Top Gun Maverick #1 in 2nd week

For the weekend of June 3-5, 2022, Top Gun: Maverick held strong, dropping a mere 32.1% its second week. In fact it's the 8th best second weekend in box office history. It's well on its way to become Paramount's second highest grosser ever, and with these legs, it could catch Titanic. 

But it also benefitted from not much competition. No new big-budget releases this week, only horror flicks and arthouse fare. David Cronenberg's Crimes of the Future failed to find an audience, even with Viggo Mortensen and Kristen Stewart headlining it. Vikram, a 3-hour action thriller from India, wound up doing best.

Opens June 10

JURASSIC WORLD: DOMINION with Chris Pratt, Bryce Dallas Howard and Jeff Goldblum.

Cafe Society - Movie Review

Starring Jesse Eisenberg, Kristen Stewart, Steve Carell, Blake Lively, Corey Stoll, Parker Posey, Ken Stott and Anna Camp.
Written & Directed by Woody Allen.

★★

Oh look, a movie about a nebbish Jew from New York who's contemplating adultery. Must be a Woody Allen film.

I enjoy the Windsor font of the opening credits playing over an old jazz tune. It tells you right away you're back in that world, no matter what time period. This one takes place in the late 1930's, when Bobby (Jesse Eisenberg) heads to Hollywood to work for his powerful agent uncle Phil (Steve Carell). While there, he falls for Phil's secretary Vonnie (Kristen Stewart). Vonnie has a secret boyfriend, but she enjoys her time with Bobby.

Eventually Bobby moves back to New York to help run a nightclub with his gangster brother Ben (Corey Stoll). Ben has killed many people to get ahead, and that aspect of him is played for droll effect.

There are some other twists and turns, but the plot moves along in haphazard fashion. The tone keeps shifting abruptly, and Allen seems to be aiming for the sweet spot of Crimes & Misdemeanors where he can go back and forth between comedy and drama. I would say Cafe Society was filmed before the script was really ready. There are themes he brings up which he then drops without really exploring them.

As for the cast, the standout was Kristen Stewart. She has a fresh-faced buoyancy to her performance that shows she's really put the Twilight films in her rear-view. With luck, her career will continue this crawl back to credibility.

Twilight: Breaking Dawn Part 2 - Movie Review

Starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Billy Burke, Michael Sheen, Dakota Fanning, Peter Facinelli, Elizabeth Reaser, Kellen Lutz, Ashley Greene, Nikki Reed, Jackson Rathbone, Maggie Grace, Lee Pace, Joe Anderson and Christopher Heyerdahl.

Directed by Bill Condon.

★★½

At the very least, this movie is a nice apology for Breaking Dawn Part 1, the low-point in the series.  Bella is now a vampire, and so we see her go through the discovery process, learning her abilities, and seeing this world from her new sparkling point of view.

Ah, but the Volteri are still the ruling vamps, and when they get word of Bella's daughter, it ignites a showdown between them and the Cullens.

This movie has several problems, from the CGI baby, to Bella's ability to feed without getting a drop of blood on her, to her Dad not noticing her eyes are yellow now.  I could go on.  These are problems you can't blame on the book; they could have been caught and cleaned up.

The book has some gifts to the screenwriter, namely an action climax that's actually pretty good.

I've always taken the Twilight movies at the level they are, and so I can enjoy them.  Except for Breaking Dawn Part 1.  This one may well be the best one in the series, for what that's worth.

Snow White and the Huntsman - Movie Review

Starring Kristen Stewart, Charlize Theron, Chris Hemsworth, Sam Claflin, Ian McShane, Bob Hoskins, Ray Winstone, Nick Frost, Toby Jones, Eddie Marsan and Sam Spruell.
Directed by Rupert Sanders.

★★★

Kristen Stewart is a good actress. I know she doesn't seem like it in the Twilight movies, but in everything else she does, there's more to her. I point to Panic Room, Adventureland and The Runaways as examples. Here, she's Snow White, a princess imprisoned by her evil stepmother Queen Ravenna (Charlize Theron). Snow White escapes one day, and with good timing, for Ravenna is planning on taking her heart as part of a spell to grant her immortality.

