Because you can’t spend the whole day swimming, tanning, shopping or playing footy in the park, every now and then the holiday season calls for you to have a quiet one. This ‘quiet one’ will forever and always involve the moving image. The cinema or your lounge room with the air-conditioning on is the perfect place to be when the thermometer clicks over 30. So what to see?
FOR THE BIG KID AT HEART
WRECK IT RALPH
The movie that can do no wrong. Wreck It Ralph is a film you can see with anyone. Kids, your date, and your friends will all enjoy the recognisable characters and popular gaming culture. Even if you don’t geek out with an X-Box Live account, there are many games referenced you’d have to have lived underground not to recognise. Produced by Pixar creator, John Lasseter, under the Disney Umbrella, Wreck It Ralph oozes the Pixar sensibilities we love. Ralph, voiced by John C. Reilly is paired with female counterparts Sarah Silverman and Jane lynch who execute hilarious line delivery to couple action scenes with humour. Get in early to watch the Pixar short, Paperman, and stay after for post credit jokes.
FOR THE BLOOD THIRSTY
DJANGO UNCHAINED
Two hours and forty five minutes of collective bad-ass debauchery. There’s blood sprayed on white snow, white cotton, white horses, white cakes and a killer cast monopolising scene stealers. Yep it’s a Quentin Tarantino movie. Set in the southern states of America, the movie follows a slave and slave owner who find themselves in a mutually beneficial situation. Superbly acted, this film moves from attaining curiosity to commanding attention. Django Unchained comes out on the twenty fourth of January so there’s plenty of time to make space in your new 2013 diaries for a screening.
FOR THE DOG LOVER WITH A SENSE OF HUMOUR
SEVEN PSYCHOPATHS
Released at the start of December, you’ll have to be quick to catch Seven Psychopaths at the cinema. Colin Farrel plays Marty, a script writer who has nothing more than the name of his script “Seven Psychopaths”. He enlists the help of his friend Billy (Sam Rockwell) who suggests finding actual psychopaths for “psychopath research”. This leads them to meet dog thief Zacheriah (Tom Waits). The film culminates when they steal the wrong Shih Tzu and a violent trench is dug out that fuels Marty’s writing. Written and directed by Martin Mcdonagh, who garnered accolades for his previous work with Farrel in In Bruges, does not fall short with Seven Psychopaths.
FOR THE PHILOSOPHER
LIFE OF PI
If there was ever a film you should watch in 3D, Life of Pi is it. Detailing the story of a boy stuck in a life raft for 227 days with a Bengal tiger, the narrator describes it as a tale to make you believe in God. But regardless of your belief, it will have you questioning your philosophies. There lurk dark undertones toward the end that can only get away with being PG because of how inconspicuous they are. The film looks great and the trailer is only a taste of the visuals, if you miss it at the movies, buy a bigger T.V.
FOR THE SO FRENCHY AND CHIC
THE INTOUCHABLES
An irreverent, uplifting comedy about friendship, trust and human possibility, The Intouchables has broken box office records in France and across Europe. Based on a true story of friendship between a handicap millionaire and his street smart ex-con caretaker, The Intouchables depicts an unlikely camaraderie rooted in honesty and humor between two individuals who, on the surface, would seem to have nothing in common. This won’t be at Hoyts but if you can master reading subtitles and absorbing a film then head down to Nova Theatre in Carlton.
FOR THE WALLFLOWER
THE PERKS OF BEING A WALL FLOWER
A new misfit shows up to school unsure of how he’ll get through the year and is enlightened by new rambuctious friends. Questionable plot aside, this film will win you over. Ezra Miller executes his role as a flamboyant pack leader with ease, and Emma Watson shows more depth than she ever did pashing Ron Weasley. This is a film for the summer that will have you surprisingly moved by its climax.
KEEN FOR A BIT OF ACTION?
DREDD
There is plenty of scepticism around franchise reboots, and Stallone’s 1996 Judge Dredd is still a guilty pleasure among action fans. Pete Travis’s Dredd, captures the look and feel of the original comic but with more grime and gusto. There were fears it would translate as a destitute and futuristic copy of Blade Runner but Dredd goes beyond that. Karl Urban, known from Star Trek and the Bourne Supremacy outclasses Stalone too. His helmet stays on and his chin remains out of the camera. You’ve missed it on screen but it’s available on iTunes so rent it out to add action to a night indoors.
FOR THE FANTASY FIEND
THE HOBBIT
Do we really need to advise this movie? In case you need the final push, go sit on your butt for three hours and eat some popcorn. It’ll do you some good. The Hobbit delves into the world before The Lord of The Rings trilogy and explains a few loose ends that some die hard Tolkiens may dispute. There are dragons, hot elves riding elks and Hare towed sley. Something for the whole family. Weta Workshops again made New Zealand’s green fields look more mysterious than they are and as the book is designed for a younger audience, the film aptly has a few more laughs in it as well.
FOR THE POLITICALLY CORRECT
ARGO
The plot: the C.I.A. ushers six state department employees out of Tehran under the guise of a film crew during a hostage crises. It sounds too perfect for a movie script but the story is truer than most. Ben Affleck, directs and plays pivotal role of Tony Mendez, embellishing the truth without eviscerating it. Argo uses dark humour with subtle sensitivity so it doesn’t belittle that this happened to real people. A man at the C.I.A called Antonio Mendez actually did devise a fake Canadian science fiction movie to fly hostages out of the middle east. Best.Reality-to-film.Cross-Over.Ever.
FOR THOSE WHO GOT SOUL
THE SAPPHIRES
The Sapphires is set in the heady days of the late ‘60s when four young, talented indigenous women from outback Australia are discovered by an unlikely talent scout. Plucked from obscurity and branded as Australia’s answer to The Supremes, the girls find themselves in a whole new world of friendship, love, war, and soul. Adapted from the hugely successful Australian stage musical and inspired by the remarkable true story of writer Tony Briggs’ mother, The Sapphires is one to watch with your sistas.
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