Friday, December 16, 2016

Your Holiday Movie Guide for December 2016

Ah, the Christmas show fifty years ago at Radio City Music Hall in New York.  You can almost smell the chestnuts roasting on the corner of 50th and 6th Avenue as you waited on line to get in.   

No movie any more.   Just a canned stage show basically constructed around the bit where the Rockettes dressed as toy soldiers and fall down on one another.  

What kind of presents is Hollywood offering us this holiday season?   Well, you know the routine by now.   I'll sift through the LA Times movie guide and give you my gut reaction to what's out there this weekend.  Paging Fred MacMurray!

Moana:  Disney's latest cartoon with a young girl as a heroine.   The same story and stale songs that have been used in the last dozen Disney cartoons.   Would it kill them to feature a young boy in one of these stories?

Arrival:   Previously reviewed here.  An adult sci-fi movie.   Not a single scare but plenty to think about.

Jackie:   This would be one for me, but I hear it's dull as dirt.   How can you make a movie about Jackie Kennedy uninteresting?

Loving:  I hear that this movie is so slow that snails walk out of the theater faster.

Lion:   Oscar buzz although I don't know a single thing about this film.  I guess I'm too far away from the hive.

Miss Sloane:  Jessica Chastain in something.   For all you Jessica Chastain fans.

The Comedian:  Robert DeNiro trying to be funny.   I guess the anti-Trump rant was a good start.

Manchester By The Sea:   Blog review coming.   This time the Oscar buzz gets close enough to sting me.

La La Land:   Emma Stone in a musical??   Hell, you don't have to tell me twice.   One please.

Elle:   I don't think this is a documentary about the twelfth letter in the alphabet.

The Founder:  Michael Keaton as the man who started McDonald's.   And indirectly the man who necessitated the need for statin drugs.

Allied:  Blog review coming.  Brad Pitt in some Casablanca wannabe that bombed at the box office its first weekend.  I will review it anyway.

Rules Don't Apply:   Previously reviewed here.   I liked it.   It's already gone from a lot of theaters.   What do I know?

Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them:   How much money does JK Rowling need to live a comfortable life?

Moonlight:   Previously reviewed.   An interesting tale albeit a bit overrated and over written.

Nocturnal Animals:   Amy Adams' back-up role in case she doesn't get a nomination for Arrival.

The Eagle Huntress:   Even the title sounds boring.

Office Christmas Party:   Blog reviewed just the other day.  The trailer looked stupid and a bit childish.   I still am curious because, after all, everybody's been stupid and a bit childish at an office Christmas party.  And who doesn't like that?

Kill Ratio:   Now that sounds like a holiday picture to me.

All We Had:   Katie Holmes as a young mother finding solace in a small town. Didn't we see this on the Hallmark Channel two dozen times before?

Beyond the Gates:   A lethal video game.   Aren't they all?

Brand New Testament:   God's 10 year-old daughter lives in Brussels.   Seriously.   That's the log line I found.   Who's the mother?

Burn Country:  An Afghan refugee lands in Northern California.   Just one?

Frank and Lola:   I know nothing, except that I doubt it's about Sinatra and Falana.

Bad Santa 2:   Strictly for those who saw Bad Santa 1.

The Edge of Seventeen:   One of the best movies I saw this year.

Bleed for This:   Miles Teller as a boxer and this one got knocked out in the first weekend, too.

Doctor Strange:  More Marvel drivel.

Almost Christmas:   Entertaining although you have seen this dysfunction family during the holidays tale at least five times before.

Trolls:   People who voted for Bernie Sanders?

Sugar Mountain:  A thug chases a young man through Alaska.   Will we find out if you can really see Russia from there?

Solace:   Anthony Hopkins plays a retired physician with psychic powers.   I wonder if he can predict if the movie will be any good.

Rogue Wars - A Star Wars Story:   Not a real Star Wars movie, but now that Disney owns the franchise, they will milk it dry.

Collateral Beauty:  Will Smith stars in his annual attempt at getting an Oscar. The usual acting enema.

Hollow Point:   Patrick Wilson guard the US-Mexico border to prevent drug cartels from getting in.   He's not doing a very good job.

Dinner last night:  Long travel day so just some pretzels.

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