The Princess and the Frog:
Pass. I mean, the trailer for this didn’t exactly excite me. It is more for kids, more for girls I think, and I just didn’t really seem to care for much of what I saw. Maybe I’ll see it on DVD or something eventually.
Invictus:
I was completely unaware of Nelson Mandela’s attempt to utilize the South African Rugby team to unify his country behind a common love. Morgan Freeman and Matt Damon are both incredible, and not knowing how things turned out made the sports parts exciting. Thumbs up.
Me and Orson Welles:
Not a wide opening, but since I did see a screening I wanted to mention it. Set during Orson Welles’ production of Julius Caesar at the Mercury Theater, Zac Efron plays Richard Samuels, a high school kid who dreams of acting, who runs to the city and talks his way into a small but important roll in Welles’ production. Welles, played fantastically by Christian McKay, runs roughshod over his company to get the vision he wants. Richard falls for Sonja Jones, played by Claire Danes, a production assistant, but she has her eyes on a future career in theater and movies. There isn’t a lot of action here, but there is a lot of heart and humor. However, the real reason to see this film is to see McKay playing Welles. Completely worth the price of admission if you are in to that sort of thing.
I watched a Morgan Freeman movie the other day, called The Maiden Heist, that was pretty good. It had him, Christopher Walken and William H. Macy as a few old museum guards who are obsessed with certain paintings and decide to steal them rather than see them shipped to another museum. It reminded me of The Bucket List… cute, subtle humor about some crazy old geezers. I rented it because Freeman’s movies are almost always good. It was odd seeing him paired with Walken.
Is Avatar out yet? I guess not. I haven’t seen anything in the theater in a while, but I’m looking forward to that. I need to see the 3D A Christmas Carol before that’s gone, too.
Avatar comes out next week, the 18th. http://boxofficemojo.com/schedule/ is where I go to keep track of what opens.
I saw a preview for The Maiden Heist and it looks fantastic. It is sitting near the top of my Netflix queue just waiting for me to get through another couple of films first.