Weekend Box Office - 2/19/12

For the weekend of February 17-19.

1.  Safe House - $24 million ($78.3) - 2 wks (U) -40.3%
 . . . 3121 screens / $7690 per screen
2.  The Vow - $23.6 ($85.53) - 2 wks (SG) -42.7%
 . . . 2958 / $7978
3.  Ghost Rider: Spirit of Vengeance - $22 - 1 wk (Sony)
 . . . 3174 / $6931
4.  Journey 2 The Mysterious Island - $20.09 ($53.2) - 2 wks (WB) -26.5%
 . . . 3500 / $5739
5.  This Means War - $17.55 - 1 wk (Fox)
 . . . 3189 / $5503
6.  Star Wars Episode I 3D - $7.87 ($33.74) - 2 wks (Fox) -65%
 . . . 2655 / $2962
7.  Chronicle - $7.5 ($50.98) - 3 wks (Fox) -38%
 . . . 2556 / $2934
8.  The Woman in Black - $6.65 ($45.26) - 3 wks (CBS) -34.2%
 . . . 2559 / $2597
9.  The Secret World of Arietty - $6.4 - 1 wk (BV)
 . . . 1522 / $4205
10. The Grey - $3.03 ($47.93) - 4 wks (OR) -39.9%
 . . . 2107 / $1439
11. The Descendants - $2.93 ($75) - 14 wks (FS) -15%
 . . . 1243 / $2353

For the second weekend in a row, the top four movies each grossed at least $20 million.  I wonder if that's happened before.  Safe House and The Vow will both pass the $100 million domestic mark, and even journey 2 has an outside shot at it if it can keep up its legs.  Lorax doesn't open for two weeks, so it has a chance.

Ghost Rider 2 had a lower budget than the first one, so as long as it does well overseas, it will have been worth it.

The Oscar-nominated films are bouncing around, not really catching fire. If The Artist is the front-runner, it's not getting the same buzz and box-office that movies like The King's Speech and Slumdog Millionaire enjoyed.

Random Movie Stuff - 2/18/12

- Nonso Anozie (The Grey) has joined the cast of Ender's Game, which is now slated for a March 15, 2013 release date.  It stars Asa Butterfield, Harrison Ford, Viola Davis, Ben Kingsley, Hailee Steinfeld and Abigial Breslin.


- Gael Garcia Bernal (Amores Perros, Letters from Juliet) will star in Zorro Reborn, a sci-fi twist on the Mexican legend that puts him in a post-apocalyptic wasteland.


- Anna Friel (Limitless) and Imogen Poots (Fright Night) have joined the cast of Michael Winterbottom's King of Soho, starring Steve Coogan as Paul Raymond, who became one of England's wealthiest men by building an empire of nude theaters, gentlemen's clubs and porn magazines.


- Jennifer Aniston, Dennis Quaid and Ty Burrell have joined John Hawkes and Yasiin Bey in Switch, the prequel to Jackie Brown.


- Malin Akerman (Watchmen) has joined the cast of ABC's The Smart One.  It stars Portia de Rossi (Better Off Ted) as a brilliant, successful businesswoman who has to go to work for her ditzy younger sister, now the mayor.  Jean Smart (24) will play their mother.


- While The Office is still NBC's highest-rated show on Thursdays, it no longer can buoy the night. It fell to a series-low 4.3 million viewers (2.2 rating).  30 Rock's doing even worse than Community did at the 8/7 hour with 3.6 million viewers and a 1.4 rating.

Something Borrowed - DVD Review

Starring Kate Hudson, Ginnifer Goodwin, John Krasinski, Colin Egglesford, Steve Howey, Ashley Williams and Geoff Pierson.
Directed by Luke Greenfield.

★½

Do women friends really get together and do dance numbers with each other in their living rooms?  I can't tell you how many times I've seen a chick flick where the two or three of them just start dancing to an oldie.  The oldie in question here in Salt N Pepa's "Push It".

As likeable an actress as Ginnifer Goodwin is, I couldn't feel too bad for her doormat Rachel.  She and Darcy (Kate Hudson) have been best friends their whole lives, and Rachel is the sweet mousy friend, the Marcie to Darcy's Peppermint Patty, the Milhouse to her Bart.  Darcy is loud and selfish and always gets her way, and so we're supposed to root against her when she gets engaged to Dex (Colin Egglesford), a bland model of a love interest who was friends with Rachel in law school.

