer got better, and Walt's become addicted to his criminal persona Heisenberg.  Last season seemed impossible to top, with Walt ultimately triumphing over Big Bad Gustavo Fring, who has to be one of the best villains in TV history.  But now Walt himself is the Big Bad, and next year's series finale is sure to be devastating.  One thing I appreciate about this show. It does not glorify its violence.  Each act has repercussions for weeks and months, and no one would watch this show and think taking or cooking meth might be a good idea.

V/H/S - DVD Review

Starring Joe Swanberg, Adam Wingard, Calvin Reeder and Sophia Taki.
Directed by Adam Wingard, Ti West, David Bruckner & Glenn McQuaid.

★★

The found-footage horror movie is played out, but this one finds a way to keep it going. It's essentially an anthology, with a group of guys filming themselves, and they find a dead man in front of a TV at his house, and they see he has some weird videotapes, so they watch them... and it's found-footage within found footage.  The structure didn't work, but half of the six stories told had some genuinely spooky ideas and twists.  I couldn't help but notice that all the stories had young "dudes" just worried about getting drunk and having sex or other unsympathetic behavior until they were killed by whatever it is.  So there it is.  Imagine Blair Witch Project told in 20 minutes, then Paranormal Activity told in 20 minutes, then The Last Exorcism told in 20 minutes, and you still have an hour to go.

My Worst Ten List in TV 2012

Dishonorable Mentions:

- All those reality shows I haven't seen more than five minutes of that are destroying America.  Honey Boo Boo, Toddlers & Tiaras, My Sweet 16, Teen Moms, Jersey Shore, and anything with a Kardashian.

- All those shows that want me to call in and vote.  No.  I'm done with you.

- NBC's Olympic coverage.  All those taped delays when we knew the results made no sense.

- That Sprint commercial where Dex plays the dad and he's trying to figure out a way for him to get the most data as if his kids make equal pay to him.  "You're the father.  You're paying the phone bill.  You rule the children out because they're the children."

- HBO's decision to cut 3/4 of the book Game Change, which was mainly about the 2008 primary race between Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama and John Edwards, and make it about Sarah Palin instead.

- Also, Whitney (NBC), Guys with Kids (NBC), Partners (CBS), Wilfred (FX), Ben & Kate (FOX), Fox & Friends (FNC), and Shameless (SHO) are bad shows, but they just didn't make my bottom ten.

Anyways, here's my worst ten list.  My rule is to not put anything in it this year that I put on it last year.

10. THE NEWSROOM (HBO) - The Newsroom could be really good. I mean, I watched every episode and I plan to watch season 2, but Aaron Sorkin needs some more people from the center and the right when he's writing these things.  Maybe they'd help him notice how annoying his long-winded grandstanding soapbox speeches can be.  And it isn't just the political one-sidedness of its presentation.  It's the mixing in of "screwball" comedy to make Emily Mortimer and Allison Pill look like dithering idiots.  It's the way characters over-explain everything to make sure the dumbest audience member gets the reference.  Sorkin's a really talented guy, and he's assembled a really talented cast, and I really hope he's learned some lessons from season 1 and doesn't double-down on everything that holds it back from being good.

9.  THE NEIGHBORS (ABC) - Obnoxious, wild-eyed sitcom about a family who find themselves in a neighborhood full of aliens.  A lot of people scream for comic effect on this show.

8. SEASON 1 of BRAND X with RUSSELL BRAND (FX) - I emphasize season 1, because it was horrible, but I saw the clip of season 2 of him interviewing the Westboro Baptist Church and found it funny and informative.  Season 1 though?  Painful.

7. TAKE IT ALL (NBC) - Howie Mandel returns to game-show hosting, on a show when encourages the worst in human decency.  Contestants compete for prizes, but when whittled down to the final two, they can choose to keep what they won or take it all.  If they both choose "take it all" no one wins anything.  If they both choose "keep mine" they both walk away winners.  If one chooses "keep mine" and the other chooses "take it all", the greedy one gets everything.  There was a version of this on GSN a few years ago, but alas, it's been resurrected.  Seems like the kind of game show Satan would create.  To every contestant who picks "take it all", you are why the terrorists hate us.

