Culture Blues

Welcome to Culture Blues’ monthly cinema primer! Every month, Jeff studies the next month’s slate of releases and ignorantly pre-judges them. His opinions are solely based on 15 minutes of IMDB research and trailers. Jeff has not seen any of these movies. You’re welcome.

Welcome to the last Culture Blues movie primer of the decade. It’s December and that means it’s time for Christmas, Chanukah, Kwanza, Atheist Secular Giving Week, Pearl Harbor Day, Boxing Day, World AIDS Day, Mitten Tree Day, and whatever other holidays you might be inclined to celebrate. And what better gift to give this holiday season than the gift of a $10 movie ticket? Here are my suggestions:

The Big Generic Blockbuster Gift

This year, you simply can't go wrong with tickets to one of the major winter blockbusters. There's something that separates the December blockbusters from their whorish summer siblings. Maybe it's the holiday cheer, or maybe it's that they sometimes have designs on Oscars. Regardless, they're always a little classier than the sweaty summer offerings. Lets not forget that this is the month that’s given us cinematic treasures like King Kong, The Day the Earth Stood Still and National Treasure:  Book of Secrets. Anyway, I'll take James Cameron and even kabala-thumping Guy Ritchie over Michael Bay and McG anytime.

Obviously, the big flick this month is Cameron's hotly anticipated sequel to Final Fantasy: The Spirits Within, otherwise known as Avatar. You should know the story by now. Groundbreaking technology, Cameron waiting years to make it, mind blowing effects, etc. In short, it looks like a video game. Our antipathy for Avatar has been well-documented on this site, so I'm not going to rehash it here. Instead, I'm going to reference this article from Esquire magazine about Sam Worthington (former Terminator, now lead blue thing). He seems like a total dickbag, right?

He's about to box a gypsy

Unlike Avatar, I don't expect to be disappointed by Guy Ritchie's stylized Sherlock Holmes. This is the logical progression that Ritchie's career should have taken years ago. He should've transitioned to major studio popcorn fare right after Snatch, not wasted time exploring his artistic side. A man needs to understand his limitations. Also, who doesn't have a raging crush on Robert Downey Jr? Seriously. He's an American treasure.

A Gift for Your Boring Parents

You're a grown up now. Sort of. If you're reading this site you're likely the single and childless type of adult, the kind that heads home annually for the holidays to spend some time with a set of parents suffering from a case of empty nest syndrome. That makes for a boring and joyless holiday, but at least you can still drag mom and pops off to the movies. So what's thrilling the older set these days? To start with, you can check out Robert DeNiro's About Schmidt 2: Everybody's Fine. It's about a lonely old dude that decides to burden his family with his presence. Pretty topical, right? If it wasn't for the presence of Sam Rockwell and Drew Barrymore, I think we could write this one off completely.

No, the better bet for entertaining the parents, and also yourself, is It's Complicated. In what looks to be a romantic sex comedy for octogenarians, that big phony Meryl Streep begins having an affair with her own ex-husband, played by Alec Baldwin. Steve Martin and John Krasinski also star. Trust me, there are worse ways to kill two hours on your holiday visit home.

Gifts to Resolve Some of that Familial Tension

Greatest actor of our generation

What better time than the holidays to work out all that icky family stuff, right? To start with - are you sleeping with your brothers' wife? Make good with your sibling by taking him to see Brothers where Jake Gyllenhaal does the same to Tobey Maguire. It'll remind your bro that it could always be worse; he could be in Iraq. Also, I'd be remiss if I didn't mention the Brothers marketing campaign billing Maguire, Gyllenhaal, and Natalie Portman as three of the greatest actors of my generation. Really, guys?.

After you've smoothed things over with bro, maybe it's time to finally reconnect with your estranged father. Take him to see Crazy Heart, starring greatest actor of his generation Jeff Bridges (seriously) and Jake Gyllenhaal's sister. In Crazy Heart, Bridges plays an aged country singer struggling to pay the bills, and Gyllenhaal plays the reporter determined to interview him. From the trailer, we can see that Bridges has once again totally immersed himself in a role and also that there should be plenty of daddy-issues-drama between he and Gyllenhaal (or maybe he's sexing her, can't tell). If you missed the chance to take your dad to see last year's The Wrestler, Crazy Heart is this season's best bet to open up his heart and get him talking to you again. Or at least make him willing to share an armrest.

