THE WOMAN IN BLACK 2: ANGEL OF DEATH

For those keeping track, the newly annual tradition of each film year opening with a horror sequel continues, thanks to the release of The Woman in Black 2: Angel of Death. But I should mention that, beyond the presence of the titular ghost, director Tom Harper's follow-up doesn't share many traits with the original. There's no Daniel Radcliffe, for one thing. And instead of taking place in the London outskirts of the Edwardian era, this one is set during World War II. And ... . Um ... . Wow. Does anyone recall anything else about the original?

UNBROKEN, THE IMITATION GAME, and BIG EYES

Among other titles, Christmas Day brought with it the area releases of Angelina Jolie's Unbroken, Morten Tyldum's The Imitation Game, and Tim Burton's Big Eyes. Each of them opens with a title-card variant on "This is a true story." Each of them ends with a series of title cards informing us what happened to characters after the films' narratives concluded. And each of them, for occasional better and more frequent worse, feels absolutely, 100-percent Hollywood.

"Hey, Jeff!"

"Hello there, Mike. All done?"

"Yep! Just finished this week's What's Happenin' pages - my last official writing duty of 2014!"

"Good for you."

"As usual, we're actually calling these the 'What's Happenin' on New Year's Eve' pages, as they'll list all the information we have, as of press time, regarding the area venues hosting live music or karaoke or DJs on December 31!"

ANNIE

Sony's last-remaining grab for the holiday box office, the much-downloaded reboot of Annie, opened this weekend, and it must be said that as a musical - especially as a musically faithful interpretation of the stage show - it kind of sucks. The choreography's a shambles and the mixing is poor and the original numbers are terrible, while familiar, enjoyable Annie tunes such as "Little Girls" and "Easy Street" are merely sampled, their melodies and lyrics awkwardly woven into new pop and hip-hop arrangements. (Three of the film's myriad producers are Jay-Z and Will and Jada Pinkett Smith, so I guess we should just be grateful that the titular orphan is played by Quvenzhané Wallis and not Willow. Or Jaden.)