Sgt. Angle reporting for duty!

Up till now, I’ve avoided the obvious tactic of giving you orders. However, as this holiday is upon us, I now believe it is my duty to tell you what to do. And this is it:

Do NOT, by any circumstance, go see the films Old Dogs or New Moon.

DO spend your time and money on either The Road or Ninja Assassin. “But, sir, it’s Thanksgiving, a happy time for family and turkey and cranberry sauce and –and-and”–Zip it. I’m like Donald Duck, I don’t give a fu –

Why these films? Why see a movie about a post-apocalyptic tale about a father and son on a journey to find civilization? It’s dreary, it’s gray. It’s Viggo Mortensen. Well, that’s it right there, isn’t it? Here you are on Thanksgiving Day, absolutely smitten with touch football in the morning, a light fluffing of snow in the afternoon, and a giant, decapitated tasty bird in the evening. Throughout the day, you are surrounded by friends and family, an occurrence that happens once, maybe twice a year. You are happy, in the end, for, despite the quarrels and quirks, you make it into your bed in the evening realizing that you are not alone, that somebody else loves you, and happiness cuddles you to sleep.

Counter those happy feelings with the dark and the dreary, then. The opposite will make your heart grow fonder of the spats and arguments over which cranberry sauce to put on the table — the chunky homemade with rum, or the canned Ocean Spray, seal-slick kind.

A movie like Old Dogs will jettison itself to number one this weekend, because it hits a couple of demographics: older folks who can relate to an aging John Travolta and a hairy Robin Williams, and the kids because, well, Seth Green gets held by a gorilla.

Meanwhile, if New Moon hasn’t taken a dip in box office numbers already (expected, as it did have a record-breaking debut) then Thanksgiving Weekend will mean a minor resurgence as tween girls hope to enter the fantasy one more time to escape the horrors of spending time with human families. (Anyone else taking up bets on a faction of kids out there whose new life goal it is to discover a way to turn themselves into glittering vampires?)

So, you’re only logical options are The Road and Ninja Assassin (trailers below).

With Ninja Assassin, you can see some stylized ass-kicking in a movie that “knows what it is.” Two things come with Ninja movies: fast fighting and throwing stars. Throwing. Stars. Thanksgiving is an American holiday, and as an American Patriot I say to you, go there. Venture into an Asian world of Martial Arts. You will become the warrior you need to be.

Back to The Road. It’s based on a book by Cormac McCarthy, who also wrote the book No Country for Old Men. The film adaptation is directed by John Hillcoat, whose other notable credit is The Proposition, the Australian Western starring Guy Pearce, written by Nick Cave.

For TV watchers out there, Hillcoat also resembles the Observer from Fringe.

You are dismissed.

Sgt. Angle