Rachel and Dex were meant to be together, because the soundtrack says so.  Darcy's the obnoxious shrew that we're supposed to root against, but eventually we dislike Rachel for allowing Darcy to steamroll her at every turn, for Rachel to not have a spine even though several moments present themselves.  And Dex is just as passive and spineless as Rachel.

Watching all of this from his wry platonic perch is Ethan (John Krasinski), the lone bright-spot of reason in the movie who is incredulous that this love-triangle is going on but no one will admit it. Krasinski is an MVP here, a life-saver.

Just when I thought the movie might make some brave, interesting choice, it dodges and settles on the stereotype.  Krasinski and Goodwin deserve better.  Hudson, well, lately there's no more sure-fire guarantee the movie sucks than to have her in it. I expect her to play Adam Sandler's love interest in something eventually.

The Zookeeper - DVD Review

Starring Kevin James, Rosario Dawson, Leslie Bibb, Ken Jeong, Donnie Wahlberg, Joe Rogan and the voices of Nick Nolte, Sylvester Stallone, Cher, Adam Sandler, Maya Rudolph and Judd Apatow.
Directed by Frank Coraci.

★½

Kevin James has found his niche in family films, the bumbling loser who falls and goes splat, but we still root for him. Had Chris Farley lived, it might have been he as the schlubby zookeeper Griffin.

My main problem with this is not the kid-aimed pratfall humor, or that the animals can talk and have, what-do-you-know, intelligence equal to humans, or that Adam Sandler's silly voice for the monkey isn't funny. Or that our friendly neighborhood zookeeper at different points in the movie has women that look like Rosario Dawson and Leslie Bibb in love with him. Or how overt the product placement is (most egregiously TGI Fridays).

It's the fact that all the movie can imagine to do with this is have the animals give advice to Griffin on wooing women. The lion, the monkey, the bear, etc. all have different tips, and Griffin tries each of them to "hilarious" results. Griffin then learns the true meaning of Christmas, or it's what's on the inside that counts, or something like that, and we get our pat happy ending.

The film's unimaginatively directed by Frank Coraci (Click), who's apparently moved on to James now that Sandler's using Dennis Dugan as his go-to doormat, er, director. James has been sucked into the Sandler vortex, and I'm afraid we've lost him.

The Woman in Black - Movie Review

Starring Daniel Radcliffe, Ciaran Hinds and Janet McTeer.
Directed by James Watkins.

★★½

I love ghost stories, and period ghost stories, and period ghost stories in giant creeky houses. I was prepared for this to be right up my alley, and for about an hour, it was. But after a while it occured to me The Woman in Black could also be called The Man Who Walked on Creaky Floorboards.

Daniel Radcliffe (you may know him from The Tailor of Panama) plays Arthur Kipps, a young lawyer who recently lost his wife, but he goes to a small town to help settle the affairs of an old rich woman who's recently passed away. Her house in an island that people can drive to when the tide is low. Love it. Isolated location, vines growing over everything. This is great!

Arthur is alone in the house, studying old papers by candlelight, looking at photographs that might contain clues...

What was that noise?

Arthur goes to investigate. We hear every heel-toe footstep he takes up the wooden stairs, slowly down the wooden hall, he comes to the door. Locked. He turns around when there's another noise at the other end of the house. Pause. Pause.

JUMP SCARE!

The Woman in Black pops out every once in a while, but sometimes not for his benefit. Sometimes it truly is for the audience. And I question a ghost's motives when she shows herself for a second but Arthur can't see her. Does she know she's in a movie?

This movie has all the ingredients to succeed and yet never gets there. I love it when actors like Ciaran Hinds get significant screen time. I love the art direction, the set, the mood, the atmosphere. But the mystery isn't that mysterious and the ending felt anti-climactic. The success of a horror movie tends to come through in the third act, like the final punches of The Sixth Sense, or The Others, or The Ring, or Insidious. This one doesn't quite get there.

Conan the Barbarian - DVD Review

Starring Jason Momoa, Rachel Nichols, Stephen Lang, Rose McGowan and Ron Perlman.  Directed by Marcus Nispel.

