The movies bumrush the theaters today instead of Friday, the better to make money when we just can't stand being in the house with our relatives anymore. (Although if you're feeling masochistic and want to watch other familes make each other miserable, by all means toddle off to see either "This Christmas" or Noah Baumbach's "Margot at the Wedding." In the latter, Nicole Kidman is so brilliantly horrific that she'll make that dysfunctional second cousin of yours look like a pillar of sanity.)
The weekend box office success will probably be "Enchanted," the Disney animation/real-life comedy-drama that even the critics seem to love. (I haven't seen it yet, but I'll be taking the girls this weekend.) Wesley says that Amy Adams emerges a star. I say it's about time.
The artistic success is easily "I'm Not There," Todd Haynes' megalicious deconstruction/celebration of the man who says he's Bob Dylan (yeah, but which one?). I got 1,200 words out this movie in the paper and could have gone on for 2,000 more, because this dense, funny, wise, exasperating movie is the gift that keeps on giving. I could have pointed out the drive-by tribute to Godard's "Masculin Feminin" when the onscreen Dylan goes to the movies and thinks "It wasn't the film we had dreamed, the film we all carried in our hearts, the film we wanted to make... and secretly wanted to live." I could have wondered where all the other Dylans were: mid-80s Rabbi Dylan (played by Sandler, perhaps), aging lounge lizard Dylan (Wayne Newton), the Jesus-Dylan who turns up at the end of "The Last Waltz." I could have pointed out where Haynes misses the boat entirely (Blanchett's Jude sneers at a socialite: "Just like a woman" -- Oy vey.) Or how Blanchett manages to seem exactly like 1965-era Bob even with a voice an octave higher. Or how Christian Bale sings "Pressing On" so well in the born-again sequence that you'd hardly know he's lip-syncing John Doe.
Lots of stuff. By the way, every time I mention this movie, Wesley rolls his eyes and changes the subject. Maybe it's a boomer thing. Hopefully he'll weigh in here on why the movie leaves him cold.
Big horror movie from Stephen King and Frank Darabont, "The Mist." No, it's not a remake of "The Fog". For one thing, the ending's a lot worse. I give it away in the review, so tread carefully. Excellent severed-torso and death-by-giant-mosquito effects, though.
"Hitman" and "August Rush" only if you have a craving for turkey.
By the way, if you're really hard up on Thanksgiving (or tonight), the Brattle is showing the 1973 Robert Mitchum classic "The Friends of Eddie Coyle." Forget about "Mystic River," "Gone Baby Gone," and "The Depahted" -- this is the great Boston movie. It's even based on a George V. Higgins novel.
Go easy on the gravy, folks.
