This Weekend, Watch This
A comparison for the new releases for December 6-8, 2013
By Curt David
December 6, 2013
New movies are released into theaters every weekend. How do you decide which movie to watch? Some movies sound awesome (Green Lantern), but then do not do too well commercially. Other movies star your celebrity crush (Taylor Swift in Valentine’s Day), but then do not get much love critically. Still other movies are recommended by friends (but friends can be idiots). And if you are like 78%* of people, you are not even aware of which movies are being released, yet alone which movies you should pay your hard earned money on.
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 you should watch in the theaters.
For the weekend of December 6th, the only new film in wide release is Out of the Furnace. Since I probably won’t get to the theaters this weekend, I’ll write instead seven of my favorite movies from seven different genres.
WINNER
(1 point per category) | Out of the Furnace | My favorite things: Movie per genre |
| Clearest Title | And into the fire? That’s a foreboding title. | Animated Film: While I love Finding Nemo and Aladdin, my favorite is The Lion King. |
Best Genre
and Rating | Crime Drama
Rated R for strong violence, language and drug content. | Fantasy: While I love the Harry Potter movies and Pan’s Labyrinth, my favorite is Pirates of the Caribbean. |
Cleverest Tagline
(out of 5 stars) | Brother gets kidnapped
Police won’t do anything
He’ll become the law
| Comedy: While I love Mr. Deeds and The Heat, my favorite is Dumb and Dumber. |
| Best Part of Trailer | PROS: Very respectable cast, gritty story that looks well made.
CONS: But I’m not in the mood to watch a gritty crime drama-type serious film. | Chick Flick: While I love Miss Congeniality and The American President, my favorite is While You Were Sleeping. |
| Coolest Lead Actor | Christian Bale from The Dark Knight, The Prestige, and American Psycho. | Action: While I love Hunger Games, Gladiator, Avatar, The Matrix, and The Count of Monte Cristo, my favorite are the X-Men films. |
| Best Cast | Woody Harrelson (Hunger Games), Casey Affleck (Gone Baby Gone), Zoe Saldana (Avatar), William Dafoe (Spider-Man), and Forest Whitaker (Last King of Scotland) | Drama: While I love Silver Linings Playbook and Slumdog Millionaire, my favorite is It’s A Wonderful Life. |
Best Street Cred
For the Production | Writer and Director Scott Cooper also wrote and directed Crazy Heart. | Catherine Zeta-Jones: While I love The Mask of Zorro, Entrapment, The Terminal, my favorite is actually Chicago. |
So out of a maximum of 7 points per movie, Out of the Furnace scores 7 points and the gold star.
You may interpret this column for your own movie preferences. For example, if you live near a Redbox, feel free to watch any movie you want. 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, Out of the Furnace is the best movie to watch this weekend.
Conclusion 2: Each week I give a gold star to the movie with the best tagline. Clearly, it goes to the only movie this week and its tagline “Sometimes your battles choose you.”
Conclusion 3: Don’t judge me for my wonderful tastes in movies.
*Statistic is completely made up.
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