★½

At one point this was going to star Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson and Mickey Rourke. Johnson decided not to because he felt it too similar to The Scorpion King. That's my basic memory of it. Conan's one of those properties I figured would be served well by a reboot. There are several Conan books to draw from for source material.

Alas, they gave it to Marcus Nispel, maker of Pathfinder and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. So it never really had a chance to be good.

The plot's irrelevant, an excuse for a villain to kill most dastardly and a hero to kill most mercilessly. Everyone in this age is made of tomato soup, so splattery is their blood every time they get cut, chopped, sliced, nicked or breathed upon most hotly.

Momoa was better as Khal Drago on HBO's Game of Thrones. I can't complain about most of the others. Lang's found a career resurgance thanks to Avatar, and the women deliver about what I expected. 

I just wish someone more imaginative had been hired to bring Conan to life.   So much of it played like the first half of Pathfinder, and there were recognizable elements from numerous Jean-Claude Van Damme movies.  As is, it's a waste of time and money.

Margin Call - DVD Review

★★★½

Starring Kevin Spacey, Paul Bettany, Jeremy Irons, Zachary Quinto, Penn Badgely, Simon Baker, Demi Moore, Stanley Tucci and Aasif Mandvi.
Directed by J.C. Chandor.

This does for millionaire financial analysts what Glengarry Glen Ross did for real estate.  It's not based on any one company, but it wouldn't surprise me if the execs at Lehman Bros. or AIG went through the same thing.

Early in the movie there's a scene where a supervisor Eric (Stanley Tucci) along with 80% of the other workers on his floor.  He passes off a thumbdrive to a co-worker Peter (Zachary Quinto) who opens and tries completing its formulas.  He does that evening, and he calls Eric's boss Will (Paul Bettany) to come back to the office.  Peter shows him the numbers, and Will calls his boss Sam (Kevin Spacey) who then calls other higher-up executives until finally the CEO helipcopters in.

Jeremy Irons is John Tuld, the CEO, and one of the bitings truths the movie captures is that the further up the chain, the less knowhow they actually have, the less work they actually do.  They're there because they make the "hard decisions."  Irons commands every scene he's in, and this is with an already outstanding ensemble.

The Vow - Movie Review

★★★

Starring Rachel McAdams, Channing Tatum, Sam Neill, Jessica Lange, Scott Speedman, Wendy Crewson and Jessica McNamee.  Directed by Michael Sucsy.

The Vow has a straight-forward concept with a "What would you do?" element for the audience.  It's inspired by real events, and it was cool afterwards to read some of the details of the real couple.

This Hollywood spin has two lovebirds, happily married, Paige (Rachel McAdams) and Leo (Channing Tatum), when a car accident changes everything.  He has some scrapes and bruises, but she has brain damage, and when she wakes up, she has no memories of the past five years, including ever meeting, let alone marrying, Leo.  He must win her over all over again.

It isn't a very deep movie. The presense of Neill and Lange as her parents only emphasizes that these talents are capable of much more than the script asks them to do.  And McAdams and Tatum, while good together, are no match for the chemistry McAdams and Ryan Gosling once made in The Notebook.

But on its own featherweight ambitions, I liked it, especially McAdams.  It's a decent date movie.

Random Movie Stuff - 2/12/12

- Whitney Houston (The Bodyguard, Waiting to Exhale) has died at age 48.  Her last movie, Sparkle, is set to open Auguat 10 and co-stars Jordin Sparks, Derek Luke, Mike Epps and Cee-Lo Green.

- Steve Carell and Channing Tatum will star in Foxcatcher, based on the story of John du Pont, a paranoid schizophrenic who killed Olympis wrestler David Schultz.  Bennett Miller (Moneyball) will direct.

- At last, Harry Potter and Dexter unite!  Daniel Radcliffe and Michael C. Hall will star in Kill Your Darlings.  Hall will play a murder victim who inspires the Beat Revolution of 1944.  Radcliffe will play Allen Ginsberg, Ben Foster (Contraband) will play William Burroughs, and Jack Huston (Boardwalk Empire) will play Jack Kerouac.  Elizabeth Olsen, Kyra Sedgwick, Jennifer Jason Leigh and Dane Dehaan co-star.

