Reginald Hudlin directs Eddie Murphy and a stellar cast in this holiday comedy adventure, Candy Cane Lane. It’s about a man on a mission to win his neighborhood’s annual Christmas home decoration contest.
After Chris, played by Murphy, inadvertently makes a deal with a naughty elf named Pepper, played by Jillian Bell. He wants to better his chances of winning the annual holiday decoration contest. Pepper casts a magic spell that brings the 12 Days of Christmas to life and wreaks havoc on the whole town.
Chris, his wife Carol, played by Tracee Ellis Ross, and their three children race against time to break Pepper’s spell and save the holidays. It’s a battle of deviously magical characters and saves Christmas for everyone.
Tommy Wirkola directs David Harbour as Santa Claus in Violent Night. An international team of mercenaries burglarizes a family compound on Christmas Eve. Everyone in the household becomes hostage as the mercenaries try to access hundreds of millions of dollars.
Santa Claus arrives to place the Christmas gifts around the tree when he stumbles on the bad guys and gets combative. He uses all the tactics he knows to save a little girl’s Christmas and her family.
Violent Night is definitely a movie you want to add to your Christmas favorites. Keep your younger kids away because of foul language and sexual references.
Paul Feig directs Last Christmas based on Emma Thompson and Bryony Kimmings’ screenplay. Thompson also stars as Kate’s mother. Emilia Clarke of HBO’s Game of Thrones plays Kate, and Henry Golding of Crazy Rich Asians plays Tom.
The story begins with Kate harrumphing around London, making terrible decisions with an irritating job as an elf at a year-round Christmas store. The store owner, played by Michelle Yeoh, is not a pleasant boss.
Billed as a romantic comedy, I believe Feig, whose directed raunchy all-women comedies, is vying for a cute, lovable, clean movie hitting it big at the box office.
Last Christmas will be the one that makes it big compared to A Simple Favor, which had the makings of success but missed the opportunity because of the storyline and pace of the movie.
When Kate meets Tom, who seems too good to be true when he walks into her life and starts to see through so many of Kate’s barriers, London transforms into the most incredible time of the year. Nothing should work for these two.
But sometimes, you got to let the snow fall where it may, you got to listen to your heart, and you got to have faith.
Last Christmas features the music of George Michael, including the bittersweet holiday classic of the film’s title. The film will also premiere new unreleased material by the legendary Grammy-winning artist, who sold over 115 million albums and recorded 10 No. 1 singles throughout his iconic career.
Look at the movie trailer; you will agree this is a must-see for the Christmas holiday.
The second trailer looks hopeful, and I don’t think the ending is sad; fingers crossed.
I hope something worthwhile happens in the movie, but nothing tragic. While watching the clips, I kept thinking the shoe would never drop but fate may have a different destiny. Golding’s character must be an angel of some sort.
The featurette tells where the movie was filmed in London. It’s a cute piece, fast passed, and worth watching.
Emma Thompson, who wrote this screenplay, is marvelous in this clip.
Directed by Lasse Hallstrom, The Nutcracker and the Four Realms centers on Klara, played by Mackenzie Foy. All she desires is a golden key,not just any old key. A unique key like no other key to unlock a box that holds a priceless gift from her late mother.
Her godfather Drosselmeyer, played by Morgan Freeman, presents a golden thread to her at the annual holiday party. The thread leads her to the key she yearns. The thread quickly disappears into a strange and mysterious parallel world.
In the mysterious world, which seems a bit like Lewis Carroll’s “Alice in Wonderland,” Klara happens upon some quirky characters such as a soldier named Phillip, played by Jayden Fowora-Knight, a gang of mice, and the regents. The regents preside over three Realms: Land of Snowflakes, Land of Flowers, and Land of Sweets.
Klara and Phillip journey together and brave the threatening Fourth Realm, which is home to the tyrant Mother Ginger, played by Helen Mirren.
For Klara to her key and with a bit of luck, return harmony to the unstable world, she must confront Mother Ginger.
The following three featurettes show how much creative work went into production. One of the featurettes is about the famous ballerina Misty Copeland.
The magical movie also stars Keira Knightley as the Sugar Plum Fairy. Featuring an individual ballet performance by Misty Copeland, all ballerinas will want to see this movie. But keep in mind, E.T.A. Hoffmann’s classic tale inspires the cinema. It is not the same story. The second trailer shows more of the story, and the music sounds familiar.
The Blu-ray/DVD and streaming is now available if you’re interested in watching it with your kids. It is a kids’ movie, but mom and, possibly, dad will like it, too.
Co-directed by Jon Lucas and Scott Moore, we are in for more bad mom movies. The movie follows best friends Amy, played by Mila Kunis, Kiki, played by Kristen Bell, and Carla, played by Kathryn Hahn, unburden more stress during the holidays when their respective mothers come to visit.
The Blu-ray/DVD is on the streets even though it is nowhere near Christmas. Somehow, I think you will agree with me. Let’s wait and watch the movie until Christmas. But, if you are an early Christmas shopper, you can get the package now.
With that, here are the two trailers for A Bad Moms Christmas. One of these trailers is a Red Band trailer. The Red Band trailer is funny. I am laughing!
These clips are so funny that I just have to post each one. Have a good laugh!
Directed by John Hamburg, Why Him? happens over the holidays. The story follows Ned, played by Bryan Cranston, an overprotective but loving dad, and his family visit his daughter at Stanford.
He comes to terms with his biggest nightmare. He meets his daughter’s well-meaning but socially awkward Silicon Valley billionaire boyfriend, Laird, played by James Franco. A rivalry develops, and Ned’s panic level goes through the roof when he finds himself lost in this glamorous high-tech world and learns that Laird is about to pop the question.
Here is the official trailer.
Here is the red trailer.
James Franco is really having a lot of fun with this role.
Directed by comedy directors Josh Gordon and Will Speck, Office Christmas Party is super silly without a strong plotline to follow, but who cares. It’s funny and ridiculous when the CEO, played by Jennifer Aniston, tries to close her hard-partying brother’s branch, her brother, played by T. J. Miller, and his Chief Technical Officer, played by Jason Bateman, must bring the co-workers together and host an epic office Christmas party to impress a potential client and close a sale that will save their jobs.
The comedy also stars Kate McKinnon, Olivia Munn, Jillian Bell, Rob Corddry, Vanessa Bayer, Randall Park, Sam Richardson, Jamie Chung, and Courtney B. Vance. The movie seems funny, and it looks like they earned their SAG cards with one-liners from fresh faces.
Directed by Garth Jennings, Sing arrives with animated voices coming from Matthew McConaughey, Reese Witherspoon, Seth MacFarlane, Scarlett Johansson, John C. Reilly, Taron Egerton, and Tori Kelly. The movie is a musical comedy about finding the shining star that lives inside all of us.
Set in a world similar to humans but utterly inhabited by animals, Sing follows Buster Moon, played by McConaughey, a dapper Koala who presides over a once-grand theater that has fallen on hard times. Buster is an eternal optimist, with a touch of irony. But he loves his theater above all and will do anything to preserve it. Now facing the crumbling of his life’s ambition, he has one ultimate chance to restore his fading jewel to its former glory by producing the world’s greatest singing competition.
Featuring over 85 hit songs, the story focuses on five lead contestants emerge, including a mouse, played by MacFarlane, a timid teenage elephant, played by Tori Kelly, an overtaxed mother, played by Witherspoon, a young gangster gorilla, played by Egerton, and a punk-rock porcupine, played by Johansson. Each animal arrives under Buster’s marquee, believing that this is their shot at changing the course of their life.
Here is a special message from Sing. This movie keeps getting cuter.
