Merry et cetera, everybody! December is upon us and that means one thing to movie lovers: way too many movies. You just can’t keep up with this many movies. We’re already tearing our hair out at CraveOnline trying to cram them all in before our required “Best of 2013” lists are due at the end of the month, and Hollywood isn’t making it easy on us. In addition to mainstream, popular fare like The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug and Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues, the entertainment complex is churning out last-minute Oscar contenders galore from directors Martin Scorsese, Spike Jonze, David O. Russell and Ben Stiller (yes, really, Ben Stiller), not too mention a whole ton of major Blu-ray releases just in time to buy your cinephile loved ones for the holidays.
If you’re having trouble keeping track of every major movie release this December, we’ve got you covered. This is CraveOnline‘s December 2013 Movie Calendar, and it’s got all the important dates and motion pictures you need to keep your eye on as Oscar season ramps up, and the winter vacation season frees your time up to actually watch something in the theater this month.
Here we go…
William Bibbiani is the editor of CraveOnline’s Film Channel and co-host of The B-Movies Podcast. Follow him on Twitter at @WilliamBibbiani.
December 2013 Movie Calendar
Your "To Do" list for December 2013 is here!
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Dec. 3 - The Wolverine: Unleashed Extended Edition
If you loved The Wolverine as much as we did, you're going to want to check out the ninja-liquifying Blu-ray special edition, available December 3. It's basically the same movie, but with a lot more swear words and blood, and that's a not a bad thing.
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Dec. 3 - Argo: The Declassified Extended Edition
Ring in the new Oscar season by revisiting last year's Oscar season with this new extended cut of Ben Affleck's award-winning Argo, on Blu-ray December 3. We don't remember thinking this Hollywood-infused spy flick was too short, but who knows? Maybe they put in some "fleeting nudity" like they did on The Hobbit.
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Dec. 3 - Nashville (Criterion Collection)
One of the best films ever made - no, don't even bother arguing - finally gets the Criterion Blu-ray treatment on December 3. Robert Altman's sprawling ode to country music and American nationalism in the 1970s features Oscar-winning music written by the stars who performed them on-screen, even if they never wrote a song before. And they're all great.
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Dec. 6 - Out of the Furnace
From the director of Crazy Heart comes a new revenge drama starring Christian Bale as an ex-con out to find his missing brother Casey Affleck, who was in deep with an underground streetfighting tournament. It's not nearly as crazy as it sounds, but the cast is good.
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Dec. 6 - Inside Llewyn Davis
The latest film from The Coen Bros. (Fargo, The Big Lebowski, No Country for Old Men) hits theaters on December 6. This one stars Oscar Isaac as a folk singer in the 1960s, struggling to maintain his ideals. We're hearing great things about the soundtrack. Could Inside Llewyn Davis be the next O Brother, Where Art Thou?
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Dec. 9 - John Cassavetes' Birthday
John Cassavetes would have been 84 years old on December 9, and we still miss him. Best known to mainstream audiences as the star of The Dirty Dozen and Rosemary's Baby, he also revolutionized the independent film movement by directing films like Faces and A Woman Under the Influence, now available on Criterion Blu-ray. Check out our review.
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Dec. 10 - Man of Tai Chi
If you missed Keanu Reeves' directorial debut in its blink-and-you-missed-it theatrical run, we recommend you check out the Blu-ray release on December 10. The Matrix stuntman Tiger Chen stars as a Tai Chi student tempted to the dark side by Reeves himself. The action sequences will make you go "Whoa."
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Dec. 10 - Marry Poppins: 50th Anniversary Edition
We'd say this new Blu-ray release of Mary Poppins was shamelessly timed to the release of Saving Mr. Banks, but it's the 50th Anniversary so this was inevitable regardless. In any case, everyone seems to love this movie - and even the sourpusses admit the music is pretty delightful - so you'll probably want to buy it or something on December 10.
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Dec. 11 - Jack Frost's 15th Anniversary
No, there isn't a huge three-disc edition of the god awful Michael Keaton dies and becomes a CGI snowman movie Jack Frost... because nobody wants one. But you may want to celebrate the 15th Anniversary of the release Jack Frost the way we are: by not watching it.
