Movies Opening This Week: It's hard not to get sick of George Clooney

As we delve deeper into Oscar season, more exciting movies get pushed out. While I personally am very excited for next week's The Lovely Bones, we still have some George Clooney to keep us entertained. But really now, how many movies should he be in, in such a short span of time? Have you noticed? It's like Fantastic Mr. Fox, The Men Who Stare At Goats, and now this:

Up In The Air
A test of how much more of George Clooney you can take, this Jason Reitman flick seems to be a well-written piece of corporate fun.

Basically, Ryan Bingham is an expert at corporate downsizing operations (err, firing people to save the company money) and he has learned to embrace life on the road. However, a girl who is tasked with the same job is hired to go along with him so he can show her the ropes, and it seems that he's met his perfect female counterpart.

But judging from the trailer, the movie looks like it will have yet another awesome soundtrack, great writing and performances, and maybe a life lesson or two.

I'm looking forward to watching this one, even if it's not in that "anxious" kind of way.

The movie, while looking Oscar-worthy, is bound to have some competition. Is Brothers gonna be it?

Brothers
Not really.

I mean, yeah, it looks like it's gonna have some good performances, but it doesn't mean that the movie is gonna be an instant Oscar nominee. There's something about it that strikes me as overly soapy, but hey, who knows what'll happen in the actual movie, right?

The premise is that it's about a family. Dad goes to Afghanistan while uncle helps in taking care of the family. They think dad is dead, so uncle and mommy go to bed. Dad suddenly opens his eyes and wants to talk to mommy. Chaos ensues.

I think Tobey Maguire and Jake Gyllenhaal... are credible enough to be brothers. Natalie Portman, though? She's a tad too pretty to be convincing as an army wife. That aside, though, I think it's gonna be the kind of movie that'll only hinge upon the performances of the actors... I'm not even sure if the movie will go well at all since I think that from the trailer, there will be a few contrived moments.

Speaking of contrived, how about this next movie?

Armored
Starring a surprising cast of talented actors, Armored is the newest movie by director... Nimrod Antal who made Vacancy. Now I'm just gonna contain myself over here so as to prevent myself from making sophomoric jokes about his name, but really, has anything done by a nimrod sounded good? The credit of directing "Vacancy" doesn't exactly bode well for the movie either.

Dumb judgment aside, this inside job looks to be a reasonably watchable film. Basically, it's about this guy who's short on cash. This same guy is a new recruit in the armored truck delivery industry, and with the help of a team, they engineer the perfect heist. But things go wrong when an innocent comes in the foray, increasing the risks of everything falling apart.

There'll most definitely be some contrived high-tension sequences, but I don't know. I don't think it'll be bad at all.

Still, don't even watch the trailer. For crying out loud, it reveals the whole movie, which is probably why I do not even mind if I miss this or not. Hell, it even looks derivative.

I'll be damned, however, if I didn't say Robert De Niro's new outing was derivative either.

Everybody's Fine
Oscar season also coincides with Christmas season, and usually the movies that are about Christmas are crappy. Look at Deck The Halls or Christmas with the Kranks. Despite that, however, Everybody's Fine doesn't seem to be, thankfully enough, of the same mold.

And for good reason. It features an all-star cast consisting of fan-favorites Drew Barrymore, Kate Beckinsale and Sam Rockwell, a relatively credible director (Kirk Jones) is at the helm, and it's actually a remake of some Italian film. OK, maybe the word "remake" doesn't ring well in the ears, but you gotta love how subtle and light the tone of the movie is.

This will obviously be a feel-good movie, but I think I feel like wanting to watch it. It's not an urgent craving to rush to the theater, but when it hits on DVD, I might grab it. I don't know, let's just see how it fares with the critics when it opens up.

But from derivative, we scrape to the bottom of the barrel. That's right, kids, it's time for another crappy parody movie!

Transylmania
While I'm thankful that someone finally milked the idea of making fun of the vampire trend, a lot of YouTube videos are just funnier than this. I mean, good God, this movie is just looking plain awful.

Set in a college located in a cursed land, Transylmania is a movie that basically makes fun of vampiric romance... that's kinda it, really. There's nothing else to it but some immature sexual innuendo and maybe a tinge of pop culture.

If there's anything that redeems this movie, it's probably gonna be the original title... and maybe the fact that it doesn't throw as many pop culture figures at our faces and call it funny.

Other than that, I have no clue as to why there's any appeal to it. Might as well call it Vampire Movie, then.