The holiday season proves fruitful for more than just presents and tons of candy. Movies will be released in full-force, but who wants to spend the time to watch less-than par flick? Again, we turn to the critics for their infinite Hollywood wisdom.
“Juno” hits the theaters first this week, releasing to the public on Dec. 5., from director, Jason Reitman (“Thank you for Smoking”, “Ghostbuster 1&2”). Ellen Page (“X-Men: The Last Stand”) plays Juno, a pregnant teen who, with her “partner,” Michael Cera (“Superbad”) realize how much they understand about the aspects of life. According to Moviefone on aol.com, Juno finds the suburban couple of Jason Batemen and Jennifer Garner and spends most of the movie deciding whether or not to give the child up for adoption.
“The Golden Compass,” directed by Chris Weitz, is one of several films showcased this week on the “Holiday Movies 2007: 23 Flicks You Can’t Miss” list provided by Aol.com. According to IMDB.com, this action/adventure fantasy stars Nicole Kidman (“Bewitched,” “The Stepford Wives”) as character Marisa Coulter and Daniel Craig (“The Invasion,” “Munich”) as Lord Asriel.
The movie itself is shaping up to be marginally popular than August Rush in the box office, but highly criticized in the media. According to a Dec. 3 article on CNN.com, conservative Roman Catholics and Evangelicals have condemned the movie for being based on a book “where all religion is evil.” Many believe that the story is steering youth towards atheism. The article further said, “In early October, the New York-based Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights launched a boycott of the film, calling it ‘selling atheism to kids’ at Christmastime in stealth fashion.” The movie will be released to the public on Fri. Dec. 12, it will be up to the viewers to make up their own mind.
This Friday will yield another holiday movie, but it may not be as “perfect” in the beginning as the title implies. But by the end, everything has a happy ending. According to Moviefone, “A Perfect Holiday” directed by Lance Rivera, is about a “Divorced mother (Gabrielle Union) of three who is so busy raising her children that she’s forgotten to take care of herself as well.” It isn’t until her daughter asks Santa for a compliment from a man for her mother that things really start to heat up. “This Christmas, the perfect man just happens to be Santa” is the movie’s tagline.
For all the Keira Knightly fans out there, “Atonement” should be another addition to the movie collection if the viewer likes British romance. The movie, directed by Joe Wright, was also the “Holiday Movies 2007: 23 Flicks You Can’t Miss.”
Peter Travers, a movie critic from Rollingstone, said the movie will “sweep you up on waves of humor, heartbreak and ravishing romance…it speaks, minus the stiff upper lip, of what’s timeless about passion, art and redemption.”
Lisa Schwarxbaum from Entertainment Weekly described the movie closely to many other British romances, “Their movie is abundantly attractive, every scene serenely composed and every character so fair in love and war that, when the lights come up, it’s too easy to say, ‘That was good and sad and romantic and classy, now what’s for dinner?'”
Regardless of what the critics said, get out there and watch a movie this weekend. Beauty, and in this case good film, is all in the eye of the beholder.