- At one point there were three dueling Snow White movies.  Two of them open this year (Mirror Mirror with Julia Roberts and Snow White & the Huntsman with Kristen Stewart) but the third was to take place in 19th-century China and star Natalie Portman.  Now it appears Saoirse Ronan (Hanna) will star in what's now titled The Order of the Seven, about seven Shaolin monks who become outlaws, but they come to the rescue of a British expatriate fleeing an evil woman.

- The plug's been pulled on Alex Proyas's Paradise Lost, based on the John Milton classic.  Legendary Pictures decided they couldn't keep the budget under control.  It was to star Bradley Cooper and Casey Affleck.

Weekend Box Office - 2/12/12

1. The Vow - $41.7 million - 1 wk (SG)
. . . 2958 screens / $14,097 per screen
2. Safe House - $39.3 - 1 wk (U)
. . . 3119 / $12,600
3. Journey 2: The Mysterious Island - $27.55 - 1 wk (Fox)
. . . 3470 / $7939
4. Star Wars Episode I - $23 - 1 wk (Fox)
. . . 2655 / $8663
5. Chronicle - $12.3 ($40.17) - 2 wks (Fox) -44.1%
. . . 2908 / $4230
6. The Woman in Black - $10.3 ($35.46) - 2 wks (CBS) -50.7%
. . . 2856 / $3606
7. The Grey - $5.08 ($42.82) - 3 wks (ORF) -45.4%
. . . 2801 / $1814
8. Big Miracle - $3.9 ($13.2) - 2 wks (U) -49.7%
. . . 2133 / $1828
9. The Descendants - $3.5 ($70.73) - 13 wks (FS) -23.1%
. . . 1581 / $2214
10. Underworld Awakening - $2.5 ($58.9) - 4 wks (SG) -54.6%
. . . 1657 / $1509
11. Red Tails - $2.4 ($45.06) - 4 wks (Fox) -49.3%
. . . 1580 / $1519

Spectacular opening weekend for the top four.

Hesher - DVD Review

★★

Starring Joseph Gordon-Levitt, Natalie Portman, Devin Brochu, Rainn Wilson and Piper Laurie.  Directed by Spencer Susser.

Joseph Gordon-Levitt, he of 3rd Rock from the Sun and 10 Things I Hate About You and Brick and 500 Days of Summer and Inception, is a really good actor, and here comes another character he can sink his teeth into, a headbanging, vandalous squatter, a dangerous grenade who throws himself into other people's lives.  He's clearly having fun. 

Add to that the touching work of Devin Brochu as TJ, the real protagonist, a quiet kid whose mom just died.  He gets bullied at school, his father's too depressed to get off the couch, and they live at his grandmother's, who's suffering from the dementia.  When TJ runs into Hesher, Hesher follows him home and moves in, like a much more assertive Nick Nolte in Down & Out in Beverly Hills.

Then comes the leap of faith the movie asks that I could never quite make.  The dad's so depressed and beat up by life that he doesn't insist Hesher get out of his house, he doesn't call the cops, and he lets TJ go whereever with this clearly bad influence.  The movie made me sympathetic and angry at the struggles that TJ's going through, but it made me more angry at the total lack of concern on the part of the dad.

The movie's very profane and goes back and forth between dark comedy and depressing drama, and while it has its elements, it's not worth wallowing through the ones that don't.  But remember the name Devin Brochu.

HBO's Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory

I'm not sure how the rules are for the Oscars. Maybe this was shown on a big-screen somewhere before it debuted on HBO. Nevertheless it is nominated for Best Documentary this year at the Academy Awards.

I have not seen the first two, but I didn't feel the need. This one does a good job of encapsulating what happened then, what happened since, and where things are now.

The story of the West Memphis Three has been one of those where I shied away from learning more because I knew I'd feel outrage the more familiar with the case I got. To me being falsely accused is one of the most violating feelings, and to know that these three boys were falsely accused of murder by an inept police department, a sensational media, a biased judge, and a jury foreman with an agenda, well... the blood boils.

For those who don't know the story, in 1993, three 8-year-old boys were found brutally murdered, and three teenagers were quickly accused of the crime. Somehow the police thought the murders might have been some sort of satanic ritual.

