This Weekend, Watch This
A comparison of the new releases for November 18, 2011
By Curt David
November 17, 2011
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, War, War of the Worlds, and War and Peace 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 (Teenage girls will prove this theory right this weekend).
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 November 18th, the movies in wide release are Happy Feet Two and Breaking Dawn.
| Happy Feet Two | Breaking Dawn | WINNER
(1 point per category) |
| Clearest Title | The sequel to Happy Feet. | The fourth film of the Twilight saga. | Twilight is the more popular franchise...point. |
Best Genre
and Rating | Animation:
Rated PG for some rude humor and mild peril. | Fantasy
Rated PG-13 for disturbing images, violence, sexuality, partial nudity, and some thematic elements. | Happy Feet will get the point because it's not geared towards tweenagers with all that scandalous content. |
Cleverest Tagline
(out of 5 stars) | "Every step counts."
Inspirational and probably about dancing or something like that.
3/5 | "Forever is only the beginning."
Sounds mushy and probably about becoming a vampire or something like that.
3/5 | Okay, okay, I admit I haven't seen any of the prequels to these movies. They can split the point cause I don't know what's going on. |
| Best Part of Trailer | Penguins are cute. | I think I saw the Rio de Janiero Christ statue in the trailer? | Twilight always comes out with a good trailer. (If only I didn't know they were based on books for teenage girls, I would watch the movies). Point. |
| Coolest Lead Actor | Elijah Wood (voice of Mumble) was Frodo from the Lord of the Rings trilogy. | Kristen Stewart from Panic Room, Adventureland, and Into the Wild. | I liked all three of those Kristen Stewart movies (and Elijah is just a voice), so she'll take the point. |
| Best Cast | The voices of Sofia Vergara, Robin Williams, Pink, Common, Brad Pitt, Matt Damon, and Hank Azaria. | The cast made famous from the previous three films (Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, etc.) | Penguins. Vampires. I don't care anymore. Both casts will split the point. |
Best Street Cred
For the Production | Director by George Miller who also directed Mad Max, Babe: Pig in the City, and Happy Feet. | Director Bill Condon also directed Dreamgirls and wrote the screenplay for Chicago. | Meh. I've lost interest already with these two movies. 1/2 point each again. |
So out of a maximum of 7 points per movie, Breaking Dawn scores 4 and 1/2 points and Happy Feet Two scores 2 and 1/2 points.
You may interpret this column for your own movie preferences. For example, if you like fun for the whole family, feel free to watch Happy Feet Two. 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, Breaking Dawn is the best movie to watch this weekend.
Conclusion 2: I had already typed that Elijah Wood was Bilbo in the Lord of the Rings trilogy, before noticing that he was actually Frodo. I bet that would have caused some people to write nasty letters to Box Office Prophets.
Conclusion 3: And to also make sure no one else writes a nasty letter because of this column, I retract my statement about Elijah being just a voice, as voice work is an art too.
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