This Weekend, Watch This: A comparison for the new movie releases for November 26-30, 2014

This Weekend, Watch This

A comparison for the new releases for November 26-30, 2014

By Curt David

November 28, 2014

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Review: Matrix Resurrections
Movie Review: Moonfall
Movie Reviews: Scream
The #1 Movie in America
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The Many Saints of Newark
October Forecast
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New movies are released into theaters every weekend. How do you decide which movie to watch? Some movies sound awesome (John Carter), but then do not do too well commercially. Other movies star your celebrity crush (Rose Byrne in The Internship), 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 1%* 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 Thanksgiving weekend, the two new movies in wide release are Horrible Bosses 2 and The Penguins of Madagascar.

	Horrible Bosses 2	The Penguins of Madagascar	WINNER (1 point per category)
Clearest Title	The sequel to Horrible Bosses	A spin-off of Madagascar	1/2 point each for recognizable titles.
Best Genre and Rating	Comedy Rated R for strong crude sexual content and language throughout	Animation Rated PG for mild action and some rude humor.	1/2 point each for varied genres and ratings.
Best Plot (in haiku form)	Guys start company Kidnap for startup money Crude humor ensues	It’s their backstory Penguins of Madagascar They’re secret agents	I think secret agent penguins win this week for most original plot. Point.
Best Trailer	PROS: There are some funny moments! CONS: None? (But like all comedies, you hope for more funny moments in the movie.)	PROS: There are even more funny moments! CONS: None? (But like all animated films, you hope that adults with enjoy it too.)	1/2 point each for some funny moments in each trailer.
Coolest Lead Actor	Jason Bateman from Arrested Development and Juno.	The cute animated penguins from the Madagascar films.	The penguins are cooler. Point.
Best Cast	Jason Sudeikis, Charlie Day, Jennifer Aniston, Kevin Spacey, Jamie Foxx, Chris Pine, and Christoph Waltz.	The voices of Benedict Cumberbatch and Ken Jeong.	Horrible Bosses has the best cast. Point.
Best Street Cred For the Production	Writer and Director Sean Anders also wrote We’re the Millers and Dumb and Dumber To.	Director Eric Darnell also directed Antz and the three Madagascar films.	1/2 point each to two guys with some good street cred.

So out of a maximum of 7 points per movie, The Penguins of Madagascar scores 4 points and Horrible Bosses 2 scores 3 points (and the gold star).

You may interpret this column for your own movie preferences. For example, if you don’t want to watch an animated film, feel free to watch Horrible Bosses 2. 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 Penguins of Madagascar is the best movie to watch this weekend.
Conclusion 2: Each week I give a gold star to the movie with the best tagline. The Penguins’ “The movie event that will blow their cover,” loses to Horrible Bosses’ “New crime. Same tools.”
Conclusion 3: I approved of The Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1. Next week, I’ll go back to campaigning for BOP’s The Calvin Awards.

*Statistic is completely made up.

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