HOLLY, JOLLY MOVIES - pt. 1

IN THE THEATRES...

The Holiday awards season is underway, so the studios are pushing out a lot of material, and as a result, I have a lot of reviews in the pipeline. This is the first batch of the ones that are starting to get released in various markets. The Friday and Christmas Day movies will be reviewed in the next couple of days.

* Dreamgirls, a rousing musical that is made on the strength of some phenomenal performances

* The Good German, in which George Clooney, Cate Blanchett, and director Steven Soderbergh pay tribute to the great WWII dramas of old Hollywood

* The Painted Veil, a boring literary adaptation from John Curran, starring Naomi Watts and the increasingly dull-witted Edward Norton

* Rocky Balboa, a surprisingly viable final round for Sylvester Stallone

THIS WEEK IN DVD REVIEWS...

* The Bollywood Dance Workout with Hemalayaa, an experiment that didn't quite work. Joëlle and I had a blast doing it. She particularly enjoyed laughing at how lame I was at getting the moves right. I sucked so, so bad. The idea was that we would do it together and I'd report on it...but nothing really came to me when it was time to review it. I just really said all there was to say.

* ER - The Complete Sixth Season, continues my love for the best hospital drama on television. And this season we see the introduction of Goran Visnjic and Maura Tierney into the emergency room.

* Human Cargo, a Canadian miniseries about the traffic of refugees

* Idiocracy, Mike Judge's hilarious comedy about our own stupid future

* Jet Li's Fearless, the actor's last martial art's flick is a straight-ahead fight fest

* The Promise, a beleaguered fantasy effort from Chen Kaige

* Time to Leave, a rumination on death by Francois Ozon (5X2 and 8 Women)

As I should have been able to predict, I've already been told I have a stick up my own butt in relation to The Painted Veil. When you really don't like a movie, people take it personally. Far more personal, I'd say, than they usually accuse the reviewer of being. It's interesting, if nothing else.

Current Soundtrack: Antony & the Johnsons, Antony & the Johnsons

Current Mood: blah

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All text (c) 2006 Jamie S. Rich