If the weeks leading up to Christmas are a bonanza for home-video collectors, then the actual week of Christmas is something like the day after a party when there’s nothing left but junk nobody wanted. I guess the people who decide which Blu-rays get released when figure everybody has already purchased all their presents so there isn’t any reason to put anything out that anybody wants.
There’s never more than a handful of releases at this point in the year, most of which is absolute junk. But then again there is always a release or two that could have been something great, but for whatever reason never quite found critical acclaim or even a notice from the masses.
This year that movie was Pan. It is yet another take on the Peter Pan story. Why anyone thought we needed yet another film based upon the story of the boy who won’t grow up I’ll never know, but we got one and it’s coming out this week.
Directed by Joe Wright, who has made some good movies, and starring Hugh Jackman, Amanda Seyfried, and Rooney Mara among others, it actually looked pretty stylish, but got terrible reviews and totally bombed at the box office.
It’s a movie I’ll likely catch while visiting the family over some holiday, or will keep on in the background when it comes on television, but otherwise will ignore and forget about. It’s a film on any other given week would be worth a mention and a sentence or two at the bottom of this column. But it’s not any other week, it’s the week of Christmas, and there is nothing else coming out that comes close to me picking it.
Also out this week:
Pawn Sacrifice: Chess movie based upon the life genius prodigy Bobby Fischer. It stars Tobey Maguire and Liev Schreiber and was directed by Edward Zwick. It got better reviews than Pan, but I’ve never seen a chess movie that wasn’t boring.
Dominion: Season 2: Interesting-sounding show about angels fighting over the Earth after God disappears. It’s on Syfy though, which makes me less inclined to watch it.
War Room: Christian flick that got terrible reviews, made a ton of money, and apparently proves that all one needs to do in any crisis is pray in your closet.
