A strange weekend at theaters this week, especially as we move closer to the holiday homestretch. Four very different movies are opening wide vying for your dollar, but our money is on the unstoppable “New Moon”/ “The Blind Side” combo once again ruling the box office.
In Wide Release: Jim Sheridan’s (“My Left Foot,” “In the Name of the Father”) first film since helming the 50 Cent debacle “Get Rich or Die Tryin’,” “Brothers” opens wide today. An English-language remake of Susanne Bier’s Danish film, “Brothers” stars Tobey Maguire and Jake Gyllenhaal as a pair of polar opposite siblings, a solider and an ex-convict, alongside Natalie Portman as Maguire’s wife. The trailer is a textbook example of giving away too much and will surely turn some people away, as will the Iraq War theme, which has proved to be box-office poison. We reviewed the film earlier this week and were very pleasantly surprised by David Benioff’s methodical script and the very strong performances across the board. Sheridan’s director is the weakest point here (don’t even get us started on the U2 song) but you could do a lot worse this weekend at the multiplex. Other seemed to like it much less than us. The film has a rating of 63% from Rotten Tomatoes and a score of 59 from Metacritic. To that we can concur, the film is uneven, but the performances are definitely much more nuanced and subtle (especially from folks like Maguire, Gyllenhaal and Portman) than you’d expect. It’s all three actors’ best work in a long time.
Nimrod Antal’s follows up the horror film “Vacancy” with the very silly-looking “Armored.” We loved his “Kontroll,” years back and are curious to see what he and Robert Rodriguez do with the Predator franchise, but can’t say we’re too optimistic about this one. The film centers around a crew of officers at an armored security firm who prepare to embark on the heist of their lives. Depending on who you ask, the cast is either amazing, hilarious or most likely both with the always welcome Matt Dillon, Jean Reno, Laurence Fishburne and um, Skeet Ulrich starring. They haven’t bothered to screen this one for critics, so RT and Metacritic aren’t much help here.
Whether it’s “Four Christmases” or “The Family Stone,” there’s always a spot for a holiday-themed family dramedy ’round this time of the year. For 2009, Hollywood offers “Everybody’s Fine” with a truly strange cast to mark a truly strange year. Robert DeNiro stars as a man traveling across the country to visit his successful children (Sam Rockwell, Drew Barrymore, Kate Beckinsale) from whom he has become increasingly distanced since their mother’s death. Funny to see a duo as unlikely as Rockwell and Beckinsale together again so soon after David Gordon Green’s “Snow Angels.” We reviewed it yesterday, and recommend staying far far away. Rotten Tomatoes has the film with a 48% rating, while Metacritic gives it a 47 score.
Also apparently opening in wide release, “Transylmania” from directors David and Scott Hillenbrand. The horror spoof about college kids doing a semester abroad in vampire-addled Romania is barely on ours or anyone’s radar. Rotten Tomatoes and Metacritic have no reviews posted yet, but considering the director’s previous credits include “Gamebox 1.0,” “Dorm Daze,” and “Pinata: Survival Island” that’s probably a good thing.
In Limited Release: George Clooney teams up with “Thank You For Smoking” and “Juno” director Jason Reitman for “Up in the Air.” Both men certainly want to get Up in an Oscar this year as well and the buzz has been strong for months. Clooney plays Ryan Bingham, a corporate downsizer who gains in frequent flyer miles what he loses in human relationships. We saw the film in Toronto and liked it overall with a few small reservations, definitely Mr. Reitman’s best film to date. Opening wide on Christmas Day, the picture was just named film of the year by the National Board of Review. Critics are mostly over the moon about the film as well with an 86% rating from RT and a 82 score from Metacritic.
Cheryl Hines AKA Cheryl David from HBO’s “Curb Your Enthusiasm” makes her directorial debut with “Serious Moonlight.” The film stars Timothy Hutton and Meg Ryan as a married couple with serious problems, mainly Hutton’s mistress played by Kristen Bell. Interestingly, it was written by Adrienne Shelly, the late actress and writer/director of 2007’s “Waitress.” All sounds hunky-dory until finding out that Justin Long shows up as an “opportunistic” gardener, but now it just looks painful. Rotten Tomatoes gives it a 29 rating with a 34 score from Metacritic.
Other options this weekend include “Big River Man,” a documentary about Martin Strel, an overweight, wine-loving Slovenian who attempts to become the first person to swim the entire length of the Amazon. We can’t wait to check this one out. RT rating of 91. Also out, “Breaking Point” starring Tom Berenger, Sticky Fingaz, Busta Rhymes, and Armand Assante. Sounds like fun to us. RT rating of 0%