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Dec. 12 - The Golden Globes Nominations
We won't be covering the Golden Globes at CraveOnline, because they are the most meaningless awards ceremony in the entire entertainment industry, but if you're an Oscar season completist, you may want to be aware that the nominations are announced on December 12.
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Dec. 13 - The Hobbit: The Desolation of Smaug
The second installment of Peter Jackson's The Hobbit trilogy comes to theaters on Friday the 13th, and we really that's not an omen. Many of us felt the last one was pointlessly padded, but now that the plot is in high gear, maybe The Desolation of Smaug will feel more like a real movie.
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Dec. 13 - American Hustle
David O. Russell, the director of The Fighter and Silver Linings Playbook, is back with yet another straightforward genre exercise with more character than we're used to, and we expect the con artist dramedy American Hustle - starring Christian Bale, Amy Adams, Bradley Cooper and Jennifer Lawrence - to be yet another great one.
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Dec. 13 - Saving Mr. Banks
Tom Hanks plays Walt Disney and Emma Thompson plays Mary Poppins author P.L. Travers in a biopic that says Disney's movie is a timeless, perfect classic and Travers' beautiful book series - which has never been faithfully adapted on screen - was merely a means to a his more important end. It's a good movie if you think Disney can do no wrong (and if you have no respect for P.L. Travers), and you can see it in theaters on December 13.
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Dec. 13 - Tyler Perry's A Madea Christmas
Madea is back, and she's spreading holiday cheer in a small town at Christmastime. Wait, didn't she become a millionaire at the end of Madea's Witness Protection? Why is she a mall Santa now? Shouldn't she just own the mall? Whatever. We're pretty sure the hardcore Madea fans aren't in it for the continuity. They can see this on December 13.
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Dec. 15 - Schindler's List (20th Anniversary)
Steven Spielberg's Oscar-winning Holocaust drama got its big Blu-ray re-release earlier in 2013, but December 15 is when the movie actually premiered, so if you bought the disc - or are one of the millions who consider it a timeless classic - that's the perfect day to watch it all over again.
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Dec. 15 - Young Einstein (25th Anniversary)
But you know what classic film isn't getting a big anniversary edition this year? Young Einstein, the clever and hilarious (and highly fictionalized) biography of Albert Einstein that claims the scientist put bubbles in beer, invented rock and roll and diffused the first nuclear bomb. Starring, written and directed by the one-time Australian comedy wunderkind Yahoo Serious... hey, whatever happened to that guy?
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Dec. 16 - Benjamin Bratt's Birthday
Dead sexy character actor Benjamin Bratt turns 50 this year on December 16, coming off of one of his biggest box office successes: Despicable Me 2. Bratt played a supervillain luchador named "El Macho," and gave us one of CraveOnline's best interviews of 2013. Happy Birthday, Benjamin!
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Dec. 17 - The Lone Ranger
2013's most notorious box office bomb comes to Blu-ray on December 17. Since the odds are astronomically good that you didn't see Gore Verbinski's revisionist western, starring Armie Hammer as The Lone Ranger and Johnny Depp as Tonto, in theaters, this would be your chance to find out if it's really as bad as everyone said. (It is.)
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Dec. 17 - Elysium
If you ever wanted to see Matt Damon drill an exoskeleton over his shirt and fight for universal health care, you absolutely have to see Elysium, Neill Blomkamp's exciting, smart and ultraviolent follow-up to 2009's Oscar nominee District 9. It premieres on Blu-ray on December 17.
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Dec. 18 - Anchorman 2: The Legend Continues
After years of teasing, and apparent studio disinterest, the sequel to 2004's beloved comedy classic Anchorman is finally coming to theaters on December 18. This time, San Diego's own Ron Burgundy (Will Ferrell) joins a 24-hour news station, along with his action news team. We assume it's going to be very, very funny.
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Dec. 20 - Walking with Dinosaurs 3D
A theatrical version of the hit pseudo-documentary series Walking with Dinosaurs hits the big screen on December 20, and it looks... kinda bad. A lot like Disney's Dinosaur actually. It's got an underdog hero, talking dinosaurs, the voice of John Leguizamo... ugh. When does Jurassic World come out again?
