Back in the blogging saddle again

I'm recovering surprisingly well from my oral surgery, and just in time too - there are a BUNCH of good prospects at the theater this weekend, all of which I plan to see in the next few days.

First, there's the movie with the best title of the season, The Men Who Stare at Goats. The reviews have been mixed, but I'm still there, because the trailer makes it look like a hoot, and because it stars George Clooney, whose presence lately has become like the Good Housekeeping seal of approval. If he's in it, I'm pretty much assured the movie will be at the very least interesting. Since The Peacemaker way back in 1997, the only movie of his I've considered an out-and-out disappointment was Intolerable Cruelty, which was a rare miss for the Coen brothers.

And speaking of the Coens, I'm VERY hot to see their latest film, A Serious Man. It has very good reviews, but really, that doesn't matter. I could be told a film was a comedy about the manufacturing of HDMI cables, and I would go if I knew the Coens were behind it.

And finally, there's the new version of A Christmas Carol, directed by Robert Zemeckis. Zemeckis is/was another director whose movies I always saw no matter what they were about - and indeed, he hasn't made ANY movies that were complete misses by my reckoning. His weakest film is Back to the Future Part II, and even that sports a lot of ingenuity.

Still, I have my misgivings about his obsession with motion-capture animation, which he used in The Polar Express and Beowulf. It was also used in the underrated Monster House, which he produced but not not direct. I liked all those films to one degree or another, but I remain unconvinced it's any wave of the future. And I'm still FIRMLY convinced remaking Yellow Submarine in this process is a LOUSY idea. 

All that said, will I still see A Christmas Carol? Yes, but I will wait until Tuesday, when I can see it in IMAX 3D at a reasonable price. I always tell people that if you haven't seen The Polar Express in that format, you haven't really SEEN it - you've only looked at it. Big difference. I suspect the same is true of A Christmas Carol. Even Roger Ebert, who has been an opponent of 3D, gives the movie 4 stars, writing "Disney's A Christmas Carol" by Robert Zemeckis (and Charles Dickens, of course) is an exhilarating visual experience and proves for the third time he's one of the few directors who knows what he's doing with 3-D."

So that's what's on my agenda - how about yours? What have you seen lately?