Christmas Viewing List for Men

Like most men, I don’t really get fully into the ‘Spirit of the Holidays’ as is culturally expected of everyone. I enjoy them yes, but I don’t always feel the need to, you know, go over the top like a cliché out of a Christmas movie.

Speaking of, I thought it might be worth throwing together a list of movies you can watch if you are like me or with others who may feel the same way… in other words, guys. The following movies are some of the best films I have seen over the years that feature the holidays – keeping to the theme – but appeal to the man in us who just want to laugh or see things blown up.

Genius Dreaming



This scene of a train blasting through a normal day of traffic is part of a brilliant psychological exploration of DiCaprio's character

 Caught the movie Inception the other night and I must say that I dearly regret not seeing this film in theaters originally. On the surface the visuals of the graphics are amazing throughout numerous sequences of the film, and beneath the surface the writing and acting in the picture are fantastic.

Inception picks off where the Matrix trilogy left off in several ways. First and foremost, the concept of the film exploring the depths of the mind and dreaming, including layers within layers, took the idea of artificial reality to new dimensions that the Matrix trilogy did not, which was something that I expected the series to explore in the final film, but ultimately fell flat with the superhero type embodiment that the main character Neo took on in the finale.

In addition, the movie brilliantly wove the storylines of three vastly different characters throughout in a manner that was worked flawlessly.

A New (British) Pauly Shore?

With the recent media blitz for his newest movie, The Tempest, Russell Brand has been making his rounds of the talk shows of late. I am not new to Russel having seen him make the rounds before and in movies such as Forgetting Sarah Marshall, but something popped in my head the other night seeing him on Craig Ferguson…

Is Russell Brand the new Pauly Shore?

Unstoppable, Unviewable

I will admit, I knew going into the movie that there was a good possibility that the film would be in the classic ‘cheesy disaster flick’ genre. And with my father, as big a train nut as can be without having worked in the industry, having noted that there were some inaccuracies to what would happen in the movie technically did not deter me from seeing the movie because I did not grow up by his side enjoying the passion for them and still have great respect for it. I still figured it would provide for good show on the big screen and it did, after all, have pretty good actors in it with Denzel Washington and Rosario Dawson.

It was a decent enough movie and I am sure most would find it an enjoyable watch as apparently the critics have given it decent reviews.

For me however; the movie was ruined by lazy writing and directing. I was disappointed that so much of the story was told and action shown through phony local media news reports. Utilizing that once or twice in discriminate fashion would have done well to display the scope and urgency of the situation, but it became a lame crutch to provide information, such as names and background of some minimal characters, and ‘narration’ of what was occurring during the action sequences. Sure, we have all seen the crazed media coverage in current events, but even the rate in which information was disseminated was far from realistic.

Wolfman Weak

I watched Wolfman in its debut on Cinemax tonight and I have one word: yawn. I did continue to see the movie out to its conclusion. In part, because Benicio Del Toro and Anthony Hopkins are good actors and Hopkins does a great job playing the creepy, mysterious father in the movie, but unfortunately the star power is the only thing that makes this pic somewhat enjoyable as it is probably a decade late in being made.

The transformation of the werewolves is interesting, but I’ve seen similar stuff in other movies already and, let’s face it, werewolves (and vampires) have been a bit overdone in the past five years. If this had been put out 10 years ago, it would have been a huge blockbuster.