The Best Christmas Movies!

It’s the most wonderful time of year! Christmas time is finally upon us! This week, instead of writing about something in theaters, I want to talk about my favorite Christmas movies. There are so many Christmas movies that appeal to many generations. Here are some of my favorites:

It’s a Wonderful Life (1946) – “Every time a bell rings, an angel gets his wings.” This is a Christmas Classic! I like to watch this movie with my family on Christmas Eve. The film stars Jimmy Stewart and is directed by Frank Capra. It tells the story of George Bailey, a man who has fallen on hard times. In angel, Clarence, shows George what life would be like if he never existed.

Home Alone (1990) – “KEVIN!” Macaulay Culkin became a child star because of his role. Kevin is accidently left behind during his family’s vacation. He must stop the “wet bandits” from robbing his house. This is probably the most quoted movie from my childhood. My brother will still drop lines throughout the year. In my house, this is watched after Thanksgiving dinner to kick off the holiday season. Note: Home Alone 2 is an acceptable substitute, but do not watch the other films.

Elf (2003) – “The best way to spread Christmas cheer is singing loud for all to hear.” This is Will Ferrell’s best role to date. I don’t think any of his other films showcase his true talent like Elf does. When Santa mistakenly brings a baby back to the North Pole, he is raised as an Elf. Finally learning the truth as a grown man, Buddy the Elf, sets out to meet his father and spread Christmas spirit. Elf is one of the most creative Christmas movies I’ve seen in some time.

The Polar Express (2004) – “I believe.” One of my favorite books was transformed into an animated feature. As a little boy questions Santa’s existence, a mysterious train takes him to the North Pole on Christmas Eve. On the Polar Express, the boy learns many lessons and what it truly means to believe. The film was made using motion-capture, which means though it is animated, actors acted the film their motions were used in animating it. The best part of the movie: Tom Hanks is everywhere.

A Very Perry Christmas (2009) (TV Movie) – “Mom, Phineas and Ferb are making a Christmas Special!” Phineas and Ferb’s Christmas Vacation was an extended episode in the second season that was later released on DVD. The boys create a grand scheme to show Santa Danville’s appreciation, but it backfires when Doofenshmirtz’s latest invention puts all of Danville on the naughty list. Phineas and Ferb is my favorite cartoon and this special does not disappoint. It is one of the most inventive Christmas specials I’ve ever seen, plus it has a great soundtrack.

These are just my favorite Christmas movies. Comment below with your favorites and Christmas traditions. 

Box Office Returns for Nov. 21-25

This weekend was horrible for new releases! In looking at the 5-day Thanksgiving weekend, none of the new releases made the top three. DreamWorks newest animated feature Rise of the Guardians came in fourth with $23.7 million, followed by the film adaptation of The Life of Pi with $22.4 million. The remake of Red Dawn came in seventh with dismal $14.2 million. This is a far cry from most Thanksgiving Day weekends.

In the past two years, the Thanksgiving weekends have had Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 2 (2011) and Harry Potter and Deathly Hallows Part 1 (2010) remain in the top spot. Disney had a large release in 2010 with their latest princess film, Tangled, which grossed $68.7 million. In keeping with their Thanksgiving release theme, last year Disney released The Muppets earning $41.5 million. Perhaps this year, Disney is still riding out the high from Wreck-It Ralph. While this dropped to 6^th place on the list, it still had a 22% increase in gross from last week.  This year Disney did not release a new film.

The last week of November also looks bleak in terms of releases. I expect the box office to pick up with the December releases. Movies with big stars are coming out, including: Playing for Keeps, The Hobbit, and This Is 40.

Catherine Zeta-Jones returns to the screen with two films in December. She is alongside Gerard Butler in Playing for Keeps and with Bruce Willis in Lay the Favorite. Both are romantic comedies.

The highly anticipated, sort-of sequel to Knocked Up, This Is 40 also comes out late in December. This will be popular with the young adult, Judd Apatow following and the older crowd who want to laugh at someone else’s midlife crisis. I believe this will be another huge success for Apatow.

My guesses for next week are that Breaking Dawn Part 2 will remain on top of the box office. That does not appear to be going anywhere soon.

Statistics complied using boxofficemojo.com

Flight

I was curious as to why Flight was falling so quickly on the weekly charts, so I went to see it this week. It was number five this past weekend, but only gross just over $8 million. It’s domestic gross up to this point is about $65 million. Overall, this is not bad, but I expected better from a Denzel Washington movie.

