The Holiday Bottleneck

Welp, another year draws to a close.  We saw at least two movies about Hercules: there was The Legend of Hercules, and Brett Ratner's Hercules, which did slightly better at the box office... not that he's too concerned about that.  Rat's got his F.U. money!  Yeah, no doubt about it, it takes a big ego to direct a movie about Hercules.  The rise of the superhero movie continues unabated, but God's sneaking in a little bit, what with films like God's Not Dead, Son of God and Heaven is for Real.  There were sequels and PG sports movies galore.  And so it goes.
As for this week, well, the big story is still, of course, The Interview and how it's sweeping YouTube.  And yet, where did The Dictator from 2012 go wrong?  I guess they shouldn't have made it about a fictional dictator.  We'll see if Hollywood at large responds and decides to get Golan and Globus to do a cheap knock-off of The Interview or something.  Meanwhile, all the big-time studio execs complaining about Angelina Jolie's directorial debut can probably breathe a sigh of relief this weekend, as Unbroken comes in at #2, just behind the last Hobbit movie.  At #3, it's dramatic Shrek.  At #7, it's Mark Wahlberg's latest, The Gambler.  Alas, Marky Mark wanted to just try out a Christmas release.  You know, just to see what it was like.  For those of you who cared, this is a remake or a 'reboot' of the 1974 film written by James Toback.  And ladies, even though Toback is 70 years old, there's nothing preventing him from popping a couple Viagra just for you!
And last but not least, our last debut this week at #8 is the latest telling of the downbeat story of Alan Turing called The Imitation Game.  Maybe it's just me, but I think this film lost the title game.  But even though Turing is a staple of computer science courses everywhere, he's just starting to grab a toehold in films.  There's the Derek Jacobi film Breaking the Code from 1996, and there's 2011's The Turing Enigma... well, that's about it.  Lots of documentaries, though!  But that's how gratitude works sometimes.  You help defeat the Nazis, and you end up getting pumped full of estrogen by your fellow countrymen.  And Churchill lost his seat right after the war ended.  How quickly people become relics sometimes.