
the curmudgeonly movie lover’s unpleasant Advent calendar: December 12
Click or tap for season’s gratings…

Click or tap for season’s gratings…

Glossy Hollywood automatons sleepwalk through family dynamics full of forced quirkiness, excruciating cuteness, and phony emotion. Absolutely cringeworthy.
U.S. AND CANADA/OPENING WIDE Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time: It’s tanking in the U.K., and now it gets a shot at tanking in North America. [trailer] review to come If you can’t make it to the multiplex, try: • Big Trouble in Little China (1986): In which Kurt Russell goes up against an … more…

If you can manage to get through Dan in Real Life without falling madly in love with both Juliette Binoche and Steve Carell, then you’re a better man than I am, Charlie Brown.
So, I was raving to a friend about this great new movie I’d just seen, *The Family Stone,* how it’s about this big wacky family getting together for Christmas– And she stopped me right there with a moan and said, Oh God, it’s not like that Jodie Foster movie *Home for the Holidays,* is it? And I said, Why, yes, it’s exactly like that, but even better. She moaned again and said, Oh, I hate that movie.