The trailer for the film looked so good and I was really excited to see it. However, very quickly into the movie, I realized the trailer was misleading. I believed the story was the government investigation into a plane crash. While the story is driven by the plane crash, it has very little to do with that. This post will contain Spoilers.

Flight is about different types of addiction, from drugs to alcohol. Captain Whip Whitaker (Washington) is an alcoholic pilot. The plot is mainly his struggles with alcoholism and covering it up through the investigation. Whip comes in contact with many people who try to help him with his problems: his union representative (Bruce Greenwood), lawyer (Don Cheadle), and most importantly, recovering heroin addict Nicole (Kelly Reilly). 

I found the film really uncomfortable to watch. I am squeamish watching drug use in films, but the directing style made this one especially hard to watch. My guess is that Robert Zemeckis did this on purpose but it made the film unbearable at parts. I was turning away from the screen at some pivotal scenes.

Furthermore, I did not like Whip. This is the first time I watched a movie with Denzel where I did not like his character. I even like him in American Gangster. In the opening scene, he fights with his ex-wife about paying for their son’s private school. He was immediately dislikeable and pathetic. Denzel played the character perfectly, but I hated the character. That always makes it harder to get through a movie.

I would not suggest this movie. I don’t read movie reviews before I go because I like to go with an open mind. Therefore, I was not expecting Flight to be this hard to watch. This movie left a lot to be desired. I was thoroughly disappointed. 

Box Office Returns for November 16-18

This was another huge weekend at the box office. The final film in The Twilight Saga owned the box office, just like the earlier releases in this series. Breaking Dawn, Part 2 grossed $141,067,000. This is a hundred million more than Skyfall, which held it’s own raising $41,104,000 in its second weekend. Spielberg’s Lincoln earned $21,049,000 in its first weekend in wide release. Breaking Dawn Part 2 also added a huge $119.6 million from oversees growth.

In terms of Twilight movies, this was a relatively low opening weekend. While the oversees opening was higher than any other Twilight film, it did not stack up as well as expected to 2012’s domestic box office. This was the fourth highest grossing film released in 2012. Falling behind: The Avengers, The Dark Knight Rises, and The Hunger Games. It is also behind New Moon’s opening weekend release of $142,839,000.

The average opening weekend releases for Twilight movies is just over $111 million dollars. Breaking Dawn Part 2 is gearing up for a strong run in the domestic box office. The final installment in the franchise will likely be around for a few more weeks. Overall, the Twilight films have strong domestic gross. The five films combined have made more than a billion dollars, totaling in at $1,212,280,00. That figure includes The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 opening weekend gross. It is sure to bring in more in the next few weeks.

Next week’s Thanksgiving box office offers a lot of options to viewers. Oscar-winning director Ang Lee directs the film adaptation of Yann Martels’s novel, The Life of Pi. The remake of the 1984 film Red Dawn is coming out. Instead of fighting the soviets, a group of teenagers tries to stop the North Koreans from invading America. Dreamworks releases in newest animated feature, Rise of the Guardians. Finally, Silver Linings Playbook is released nation-wide.

Stats complied using Boxofficemojo.com.

Wreak-It Ralph

This week I had the pleasure of seeing Disney Animation Studios’ newest release Wreak-It Ralph. This film is as much for adults as it is for children. Disney truly out did itself with this one. The animation was spectacular with extreme attention to detail. It all came together with a beautiful story that will warm up even the coldest hearts.

Wreak-It Ralph is a trip down memory lane for the parents that take their kids to see it. Disney’s meticulous attention to detail combines the newest games with the classics that most adults played growing up. What would happen if a Halo-style character is let loose in a Mario Kart or Donkey Kong-like game? Screenwriters Phil Johnston and Jennifer Lee share their idea with the viewer.

Ralph is an arcade game bad guy that just wants to be viewed as a good guy and accepted into his community. He sets out into different video games to become the hero. An accident in the war game “Hero’s Duty” sends him to “Sugar Rush.” In “Sugar Rush,” he meets Venellope Von Schweetz, a young girl that just wants to be accepted and have the chance to race with the other characters. Ralph’s game companion, Felix, and “Hero’s Duty” star, Calhoun, enter “Sugar Rush” to save every video game in the arcade. Only Disney could take something this imaginative and make it amazing with zero story flaws.

