Weekend Movies: Choose Your Own Adventure

February gets off to a busy start, with a trio of new movies that range from greatly promising to… not so much.

Hot off their Oscar nomination for writing Spielberg’s ‘Bridge of Spies’, Joel and Ethan Coen have a new picture of their own on the big screen. The brothers’ first film since 2013’s underrated ‘Inside Llewyn Davis‘, ‘Hail, Caesar!‘ returns the Coens to the zany form of their early movies. Josh Brolin leads the star-studded ensemble cast as a Hollywood “fixer” in the 1950s. George Clooney plays a fictional megastar whose disappearance causes Brolin’s character to get involved. Ralph Fiennes, Scarlett Johansson, Tilda Swinton, Frances McDormand, Channing Tatum and Jonah Hill co-star in this PG-13 comedy.

With Valentine’s Day around the corner, the obligatory annual Nicholas Sparks movie is here. Last year’s ‘The Longest Ride‘ was better than expected, but ‘The Choice‘ doesn’t look like it’s going to follow suit. The melodramatic love story stars Benjamin Walker from such flops as ‘Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter‘ and ‘In the Heart of the Sea’. The love interest is played by Aussie actress Teresa Palmer, who’s also hot off a bomb of her own (‘Point Break’). The two play a match-made-in-heaven couple faced with difficult relationship trials. I’m sure you already know exactly what this means and where it’s going, as well as whose head is on the chopping block. Maggie Grace, Alexandra Daddario, Tom Welling and Tom Wilkinson co-star.

Late to the zombie party comes ‘Pride and Prejudice and Zombies‘, a supposed zombie-comedy that blends Jane Austen’s beloved literary work with the undead. Starring nearly no one that you’d recognize and featuring a style similar to that of the dreaded aforementioned Abraham Lincoln / horror hybrid, this definitely looks like one to skip.

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