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Stuck on flicks
by Ed Johnson-Ott Dec 3, 2003
A glance at top holiday movies
The holiday season is here. You have things to do: gifts to buy, decorations to put up, family gatherings to plan … and dread. What you need is a good movie. Here’s a quick guide to some of the films opening this month. All dates are subject to change. Dec. 5: THE LAST SAMURAI starring Tom Cruise, Timothy Spall, Billy Connolly, Tony Goldwyn and Ken Watanbe. Cruise charges ahead in an action-packed, based-on-fact drama as a Civil War vet invited by Japan’s emperor to modernize his army. Things do not go as planned. HONEY starring Jessica Alba, Lil’ Romeo and Mekhi Phifer. Underdog story with lots of music video moments. Alba, who gained fame in the TV series Dark Angel, plays a girl from the Bronx trying to make it big as a dancer. It could turn out to be another Saturday Night Fever. Or Glitter 2. Dec. 12: SOMETHING’S GOTTA GIVE starring Jack Nicholson, Diane Keaton, Keanu Reeves, Amanda Peet and Frances McDormand. Comedy. Jack falls for Amanda, but matters get complicated when he meets her mother, played by Keaton. And look, there’s Keanu, wearing civvies on screen for the first time in years. STUCK ON YOU starring Matt Damon and Greg Kinnear. Comedy from the Farrelly brothers (There’s Something About Mary) with Damon and Kinnear as twins conjoined at the waist. Expect loads of tasteless humor tempered by an affectionate approach. Expect Cher and Meryl Streep to pop up. LOVE DON’T COST A THING starring Nick Cannon and Christina Milian. Remake of the 1987 Patrick Dempsey comedy Can’t Buy Me Love, with unpopular Cannon paying cheerleader Milian to pretend to be his girlfriend. A few members of our Sheriff’s Department tried something vaguely similar a few weeks ago, but that didn’t work out very well. Dec. 16: LORD OF THE RINGS MARATHON. For hard-core Middle-Earth fans, this is a dream come true. In the late morning, they see the incredibly long special edition version of the first film in the trilogy, followed by the incredibly long special edition version of the second episode. It all wraps up in the evening, as the faithful will be the first members of the public to see the concluding installment. Alas, the new movie is just the regular three-hours-plus version. Those wishing to see the mega-long versions of all three on the big screen will have to wait a year or so. Dec. 17: THE LORD OF THE RINGS: THE RETURN OF THE KING starring Elijah Wood, Viggo Mortensen, Sean Astin, Ian McKellen and Orlando Bloom. The acclaimed epic wraps up with this highly anticipated battle-packed installment. Dec. 19: MONA LISA SMILE starring Julia Roberts, Kirsten Dunst, Julia Stiles, Maggie Gyllenhaal, Marcia Gay Harden. What a cast! Roberts takes a job as an art history teacher at a women’s college in the ’50s, only to discover that most of her students are motivated more by tradition than ambition. Dec. 25: CHEAPER BY THE DOZEN starring Steve Martin, Bonnie Hunt and Tom Welling. The only things this comedy has in common with the charming 1950 original are the title and the number of kids. Martin plays the papa, a coach who must care for all 12 of his kids when Mama Hunt goes on tour to promote her book. IN AMERICA starring Samantha Morton and Paddy Considine. Film festival favorite about an Irish immigrant family starting a new life in New York City. COLD MOUNTAIN starring Nicole Kidman, Jude Law, Renee Zellweger, Philip Seymour Hoffman and Natalie Portman. Civil War soldier Law tries to get home to his true love, Kidman. From the director of The English Patient, so it probably won’t be short. PAYCHECK starring Ben Affleck, Aaron Eckhar and Uma Thurman. Sci-fi thriller. Computer engineer Affleck suffers a memory erasure. The bad news: He’s being chased by scary guys. The good news: He can’t remember Gigli. The other good news: Paycheck is directed by John Woo. PETER PAN starring Jeremy Sumpter and Ludivine Sagnier. Live action version of the popular children’s fantasy, with Peter Pan played by an actual boy. What a concept! THE YOUNG BLACK STALLION starring Biana G. Tamimi and a horse. Prequel to the 1979 film, set in Africa. Premiering on the big IMAX screen. Dec. 26: HOUSE OF SAND AND FOG starring Ben Kingsley and Jennifer Connelly. Intense drama. Connelly is a recovering alcoholic, deeply depressed after her husband dumps her, who loses her home due to a clerical error. Kingsley is a family man, forced to leave his home country, who buys the place at auction and improves it. She decides to get back what was taken from her and he decides to defend his family’s stake in his new homeland. 21 GRAMS starring Sean Penn, Naomi Watts and Benico Del Toro. Twenty-one grams is supposedly the amount a body loses when it dies. The weight of a soul, perhaps. Penn, Watts and Del Toro are drawn together by a tragedy in this contemplative drama from Amores Perros director Alejandro Gonzalez Inarritu.
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