“Now Playing” provides you with a quick and easy breakdown of all the new movies opening each and every weekend!
(Note – films featured represent new openings in the Seattle area…regional, limited, and platformed national releases are featured below…).
Five New Films This Week
Three family films charge out of the gate alongside a biopic of one of the most discussed entertainers of all time. Lastly, a film earmarked as a potential frontrunner for multiple Oscar nominations and wins, debuts in the Seattle market after a strong opening last week in other parts of North America. Five new films, and more national releases after the cut!
ARTHUR CHRISTMAS
(PG for some mild rude humor)
Starring: James McAvoy, Jim Broadbent, Hugh Laurie
Directed by: Sarah Smith
Running Time: 97 Minutes
Distributor: Sony/Columbia Pictures
Tagline: Every Wonder How 2 Million Presents Get Delivered In 1 Night?
Synopsis: The 3D, CG-animated family comedy Arthur Christmas, an Aardman production for Sony Pictures Animation, at last reveals the incredible, never-before seen answer to every child’s question: ‘So how does Santa deliver all those presents in one night?’ The answer: Santa’s exhilarating, ultra-high-tech operation hidden beneath the North Pole. But at the heart of the film is a story with the ingredients of a Christmas classic – a family in a state of comic dysfunction and an unlikely hero, Arthur, with an urgent mission that must be completed before Christmas morning dawns. (Courtesy of Sony).
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Additional content here:
Film Website
IMDB
Rotten Tomatoes
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THE DESCENDANTS
(R for language including some sexual references)
Starring: George Clooney, Shailene Woodley,
Directed by: Alexander Payne
Running Time: 115 Minutes
Distributor: Fox Searchlight Pictures
Tagline: N/A
Synopsis: From Alexander Payne, the creator of the Oscar-winning Sideways, set in Hawaii, The Descendants is a sometimes humorous, sometimes tragic journey for Matt King (George Clooney) an indifferent husband and father of two girls, who is forced to re-examine his past and embrace his future when his wife suffers a boating accident off of Waikiki. The event leads to a rapprochement with his young daughters while Matt wrestles with a decision to sell the family’s land handed down from Hawaiian royalty and missionaries. (Courtesy of Fox Searchlight)
Trailer:
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Additional content here:
Film Website
IMDB
Rotten Tomatoes
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HUGO
(PG for mild thematic material, some action/peril and smoking)
Starring: Ben Kingsley, Asa Butterfield, Chloe Grace Moretz, Sacha Baron Cohen
Directed by: Martin Scorsese
Running Time: 127 Minutes
Distributor: Paramount Pictures
Tagline: Unlock The Secret.
Synopsis: Throughout his extraordinary career, Academy Award-wining director Martin Scorsese has brought his unique vision and dazzling gifts to life in a series of unforgettable films. This holiday season the legendary storyteller invites you to join him on a thrilling journey to a magical world with his first-ever 3-D film, based on Brian Selznick’s award-winning, imaginative New York Times best-seller, “The Invention of Hugo Cabret.” Hugo is the astonishing adventure of a wily and resourceful boy whose quest to unlock a secret left to him by his father will transform Hugo and all those around him, and reveal a safe and loving place he can call home (Courtesy of Paramount)
Trailer:
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Additional content here:
Film Website
IMDB
Rotten Tomatoes
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THE MUPPETS
(PG for some mild rude humor)
Starring: Jason Segel, Amy Adams, Kermit The Frog, Miss Piggy, The Muppets
Directed by: James Bobin
Running Time: 98 Minutes
Distributor: Walt Disney Studios
Tagline: Muppet Domination.
Synopsis: On vacation in Los Angeles, Walter, the world’s biggest Muppet fan, and his friends Gary (Jason Segel) and Mary (Amy Adams) from Smalltown, USA, discover the nefarious plan of oilman Tex Richman (Chris Cooper) to raze the Muppet Theater and drill for the oil recently discovered beneath the Muppets’ former stomping grounds. To stage The Greatest Muppet Telethon Ever and raise the $10 million needed to save the theater, Walter, Mary and Gary help Kermit reunite the Muppets, who have all gone their separate ways: Fozzie now performs with a Reno casino tribute band called the Moopets, Miss Piggy is a plus-size fashion editor at Vogue Paris, Animal is in a Santa Barbara clinic for anger management, and Gonzo is a high-powered plumbing magnate. (Courtesy of Walt Disney)
Trailer:
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Additional content here:
Film Website
IMDB
Rotten Tomatoes
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MY WEEK WITH MARILYN
(R for some language)
Starring: Michelle Williams, Eddie Redmayne, Kenneth Branagh
Directed by: Simon Davis
Running Time: 99 Minutes
Distributor: The Weinstein Company
Tagline: N/A
Synopsis: In the early summer of 1956, 23 year-old Colin Clark (Eddie Redmayne), just down from Oxford and determined to make his way in the film business, worked as a lowly assistant on the set of ‘The Prince and the Showgirl’. The film that famously united Sir Laurence Olivier (Kenneth Branagh) and Marilyn Monroe (Michelle Williams), who was also on honeymoon with her new husband, the playwright Aurthur Miller (Dougray Scott). Nearly 40 years on, his diary account The Prince, the Showgirl and Me was published, but one week was missing and this was published some years later as My Week with Marilyn – this is the story of that week. When Arthur Miller leaves England, the coast is clear for Colin to introduce Marilyn to some of the pleasures of British life; an idyllic week in which he escorted a Monroe desperate to get away from her retinue of Hollywood hangers-on and the pressures of work. (Courtesy of The Weinstein Company).
Trailer:
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Additional content here:
Film Website
IMDB
Rotten Tomatoes
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ADDITIONAL OPENINGS (may not be playing in your area):
The Artist (The Weinstein Company)
A Dangerous Method (Sony Pictures Classics)
Desi Boyz (Bollywood) (Eros Entertainment)
House Of Pleasures (Sundance Selects)
The Legend Of Pale Male (Balcony Releasing)
Rampart (Millennium Entertainment)
Romantics Anonymous (Tribeca Film)
