Thanksgiving means Wednesday releases. Holidays are the best! From us at Halfstack to you and your families, we wish you a holiday full of happiness -- and savory meals. And hey, if you don’t fall into a food coma, there are several new releases vying for your attention.
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| Photo credit: Moana/Facebook |
Allied
Director: Robert Zemeckis
Writer: Steven Knight
Starring: Brad Pitt, Marion Cotillard, Vincent Ebrahim, Xavier De Guillebon
Brad Pitt and Marion Cotillard star as a pair of married spies who may or may not be on the opposite sides of World War II. Intrigue, 1940s-era clothing, and sexual tension are exactly the types of things everyone wants to see while they are bloated from too much turkey, right? If you’re in the mood for something breezy but which still has historical heft, the latest from Robert Zemeckis (Forrest Gump, The Walk) might be up your alley.
Bad Santa 2
Director: Mark Waters
Writers: Johnny Rosenthal, Shauna Cross
Starring: Billy Bob Thornton, Kathy Bates, Tony Cox
It has been 13 years since the black-hearted comedy classic Bad Santa introduced us to the world’s worst mall Santa. Billy Bob Thornton played a skinny St. Nick with a terrible drinking (and womanizing) problem who was forced to screw up his plans to rob a mall in order to take care of a goofy kid with severe socializing issues. Now he’s back in the game, with a new heist planned. This time, Mean Girls director Mark Waters takes over behind the camera from the much more sardonic Terry Zwigoff. Even though Mean Girls is a classic (it’s probably the last great teenage comedy), it does not have anywhere near the same level of bleakness to its comedy. But it certainly appears as though Thornton is as much of a mean drunk as he was during the Bush administration.
Moana
Directors:
Ron Clements, Don Hall, John Musker, Chris Williams
Ron Clements, Don Hall, John Musker, Chris Williams
Writers: Jared Bush, Ron Clements, John Musker, Chris Williams, Don Hall, Pamela Ribon, Aaron Kandell, Jordan Kandell
Starring: Auli'i Cravalho, Dwayne Johnson, Rachel House
Here’s the family option, and what a potentially majestic option it is. Disney’s latest, an adventure in the seas around Hawaii, tells the story of a young woman (the title character played by Auli'i Cravalho) searching for a magical island with a demigod played by none other than Dwayne Johnson, also known as the most charming man in Hollywood (also, more simply, as “The Rock”). The main draw for the kids is probably the rip roaring adventure on the high seas, with lots of colors and goofy characters. For their nerdy parents, the songs, written by Hamilton creator Lin-Manuel Miranda, might be more of a draw. My girlfriend (we don’t have kids) is a theatre dork who will be more excited than any child in the audience when we see it together.
Rules Don’t Apply
Director: Warren Beatty
Writers: Warren Beatty, Bo Goldman
Starring: Lily Collins, Haley Bennett, Taissa Farmiga, Warren Beatty, Alden Ehrenreich
Warren Beatty has been out of the Hollywood game for a long time. Outside of reprising his role as Dick Tracy in a 2010 TV movie, the legend best known for Bonnie and Clyde has only appeared in one other movie this century. Now he's back as another filmmaking legend, Howard Hughes, in a love story about two of Hughes’s employees (Lily Collins and Alden Ehrenreich) falling in love. I'm not the best judge of Beatty’s directorial skills because I've only seen Bulworth, a political satire that is painfully bad. But hey, remember what I wrote above about breezy stories? Rules Don't Apply looks like another option for you to watch that that particular quality in your holiday entertainment.
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