Elizabeth Both
Staff-Writer
After the closing of the autumn Film Festivals, the winter movie season comes in with a bang. Leading up to the highly anticipated televised award ceremonies in the heart of winter, movies that have been praised at the fall festivals are now glowing in the spotlight. A major blockbuster that audiences have been waiting for a year is the first installment of the Suzanne Collins rave, Mockingjay Part 1. On its opening weekend it made a record this year with 123 million at the box office. The winter movie season is always packed, especially with all the holiday school breaks, the head honchos in the movie business know our schedules and school holidays mean more movie going time. The all star Brit, Benedict Cumberbatch, has critics screaming over a possibility of an Oscar nod for his Nazi code-breaker film The Imitation Game, hitting theaters late November. December 5th breaks the barrier with the release of Reese Witherspoon’s in Wild and Chris Rock’s Paramount comedy Top Five.
Following the next Friday of hit films, Ridley’s Scott’s cinematic experience starring Christian Bale, Exodus: Gods and Kings is sure going to be box-office buster (Even though Charleton Heston did a pretty decent job of this story before in 10 Commandments). Paul Thomas Anderson of Boogie Nights lowers the cinematic spectrum a little with his Indie based-off-a -book flick, Inherent Vice. On December 17th, the long awaited final installment of Peter Jackson’s Tolkien franchise, The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies is setting up to be emotional and a CGI effect mania. Two days later the family fun movie Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb starring Ben Stiller and the beloved Robin Williams,takes on its third installment since its sequel in 2009. On the same day the classic movie of Annie is now a modern remake starring Cameron Diaz, Jamie Foxx and the youngest Best Actress nominee in history: Quvenzhane Wallis. Another old school remake is the 1974 drama-thriller,The Gambler, starring Marky Mark himself and American Horror Story’s Jessica Lange, also hitting theaters on the 19th.
Close to setting up a worldwide craze; on this years’ Christmas Day, six potential Oscar contending movies are being issued and the catch is that the four of them are based off a true story. Clint Eastwood’s staying strong with his based on a real-life thriller biopic of Chris Kyle-one of the deadliest marksman in U.S Military History- in the adaption of the late Navy SEAL’s popular 2012 memoir titled American Sniper starring Bradley Cooper and Sienna Miller. Tim Burton’s film Big Eyes, with Amy Adams and the praised Christoph Waltz, is telling the true story of Margaret Keane and her famous paintings that her husband, Walter Keane, proclaimed that he actually painted her loved art. Funny guys, James Franco and Seth Rogen stir up trouble with the comedy The Interview, about a plot to assassinate Kim Jong-Un. A different take on things is the artistic, fairy tale film Into the Woods, starring Chris Pine, Anna Kendrick, Emily Blunt, Meryl Streep and Johnny Depp as the big bad wolf. The faithful film Selma takes on the interesting concept of the 1965 Selma in Montgomery, Alabama voting right marches with Martin Luther King. Angelina Jolie is taking the ropes of being a director with the fact-based drama chronicles of the life of an Olympian athlete-turned-WWII hero who survived Japanese POW camp called, Unbroken. Winter is when some of the years best movies come out into the screen scene, setting up higher and higher landmarks for other films in different seasons to follow. On that next snowy wintery day, head over to the theater to see some of the best movies of the year.
