Opening Today: December 8th (now with trailers!)

December 8th, 2006 in Movies, Opening Today, Trailers

Gibson Apocalypto Poster

Previews of all today’s new releases, now with trailers…

Apocalypto

Got to be honest, for all the bad press (not just Mad Mel’s drink-driving, Jew-baiting, sugar-tits extravaganza, but the film’s uberviolence too) I can’t wait to see this. Yes, it’s all in the Yukatek Mayan language but so what? Subtitles aren’t hard to read. There’ll be no dodgy Scottish accents or star/director power trip a la Braveheart, and there’ll be no personal religious conviction a la The Passion. Just the brutal end of a civilization from the perspective of one man….

Blood Diamond

Djimon Hounsou is a poor Mende fisherman forced to do some diamond mining in Sierra Leone. He accidentally finds a diamond so shiny it’s the non-Middle Earth equivalent of Gollum’s “precious”, and wisely hides it. Leo DiCaprio is a South African mercenary/smuggler type who for one reason or another teams up with Hounsou to find the diamond. Kudos to DiCaprio for what sounds like a decent stab at a South African accent….

Breaking and Entering

Anthony Minghella finally abandons the epic to make a more personal film about the Kings Cross area of London. Jude Law is a married architect who meets Bosnian refugee Juliette Binoche after her son steals his laptop. Then …and this may shock you… Jude Law cheats. Can you imagine?…

The Holiday

Oh dear. This looks bad. Cameron Diaz and Kate Winslet play recently single ladies on opposite side of the Atlantic who meet over the internet and agree to swap houses for Christmas. Diaz gets it on with Jude Law, Winslet with Jack Black. Which seems an unfair swap to me. And when one of the gags that makes the trailer is snow falling on Cameron Diaz’s head you’ve got to worry.

Ed Burns does get punched in the face though, so at least that’s something.

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Unaccompanied Minors

The great thing about John Hughes films is that they always sound like bad ideas. And if John Hughes didn’t write or direct them they probably would be. When all Hoover International Airport flights are grounded by snow on Christmas Eve, five kids traveling sans parents (basically Home Alone x 5) are semi-imprisoned by Lewis Black’s airport security guard, and must band together despite their differences (basically The Breakfast Club).

John Hughes did not write or direct this movie.

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If Screenhead had $10 it would spend it on… Apocalypto.

If Screenhead had $50 it would spend it in this order…