Movies in Theaters This Wednesday, December 17-19, 2014: The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies, Annie, and More
After a couple subpar weekends, it’s suddenly starting to make sense. No offense to last week’s release of Exodus: Gods and Kings but we’ve got some touted releases here to dethrone Ridley Scott’s biblical epic.
And the weekend starts already today with Peter Jackson’s final chapter in Middle Earth – The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies. His third Hobbit film again stars Martin Freeman, Ian McKellen, and Orlando Bloom and tells the conclusion to J.R.R. Tolkien’s best book (in my opinion). Since the second one outdid the first, I’m hoping The Battle of the Five Armies continues the trend.
Once we hit Friday, we get two more wide releases. It’s tough to guess which one will do better of the remaining two but I’d go with the franchise film over the remake.
The franchise film is of course Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb. Propelled by two commercial successes before this release, I could see Secret of the Tomb taking a sizable chunk of the box office. It won’t be anywhere near the third Hobbit but you can bet your bottom dollar it’ll still be lucrative.
This could leave Sony’s Annie vulnerable. Initial reviews haven’t helped generate any buzz and the Sony hacks surely haven’t helped business either. If it weren’t for the extremely talented Quvenzhane Wallis (Beasts of the Southern Wild), I’d be writing this one off now.
Joining these three movies is the limited release of the critically-acclaimed biopic Mr. Turner. I caught up with this film earlier and found it to paint an interesting picture (I’m sorry, that pun was just too easy) of the famous British painter J.M.W. Turner (played beautifully by Timothy Spall). It’s definitely worth a look if you’re interested in art.
A Small Section of the World, Poker Night, Song of the Sea, Tales of the Grim Sleeper, and Winter Sleep round out the list of limited releases this coming weekend.
Whichever decision you make, have a great moviegoing weekend!
Academy Award® nominee Quvenzhané Wallis (Beasts of the Southern Wild) stars as Annie, a young, happy foster kid who’s also tough enough to make her way on the streets of New York in 2014. Originally left by her parents as a baby with the promise that they’d be back for her someday, it’s been a hard knock life ever since with her mean foster mom Miss Hannigan (Cameron Diaz). But everything’s about to change when the hard-nosed tycoon and New York mayoral candidate Will Stacks (Jamie Foxx) – advised by his brilliant VP, Grace (Rose Byrne) and his shrewd and scheming campaign advisor, Guy (Bobby Cannavale) – makes a thinly-veiled campaign move and takes her in. Stacks believes he’s her guardian angel, but Annie’s self-assured nature and bright, sun-will-come-out-tomorrow outlook on life just might mean it’s the other way around.
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
From Academy Award®-winning filmmaker Peter Jackson comes “The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies,” the third in a trilogy of films adapting the enduringly popular masterpiece The Hobbit, by J.R.R. Tolkien.
“The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies” brings to an epic conclusion the adventures of Bilbo Baggins, Thorin Oakenshield and the Company of Dwarves. Having reclaimed their homeland from the Dragon Smaug, the Company has unwittingly unleashed a deadly force into the world. Enraged, Smaug rains his fiery wrath down upon the defenseless men, women and children of Lake-town.
Obsessed above all else with his reclaimed treasure, Thorin sacrifices friendship and honor to hoard it as Bilbo’s frantic attempts to make him see reason drive the Hobbit towards a desperate and dangerous choice. But there are even greater dangers ahead. Unseen by any but the Wizard Gandalf, the great enemy Sauron has sent forth legions of Orcs in a stealth attack upon the Lonely Mountain.
As darkness converges on their escalating conflict, the races of Dwarves, Elves and Men must decide – unite or be destroyed. Bilbo finds himself fighting for his life and the lives of his friends in the epic Battle of the Five Armies, as the future of Middle-earth hangs in the balance.
Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb
Get ready for the wildest and most adventure-filled Night At the Museum ever as Larry (Ben Stiller) spans the globe, uniting favorite and new characters while embarking on an epic quest to save the magic before it is gone forever.
How many hands touch your morning coffee before you?
How many of those hands are women’s?A Small Section of the World is a documentary film that tells the inspirational story about a group of women from a remote farming region of Costa Rica whose ideas sparked a revolution in the coffee growing world.
After a crisis, the men of the village left in search of work and the women came together to imagine a different future for themselves, their families and their community by building their own coffee mill. They are the first women’s run micro-mill in their country.
The film follows the impact of this remarkable story of perseverance as it touches lives around the globe and shows how these resourceful women overcame adversity to change the culture within their small section of the world. A story of passion and tenacity, A Small Section of the World is about women’s empowerment, the risky business of coffee and how a cup of coffee can transform lives.
Inspired by the story, multi-Grammy winner and the best selling female rock performer of all time, Alanis Morissette contributed an original anthem to the film, co-written with Costa Rican artist and Grammy winner Carlos Tapado Vargas.
Mr. Turner explores the last quarter century of the great if eccentric British painter J.M.W. Turner (1775-1851). Profoundly affected by the death of his father, loved by a housekeeper he takes for granted and occasionally exploits sexually, he forms a close relationship with a seaside landlady with whom he eventually lives incognito in Chelsea, where he dies. Throughout this, he travels, paints, stays with the country aristocracy, visits brothels, is a popular if anarchic member of the Royal Academy of Arts, has himself strapped to the mast of a ship so that he can paint a snowstorm, and is both celebrated and reviled by the public and by royalty.
When you become a detective in Warsaw Indiana – you go to Poker Night, where you play against some of the best cops in the business. They tell you stories about their time on the job – their successes and failures. When new Detective Stan Jeter leaves the game, he is caught by a vicious psychopath and locked in a basement. Using the stories he heard at Poker Night, he must match wits against his captor – and save not only himself, but the young girl trapped in the basement with him. Like Seven and Usual Suspect, Poker Night combines thrills and twists and turns that will leave you guessing till the very end.
Saoirse is a child who is the last of the selkies, women in Irish and Scottish legends who transform from seals into people. She escapes from her grandmother’s home to journey to the sea and free fairy creatures trapped in the modern world.
Nick Broomfield digs into the case of the notorious serial killer known as the Grim Sleeper, who terrorized South Central Los Angeles over a span of twenty-five years.
Aydin, a former actor, runs a small hotel in central Anatolia with his young wife Nihal with whom he has a stormy relationship and his sister Necla who is suffering from her recent divorce. In winter as the snow begins to fall, the hotel turns into a shelter but also an inescapable place that fuels their animosities…
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