Divergent wins box-office weekend

After the flops of Beautiful Creatures, The Mortal Instruments, and Vampire Academy, it looked like Hollywood was having a tough time finding the next YA franchise in the wake of Twilight and The Hunger Games. The next hit is here in Divergent. Based on the first book in a trilogy by Veronica Roth, it's about a dystopian future where citizens must choose a faction to side with, and Shailene Woodley (The Descendents, The Spectacular Now) is the young women who doesn't quite fit in with any, making her a Divergent.  I wonder if the makers of The Amazing Spider-Man 2 are going to quickly find a way to edit her as Mary Jane Watson back into their movie. Maybe a cameo? (She'll be prominent in Spidey 3.)

Muppets Most Wanted wasn't a flop, but you couldn't call it a hit either. Modest budgets are the way to proceed with this group.

The indie film God's Not Dead struck a chord with viewers of faith. Maybe Hollywood's going to be warmer to the idea of main characters having religion (and maybe get bigger stars than Kevin Sorbo and Dean Cain to play them). The big budgets given to Darren Aronofksy's Noah (opening Friday) and Ridley Scott's Exodus (opening in December) are a good sign they already have. (Let's see what the Wachowskis or Mel Gibson would do with Joseph in Egypt. Who's with me?)

Mr. Peabody & Sherman has made $100 million overseas, and Fox will need that overseas money to make a profit, as the domestic well looks like it'll be drying soon.

The Grand Budapest Hotel is still a juggernaut on the small screen. Veronica Mars fell 75% in its second week. Fans of the cult show saw the movie, and no one else.  Bad Words, the directorial debut of Jason Bateman, is losing momentum and probably won't open as wide as intended a couple weeks ago.

DVD Roundup - All Is Lost, The Spectacular Now, The Hunt

ALL IS LOST (★★★)
Starring Robert Redford. Directed by J.C. Chandor.

This bare-bones tale of survival never gets dull, even with very little dialogue and only one actor. Redford could be playing himself, but in this stripped down atmosphere, he's good enough. He's a man at sea when his boat springs a leak. For the next 80 minutes, it's just him trying to survive, trying to find a way to get another boat's attention before his own sinks.

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THE SPECTACULAR NOW (★★★½)
Starring Miles Teller, Shailene Woodley, Brie Larson, Jennifer Jason Leigh, Kyle Chandler and Mary Elizabeth Winstead. Directed by James Ponsoldt.

It's one of those high school movies that actually has a brain and heart behind what it's doing. It's about a popular but listless bad boy named Sutter (Miles Teller), who falls for an unconventional nice girl (Shailene Woodley) who starts to be the better influence on him than he is a bad influence on her.

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THE HUNT (★★½)
Starring Mads Mikkelsen. Directed by Thomas Vinterberg.

This was a difficult movie to sit through, to the point that my wife quit watching and when I told her the rest of the movie, she said she has no regrets. This Danish film is about a good guy who volunteers at the kindergarten who is then accused of molesting one of the kids. We know right off the bat he is innocent, and so the increased tension from his home-town who start to view him as a monster... well, it's excruciating. Mads Mikkelsen (Casino Royale, NBC's Hannibal) is very good as the wronged man, and it seems intended to remind of the cases of the McMartins, Friedmans, or West Memphis Three, where a Salem-esque hysteria surrounded the accused. It gets a little too manipulative in this vein, but Mikkelsen saves it.