6. MARTIN BASHIR (MSNBC) - Plenty of cable news talking-heads are horses' rears.  Bashir is currently just the most insufferable, the kind where even those on his "side" recognize he's doing more harm than good, if doing anything at all.  Although fellow Brit Piers Morgan is doing a late push to overtake him as cable news' biggest prat.

5. GIRLS (HBO) - Whatever clever ideas this show might have, they're buried in sewage.  Lena Dunham has obvious talent, but my simile is that it's like eating a bag full of Harry Potter's every-flavor jelly beans, but 80% of them are vomit-flavored.

4. WORK IT (ABC) - A rehash of Bosom Buddies, and it's beyond me why anyone thought that was a good idea.  It was cancelled after two episodes.

3. ANGER MANAGEMENT (FX) - Charlie Sheen's comeback show is goofy, conventional, tedious and unfunny. Chuck Lorre has the last laugh on this feud.

2. ANIMAL PRACTICE (NBC) - Terrible sitcom in an animal hospital where no use of any animal was ever funny.  Justin Kirk, Joanna Garcia, Tyler Labine have all been better on other shows.

1. THE 2012 SUPER-PAC ADS - Didn't matter if they were true or not.  As far as substance went, the 2012 Presidential race was one of the most stupid, most shallow in history.  Amazing since there were so many important issues, but no, we got "Big Bird!", "You didn't build that!" and "Romney gave my wife cancer!"  It showed just how much contempt political players have for "the American people."

Les Miserables is #1, Django #2

For December 25-26.

1.  Les Miserables - $30.26 million - 2 days
2.  Django Unchained - $25.01 - 2 days
3.  The Hobbit - $22.66 ($179.66) - 13 days
4.  Parental Guidance - $10.64 - 2 days
5.  Jack Reacher - $9.14 ($27.38) - 6 days
6.  This Is 40 - $7.69 ($20.78) - 6 days
7.  Lincoln - $4.46 ($122.42) - 48 days
8.  The Guilt Trip - $4.26 ($12.8) - 8 days
9.  Monsters Inc 3D - $3.11 ($10.19) - 8 days
10. Rise of the Guardians - $2.63 ($83.87) - 36 days

Les Miserables had the #2 all-time opening on Christmas Day, behind only Sherlock Holmes.  Django Unchained had the #3 all-time opening.

I would guess that Les Miz, Hobbit and Django will be the 1,2,3 for this coming weekend, as there will be no wide releases tomorrow.  January 4 will see Texas Chainsaw 3D open, as well as expansions for The Impossible (starring Naomi Watts and Ewan McGregor) and Promised Land (starring Matt Damon and John Krasinski).

Goon - DVD Review

Starring Seann William Scott, Jay Baruchel, Allison Pill, Liev Schreiber, Eugene Levy, Kim Coates, Marc-Andre Grondin and Richard Clarkin.

Directed by Michael Dowse.

★★★

The best hard-hitting hockey comedy since Slapshot! And I never saw Slapshot.

Scott plays Paul Glatt, a nice but dim hockey fan who happens to be really good at fighting. He gets himself on a minor-league hockey team thanks to his fighting skills. He's charged with going into games and beating up whoever just gave a cheap shot on the other team.

This movie isn't shy about making guys lose teeth.

Ruby Sparks - DVD Review

Starring Paul Dano, Zoe Kazan, Chris Messina, Annette Bening, Antonio Banderas, Elliott Gould, Aasif Mandvi, Steve Coogan and Alia Shawkat.
Directed by Jonathan Dayton & Valerie Faris.

★★½

Zoe Kazan wrote the screenplay and stars as Ruby Sparks, a figment of her author's imagination.  Kazan did great on both counts, in performing the difficult role, and in writing the movie that takes some unexpected turns.

She co-stars with her real-life boyfriend Paul Dano (Cowboys & Aliens), who is my main problem with this movie. Dano's theaterical acting style is way too mannered and indulgent for my taste. I wanted him to stop "acting" and just be the character. Be more natural in this low-budget setting.

