Weekend Double Feature: Holiday Movies

Welcome to the Fancast Weekend Double Feature! Free movies, free fun, and you’ve got the best seat in the house - your house. Sit back, relax and get ready to feel festive.

This Thanksgiving weekend, we’re presenting a one-two punch of holiday cheer, with the turkey-day family drama What’s Cooking?, starring Kyra Sedgwick, Julianna Margulies, Joan Chen, Mercedes Ruehl and Alfre Woodard. Then, we’ll follow it up with an animated version of the classic yuletide tale, A Christmas Carol.

But first, check out some Coming Attractions!

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NOW PLAYING:

What’s Cooking?

A great ensemble cast has been assembled to take a look at multiculturalism in America as four different Los Angeles families have different holiday crises on Thanksgiving.

The Jewish Seelig family is forced to deal with uncomfortable topics when Rachel (Kyra Sedgwick) brings home her lesbian lover Carla (Julianna Margulies) for the occasion. Black Republican Ronald Williams (Dennis Haysbert) and his wife Audrey (Alfre Woodard) are making their preparations to host white dinner guests. Vietnamese immigrant Trinh Nguyen (Joan Chen) starts to realize that she does not know her children as well as she thinks she does when she finds condoms and guns in their belongings. And the Avilas are in for some turmoil when young Anthony (Douglas Spain) invites his cheating father to dinner without knowledge or consent from his mother Elisabeth (Mercedes Ruehl).

Directed by Gurinder Chadha (who would go on to direct Bend It Like Beckham two years later) and also starring Lainie Kazan, Estelle Harris, Will Yun Lee and Kristy Wu, What’s Cooking? is a touching dramedy that doesn’t shy away from the tensions and turmoil that many families face in this day and age.

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A Christmas Carol

The perennial holiday favorite cautionary tale about the dangers of harboring a miserly heart and contempt for humanity shows us the grizzled Ebenezer Scrooge (voiced by Simon Callow) as he’s visited by the spirit of his late business partner Jacob Marley (Nicolas Cage). This heralds a harrowing night for Mr. Scrooge, as three more ghosts appear to him to show him the error of his ways. The Ghost of Christmas Past (Jane Horrocks) shows him in painful detail how he drove away the love of his life, Belle (Kate Winslet). The Ghost of Christmas Present (Michael Gambon) shows him the life of his big-hearted employee Bob Cratchit (Rhys Ifans) and how Scrooge’s stingy ways force this family to suffer. Then… there’s The Ghost of Christmas Future, with the most unsettling vision of all.

MORE MOVIES:

See what’s on tap this weekend nationwide and in carefully selected theaters.

To purchase tickets, visit Fandango.

And for more free movies on Fancast, click here.