See it or Skip it? – Nov. 29
Killing Them Softly
Director Andrew Dominik of “The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford” reunites with his star Brad Pitt in this crime thriller. Pitt plays Jackie Cogan (one ‘O’ shy of being named after the actor who played Uncle Fester on “The Addams Family” television show), as an enforcer who finds himself in the unique situation of restoring order to a criminal economy after its collapse due to a heist during a mob-oriented poker game. So far, it has garnered very positive reviews, since its premiere last May at Cannes.
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Due to last week being Thanksgiving vacation, we need to catch up on last week’s news you may have missed over the break. The original “Red Dawn” by John Milius (the real life Walter Sobchak) was a slightly cheesy, but memorable 1980s Cold War film that was actually the first PG-13 rated film. This is a remake of that film, updated from the Soviet Union invading a small town to North Korea being the enemy. Our band of America teenage defenders includes Chris Hemsworth (“Thor”), Josh Hutcherson (“The Hunger Games”) and Josh Peck (“Drake and Josh”). Yeah, Hemsworth’s gonna have to work overtime to phase out the others. Patrick Swayze in the original film at least had a fellow cast mate from “The Outsiders,” C. Thomas Howell and pre-Tiger Blood and Two-and-Half Men Charlie Sheen at his side. This unnecessary remake was actually supposed to come out two years ago, but was shelved due to the original studio’s financial troubles. Unfortunately, it was picked up by another distributor and released, when it should have stayed on the shelf.
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Chris Pine (“Star Trek”), Alec Baldwin (“30 Rock”) and Hugh Jackman (“X-Men”) provide the voices for Jack Frost, Santa Claus and The Easter Bunny retrospectively in this DreamWorks computer-animated fantasy film, based off of William Joyce’s “The Guardians of Childhood” book series. It’s a safe bet for a film to take the kids to and shouldn’t be a total exercise in mediocrity, as famed fantasy director Guillermo del Toro served as one of the executive producers. It should prove to be more worthy than “Hotel Transylvania.”
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