This Weekend, Watch This
A comparison for the new releases for....
By Curt David
December 21, 2013
New movies are released into theaters every weekend. How do you decide which movie to watch? Some movies sound awesome (Cowboys and Aliens), but then do not do too well commercially. Other movies star your celebrity crush (Christina Applegate in The Sweetest Thing), 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 2%* 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 20th, the new films in wide release are Anchorman 2, Walking with Dinosaurs, American Hustle, and Saving Mr. Banks.
| Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues
| Walking with Dinosaurs 3D | American Hustle | Saving Mr. Banks | WINNER
(1 point per category) |
| Clearest Title | The sequel to Anchorman! | Dinosaurs in 3D! | I don’t know. | I don’t know. | Anchorman wins 3/4 of a point for being popular, and Dinosaurs win 1/4 of a point for being awesome. |
Best Genre
and Rating | Comedy
Rated PG-13 for crude and sexual content, drug use, language and comic violence | Animation
Rated PG for creature action and peril, and mild rude humor | Crime
Rated R for pervasive language, some sexual content and brief violence | Biography
Rated PG-13 for thematic elements including some unsettling images | OOOH, four different genres! Merry early Christmas! 1/4 point for each! |
Best Plot
(in haiku form) | Fired anchormen
Start over, become the best
oh and, “I love lamp.”
| Baby dinosaur
Has to become the leader
Watch for carnivores!
| Five people do crimes
They do it for a reason
Confusing trailer | Mary Poppins book
Disney wants to make a film
Author not selling | Anchorman and Dinosaurs will split the point for the best plot. |
| Best Trailer | PROS: I smiled throughout the whole trailer, with faith that the movie will be ridiculously funny
CONS: None if you liked the first Anchorman | PROS: Dinosaurs are still fascinating!
CONS: None if you like epic computer animated movies about dinosaurs! | PROS: Great actors, looks like the most well done movie ever.
CONS: I’m sorry, I have no clue what this movie is about. The trailer told me nothing | PROS: This looks like a delightful movie, sort of like The Blind Side
CONS: It’s rated PG-13 and it’s about Mary Poppins?! | Each movie will win 1/4 a point for having a decent trailer (although I swear I don’t know the plot of American Hustle). |
| Coolest Lead Actor | Will Ferrell from Elf, SNL, and Talladega Nights. | N/A | Christian Bale from The Dark Knight, The Prestige, and American Psycho. | Tom Hanks from Forrest Gump, Saving Private Ryan, and Big. | Tom Hanks, also from Da Vinci Code, The Green Mile, Apollo 13, Sleepless in Seattle...and I could go on. Easy 1 point for him! |
| Best Cast | Steve Carell, Paul Rudd, Christina Applegate, James Marsden, Kristen Wiig, and a ton of cameos. | The voices of John Leguizamo and Justin Long. | Bradley Cooper, Amy Adams, Jeremy Renner, Jennifer Lawrence, and Louis C.K. | Emma Thompson, Colin Farrell, Paul Giamatti, Bradley Whitford, and B.J. Novak. | American Hustle and Anchorman split the point for best cast. |
Best Street Cred
For the Production | Writer and director Adam McKay also wrote and directed Anchorman, Step Brothers, and Talladega Nights. | Writer by John Collee who also wrote Happy Feet and Master and Commander. | Writer and director David O. Russell also wrote and directed The Fighter, Silver Linings Playbook, and Three Kings. | Director John Lee Hancock also directed The Blind Side, The Alamo, and The Rookie. | Wow, this is an impressive crowd. I’ll give all these gents 1/4 point. |
So out of a maximum of 7 points per movie, Anchorman 2 scores 2 and 1/2 points, Saving Mr. Banks scores 1 and 3/4 points (and a gold star), and Walking with Dinosaurs scores 1 and 1/2 points, and American Hustle scores 1 and 1/4 points.
You may interpret this column for your own movie preferences. For example, if you want to watch a film that might be nominated for a lot of Oscars, feel free to watch American Hustle. 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, Anchorman 2 is the best movie to watch this weekend.
Conclusion 2: Each week I give a gold star to the movie with the best tagline. Saving Mr. Banks’ “Where her book ended, their story began,” was the winning tagline this week.
Conclusion 3: This may be the most shocking discovery ever. Hunger Games spoiler alert too. Jena Malone played the character Johanna in the film Catching Fire. Johanna appears in the third book. But on IMDb, Jena is not scheduled to be in either of the film versions of Mockingjay. Am I the first person in the world to notice that they probably wrote off that character for the last two films?
*Statistic is completely made up.
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