The Holiday Nine

The Holidays are here, meaning studios will trot out their best in an effort to garner Oscar attention as close to Oscar time as possible. It also means we’ll be treated to some “family friendly” pap, total misses and the stuff that’s somewhere in between. Here’s our first-impression on the upcoming season’s Must-See, Maybe’s and Must-Misses, all spiffed up and scrubbed by way of our Holiday Nine.

Must – See

Avatar (December 18) -Dan

If you’ve been following AATM or have been to the movies lately, you’ve probably–finally–heard of the otherworldly Dances With Wolves meets robots, monsters and aliens sci-fi fantasy Avatar. Promised to be the cinematic game-changer of the new century, Avatar is James Cameron’s return to the ridiculously budgeted (rumored to cost over $500 million), geeky fun he kicked to the curb after Titanic when he decided to go swimming for a decade. Initially, public perception for Avatar was non-existent outside the geek community, but thanks to some expositionary trailers and a promise of a 3D-immersive world experience, Avatar has morphed into the go-to movie of the season. Cameron’s yet to direct a film most people haven’t enjoyed from start to finish and with Avatar’s promise of xeno-zoology and their perforation exchange with space marines thrown in for good measure,  Avatar gets a full pass on cinematic event spectacle alone.

The Road (November 25) – Andy

The Road is a magnificent novel about a father and son traveling through a ruined and savage post-apocalyptic United States. Written by Cormac McCarthy, the book is one of my all-time favorites and it whipped me through a myriad of emotions – hope, sadness, fear, anger and happiness. It’s more a story of love and hope than it is an end-of-the-world tale. If director John Hillcoat (The Proposition) and writer Joe Penhall can successfully translate McCarthy’s haunting prose to the big screen, then the movie should be equally emotional. It stars Viggo Mortensen (Eastern Promises), Charlize Theron (In the Valley of Elah), Robert Duvall (We Own the Night), Guy Pearce (The Hurt Locker) and Kodi Smit-McPhee (X-Men Origins: Wolverine).

… Continue Reading