Opening Everywhere: New Year’s Eve, The Sitter
Opening Somewhere: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, Young Adult… and a few others that you won’t see
FilmDrunk Suggests: I’m really excited for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, but Vince will not shut up about New Year’s Eve. He sent me this email earlier:
“Can you do the Weekend Movie Guide? We camped out for New Year’s Eve tickets all week and we’re about to see it for a third time!”
That guy and his Garry Marshall ensemble films.
New Year’s Eve
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 5% critics, 66% lonely, Match.com-using audience
Gratuitous Review Quotes
“When his wife’s water breaks, Meyers’s character hails a cab but turns his back briefly, so a stranger jumps in it and takes off. Never seen that one before! Then the movie cuts to Meyers and Biel in a rickshaw. As sight gags go, it’s weak. Also, no woman in labour would get in a rickshaw. Just saying.” – Dave McGinn, Globe and Mail
“As we all link arms and sing ‘Auld Lang Syne’ we hope that somewhere amid the streamers and popping champagne corks director Marshall is making a resolution to stop making these movies. If he gets his hands on St. Patrick’s Day we’re done for.” – Linda Barnard, Toronto Star
Armchair Analysis: If Mila Kunis walks up to me on the street and tells me that she has two tickets to see New Year’s Eve and she really wants me to see it with her, because I’m the most handsome man that she’s ever laid eyes on, and then Emma Stone walks up and tells me that she just absolutely has to see this movie with me and she’s willing to fight Mila to the death for the honor, and they start fighting and rip each other’s clothes off, then they both agree that they’ll both watch the movie with me and I’ll just have to deal with them being completely naked and rubbing against me for warmth, I will see this movie. But I will still talk about how terrible it is after the fact.
The Sitter
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 22% critics, 76% audience
Gratuitous Review Quotes
“Hill brings a touch of moral sincerity and a hint of physical vulnerability to characters in smart-aleck films in need of something true and oddly decent to make them funny — and not merely filthy.” – Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post
“Add up these three intentions – the down-and-dirty tone, the tender and uplifting message, the starring vehicle – and the math ain’t funny. Bottom line: This movie is a whole lot less than the sum of its parts.” – Rick Groen, Globe and Mail
Armchair Analysis: If anything, this film is a reminder of the comedy of fat Jonah Hill. I’m still not used to how thin he is now, and of course it’s good for him and I’m happy for him, but he still looks a little creepy. But this is about the film, and everything I’ve read indicates that this modern day Adventures in Babysitting is heavy on the racial humor and I LOVE THAT. So this looks like it could be good.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 88% critics, 72% audience who were upset about the lack of Ashton Kutcher and that chick from “Glee”
Gratuitous Review Quotes
“The cast is uniformly excellent, but as the ringleader of the Circus, Oldman owns the proceedings. In his limitless constraint — his commanding torpor — he is the equal of the magnificent Alec Guinness in the miniseries.” – Kyle Smith, New York Post
“Yet there’s nothing self-consciously post-modern about Tinker, Tailor. Alfredson offers no concessions to hindsight, no lessons for today. Instead, he’s kept faith with le Carre’s bleak, romantically elegiac vision of a moment in 20th century history at once glorious and doomed.” – Ella Taylor, NPR (Fun fact: My computer just asked me why the f*ck I was on the NPR site.)
Armchair Analysis: I’m a sucker for anything with Gary Oldman and anything about the Cold War, so this one is tickling my prostate in all the right places. It also already has huge Oscar buzz around it so you can go watch it and tell people you saw it when it wins everything. It’s all about convincing people that you’re smarter than you are, friends.
Young Adult
Rotten Tomatoes Score: 79% critics, 68% audience of just dudes sitting two seats apart
Gratuitous Review Quotes
“It’s a brave, challenging part, a monster of a different sort than the Monster that won Theron an Academy Award. Unsurprisingly, the consistently top-notch actress is up for the task, revealing the deep cracks in Mavis’s fragile psyche. In Theron’s hands, the character’s immature high school affectations—waving shots around in a bar, aggressively flirting with Buddy, looking at a baby like it’s a terrifying alien—come from a convincing, unhappy place.” – Robert Levin, The Atlantic
“In fact, ‘Young Adult’ is even better than ‘Monster,’ in that it’s not a stunt movie requiring a Halloween-costume performance but one in which the actress gets to show brand-new skills and colors through her own familiar face.” – Vince’s figure skating inspiration Mick LaSalle, San Francisco Chronicle (And yeah, Charlize only won that Best Actress statue because she dressed up all ugly. Otherwise, she’s terrible.)
Armchair Analysis: You can read Vince’s review for the third time here, but you don’t need an excuse to see this movie and quietly moan. Is that a popcorn bucket on my lap? Reach in and find out.