In Cinemas This Week

Want to know what’s coming out at your favorite cineplex this weekend, without the hassle of visiting another site? Well friends, look no further! Here’s a preview of all of this week’s new releases.

• The Day the Earth Stood Still
  Director: Scott Derrickson
  Starring: Keanu Reeves, Jennifer Connelly, Kathy Bates, Jaden Smith, Jon Hamm
  General Release

  The Day the Earth Stood Still stars Keanu Reeves as an alien named Klaatu. If that first sentence isn’t an automatic deterrent (and who could blame you?), this might just be a guilty little piece of popcorn fluff to take the edge off of the insanity of holiday shopping. The film also boasts Jon Hamm of Mad Men fame (“Don Draper, you dirty dog!”), which is reason enough to sit in the back row with a trench coat over your lap and a smile on your face.

• Delgo
  Director: Marc F. Adler, Jason Maurer
  Starring: Freddie Prinze Jr., Jennifer Love Hewitt, Val Kilmer, Chris Kattan, Kelly Ripa, Michael Clarke Duncan, Eric Idle, Malcolm McDowell, Burt Reynolds, Lou Gossett Jr., Anne Bancroft
  General Release

  Ten years ago, Freddie Prinze Jr and Jennifer Love Hewitt co-starred in a movie called I Know What You Did Last Summer. It was the pinnacle of their careers, and the duo are now better known as Senor Vampire Slayer and some sort of ghost/dog whisper, respectively. In fact, I’m quite certain that the only people who know that these two has-beens are still alive are Sarah Michelle Gellar and the sad women who watch emotional Friday night television programs. The fact that FPJ and JLH have top billing in this (poorly) animated film should tell you everything that you need to know, but were afraid to ask, about Delgo.

• Nothing Like the Holidays
  Director: Alfredo De Villa
  Starring: John Leguizamo, Debra Messing, Freddy Rodriguez, Alfred Molina
  General Release

  Christmas movies centered around adorably dysfunctional families are made to make you feel better about your own maladjusted familial unit; it’s Hollywood’s one charitable gift to the Christmas-celebrating world. As a result, people tend to see anything that has ‘Christmas’, ‘Holiday’, or ‘Santa’ in the title (as with the recently dreadful box office hit Four Christmases, or the inexplicable Santa Clause trilogy). This week’s offering is called Nothing Like the Holidays. While it won’t exactly re-invent the wheel, the strong supporting cast should make this the most bearable of a predictably lame genre.

• A Christmas Tale
  Director: Arnaud Desplechin
  Starring: Catherine Deneuve, Matthieu Amalric, Melvil Poupaud, Chiara Mastroianni, Jean-Paul Roussillon, Anne Consigny, Hippolyte Girardot, Emmanuelle Devos, Emile Berling, Laurent Capelluto
  Avon Cinema, Providence: Evenings @ 7pm, Saturday & Sunday Matinees @ 1:30pm

  Alors! Zee French do everything better. Zay cook better, zay make love better, and zay make of zee Christmas movie better. Remember how I snarked about Christmas movies, oh, 20 seconds ago? I obviously didn’t mean foreign Christmas movies. Foreign Christmas movies have subtitles and full-frontal nudity, both of which are scientifically proven to make you a better, smarter person. This one’s getting rave reviews, which just might restore this grinch’s faith in the les films de Noël.

• Patti Smith: Dream of Life
  Director: Steven Sebring
  Starring: Patti Smith, Lenny Kaye, Oliver Ray, Tony Shanahan, Jay Dee Daughterty, Jackson Smith, Jesse Smith, Tom Verlaine, Sam Shepard, Phillip Glass, Benjamin Smoke, Flea
  Avon Cinema, Providence: Friday & Saturday @ 4:30pm & 10:05pm

  In this delightful yuletide romp, songstress Patti Smith reluctantly discovers the true meaning of Christmas amidst the zany antics of her adorably dysfunctional family.

  We should be so lucky.

  It reportedly took 12 years to make this documentary. While I would have spent that time convincing Ms Smith of the merits of deep-root hair conditioning and the importance of a daily makeup routine, director Sebring has focused on things like ‘poetry’ and ‘artistic integrity’ which, I’m sure, will please long-time fans of Smith’s prolific career.