So, recast the leading man, and this would have been a great little movie.

Hobbit is #1 again

For the weekend of Dec. 21-23.

1.  The Hobbit - $36.7 million ($149.86) - 2 wks (WB) -56.6%
 . . . 4100 screens / $8952 per screen
2.  Jack Reacher - $15.6 - 1 wk (Par)
 . . . 3352 / $4654
3.  This Is 40 - $12.03 - 1 wk (U)
 . . . 2912 / $4132
4.  Rise of the Guardians - $5.9 ($79.69) - 5 wks (DW) -17.4%
 . . . 3031 / $1947
5.  Lincoln - $5.63 ($116.78) - 7 wks (BV) -19.9%
 . . . 2293 / $2457
6.  The Guilt Trip - $5.39 ($7.42) - 1 wk (Par)
 . . . 2431 / $2217
7.  Monsters Inc 3D - $5.04 ($6.53) - 1 wk (BV)
 . . . 2618 / $1925
8.  Skyfall - $4.7 ($279.97) - 7 wks (Sony) -28.3%
 . . . 2365 / $1987
9.  Life of Pi - $3.8 ($76.16) - 5 wks (Fox) -29.8%
 . . . 1750 / $2171
10. Twilight: Breaking Dawn 2 - $2.6 ($281.61) - 6 wks (Sum) -49.4%
 . . . 2000 / $1300

No special effects or Oscar buzz?  Mm, tough times be ahead for ya.  Jack Reacher is a low opening for a Tom Cruise pic, or maybe it's becoming more the norm, considering Rock of Ages bombed in the summer. (Though, I will insist, that's not his fault.)  This Is 40 is a low opening for a Judd Apatow movie, but Paul Rudd's never proven to be a draw.  Then there's The Guilt Trip, one of those movies that probably would have done better to open in January or September.

Opens Christmas Day
LES MISERABLES with Hugh Jackman, Russell Crowe and Anne Hathaway.
DJANGO UNCHAINED with Jamie Foxx, Christoph Waltz and Leonardo DiCaprio.
PARENTAL GUIDANCE with Billy Crystal, Bette Midler and Marisa Tomei.

Jack Reacher - Movie Review

Starring Tom Cruise, Rosamund Pike, Richard Jenkins, Robert Duvall, Werner Herzog, David Oyelowo, Jai Courtney and Michael Raymond-James.
Directed by Christopher McQuarrie.

★★★

I have not read the Jack Reacher books, and my understanding is that Tom Cruise is physically nothing like what Lee Child's described.  Going solely off what I saw on the screen, it worked.  It might have worked better with a bigger, more menacing-looking guy, but Cruise has done enough action flicks that I could buy him in the role.

Reacher is an ex-MP, very good at what he does. When a fellow veteran is accusing of snipering five people, he asks for Reacher. They are not friends. Reacher doesn't like the guy, but Reacher has investigative skills that match his combat skills.

I liked that this was a mystery, that there were layers to peel back.

I also see why the premiere was cancelled. The opening scene is a sniper, and one of his victims is a young woman carrying a child. In the wake of the Sandy Hook Elementary school shooting, that image takes on a new dimension. Bad timing by the movie, but this is the story they chose to tell.

I've always admired the career path that Cruise has taken, in that he tends to pick his directors carefully, and experienced co-stars. He has a mini-Days of Thunder reunion with Robert Duvall, and you also have Richard Jenkins as a DA and Werner Herzog as the head conspirator.

Now there are other Oscar-bait movies my wife and I would have seen were any of them in a theater near us last night (Les Miserables, Zero Dark Thirty, Silver Linings Playbook, etc.), but since they weren't, we went with this escapist fare, and we enjoyed it.

The Deep Blue Sea - DVD Review

Starring Rachel Weisz, Tom Hiddleston and Simon Russell Beale.
Directed by Terence Davies.

★½

Saw this due to Rachel Weisz getting a Golden Globe nomination for it, and she is really good in it.  Otherwise, though, it's a miserable movie that never flows organically.  Most conversations go like this.