A Gift for the Children

When we unfreeze Walt Disney, lets not tell him about the black princess right away, ok?

Dragging around some snot-nosed brats this month? You could definitely take them to see The Princess & The Frog. A return to the classic Disney animation that kids like me grew up on, this long-in-the-making feature also stars Disney’s first ever African-American princess. Pretty big deal. Of course, the film is already being lauded as lazily racist and was actually bogged down for years before its release by whatever politically correct cabinet of assholes Disney uses to vet its offerings (the original title was The Frog Princess, but someone found that too racist). To those critics frothing about Disney, I’d just like to point out that at least the Frog Princess isn’t saved by a comely southern white lady that shows her both how to live and how to read blitz packages. And anyway, are little kids even going to notice the significance of having a black Disney princess? Probably not.  I never realized Panthro was supposed to be the black Thundercat (and a panther to boot – gasp!).

Regardless, instead of The Princess & The Frog you should probably take the young’uns to Alvin and the Chipmunks 2:  The Squeakquel. Why? Because it’s called The Squeakquel. Come on, that’s genius.

And for the Older Children in Love with Vampires

Twilight 2 might have dropped last month, but don’t fret, there’s still plenty at the movies to interest the poofy emo vampire fans in your family. Rather than indulge in the Jacob vs Edward/whose eyeliner is better debate, take your Twihards to see Transylmania, part three in the Dorm Daze Saga (you might want to first catch up on Dorm Daze and Dorm Daze 2: College @ Sea, otherwise you’ll be lost). In Translymania a bunch of horny college kids study abroad in a country that’s name escapes me at present, meet some vampires and hunchbacks, and embark on a sex romp. Ok – so it doesn’t feature all the navel-gazing glittery vampire bullshit of Twilight, but it is flush with barely legals getting down and, really, isn’t it time for those Twilight fans to stop fronting and unleash their inner sexpots already?

"Broken Rib Sandwich"

As a side note, if low brow comedy is your thing but Transylmania seems a little too caveman even for your undiscerning tastes, you might consider checking out The Slammin’ Salmon. In Salmon, the murderous retard from The Green Mile is a former prizefighter turned restaurant owner that challenges his comically diverse wait staff to either sell more or get viciously beaten. Seriously, that’s the plot. But, before you write this one off, let me inform you that it’s from Broken Lizard (the Super Troopers guys), stars Cobie Smulders, and that the trailer actually made me laugh out loud a couple times. Full disclosure:  I also laughed out loud at the hunchback in Transylmania and used the phrase “murderous retard” a few sentences ago.

Finally, the Gift of Oscar

December is always the biggest month for Oscar hopefuls, with many studios wide-releasing their big ticket award bait, and other sneaking their sleepers into a limited release. Two of the early frontrunners hitting in December are Clint Eastwood's South African rugby drama Invictus and Jason Reitman's Juno follow-up Up in the Air. Eastwood has been hit or miss this decade and last year's Gran Torino was especially cringeworthy. Should we expect better things out of Invictus? Well, the trailers I've seen have struck me as stiff and generic, but that doesn't necessarily knock it out of the Oscar race. Afterall, it does have Morgan Freeman doing his best Nelson Mandela impression, and is a film ostensibly about race that likely won't ruffle many feathers. Think Crash, but with rugby.

Being literal

Reitman's Up in the Air, despite featuring mega star George Clooney, seems almost low key by comparison. It's the sort of melancholy dramedy that does well this time of year. It's also supposed to be legitimately good. And, going back to Invictus for a moment, can I just add that I'm over the whole impersonation as acting thing? Freeman is going to receive a shitload of attention for playing Mandela, likely more than Clooney (or, for that matter, dozens of other actors) will receive for constructing a character from the ground up. Have to ask – what’s the greater achievement?

Finally, flying much further under the radar, is festival darling A Single Man (not to be confused with the Coens' A Serious Man). The trailer is so arty and pretentious, I can't tell what the hell is going on, other than they're lauding Colin Firth for his finest performance ever (better than Love, Actually? I doubt it). Apparently this one is about a widower's foray into gay liberation. Sounds great. I'm sure the Academy will love it. Right, Annie Proulx?

In closing, I hope everyone out there has a wonderful holiday season. I intend to spend most of mine hiding out in dark rooms, quietly crying. The Primer will return in January 2010, where every movie that the major studios think is a steaming pile of shit will be released at once. Should be fun!