This Weekend, Watch This
A comparison of the new releases for December 10, 2010
By Curt David
December 10, 2010
New movies are released into theaters every weekend. How do you decide which movie to watch? Some people could pick a movie based on the title (surprisingly, Runaway Jury, Runaway Bride, The Kite Runner, and Cool Runnings all have different genres). Some people watch trailers (misleading), some people listen to their friends (friends can be idiots), and some people only go to the movies if their Hollywood crush is on the screen (I'm actually not sure the next time I'll go to the cinema... when is your next movie coming out, Lena Olin?).
More likely than not, each weekend there is a movie that you have never heard of in the theaters. I'll save you the hassle of researching every movie, by comparing the new releases for each weekend in this column. Then, I'll tell you which movie to watch.
For the weekend of December 10th, the new movies in wide release are The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader and The Tourist.
| The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader | The Tourist | WINNER
(1 point per category)
|
| Clearest Title | The next Chronicles of Narnia film! | This movie could be a romantic comedy, a action-packed movie, or a horror film - the title gives nothing away. | I really liked the first two Narnia films. Here's a point for the third. |
Best Genre
and Rating | Adventure
Rated PG for some frightening images and sequences of fantasy action.
| Thriller
Rated PG-13 for violence and brief strong language.
| Adventure and Thriller are as generic genres as they come- movies will split the point. |
Cleverest Tagline
(out of 5 stars) | "Return to magic. Return to hope. Return to Narnia. "
Meh. Not bad. I do like Narnia.
2/5 stars
| "The perfect tripm- the perfect trap"
Oooh, that does sound interesting. Plus, the poster has Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie.
3/5
| Say that tagline three times fast. Point for The Tourist. |
| Best Part of Trailer | The July trailer was the worst trailer of my life. The November trailer was everything that I wanted the first trailer to be and more! | Johnny Depp plays a normal character for a change, opposite Jolie's usual sexy-spy character. | Usually, whichever trailer I watch twice wins this point, but I watched each trailer twice tonight - movies will split the point again. |
| Coolest Lead Actor | Ben Barnes played Prince Caspian in the second Narnia film. | Johnny Depp from the Pirates trilogy, Alice in Wonderland, and Edward Scissorhands. | Ben Barnes sort of looks like Johnny Depp, but Ben won't take the point from him. |
| Best Cast | Skandar Keynes as Edmond, Georgie Henley as Lucy, a cameo by Tilda Swinton, the White Witch, and voices by Simon Pegg as Reepicheep and Liam Neeson as Aslan. | Angelina Jolie (Salt), Paul Bettany (Da Vinci Code) and Timothy Dalton (007). | And Angelina Jolie gets the point this round, and probably should have gotten the point for "Coolest Lead Actor" as well. |
Best Street Cred
For the Production | Director Michael Apted has also directed Amazing Grace, 007's The World is Not Enough, and Coal Miner's Daughter. | Director and Writer Florian Henckel von Donnersmarck has also directed and written The Lives of Others. | The biography of Loretta Lynn in Coal Miner's Daughter is a fascinating film. Point for Michael Apted. |
So out of a maximum of 7 points per movie, The Tourist scores 4 points and The Voyage of the Dawn Treader scores 3 points.
You may interpret this column for your own movie preferences. For example, if you like adventure fantasy movies, feel free to watch the Narnia film. However, if you are still on the fence, please read the following conclusions from the scientific data gathered in this column.
Conclusion 1: On paper, The Tourist is barely the movie to watch this weekend.
Conclusion 2: Seriously, the latest Narnia trailer is so much better than the first. I watched the first one, which was awful and immensely boring. I had just read the book and new there was a dragon in the movie, and the dragon wasn't anywhere in the trailer. They omitted a frickin' dragon! Thankfully, they took all my advice and made the newest trailer much, much better. I hope other people get to see it this improved trailer.
Conclusion 3: Both of this week's trailers were very close in making the top 5 trailers of 2010, just not close enough. Johnny Depp however re-entered the chart as the second best actor of the year (knocking Matt Damon off the chart).
For the "This Weekend, Watch This" list of the Top 5 Titles, Trailers, Taglines, and Actors so far in 2010...click here.
Print this column
