BAM’s Blog 2011 holiday movie preview
"Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows"
From Friday’s Weekend Look section of The Oklahoman.
Holiday movie guide 2011
Hollywood has prepared a diverse cinematic menu of awards contenders, family-friendly adventures and potential blockbusters that should keep film fans sated from now until Christmas.
Swap the pumpkin pie for popcorn: The holiday movie season is underway.
In keeping with its annual custom, Hollywood has prepared a cinematic spread of awards contenders, family-friendly adventures and potential blockbusters that should keep film fans sated from now until Christmas.
Theaters started dishing up the first serving of movie goodness Wednesday, but a variety of courses are on the movie menu for the season.
Just be sure to check local listings before heading to a multiplex since movie studios love to rearrange release dates.
"Hugo"
Opened Wednesday
It’s time for a new generation to meet “The Muppets,” with a comeback film that reunites Kermit the Frog, Miss Piggy, Fozzie Bear and the rest of the lovably witty felt friends in an effort to save Muppet Studios from destruction at the hands of a villainous oil baron (Chris Cooper). Jason Segel (who also co-writes and produces) and Amy Adams lend their song-and-dance skills to the new movie, which co-stars a new Muppet named Walter.
Oscar-winning director Martin Scorsese makes his 3-D filmmaking debut with “Hugo,” based on Brian Selznick’s much-admired 2007 junior novel, “The Invention of Hugo Cabret.” Set in the 1930s, the family-friendly mystery stars Asa Butterfield (“The Boy in the Striped Pajamas”), along with Jude Law, Emily Mortimer, Christopher Lee, Ben Kingsley, Sacha Baron Cohen and Chloe Moretz, in the tale of an orphan boy who lives in the walls of a Paris train station.
Also in 3-D, James McAvoy, Hugh Laurie and Jim Broadbent headline the star-studded cast who gift their voices to the holiday romp “Arthur Christmas,” the latest project from Aardman Animations, the studio behind Wallace and Gromit. On Christmas night at the North Pole, the reigning Santa’s bumbling son Arthur (McAvoy) rediscovers the spirit of the season when he must embark on an urgent mission.
Set in Hawaii, “The Descendants” stars George Clooney as a wealthy land baron but distant husband and father who must reevaluate his life after his wife is badly injured in a boating accident off Waikiki. The latest comedic drama from Oscar-winning writer-director Alexander Payne (“Sideways”), the film is getting significant awards buzz.
In the romantic drama “Like Crazy,” a British college student (Felicity Jones) studying stateside falls for an American classmate (Anton Yelchin), but the couple must cope with an agonizing separation when she violates the terms of her visa and is banned from the United States.
"My Week with Marilyn"
Friday
In “My Week With Marilyn,” Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne), a young assistant on the 1957 film “The Prince and the Showgirl,” documents his experiences on the set of the movie that famously united Sir Laurence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh) and Marilyn Monroe (Michelle Williams).
"Blackthorn"
Dec. 2
In “Take Shelter,” Michael Shannon, who earned an Oscar nomination for 2008’s “Revolutionary Road” and will play Superman baddie General Zod in 2013’s “Man of Steel,” stars as a young husband and father who is haunted by a series of apocalyptic visions that leave him unsure whether to protect his family from a coming catastrophe or from him.
Oscar-winning director Pedro Almodovar (“Talk to Her”) adapts Thierry Jonquet’s 1995 novel “Mygale (Tarantula)” with “The Skin I Live In,” about a grieving, unscrupulous and brilliant plastic surgeon (Antonio Banderas) who invents a type of durable synthetic skin that he tests on a mysterious woman.
The legend Butch Cassidy gets another cinematic treatment with “Blackthorn,” showing Thursday-Dec. 4 at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art. In the new film, Cassidy (Sam Shepard) survived his 1908 standoff with the Bolivian military and has been living quietly in an isolated Bolivian village under the name of James Blackthorn. Longing to see his family again, Cassidy sets out for the United States, but his plan is derailed when he crosses paths with a ruthless young outlaw (Eduardo Noriega).
"New Year's Eve"
Dec. 9
With the box-office success of 2010’s “Valentine’s Day,” it’s no surprise that director Garry Marshall is celebrating “New Year’s Eve” with another star-studded ensemble flick, this time about several couples and singles whose love lives intersect in New York on the titular holiday. The partial guest list for this cinematic New Year’s Eve soiree features Robert De Niro, Ashton Kutcher, Sarah Jessica Parker, Hilary Swank, Zac Efron, Katherine Heigl, Jessica Biel and Michelle Pfeiffer.
“The Sitter,” the latest comedy from helmer David Gordon Green (“Pineapple Express”), offers a gender-switched version of the 1987 box-office hit “Adventures in Babysitting.” Jonah Hill stars as a college student who has been suspended for the semester who experiences a crazy night when he gets talked into keeping the peculiar trio of children who live next door to his mom.
