Opening this Weekend
Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
Cats
Bombshell
A Hidden Life
Klaus
Box Office Predictions
- Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker
- Jumanji: The Next Level
- Cats
- Frozen II
- Bombshell
What You Should See
It’s a CATastrophe!
Like Jack Eichel going second to we-all-know-who at the 2015 NHL draft, I think any other normal new movie weekend where something the likes of a new Star Wars was being released would have begun with Star Wars coverage first, but sometimes there is something or someone so spectacular and meteoric that it rises to the top of everything we think about when it comes to the form. And so, this may be the only sentence in existence where you will find Connor McDavid being compared to that crazy-ass Cats movie opening today. Because if the world was normal, a new Star Wars movie would be the biggest news [and Jack Eichel would have gone first], but, man, sometimes something so crazy talented or eye-catching comes out that we can’t not go with that one first/not first address Cats.
So first of all, Cats is not good. I don’t think anyone’s here to make that argument. I’ve heard words like “awful” and “bewildered” and “scared” from trusted critics while they gave their reviews of Cats along with descriptions to the effect of “a horrible mistake” and “I don’t think the actors all knew what movie they were in”. But Cats looks so bonkers and so visually offputting and so clearly a bad idea from the outset that we can’t not give it it’s proper due now that it’s finally with us this Christmas-Eve weekend.
That said, I’m not going to see it. You shouldn’t either. But you should be thinking about it.
Meanwhile, Star Wars: The Rise of Skywalker concludes this latest Star Wars trilogy said to also be the final word on the Skywalker legacy, and… sigh… reviews are mixed. Now you should remember that our E-i-C Thom called the preceding Last Jedi his favourite Star Wars movie of all time, and, with some reservations, we all generally like it here (because we’re sane people and not a**holes [not most of us at least]), but it’s hard for all of us here at GOO Reviews to not feel down on the whole affair given the overall shape of the current Star Wars media landscape. That said, I can’t imagine not going to see the new Star Wars on its opening.
The rest of the movie weekend, however, looks a little more measured than the preceding two films. Bombshell, on the Roger Ailes Fox News scandal, is an intriguing-looking new prestige-format release that’s also unfortunately not gotten the level of reviews we would have liked. A Hidden Life (playing only at the Princess) tells the sobering tale of conscientious World-War-II objector Franz Jägerstätter through the lens of not always-sobering director Terrence Malick. And finally, the animated Klaus, which, technically, you could have seen on Netflix since November 15 (and still could do right now), starts showing theatrically here in Edmonton at Metro Cinema.
And so it is, on this final 2019 weekend before Christmas, that I will bring our little weekend preview show to its usual unnatural conclusion, and wish you a very merry holiday season full characterized by good tidings and a lack of harmful violence. I’d like to remind you at this time that, as with every Christmas, a few other new movies will be slipping out on the day for those of you lucky enough to come from families that go to movies on Christmas instead of wasting all hours of the day at bigger family get togethers of Christmas breakfasts and Christmas brunches and Christmas dinners, and this year we have Little Women and Spies in Disguise opening Christmas Day. If you can, I would highly recommend seeing Little Women on Christmas Day 2019 despite (spoiler alert?) not being a woman myself and I have no thoughts whatsoever about Spies in Disguise.
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