Weekend Movies: Beyond the Dumb

This light weekend offers up very little fanfare to compete with last week’s holdovers ‘Big Hero 6’ and ‘Interstellar’, but has some nice selections in limited release.

Universal has decided to revisit its 20-year-old comedy classic ‘Dumb and Dumber’ once again. This time, instead of starring two no-name actors in place of the original cast, ‘Dumb and Dumber To‘ reunites Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels as Lloyd Christmas and Harry Dunne. Like ‘The Hangover 2’, this sequel functions as a mad-lib that retells the same jokes by replacing random nouns, adjectives and verbs. When Harry’s kidneys start to fail him, he and Lloyd head off on a road trip to find the daughter that Harry never knew he had, in order to get her to donate one. Unlike ‘The Hangover 2’, approximately 20% of ‘Dumb and Dumber To’ actually warrants well-earned laughs. Just don’t expect that it will live up to the comedy fun of the first just because Carrey and Daniels have returned.

You’ve probably never heard of the other movie debuting in wide release this week. From the writer and director of ‘Love & Basketball’ and ‘The Secret Life of Bees’, ‘Beyond the Lights‘ is basically a new version of ‘The Bodyguard’. A famous pop star finds refuge from the world and the pressures of her job when she meets a young cop to protect her and ground her in reality.

Jon Stewart’s awards-buzzed drama ‘Rosewater‘ is finally opening for the masses to see. Based on a true story, the film tells the story of the captured and tortured Iranian-Canadian journalist Maziar Bahari. While Open Road is only releasing it on 371 screens this weekend, the movie is almost certain to expand rather quickly.

For some reason, Kirk Cameron is back on the big screen with a holiday hopeful, ‘Saving Christmas‘. Putting Christ back into Christmas, this religious tale tells the story of a festive holiday-loving guy who decides to bring the Christmas spirit back into his Grinchy brother’s life.

Tommy Lee Jones returns to the director’s chair with ‘The Homesman‘. The Western stars Jones and Hilary Swank. From what I can tell, there’s little gun-slinging – but the movie has three crazy women to keep it interesting! Jones stars as a nearly dead man that Swank saves and employees to transport the three ladies across the wild frontier.

Sony Pictures Classics has the Oscar bait drama ‘Foxcatcher‘ on six screens. The unsettling true story about the controversial men’s Olympic wrestling team of the late 1980s and early ’90s stars Channing Tatum, Mark Ruffalo and an unrecognizable Steve Carell. From the director of ‘Capote’ and ‘Moneyball’, it looks very promising.

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