This is the time of year when many people gather together with their friends, families and loved ones to celebrate the holidays and prepare to usher in a new year, all while eating turkey and stuffing.
After all of that coming together, it's important to retain balance in your life. Gatherings can be intense and stressful. If you need some help figuring out how to unwind, movies are a great way to escape, take a break and maybe get a laugh or two in.
There are a lot of new movies that are already (or soon to be) in your local theatre houses for the next two weeks. Here's a summary guide for you to read through before you trek out and plunk down that gift card you got from your uncle to pay the admission.
Mission Impossible: Ghost Protocol
Have you ever seen a Tom Cruise movie in which he doesn't run? I'm not sure that such a movie even exists.
In this fourth instalment of the spy franchise, Ethan Hunt (Cruise) and the Impossible Missions Force are blamed for destroying the Kremlin. The president of the United States disavows his team (including Simon Pegg, Paula Patton and Jeremy Renner), leaving them to hide. Their only option is to track down the real culprit so long as Hunt has to run at the same time.
And so America's version of James Bond runs as much as possible across Moscow, Mumbai and Dubai, even running down the side of the Burj Khalifa, the tallest structure on the planet. Yes, it's actually Cruise doing his own stuntwork. No, it doesn't mean that the dialogue and plot are smarter than something like Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
This is billed as the original story that invented the spy thriller, and Tom Cruise is nowhere near it. John le Carré wrote the novel in 1974 during a time when the Cold War was still on and tensions between Russia and the U.S. were still very high.
George Smiley (Gary Oldman) returns from retirement to help the British Secret Intelligence Service find a Russian mole in the highest ranks of the organization. Oldman is no stranger to character-driven dramas. He's one of my favourite actors for that reason and for the fact that he can do just about anything, even if it's way over the top.
Here he's at his most subdued and subtle. This is a British movie after all, so everyone (including Colin Firth, Ciarán Hinds, Tom Hardy and John Hurt) has an air of restraint and a stiff upper lip. It's a beautiful thing.
Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
Robert Downey Jr. is the rare rogue who has a strong likeability factor for both women and men. It's only been two years since he brought back his Chaplin accent for the first Holmes movie directed by Guy Ritchie, and it's back in full force again.
Here, he and Dr. Watson (Jude Law) must match wits with Holmes's nemesis, Professor Moriarty (Jared Harris) as he commits a series of diabolical crimes across the European continent. Ritchie's stylish directing will likely appease the audience members who crave artistry but the fight scenes and explosions will keep the rest happy too.
The Adventures of Tintin
A computer-generated family movie based on a beloved series of classic kids' comic books by Belgian artist and author Hergé? How can it go wrong, especially with Steven Spielberg in the director's chair?
It probably can't. The boy reporter and adventurer is practically a younger version of Indiana Jones and they even have the same time frame and Saturday morning serial movie set up to further blur the distinction.
This one movie is based on three of the books: The Crab with the Golden Claws, The Secret of the Unicorn, and Red Rackham's Treasure, all set in the early 1940s. The boy wonder finds himself in a convoluted plot about a secret map and buried treasure.
It's one of those CG movies by Peter Jackson's Weta Digital company, the very one that brought Gollum and a host of creepy creatures to life in the Lord of the Rings series. Gollum himself — actor Andy Serkis — is joined here by Jamie Bell, Simon Pegg, and Daniel Craig.
The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo
This is the big Hollywood version of the first of Stieg Larsson's immensely popular and very dark novels known as the Millennium Trilogy. Daniel Craig plays disgraced journalist Mikael Blomkvist who is hired by the wealthy Henrik Vanger to investigate his family history with an eye for learning about what happened to his great-niece 36 years before.
Helping him in this quest is the computer savvy Lisbeth Salander (Rooney Mara) who is considered a loose cannon because of her goth punk style and antisocial attitudes. Together they make a good team in what is billed as "the feel bad movie of the year." That's not hard to believe considering it's directed by David Fincher, the guy who brought us Seven, Fight Club, Zodiac and Panic Room. All of these are very well done and enjoyable on many levels.
The Artist
This one has gotten a lot of interest and acclaim lately, making it look like a strong candidate for the upcoming film awards season. That means it must be incredibly well done, especially considering that it's a silent movie in black and white and takes place in the 1920s.
This French film is set in Hollywood. Movie star George Valentin (Jean Dujardin) rues the advent of the 'talkies' and wonders if his days of fame are over. Meanwhile, young upstart Peppy Miller (Bérénice Bejo) is just making her break in the biz. Somehow, I just know that these two will have a romantic entanglement to deal with as their careers carry on along opposite paths.
The rest
If you're looking for a holiday-themed movie for the family then Arthur Christmas is your only choice. However, New Year's Eve is still pretty close but I wouldn't recommend it unless you have a very high tolerance for saccharine.
Spielberg actually has two films out now: Tintin, as I already mentioned, and War Horse. This adaptation of a children's novel is about a horse in a war. Certainly the sweeping score by John Williams and the sweeping cinematography by Janusz Kaminski, both constant Spielberg collaborators, mean that some tears will be shed in this heartwarming tale.
Martin Scorsese's first children's film called Hugo — in 3D, no less — is getting very good reviews as well.
Personally, however, I've seen The Muppets twice already and enjoyed it immensely both times. The Darkest Hour and Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close both open up this week as well with entirely different target audiences.
