The holidays are pure craziness, even more so with kids. Many experts say it’s important for Mom and Dad to squeeze in a date night in between the revolving door of relatives, friends, Thanksgiving plays, Thanksgiving dinner, office parties, shopping, eight days of Hanukah, Christmas pageants, New Year’s parties and 8,000 football “bowls” (I’m pretty sure that’s an accurate total). The good news is that holidays also bring built-in babysitters: with all the aunts, siblings and grandparents running around your house, one will surely be happy to watch the little angels while you two get a breather! Just pick which movie is perfect for you and your mate:
Brooklyn (Nov. 4). This season’s only straight-up romance comes from author-screenwriter Nick Hornby (About a Boy, High Fidelity). He’s best known for looking at love from the point of view of a guy who has some relationship issues, but this time, he focuses on a young Irish woman (Saoirse Ronan) in the 1950s who falls in love with two men in two countries. Suggested postmovie topic of conversation: what is it with Irish girls and Italian guys, anyway?
Love the Coopers (Nov. 13). Oh, the holidays. It’s always a mixed bag of hope and expectations of both what the holidays can be – and what we think our family wants us to be. It’s all familiar and funny ground, but definitely one for just the grown-ups – when a five-year old in a movie repeatedly says, “you are such a d**k” in a movie, it brings laughs; when your five-year old says that in real life, it brings tears.
The Night Before (Nov. 20). Seth Rogen secures his place on the naughty list with this film, which mixes drugs and our favorite religious holidays. Rogen, Joseph Gordon Levitt and Anthony Mackie go out for one last wild night as they recognize that babies and fame are about to take a “wrecking ball” to their friendship. But, if the trailer is any indicator, it provides guilty laugh after laugh in a movie that serves as a crazy night out for us parents as well.
The Big Short (Dec. 11 limited/Dec. 23 wide). Crazy. Stupid. Love. duo Steve Carell and Ryan Gosling are reteaming for this film from a book by Michael Lewis (Moneyball, The Blind Side). Sign us up. But wait! There’s more! Add in Christian Bale and Brad Pitt… in terrible 2005-era haircuts. Here’s the kicker: it’s from Adam McKay, the writer-director behind many of this generation’s funniest comedies (Anchorman, Talladega Nights, cofounder of Funny or Die). And, surprise, this isn’t a comedy: it’s about the Wall Streeters who figured out banks were overselling underfunded mortgages and were going to fail. Where this ball of awesomeness lands tonally, not sure, but it’s something that should be experienced together.
Star Wars: The Force Awakens (Dec. 18). Because, of course. For couples who are dating, though, beware: relationships have been ended over one person’s lack of appropriate love for this film franchise.
Joy (Dec. 25). Jennifer Lawrence, Bradley Cooper, Robert De Niro and director David O. Russell team up to give movie lovers a holiday gift – a drama that makes us laugh, makes us feel, makes our jaws drop with subject matter just quirky enough to feel unexpected but not so unusual that it feels artsy. The foursome earned our respect with The Silver Linings Playbook and American Hustle, so you and your honey can joyfully anticipate going to see Joy after your sugarplums are snuggled into bed.
Anomalisa (Dec. 30). Is it a coincidence that this film is being released just as New Year’s resolutions are being cultivated? Surely, this brilliant, inventive, creative and astonishingly heartfelt film – made exclusively with puppets – will inspire viewers to apply some of that out-of-the-box thinking in their own life. It’s from Charlie Kaufmann (Being John Malkovich, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind), who never disappoints in creating films we’ll be talking about if not for years, certainly throughout dinner afterward.
