For most people Thanksgiving is the best time of year to eat yourself into a coma. For me, Thanksgiving weekend is the best time to go to the movies. There’s a chill in the air, and cinemas are crammed with happy people, in a good mood because they’re off of work, or maybe because their wives are finally letting them take a break from shopping. Hollywood saves up a lot of their best releases for this extended weekend. Last week Casino Royale and Happy Feet arrived in preparation for Black Friday, and today the rest of the motion picture world’s major holiday releases arrive. Happy Feet and Casino Royale may continue to dominate the box office, but there are plenty of great new releases worth catching too.
Here's our Thanksgiving look at what's opening and worth watching this Turkey weekend in theaters around the country:
Sneak Peek
The emotionally draining looking new Will Smith drama The Pursuit of Happyness gets a sneak peek in select theaters around the country on Saturday. When not beating up aliens or dismembering robots, Will’s actually a pretty good actor, though if you haven’t seen Ali you might not know it. He plays Chris Gardner, a bright and talented, but marginally employed salesman. Struggling to make ends meet, Gardner finds himself and his five-year-old son evicted from their San Francisco apartment with nowhere to go. When Gardner lands an internship at a prestigious stock brokerage firm, he and his son endure many hardships, including living in shelters, in pursuit of his dream of a better life for the two of them.
Limited Releases(Opening in fewer than 500 theaters.)
With so many great high-profile releases over the holiday weekend, there’s really no need to seek out an arthouse. If you do, check out The History Boys in 7 theaters. It tells the story of an unruly class of bright, funny history students in pursuit of an undergraduate place at Oxford or Cambridge. Bounced between their maverick English master (Richard Griffiths), a young and shrewd teacher hired to up their test scores (Stephen Campbell Moore), a grossly out-numbered history teacher (Frances de la Tour), and a headmaster obsessed with results (Clive Merrison), the boys attempt to sift through it all to pass.
Tenacious D in: The Pick of Destiny (Opens in 1,919 theaters.)
The most awesome band in the world becomes the most awesome movie in history as their exploits become legend in Tenacious D in: The Pick of Destiny. Jack Black and Kyle Gass take their Tenacious D HBO shorts and their album and turn it into a full fledged, kickass film. JB bonds with a local slacker named KG and they form a band called Tenacious D. Tenacious D in: The Pick of Destiny follows their journey to become the greatest band in the world. To rule the world of rock, they'll have to steal a magical guitar pick housed 300 miles away in a heavily guarded museum. The first ten minutes of the movie is absolutely transcendent, and the rest is pretty good With cameos from Meat Loaf, Dio, and Satan you won’t want to miss your chance to power slide into The Pick of Destiny.
The Fountain (Opens in 1,462 theaters.)
There is no critical consensus on The Fountain. It’s either one of the most brilliant pieces of film ever made, or the biggest, messiest, most self-indulgent pile of crap to float out of Hollywood in at least a decade. The film’s divisive and deeply complex, though the plot sounds fairly simple. Three men in three different timelines search for eternal life as a means to save the woman they love. Hugh Jackman stars and Requiem for a Dream helmer Darren Aronofsky directs.
Deja Vu (Opens in 3,108 theaters.)
It looks like director Tony Scott has redeemed himself for the disaster of Domino by re-teaming with the great Denzel. Deja Vu is getting stellar reviews. It’s a thriller in which déjà vu unexpectedly guides ATF agent Doug Carlin through an investigation into a shattering crime. Called in to recover evidence after a bomb sets off a cataclysmic explosion on a New Orleans Ferry, Carlin discovers that what most people believe is only in their heads is actually something far more powerful and will lead him on a mind-bending race to save hundreds of innocent people.
Deck the Halls (Opens in 3,205 theaters.)
You almost can’t go wrong when picking something to see this holiday weekend… as long as you don’t pick this. It has a whopping 13% rating on RottenTomatoes and they’re lucky it’s not at 0. It’s a terrible family comedy about ne-upsmanship, jealousy, clashing neighbors, home decoration… everything that’s already been done better by other such comedies. Matthew Broderick and Danny DeVito star as two neighbors competing to see who can catch the worst case of Christmas spirit.
STILL IN THEATERS AND WORTH YOUR TIME: Happy Feet, Casino Royale, Flushed Away, Borat, Stranger than Fiction, Bobby, The Departed