Controversial writer-director Lars von Trier (“Breaking the Waves”) contemplates the end of the world with his “psychological disaster film” “Melancholia,” showing Dec. 8-11 at the Oklahoma City Museum of Art. Kirsten Dunst earned the best actress prize at the Cannes Film Festival for her performance as Justine, a bride trying to cope with worsening depression just as a mysterious planet sets a collision course with Earth.
"Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy"
Dec. 16
Robert Downey Jr. reprises his role as the world’s most famous detective and Jude Law returns to play his loyal sidekick Dr. Watson in “Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows,” Guy Ritchie’s sequel to his 2009 holiday blockbuster. When the Crown Prince of Austria is found dead, police Inspector Lestrade (Eddie Marsan) believes the royal committed suicide, but Holmes deduces that the prince was murdered as part of a sinister plot designed by brilliant and evil Professor Moriarty (Jared Harris). Rachel McAdams, Stephen Fry and Noomi Rapace co-star.
Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, John Hurt and Mark Strong are among fine British actors featured in “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,” director Tomas Alfredson’s (“Let the Right One In”) adaptation of John le Carré’s seminal 1974 espionage novel. The Cold War thriller stars Oldman as George Smiley, a former spy who is pressed back into service to lead the hunt for a Soviet mole within Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service.
Director Jason Reitman and screenwriter Diablo Cody of the acclaimed 2007 hit “Juno” reunite for “Young Adult,” starring Oscar winner Charlize Theron as a former prom queen who returns to her small hometown with plans to woo back her high school sweetheart (Patrick Wilson), even though he is now married with a baby. Along the way, she forms an unusual bond with another former classmate (Patton Oswalt) who also has struggled to get on with life after high school.
Every other year since 2007, the holidays have brought a new live-action/animated cinematic outing for famed musical rodents Alvin (voice of Justin Long), Simon (Matthew Gray Gubler) and “Theodore (Jesse McCartney). The third installment, “Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked,” maroons the trio and their female counterparts the Chipettes (Christina Applegate, Anna Faris and Amy Poehler) on a tropical island after they go overboard on a cruise.
"The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo"
Dec. 21
David Fincher follows up last year’s lauded Facebook origin tale “The Social Network” with his hotly anticipated Hollywood adaptation of the late Stieg Larsson’s international best-selling crime thriller “The Girl With the Dragon Tattoo,” which already has been made into a stellar blockbuster in Larsson’s native Sweden. Fincher reunites with Rooney Mara, who stole the show from the rest of the sublime cast with her small role in “The Social Network,” to play brilliant cyberpunk Lisbeth Salander. The remake also stars Daniel Craig, Robin Wright and Christopher Plummer and features music from Nine Inch Nails frontman Trent Reznor and his writing partner Atticus Ross, who won an Oscar for their “Social Network” score.
Three-time Oscar winner Steven Spielberg tries his hand at 3-D motion-capture animation with “The Adventures of Tintin,” a treasure hunt tale based on Belgian artist Georges “Herge” Remi’s classic comic series that dates to 1929. Jamie Bell, Daniel Craig, Simon Pegg, Nick Frost Cary Elwes and mo-cap master Andy Serkis star in the action-packed adventure, which is already a huge hit in Europe. Plus, “Lord of the Rings” wizard Peter Jackson not only produced, he has already committed to directing the sequel. once he completes his two-film adaptation of J.R.R. Tolkien’s “The Hobbit.”
Animation all-star Brad Bird makes the move to live action as the helmer for “Mission: Impossible — Ghost Protocol,” and hopefully he will bring the flair for spy suspense that won him an Oscar for “The Incredibles” to Tom Cruise’s latest outing as Ethan Hunt. The franchise’s fourth film is based on a J.J. Abrams story and will co-star Jeremy Renner, Simon Pegg, Paul a Patton and Ving Rhames. It will be released in IMAX Dec. 16 before opening in theaters everywhere the Wednesday before Christmas.
Dec. 23
As the title suggests, “We Bought a Zoo” stars Matt Damon as a single father who decides to give his family a new life by purchasing a ramshackle zoo for them to refurbish and reopen. Based on former newspaper columnist Benjamin Mee’s memoir, the comedic drama is directed by Cameron Crowe (“Almost Famous”) and co-stars Scarlett Johansson, Thomas Haden Church, Patrick Fugit and Elle Fanning.
"War Horse"
Dec. 25
Steven Spielberg again pairs a potential blockbuster with a smaller drama (think back to 2005 when he did the same with “War of the Worlds” and “Munich”) in following “The Adventures of Tintin” with “War Horse,” a World War I epic told through the journey of a cavalry steed and his young former owner (Jeremy Irvine). His adaptation of Michael Morpurgo’s acclaimed children’s novel features Emily Watson, David Thewlis and Tom Hiddleston.
A cast of Hollywood up-and-comers including Emile Hirsch, Olivia Thirlby and Max Minghella star in the 3-D sci-fi thriller “The Darkest Hour,” about a group of young adults who find themselves stranded in Moscow and struggling to survive after a destructive alien attack.
-BAM
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Top of my Christmas watch list with my niece and nephew will be Hugo, The Muppet’s, Happy Feet2 and Sherlock Holmes.