This is your old pal, Planet Sick-Boy, catching you up on a bunch of DVDs we received in the mail “for our consideration.”  For your consideration, we’ll keep it short, so that we’ll be able to stay up late enough to see every second of the Peter Jackson’s seven-hour version of King Kong tonight:

Of the big, important, year-end awards-minded biopics, The World’s Fastest Indian seems the most sincere and heartfelt, but since its protagonist isn’t exactly a household name, like Capote or Cash, it’s doubtful the film will make much of a splash amidst the noisier offerings from large Hollywood studios.  And that’s too bad, because this story of Kiwi senior citizen Burt Munro (played by the still un-retired Anthony Hopkins) and his unlikely 1967 journey to attempt to break the land speed record at “Speed Week” in the Bonneville Salt Flats in Utah.

Did we mention the half-deaf septuagenarian has a bad ticker, or that his dangerously-modified 1920 Indian Scout motorcycle doesn’t have any brakes?  Yeah, so it’s not exactly a smooth journey, but Hopkins is swell in his finest performance since Nixon.  Aussie writer-director Roger Donaldson (Thirteen Days) hits viewers with a hodgepodge of mega-tired genres (road trip, fish-out-of-water, underdog who wins the big game) that, despite all odds, still manages to work and work well.  Kind of like old Burt.  PSB says 7.

Neil Jordan returns to Trannyville with Breakfast on Pluto, an ungodly mess of a picture which plays like a Frankenstein-ish cross between an Irish Forrest Gump and a less cohesive version of the already inaccessible Velvet Goldmine.  Cillian Murphy (Red Eye) plays Patrick “Kitten” Brady, who spends most of the film weaving in and out of various watershed events in the 1960s and 1970s while looking for the mother he thinks abandoned him on the steps of a church when he was a bairn.  Murphy is alternately mesmerizing, irritating, and inaudible, which kind of fits into the overall unevenness of the whole debacle, right down to the talking robins, and the appearances from Gavin Friday and Bryan Ferry.  Jordan pelts us with more songs than a Cameron Crowe film, leaving us longing for another “gender-bending” European with crazy dreams and a brain full of music to accompany them.  Hedwig, anyone?  PSB says 4.

After her husband dies, the titular Mrs. Henderson (Judi Dench) buys the rundown Windmill Theatre in pre-World War II London, hires Vivian van Damm (Bob Hoskins) to run it, and decides to feature all-nude revues virtually round-the-clock.  Yes, it’s a big hit and, yes, the two leads end up developing feelings for each other.  But that’s about all that happens in Mrs. Henderson Presents, obvious Oscar bait from director Stephen Frears (Dirty Pretty Things) and scribe Martin Sherman, who you may remember as the writer of the impossibly bleak Bent.  It’s enjoyable enough, and the acting is certainly first-rate, but Presents is ultimately too light to be remembered for more than a day or two after you see it, largely in part to the stalled story that appears more than happy to spin its wheels until Dench and Hopkins get to make their big “for your consideration” speeches in the last reel.  PSB says 6.

Noah Baumbach hasn’t exactly been on the Sick-Boy Christmas Card List for the last decade.  The films he made in the ‘90s (specifically Kicking and Screaming, and Mr. Jealousy) epitomized the worst American independent cinema had to offer at that time.  Then, after a splendid and appreciated break, Baumbach replaced Owen Wilson as Wes Anderson’s writing partner with The Life Aquatic, which easily became that filmmaker’s least-impressive outing.

Baumbach takes great strides to redeem himself with The Squid and the Whale, a semi-autobiographical tale about the implosion of his parent’s marriage when he was a teenager in the ‘80s.  Whale is far from flawless, or even great, but it does feature one heckuva group acting performance in its portrayal of the fractured Berkman family (Jeff Daniels, Laura Linney, Jesse Eisenberg, and Owen “Son of Kevin and Phoebe” Kline are another fine example of why the Oscars need a Best Ensemble Performance).  Wes Anderson produces, and Whale occasionally feels like one of his pictures, especially in the camerawork (shot by Anderson regular Robert Yeoman) and carefully chosen (but not completely derailing, and yes I’m talking to you, Cameron Crowe) soundtrack.

Maybe it’s just me, but a big yuck to the affair between Daniels’ character and one played by Anna Paquin.  You might remember them playing father and daughter 10 years ago in Fly Away Home.  PSB says 7.

[Please note: PSB doesn’t really have a Christmas card list, so stop asking how you can sign up to get one]