The injustices these three men suffered were aggravating, infuriating, and I can't believe that Judge David Burnett was able to stay a judge all these years and then get elected to Arkansas state senate. But their story is a cautionary tale. They may have ultimately been freed, but it never feels like justice was served.

Road to Nowhere - DVD Review

★★½

Starring Shannyn Sossamon, Dominique Swain, Tygh Runyan, Cliff de Young, Waylon Payne, Michael Bigham and John Diehl.  Directed by Monte Hellman.

This is a very sleepy movie-within-a-movie experiment, to the point where it often feels like a behind-the-scenes extra on the DVD about making the actual movie.

A young director is setting out to make a movie about a real-life double-suicide that also involved robbery. He casts an unknown actress (Shannyn Sossamon) in the lead, because she looks so much like the subject, Velma Durand. The movie is a series of scenes, without being clear if it's the movie, or the movie-within-the-movie, or even a movie within a movie within a movie.

For its byzantine aspirations, we get some long shots, whether it's gazing over a lake, or the actress doing her nails. So are the director (Hellman) and writer (Steven Gaydos) in sync? Well, sure. I actually found the cast to be its weakest element. I get its low budget, but I've never found Sossamon compelling, and some of the others just feel like college buddies giving this acting thing a try. But when vets like Cliff de Young or John Diehl show up, well, at least they know what they're doing.

It's not as cubist as The Limey or as seductive as Mulholland Dr., but it's a compliment to this movie that those others come to mind when I'm watching it. Would've loved to have seen the same story told with better actors and a bigger budget. As is, it's my first exposure to Hellman's work, and I'd like to see what he and Gaydos can do next.


(UPDATE: I asked Gaydos over Twitter about one of the ending plot elements that bothered me and he answered. I'm tempted to up it to three stars over just that fact.)

Random Movie Stuff - 2/8/12

- Warner Bros. has hired a new team to rewrite its big-screen live-action Jetsons movie.

- Danny Trejo will return for a Machete sequel, tentatively titled Machete Kills.  Most of the surviving cast members are expected to return.

- Denzel Washington and Mark Wahlberg are in talks to star in 2 Guns, about a DEA agent and an undercover naval officer who unwittingly investigate each other while each steals mob money.

- John Hawkes and Yasiin Bey (formerly known as Mos Def) will star in Switch, a semi-sequel to Jackie Brown.  They'd be playing younger versions of Louis and Ordell, played by Robert DeNiro and Samuel L. Jackson in the 1997 Quentin Tarantino movie.

- James Mangold (3:10 to Yuma) will direct The Wolverine, now scheduled to open July 26, 2013.  Hugh Jackman will reprise his role.  He's currently filming as Valjean in Tom Hooper's Les Miserables.

- I Hate You Dad has had its title changed to That's My Boy.  It stars Adam Sandler as a man who fathered a baby while in his teens, and he raises him until the boy turns 18 and leaves.  They then don't see each other until his son's wedding day, and the dad faces the repercussions of his poor parenting skills.  Andy Samburg, James Caan, Susan Sarandon, Leighton Meester, Will Forte, Colin Quinn and Vanilla Ice co-star.  It opens June 15.

- Alex Cross will open October 26. It's based on a series of best-sellers from James Patterson.  Morgan Freeman played the detective in two previous movies (Kiss the Girls, Along Came A Spider).  This time, it stars Tyler Perry as Cross, as he hunts for a serial killer (Matthew Fox). Rob Cohen (XXX) will direct.

- Paul Brittain has left NBC's Saturday Night Live after joining the cast in September 2010.  No official reason was given beyond he had the "opportunity to pursue other projects" and they parted ways "amicably."  So if we don't hear from him soon, I say he was probably fired. Now they need to get someone else to play Ron Paul for their GOP debate skits.

Weekend Box Office - 2/5/12

For the weekend of Feb 3-5.