One of my favorite parts of the movie is that the characters match the actors voicing them. John C. Reilly voices the star, Ralph. Vanellope looks like Sarah Silverman. Felix resembles Jack McBrayer. There is a striking resemblance between Calhoun and Jane Lynch. This added to the film as the audience feels the personalities of the actors come through the screen.

I would expect to see a story like this from Pixar. Perhaps that is because John Lasseter (Chief Creative Officer for both Pixar and Disney Animation Studios) took the helm as executive producer of the film. It seems that everything he touches turns to gold. To me, Lasseter is the modern-day Walt Disney.

Also, Wreak-It Ralph features a beautiful animated short that appears right before the movie starts. The short, Paperman, is about a young man that tries to get the attention of a woman he meets on a train platform. Paperman has an old-style feel with its black and white combination of hand-drawn and computer animation. This short is so delightful that it is worth seeing on its own. It will be a huge contender in the Oscars’ Animated Short category against Pixar’s La Luna, released earlier this year in front of Brave.

Wreak-It Ralph is one of the best films to come out of Disney Animation Studio’s since The Princess and the Frog.

Box Office Returns for November 9-11

It’s no surprise what movie toped the box office this week!

The twenty-third Bond film, Skyfall, grossed over 88 million dollars in its first weekend at the box office. This is the highest opening weekend for the fifty-year-old film franchise. Even when adjusted for inflation, Skyfall garnered nearly 16 million dollars more than Quantum of Solace. This puts Daniel Craig’s latest film on track for being one of the most successful Bond films of all time. It also asserts that the franchise will continue to be a strong box office contender with the future releases.

A surprisingly strong opening was Steven Spielberg’s newest film, Lincoln. It hit fifteen on this week’s list with $944,308. While this may not sound like a good opening at all, Lincoln was in limited release in only 11 theaters! The film averaged $85,846 in each theater (for a comparison note: Skyfall averaged just over $25,000 a theater). I look forward to seeing what it will to in its full release this upcoming weekend. Period pieces generally struggle in theaters, but with a strong cast including: Daniel Day-Lewis, Sally Field, Joseph Gordon-Levitt and Tommy Lee Jones this film will do well.

Hanging tight in the top five are Wreck-It Ralph, Flight, Argo, and Taken 5. These films are steadily increasing their total domestic gross. The movies in the top five have all been well reviewed – a key in maintaining a top spot on the list.

The studios are doing much better this year in terms of attendance. In comparison with last year’s top box office, the newly released movie, Immortals, only grossed about 32 million dollars. This is great news for the struggling studios that have been battling low attendance for a few years now.

Next week’s releases are The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn Part 2 and the limited release of Keira Knightley and Jude Law’s newest drama, Anna Karenina. Expect Breaking Dawn to shatter records, as teenage girls will line up all over the country to catch their last glimpse of Edward Cullen and Jacob Black.

Statistics compiled using boxofficemojo.com. 

Skyfall

The twenty-thrird James Bond movie was released today. Daniel Craig returns to play the legendary spy in Skyfall. Skyfall pays tribute to the earlier films in the series, whilst modernizing the film. The film features amazing performances, better than I’ve seen in most Bond films.

Since the days of fighting the Soviets are over, Bond has to tackle a new villain. More recent Bond films tried to fight country-less terrorists. However, Skyfall takes a much different approach: What do you do when your country turns on you?

MI-6 is not only under attack from an outside threat but the British government is questioning M’s ability to lead the Secret Intelligence Service. James Bond “returns from the dead” to save his country and boss. The film focuses on someone in M’s past seeking vengeance on her for her actions. Bond loyally stands by her and tears through England to protect her.

The acting in this film amazed me. I always expect great things from Dame Judy Dench and she did not disappoint. Javier Bardem mostly shocked me in his unrecognizable role, Silva. He was phenomenal in this Oscar-worthy performance.  Rounding out the supporting cast was Ralph Fiennes as Gareth Mallory.

Skyfall is Craig’s third Bond film. Craig is excellent as the playboy, killing machine. It has been reported that he signed on to do two more films following Skyfall. This initially surprised me. The film dropped hints that this would be his last one: referencing his age, death/resurrection, and subtle change of important roles.

