Ah, January. How sad your box office is.
Expanding to wide release after a limited Christmas Day opening is “The Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus,” now famous for being Heath Ledger’s last movie. It’s also Terry Gilliam’s latest Weird Thing That Only Terry Gilliam Understands. I was not fond of it.
I was even less fond of “Leap Year” (review at Cinematical), which follows the tradition of terrible movies aimed at women being released in January. So far, it’s the worst movie of the decade, but it probably won’t hold that title for very long, not with “Tooth Fairy” on the horizon.
In limited release is “The Young Victoria” (review at Film.com), a rather sumptuous and pleasant account of Queen Victoria’s early reign, and her marriage to Prince Albert. Emily Blunt plays the young queen splendidly, and there has been some talk of her getting an Oscar nomination for it.
“Youth in Revolt,” a dark comedy starring Michael Cera as a dweeby teen who creates a studly alter ego, was screened for critics way back in November. For some reason I missed that screening, probably because I figured there’d be another one before it opened. I was wrong. Review to come.
“Daybreakers” — about vampires, and Ethan Hawke — is one of Hollywood’s Shameful Secrets®, not screened for critics before opening. It’s a new year, but a lot of things are still the same.
In case you missed them, here are my end-of-2009 pieces: The Best and Worst Movies of 2009; and Eric’s Media Inventory: What I Watched and Read in 2009.
And hey! Remember how the Online Film Critics Society announced its awards a couple days ago? Well, we also did a video presentation, which you can see below. It’s split into two sections. I appear at the beginning of the first section and the end of the last section, and I employ sophisticated special effects.
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