"Are you happy?"  Pause.
"No." Pause.  "I'm not."
Pause.
"Anything I can do?" Pause. "For you?"
Pause.
"No." Pause. "There isn't." Pause. "But, thank you."
Pause.
Pained nod and smile.
"You're welcome."

Weisz plays an unhappy wife who has a torrid affair with a younger man in 1950 London.  But as often happens, the passion in the affair fades.  So we're left most of the movie with three unhappy people.  Longing.  Looking through the window.

I stopped having sympathy for her about halfway through the movie. It was a chore to get to the end.

We Need to Talk About Kevin - DVD Review

Starring Tilda Swinton, John C. Reilly and Ezra Miller.
Directed by Lynne Ramsay.

★★

This movie had what could have been a fascinating premise, and it is fascinating in spots.  Tilda Swinton is Eva, a mother disturbed by her devil-spawn son Kevin.  It's told mostly in flashbacks, and we can see from a baby on that Kevin (Ezra Miller) is a rotten kid. We know early on Kevin is responsible for a mass killing at his school. I kept wondering if it was supposed to be stylized memory, distorted from the mother's perspective, or if the filmmaker is really saying "Some boys are just eeeevil."

Swinton is mesmerizing in the role, and the movie would be painful without her.  The movie is full of scenes where no one says anything, where the elephant in the room is never addressed.  Kevin is mostly nice around dad Franklin (John C. Reilly) but glares at Eva whenever he gets a chance.  Just does that evil Kubrickian look from under the eyebrows.

I would have liked to see a slight shred of humanity from Kevin, especially in his younger days.  It's too easy to just make him soulless from birth.  Not to mention there's no real resolution.

Lawless - DVD Review

Starring Shia LaBeouf, Tom Hardy, Guy Pearce, Mia Wasikowska, Jessica Chastain, Jason Clarke, Gary Oldman and Dane DeHaan.
Directed by John Hillcoat.

★★½

Tom Hardy has star power and he exudes it here.  He's Forrest, one of the three Bondurant brothers, hillbilly moonshiners who refused to pay off the law during Prohibition.  Forrest is the brains of the bunch.  Brawn, too, though older brother Howard (Jason Clarke) is capable of delivering his own psycho butt-whippin'.

But the main protagonist is the sensitive youngest brother (Shia LaBeouf), who wants to be part of the business.  He idolizes gangsters and puts up their newspaper clippings like a 10-year-old girl and her One Direction posters.  Gary Oldman makes an appearance as one such gangster, but his part's so small, it's more of an extended cameo.

The villain here is Guy Pearce as a creepy federal officer from Chicago who wants his piece and who will kill to get it.

There's a stop-and-start lurching to the pace that subtracts from the enjoyment.  I really wanted to love this movie but must admit it was merely okay.

Life of Pi - Movie Review

Starring Suraj Sharma, Irrfan Khan, Tabu, Rafe Spall and Gerard Depardieu.  Directed by Ang Lee.

★★★

One poster advertises it as a new Avatar, which I believe was a quote from Time magazine.  Well, it's visually impressive, but it's also one where I didn't see why it was in 3D.  I wasn't aware of it most of the time.  What we have here is a slightly more satisfying Cast Away.

We get the story of Pi Patel, told in flashback by his older self (Irrfan Khan).  Young Pi's father owns a zoo, but they're running out of money, and he learns he'll be able to make a lot more in Canada.  The family must move.  But as they sail the Pacific, a storm hits and the ship sinks.  Pi manages to get on a lifeboat, and he's accompanied by a zebra, an orangutan, a hyena, and a tiger named Richard Parker.

Most of the movie takes place on the open ocean, with just Pi and (food-chain spoilers) the tiger.  The tiger turns into his Wilson, albeit Wilson wasn't trying to eat Tom Hanks the whole time.

My main issue with the movie is that when adult Pi starts telling his story, he says it will demonstrate proof there is a God.  And when I got to the end, and I thought about it, I still didn't see why that experience strengthened his belief in God.  Maybe the book highlights it better.