This film deviated from other Bond films in a unique homage to them. A few years ago, during the filming of Skyfall, a commotion was made when it was announced that Bond would drink Heineken beer.  The beer made it into a few scenes and Bond’s hand. When he did finally return to his signature martini, we never got to hear him order it “shaken, not stirred.” It wasn’t until late in the film that the famed Aston Martin returned. Even Q separated the film from early Bond films when giving Bond his high-tech gadgets: “What did you expect, an exploding pen?”

This is a must see. It is great for fans of the series but certainly is not limited to just Bond fanatics. It’s a great action film with a lot of heart. (Surprising for a Bond film, I know.) If you’re going to the movies this weekend, my suggestion is Skyfall.

Box Office Returns for November 2-4, 2012

This weekend was a lackluster at the box office. No movie stood out with great numbers. Wreak-It Ralph was the clear winner with Flight coming in second. Argo fell from number one last week to round out the top three. Quentin Tarantino’s The Man with the Iron Fists reached number four with a low $8 million it’s first week out.

Disney’s Wreck-It Ralph came in at number 1 with $49 million. Disney’s fall animation feature beat out Sony’s Halloween comedy, Hotel Transylvania, which had $42 million in its opening weekend. Hotel Transylvania was released in late September in an attempt to be a new Halloween classic. Wreck-It Ralph is about a video game villain, Ralph, that decides he wants to be the good character. He proceeds to game jump in order to find out more about himself. Wreck-It Ralph has jokes for both children and parents. This is just another sign that Disney rules the animation genre.

I am surprised to see such low numbers from Denzel Washington’s newest film, Flight. Denzel plays a pilot that saves an entire plane in an crash landing and the media swarm that follows. Flight was just shy of $25 million in this weekend’s box office. A name like Denzel Washington usually guarantees a bigger opening.

Another film in the top ten, Cloud Atlas brought in just over $5 million. This indie film stars Halle Barry and Tom Hanks. The limited release of the film explains why the gross of the film is so small for these two stars.

A trend in the box office numbers lately is that names are not opening films like they have been in the past. It’s shocking to see John C. Reilly’s Wreck-It Ralph open higher than Denzel’s Flight. Hanks and Barry’s film has only brought in about $20 million in its two weeks in theaters.

Studios are gearing for the holiday releases. This is often a dump period for films that didn’t make the summer line up and aren’t enough for holiday weekends. Next week, I predict big numbers from the new James Bond film, Skyfall, which has already grossed $289 million is it's foreign count. It opens in America this Friday. Expect to see higher box office numbers from now until Christmas. 

Numbers were complied using boxofficemojo.com. 

Argo

“How can a movie about the Iran Hostage Crisis be funny?”

This was the first thing my friend asked me when I told him to go see Argo. My answer was simple, “I don’t know, but it is.”

Argo came out on October 12 2012 and I was able to go to the midnight showing. This movie is one of the best I’ve seen in a long time. BenAffleck directs this period piece about the CIA operation to save six Americans that escaped the US Embassy in Iran moments before it was it was taken.

Argo has everything: a stunning cast, great writing, and intense moments that keep the audience of the edge of its seat. First, the cast was amazing! The old boys club of acting gets together for this film. Ben Affleck plays Tony Mendez who teams up with Hollywood hotshots John Cambers and Lester Siegel (John Goodman and Alan Arkin, respectively) to create publicity for a fake movie so that Mendez can sneak the Americans out as a Canadian film crew. Rounding out the cast is Bryan Cranston as Mendez’s boss Jack O’Donnell and Victor Garber as the Canadian Ambassador that hides the group of six in Iran.

This story was extremely well written, especially the dialogue. The film is filled with quick, dry humor that would make you think it’s an Aaron Sorkin TV show. Argo is based on the CIA’s actual mission to rescue the group. The dialogue is so witty and real that you can actually imagine men sitting around a table at Langley arguing about sending bicycles into Iran so the hostages can bike out. The film is also abundant with quips about the film industry. If you are a cinephile like me, you will certainly pick up on the subtle humor about making a union film.

The story is wonderfully drawn out to build tension. Rarely do films today build tension to drive the audience crazy. Much like the period it is set in, Argo plays with the audiences’ emotion through building tension. I could feel my heart racing at many points and had to contain myself from yelling at the screen.

I loved Argo. From the moment I saw the trailer, I knew I had to see it. I thought this would be more of a spy film than it actually was. It focused more on the making of a fake movie, which I was certainly fine with. This film will definitely be talked about as award season gets near. I highly recommend this film now!