Winter may be larded and filled with Oscar contenders, to be sure, but Hollywood -- knowing that a little desert makes the broccoli go down -- has made sure to fill the winter Oscar-qualifying and Oscar-waiting season with a few comedies to break up the drama and depression. There's plenty of funny stuff if you know where to look -- with, of course, the warning that you may not find the same things funny as Hollywood. ...
The Men Who Stare at Goats (Nov. 6)

Packed with an all-star cast - including George Clooney, Ewan McGregor, Jeff Bridges and Kevin Spacey --this comedy would be absolutely unbelievable, if it weren't all true. Based on journalist John Ronson's book,
The Men Who Stare at Goats tells the true tale of the U.S. Military's Cold-War era experiments in creating psychic soldiers who could spy and kill with the power of their minds alone. McGregor's a journalist who tracks down Clooney's ex-psychic, while Bridges and Spacey butt heads over how the psychic soldier program should continue -- or if it should at all.
The Men Who Stare at Goats has been getting some play on the festival circuit -- I saw it in Toronto -- and while it's a bit uneven, there's a few solid laughs in it, especially when Clooney plays the silly psychic stuff ....
perfectly ... straight.
Did You Hear About the Morgans? (Dec. 18)

Directed by Marc Lawrence -- who's previously struck gold with Hugh Grant in
Two Week's Notice and
Music and Lyrics --
Did You Hear About the Morgans? has a plot as old as the hills, the fish-out-of-water-but-in-trouble. The unhappily married Morgans (Grant and Sarah Jessica Parker) of New York are witnesses to a mob murder, and have to be put into witness relocation. Together. In Wyoming. Sure, it all sounds a little too much -- the odds that the Morgans will reunite seem approximately the same as that of the sunrise tomorrow -- but Grant and Parker are always reliable. More interestingly, the supporting cast is amazing -- Sam Elliott, Mary Steenburgen and Elizabeth Moss of
Mad Men, for starters -- and as theaters get crowded with Oscar contenders,
Did You Hear about the Morgans? might be the down-home vacation from deep, dark movies that audiences want.
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