The last few months have provided us with some iconic imagery of police violence in response to the Occupy Wall Street movement -- Lt. John Pike casually pepper spraying a group of UC Davis students like he's Febrezing a sofa, 84-year-old Dorli Rainey being helped away from a confrontation in Seattle after being doused herself, Marine Scott Olsen getting carried out through a haze of tear gas in Oakland with a fractured skull. These recent events lend Oren Moverman's Rampart a queasy immediacy even though it's set in the '90s, as the LAPD's Rampart Division struggles through the notorious police misconduct scandal that ended up implicating dozens of officers and inspired the likes of Training Day and The Shield.
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I'm going to assume none of us learned anything from Garry Marshall's New Year's Eve other than, "I was right to avoid New Year's Eve." Fortunately, there are real lessons to be gleaned from the best in New Year's cinema, and we've lined up five movies with tips for your bash this weekend. Whether you're ringing it in alone or spending it with the grimmest Vietnam vet on Earth, you'll learn something valuable here.
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I don't know how Sarah Jessica Parker does it, but a lot of her movies are staggering shit fortresses. Failure to Launch? Did You Hear About the Morgans? This weekend's I Don't Know How She Does It? The Family Stone? That movie made me feel like Diane Keaton's cancer, and it's still a Mensa candidate compared to today's Bad Movie We Love: the epic, Tropical Skittle-colored trek to Abu Dhabi, Sex and the City 2. It's so famously bad that its bad reviews are famous. It's the movie that asks the question, "How can we save a franchise that has devolved into materialistic fetishism?" and answers it with, "JEWELS." Cheers, girls!
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