Snow White makes it to the Dark Forest, and the Queen sends her men to find someone who can track her down. They bring to her the Huntsman (Chris Hemsworth), a drunken widower who on his good days is an effective tracker.

Eventually the dawrfs come into play.

Stewart doesn't quite get there in all her scenes. There's a rousing speech she gives her people before battle that doesn't really work. Theron, meanwhile, owns the movie as Ravenna, remaining young by stealing the youth from others. I liked Hemsworth as the Huntsman. I think he'll prove to be a better actor than Sam Worthington.

And then there's the dwarfs. I loved the dwarfs. This one goes the Lord of the Rings route by taking regular actors and using makeup, CGI and camera tricks to dwarf them. Bob Hoskins stands out as the oldest, wisest, blind dwarf, but Ian McShane, Ray Winstone, Eddie Marsan, Nick Frost, Toby Jones, etc., all get their moments.

This visually arresting fantasy brought to mind some of those 1980's classics like Ladyhawke and The NeverEnding Story.

Breaking Dawn part 1 - Movie Review

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Starring Kristen Stewart, Robert Pattinson, Taylor Lautner, Billy Burke, Peter Facinelli, Elizabeth Reaser, Kellen Lutz, Ashley Greene, Nikki Reed, Jackson Rathbone, Anna Kendrick, Maggie Grace, Sarah Clarke and Michael Sheen.
Directed by Bill Condon.


I really don't mind the Twilight movies. I find them enjoyable enough to see with my wife. But we're supposed to be building toward an epic showdown and this is easily, handily, by far the worst one in the series.

Let's start with the acting. Robert Pattinson and Taylor Lautner have not, to put it politely, improved. Lautner in particular reveals he doesn't really know how to act when he keep his shirt on the whole time. The supporting cast varies with their skills. Most of the Cullens are good at what they do, and Anna Kendrick's a good sport for still popping up, but the scenes with Lautner talking to his fellow werewolves is on part with something you'd see on Canadian TV.

Let's look now at some of the approaches to the story. Where I knew we were doomed was the third time that we're watching Bella brood and another folk-pop song starts playing. Other times the scene may have been suspenseful, but the soundtrack said mournful-melodrama.

There's also the problem with breaking up a book into two parts. The pacing for this is all wrong. Act 1 is the wedding and honeymoon, Act 2 is the pregnancy, and Act 3 is supposed to be a werewolf-vampire showdown that doesn't really pay off.

Maybe when Michael Sheen's vampires re-enter the scene in Breaking Dawn Part 2 it'll all make sense. But if Bill Condon's directing that one too, I have very little hope.

Random Movie Stuff - 5/27/11

- Snow White & the Huntsman (starring Kristen Stewart and Charlize Theron) had its release date moved up to June 1, 2012. In response, Relativity moved its Snow White movie (starring Julia Roberts and Lily Collins) to March 16, 2012. The Relativity one is said tob e more family-friendly, while Snow White & the Huntsman is going to be more for the PG-13 Twilight crowd.

- Jessica Biel and Bill Nighy are joining Colin Farrell, Kate Beckinsale and Bryan Cranston in the Total Recall remake, scheduled to open August 3, 2012.

- Andy Samberg (Saturday Night Live) and Rashida Jones (Parks & Recreation) will star in Celeste & Jesse Forever, about a divorcing couple who try to remain friends. Elijah Wood and Emma Roberts co-star.

- Zach Braff (Scrubs) has joined the cast of Oz: The Great & Powerful, a prequel starring James Franco (The Wizard), Michelle Williams (Glinda), Rachel Weisz (Witch of the East) and Mila Kunis (Witch of the West). It's scheduled to open March 8, 2013.

- Jeff Conaway has died after being taken off life support, which he's been on since a drug overdose on May 11. He was the star of movies (Grease, Pete's Dragon) and television (Taxi, Babylon 5) and appeared on VH1's Celebrity Rehab in 2008. He was 60.