Hark! the herald angels sing. • Sorry, that's just a chorus of Hollywood studios trying to grab our attention during the holiday movie season. • This is their last chance to save 2014 from being the worst box office year in a decade. It's also the first chance for high-profile movies to impress awards voters. That's the real reason for this particular season. • Oh, we'll have a little fun during the holidays: the ghost of Robin Williams past in Night at the Museum: Secret of the Tomb (Dec. 19), Seth Rogen and James Franco plotting to kill Kim Jong Il in The Interview (Dec. 25), Mark Wahlberg remaking The Gambler (Jan. 1). • Mostly, though, this is serious stuff. A lot of Oscar night dreams will be dashed or kindled by New Year's Day, when campaigning begins in earnest. • Our annual Holiday Movie Guide focuses on the contenders left to be discovered. As always, opening dates are subject to change. Happy holidays!
DEC. 5
The Homesman
A decade after The Three Burials of Melquiades Estrada, his directorial debut, Tommy Lee Jones goes west again. Then he heads east, where he and Hilary Swank co-star as settlers heading back with a cargo of women quitting pioneer life. Any movie with two Oscar winners and Cannes credentials is a good start for the awards season homestretch.
DEC. 12
Exodus: Gods and Kings
Christian Bale admits he's no Charlton Heston yet he's wholly Moses in an epic of biblical proportions. We see this story every Easter in The Ten Commandments, but director Ridley Scott has CGI capabilities Cecil B. DeMille didn't. The movie arrives riding a Red Sea wave of popularity for Christian movie themes. Let my people go.
Top Five
Sounds like one good thing came out of Grown Ups 2: Chris Rock spent his downtime writing this movie, which wowed the Toronto Film Festival crowd. Rock directs and stars as a comedian wanting to be taken seriously as an actor. The celebrity self-parody co-stars Adam Sandler as himself, which in his case is a stretch, and Rosario Dawson.
DEC. 17
The Hobbit: The Battle of the Five Armies
One book, three movies to rue it all, if you're not into cosplay, and I'm not. Bilbo Baggins (Martin Freeman) concludes his tiff with various meanies and beasties. Skipped the first two chapters — thank you, book editor Colette Bancroft — so I don't have a dragon in this fight. Now I'm hoping Colette dresses as Gandalf, stands at the entrance to Part 3 and tells me: "You shall not pass." Fingers crossed.
DEC. 19
Annie
The venerable Broadway musical gets a second movie treatment, culturally and musically modernized. Quvenzhané Wallis (Beasts of the Southern Wild) plays Annie, who is rescued from foster witch Miss Hannigan (Cameron Diaz) by a politician (Jamie Foxx). (It's a campaign gimmick, but he'll soften up.) The sun'll come out tomorrow for at least a weekend. It could be a hard knock life when Into the Woods arrives.
Wild
Early Oscar buzz is leaning Reese Witherspoon's way for her portrayal of Cheryl Strayed, a sex and heroin addict seeking redemption on an 1,100-mile hike from Mexico to Canada. Jean-Marc Vallée directed two Oscar winners in the fact-inspired Dallas Buyers Club, and screenwriter Nick Hornby, adapting Strayed's memoir, is among the best in the biz.
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Explore all your optionsDEC. 25
Into the Woods
Sorry, Bilbo and Annie, but Stephen Sondheim's fairy tale musical is the season's premier family movie event. Meryl Streep goes for Oscar No. 4 as a witch casting spells and lessons upon Cinderella (Anna Kendrick), Rapunzel, Red Riding Hood and beanstalk Jack. Johnny Depp is a big bad wolf, and Chris Pine is a prince, but you already knew that. Cash registers will happily ring ever after.
The Imitation Game
Classic awards bait, Part 1: British true story (World War II, to boot), with modern parallels and a tragic hero, superbly portrayed. Benedict Cumberbatch plays Alan Turing, who secretly helped defeat Germany by inventing the first computer, then was shamed for being gay in an era when homosexuality was illegal. Oscar possibilities include Keira Knightley as Turing's colleague.
Unbroken
Classic awards bait, Part 2: American true story (World War II and Olympics, to boot), with modern parallels, since heroism is timeless, and a movie star directing. Angelina Jolie tells the saga of Louis Zamperini (Jack O'Connell), a world-class runner and U.S. Army Air Force bombardier who survived 47 days adrift in the Pacific, then a Japanese POW camp. Zamperini died in July at age 97.
Big Eyes
Margaret Keane isn't a household name, but when I grew up every home seemed to have one of her paintings: sweetly posed children with BIG ROUND EYES that stalked me around the room. Creepy, so of course Tim Burton made a movie about it. Amy Adams plays Keane, with Christoph Waltz as her claim-jumping husband. Ed Wood with a paintbrush sounds fun.
As usual, Hollywood's holiday bum-rush of multiplexes steers some contenders to 2015 release dates. The idea is to avoid blockbuster competition, and stretch awareness until awards balloting begins. In order to qualify for Oscars, movies must open in New York and Los Angeles before Dec. 31, so you'll likely read and hear about these films before you get a chance to see them.
JAN. 9
Selma
One recent, rapturous screening at the American Film Institute instantly stamped Ava DuVernay's historical drama as an awards frontrunner. David Oyelowo (The Butler) plays Dr. Martin Luther King Jr., facing down President Lyndon Johnson (Tom Wilkinson) and segregationist George Wallace (Tim Roth) at a crucial moment in the struggle for civil rights.
Inherent Vice
Thomas Pynchon's novels are considered unfilmable, so master director Paul Thomas Anderson is giving it a try. Pynchon weaved a psychedelic '70s L.A. noir around pothead private eye Doc Sportello (Joaquin Phoenix), sorting out an oddball disappearance. It sounds a bit too Big Lebowski — the book published a year after the Coens' movie — but Anderson is a true original.
JAN. 16
American Sniper
U.S. Navy SEAL Chris Kyle is considered the deadliest marksman in military history, with more than 150 confirmed kills. A movie by Clint Eastwood about him can be expected to go beyond gung ho, to the psychological tension behind the trigger, an Unforgiven for modern war. Bradley Cooper bulked up 40 pounds to play Kyle, with Sienna Miller as his worried wife stateside.
Foxcatcher
The season's acting curiosity is Steve Carell, who does a 180, going from playing a nice guy to playing a real-life sociopath. Carell earned praise from Cannes to Telluride as John du Pont, wealthy benefactor of Olympic wrestling brothers (Channing Tatum, Mark Ruffalo) and murderer of one. This film is directed by Bennett Miller, whose first two movies (Capote, Moneyball) fared well with Oscar voters.
Contact Steve Persall at spersall@tampabay.com or (727) 893-8365. Follow @StevePersall.