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Dec. 20 - Her
Spike Jonze brings his bizarrely humanist perspective to voice-activated operating systems in Her, a movie about a lonely guy (Joaquin Phoenix) who falls in love with, essentially, his Siri (voiced by Scarlett Johansson). It's already getting huge raves.
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Dec. 20 - The Past
Asghar Farhadi, the writer/director of A Separation (one of the best films of the decade so far), returns with another mystery set in the world of a troubled family. Keep your calendar marked, folks: we've already seen The Past, and it's one of the better films of the year.
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Dec. 24 - Insidious: Chapter 2
Leave it to this creepy horrror series to come out on Blu-ray the day before Christmas, and try to rake in the cash from all the folks who go "Bah Humbug." Insidious: Chapter 2 is actually a lot better than the last one, if you can believe that.
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Dec. 25 - The Wolf of Wall Street
Christmas Day is Hollywood's last chance to squeak out some Oscar contenders before the Academy's deadline, and this year there's a whole bunch of them. Probably the most noteworthy, though, is Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street, which had one of the best trailers of the year, and stars Leonardo DiCaprio as the real life, larger-than-life stock market swindler Jordan Belfort.
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Dec. 25 - The Secret Life of Walter Mitty
Ben Stiller is back behind the camera for the first time since 2008's Tropic Thunder, but this time he's gone full Oscar hopeful on us with The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, a gorgeously shot ode to dreamers the world over, based on the short story by James Thurber. It'll leave you feeling ecstatic, and may be the best family-oriented bet this December.
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Dec. 25 - 47 Ronin
Keanu Reeves' second ode to Asian action cinema this year - after Man of Tai Chi, which he also directed - is a big-ass epic set in feudal Japan. Buzz has been remarkably quiet on this one so far, which means it's either going to come out of nowhere and surprise us, or it's going to suck really, really hard. Hope for the best.
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Dec. 25 - Lone Survivor
Director Peter Berg's first attempt to make Hollywood forget his underrated but enormous box office bomb Battleship is this gritty real-life tale of a Navy SEAL team assigned to kill a Taliban leader in 2005. Take a look at that title again, and you're bound to see it that doesn't go very well for them.
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Dec. 25 - August: Osage County
The latest acidic slice-of-life drama from Pulizer Prize-winning playwright Tracy Letts (Killer Joe) is receiving rave reviews for its cast - which includes Oscar winners Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts - but doesn't seem very Christmasy. It's about a family get together rife with cruelty. That may prove a little close to home for some of us...
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Dec. 25 - The Invisible Woman
Ralph Fiennes returns to the director's chair (after the impressive debut Coriolanus) with a biographical film about Charles Dickens (Fiennes) and his scandalous affair with young actress Nelly Ternan. The acting is grand, the costumes fantastic, but it's a little bit stodgy. Bring your grandparents to this one.
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Dec. 25 - Grudge Match
This year's Oscar-counterprogram might sound like a big deal, but the trailers for Grudge Match - starring Sylvester Stallone and Robert De Niro as aging boxers who return to the ring for one last fight - makes it look just... just awful. We expected better things from Rocky 7 and Raging Bull 2.
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Dec. 26 - Jared Leto's Birthday
Jared Leto turns 42 on December 26, just weeks before he's expected to receive his first Oscar nomination for the acclaimed AIDS drama Dallas Buyers Club. Hell, he's the frontrunner in the Best Supporting Actor category, so now would be a good time to catch up on his oeuvre and say you always thought he was a genius.
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Dec. 29 - BMX Bandits (30th Anniversary)
No, there isn't a big Blu-ray re-release planned for 1983's cult classic BMX Bandits, but there really should be. Nicole Kidman stars - in her feature film debut - as a member of a bicycle stunt-loving trio who run afoul of a gaggle of oafish thieves, and teach them a thing or two through the magic of BMX bikes and walkie-talkies. BMX Bandits turns 30 on December 29.
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Dec. 31 - Hell Baby
Not many Blu-ray releases are bothering to come out immediately after the Christmas buying season, but Hell Baby was never about the money. This horror comedy about the impending birth of the Antichrist and the two chain smoking, womanizing, po' boy-loving priests on a mission to stop it debuting at Sundance in 2013, and made us laugh a whole hell of a lot. Check it out on December 31.