1. Chronicle - $22 million - 1 wk (Fox)
. . . 2907 screens / $7568 per screen
2. The Woman in Black - $21 - 1 wk (CBS)
. . . 2855 / $7356
3. The Grey - $9.5 ($34.76) - 2 wks (ORF) -51.7%
. . . 3208 / $2961
4. Big Miracle - $8.5 - 1 wk (Uni)
. . . 2129 / $3992
5. Underworld Awakening - $5.6 ($54.35) - 3 wks (SG) -54.7%
. . . 2636 / $2124
6. One for the Money - $5.25 ($19.67) - 2 wks (LG) -54.4%
. . . 2737 / $1918
7. Red Tails - $5 ($41.32) - 3 wks (Fox) -51.8%
. . . 2347 / $2130
8. The Descendants - $4.6 ($65.52) - 12 wks (FS) -28.2%
. . . 2038 / $2257
9. Man on a Ledge - $4.5 ($14.7) - 2 wks (Sum) -43.8%
. . . 2998 / $1501
10. Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close - $3.93 ($26.79) - 7 wks (WB) -43.8%
. . . 2505 / $1567
11. Contraband - $3.49 ($62.1) - 4 wks (Uni) -47.9%
. . . 2047 / $1705
12. The Artist - $2.57 ($20.58) - 11 wks (Wein) -22.6%
. . . 1005 / $2552

Many studios put their prestige pics in limited release in December, their entire strategy hinging on award buzz. For the most part, that's not happening. The Iron Lady and Albert Nobbs can boast Best Actress nods, but they're losing screens. The Artist is hanging in there, but it's not getting the word-of-mouth boost that benefitted the releases of The King's Speech and Slumdog Millionaire in years past.

Meanwhile the modestly budgeted genre pics are making their money back. Good reviews help. All three new wide releases rank at least 62% on the RottenTomato meter. Chronicle's telekinetic twist on the found-footage genre means we're going to get a lot more. Daniel Radcliffe's first headlining role post-Harry Potter shows the kid has a future. Big Miracle will need Dolphin Tale-level word-of-mouth to make its money back, but with four wide releases next week, I wouldn't hold my breath.

The Ides of March - DVD Review

★★★

Starring Ryan Gosling, George Clooney, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Paul Giamatti, Evan Rachel Wood, Marisa Tomei, Jeffrey Wright, Max Minghella, Jennifer Ehle and Gregory Itzin.  Directed by George Clooney.

I'm a political junkie, so it's fun for me to watch politically-based stories. When they're realistic or accurate, they can be exciting (Primary Colors), and when they're not, they still provide their own howling amusement (The Contender).

Based on a play, this movie focusses on the campaign managers, and the down-and-dirty politics they have to play for their guy to win in the primary. It's about Democrats but it could really go to either party.

Ryan Gosling plays Stephen Meyers, a highly-skilled campaign operative who's finally found an employer he can believe in - Gov. Mike Morris (George Clooney). But before he can win the presidency, Morris must win the crucial primary of Ohio. The movie is more about Meyers convening with campaign manager Paul Zara (Philip Seymour Hoffman) than it is the actual candidate. Meanwhile the campaign manager (Paul Giamatti) for their opponent would like to figure out a way to get Stephen to switch sides.

I tend to like Gosling in everything he does, but when you have two heavywrights like Hoffman and Giamatti, I wanted to see more of them, wanted to see them face off.

Clooney's directing job is solid, but once the credits roll, it lingers more as a good movie than a great one.

Winnie-the-Pooh - DVD Review

★★½

Starring the voices of Jim Cummings, John Cleese, Craig Ferguson, Bud Luckey, Tom Kenny, Jack Boulter, Kristen Anderson-Lopez and Travis Oates.
Directed by Stephen J. Anderson & Don Hall.

It has all the charm of all the other Winnie-the-Pooh movies and shorts. It's barely a movie itself; the closing credits started at the 54-minute mark. John Cleese is a fine substitute for Sebastian Cabot's gentle Narrator. Most of the voices sound the same, though I do like Craig Ferguson putting a little more mania in the pompous Owl. The plots involve finding a new tail for Eeyore and then the gang banding together when they think Christopher Robin has been kidnapped by a Backson. (They misread a note that says he'll be "back soon.")

It is what it is. Good for your 3-to-6-year-olds.  Worth a rental for them; glad I didn't pay theater prices to see it.

CBS's Rob - TV Review

I saw two episodes now, and the verdict is no. The writing's limp, and maybe Cheech Marin and Lupe Ontiveros could have made it work with different writers, but Rob Schneider's just not that funny. I was a fan of his on SNL. ("Steeeve. Steve-O! Makin' copieeeees.") This? No.