May 3, 2024
The Hot Blog
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movieman on: Review: Marriage Story (spoilers only in the broadest sense)
movieman on: BYOB Fall Back, Film Forward
movieman on: Review: Frozen 2 (spoiler-free)
YancySkancy on: Review: Little Women (no spoilers)
Hcat on: Why You Should Be Afraid Of The End Of The Paramount Decree
movieman on: BYOB Fall Back, Film Forward
movieman on: I Should Be Doing Box Office
Review: Little Women (no spoilers)
Why You Should Be Afraid Of The End Of The Paramount Decree
Review: Frozen 2 (spoiler-free)
Review: Marriage Story (spoilers only in the broadest sense)
| Friday | Screens | % Chg | Cume | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Title | Gross | Thtr | % Chgn | Cume |
| Venom | 33 | 4250 | NEW | 33 |
| A Star is Born | 15.7 | 3686 | NEW | 15.7 |
| Smallfoot | 3.5 | 4131 | -46% | 31.3 |
| Night School | 3.5 | 3019 | -63% | 37.9 |
| The House Wirh a Clock in its Walls | 1.8 | 3463 | -43% | 49.5 |
| A Simple Favor | 1 | 2408 | -50% | 46.6 |
| The Nun | 0.75 | 2264 | -52% | 111.5 |
| Hell Fest | 0.6 | 2297 | -70% | 7.4 |
| Crazy Rich Asians | 0.6 | 1466 | -51% | 167.6 |
| The Predator | 0.25 | 1643 | -77% | 49.3 |
| Also Debuting | ||||
| The Hate U Give | 0.17 | 36 | ||
| Shine | 85,600 | 609 | ||
| Exes Baggage | 75,900 | 62 | ||
| NOTA | 71,300 | 138 | ||
| 96 | 61,600 | 62 | ||
| Andhadhun | 55,000 | 54 | ||
| Afsar | 45,400 | 33 | ||
| Project Gutenberg | 36,000 | 17 | ||
| Love Yatri | 22,300 | 41 | ||
| Hello, Mrs. Money | 22,200 | 37 | ||
| Studio 54 | 5,300 | 1 | ||
| Loving Pablo | 4,200 | 15 |
| 3-Day Estimates | Weekend | % Chg | Cume |
|---|---|---|---|
| No Good Dead | 24.4 (11,230) | NEW | 24.4 |
| Dolphin Tale 2 | 16.6 (4,540) | NEW | 16.6 |
| Guardians of the Galaxy | 7.9 (2,550) | -23% | 305.8 |
| Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles | 4.8 (1,630) | -26% | 181.1 |
| The Drop | 4.4 (5,480) | NEW | 4.4 |
| Let's Be Cops | 4.3 (1,570) | -22% | 73 |
| If I Stay | 4.0 (1,320) | -28% | 44.9 |
| The November Man | 2.8 (1,030) | -36% | 22.5 |
| The Giver | 2.5 (1,120) | -26% | 41.2 |
| The Hundred-Foot Journey | 2.5 (1,270) | -21% | 49.4 |
Review: Little Women (no spoilers) - The Hot Blog
Box Office First Look - The Hot Blog
Why You Should Be Afraid Of The End Of The Paramount Decree - The Hot Blog
For the small cult of Margaret fans, it just began its fifth consecutive week playing here in the Boston area, which is about four weeks longer than I expected. Is it still out anywhere else?
wow, tower heist, per Finke, is not doing all that well…had a feeling…
wish i could see margaret but it a’int anywhere my theatrical viewing area…
What does Finke know.
FACE THE HEIST. 65 MIL WEEKEND. GUARANTEE.
some dude made a 50 minute review of Abduction
he explains in detail why he didn’t like it …
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BrO19NwYSoQ
Midnights? Really? That’s her gauge? I just love that she’s going on about the SLUMP as if its real or some shit. Seriously annoying on her part, but it gives Poland more of a reason to yell at her in the future. Which is, good?
Drew Barrymore, Eddie Murphy named Hollywood’s most overpaid actors by Forbes
Will Ferrell, Reese Witherspoon and Denzel Washington also on list…
http://www.nydailynews.com/entertainment/movies/drew-barrymore-eddie-murphy-named-hollywood-s-overpaid-actors-forbes-article-1.972499#ixzz1cncoOLLB
I took my foster son to a movie and let him pick, and he wanted to see Real Steel. Normally I cringe at seeing a movie that’s been out for a month, becuz it puts me so far behind the conversation, like if I just wait another 10 weeks, I can rent it…
This was my tweet before the movie: Going to see finally Real Steel tonight. My guess is it doesn’t end with Hugh’s robot losing by decision to the champ.
So, yeah, THAT happened… #spoileralert
I still liked it. The opening credits felt almost like Friday Night Lights. The ending laid it on a little thick but it felt like an update of Over the Top with 2011 technological advancements on display.
When people talk about production budgets, are they taking into account how much money the studio gets back from product placement? Because Bing, Sprint, Xbox 360, Budweiser, and especially Dr. Pepper surely paid some coin for the placements they got.
the more i think about it – isn’t Sandlers movie Jack and Jill the ulimate punk’d episode ..so stupid it can’t be real but it is . Al Pacino is in it . why. old movie critics need to remind us who amazing he is in the movies he made in the 70’s ..but look at him now.
Dennis Dugan keeps directing all of Sandlers films ….
yeah a huge teamup for years and this guy don’t get a dp/30 regardless of what the movie makes…
also still want DP to watch The Perfect Host for David Hyde Pierce and see if he’s worthy of oscar or not ..
Saoirse Ronan in Hanna or Bradley Cooper in Limitless …also worthy of oscar ..
the big movie oscar bigshots keep looking to the future for oscars ..but they sorta forget the past performances .
also it don’t help that these actors didn’t get a dp/30 .
somebody make a super chart of past oscar winners and if they did a dp/30 or not.
celebrity look a likes .
http://www.imdb.com/list/l55gK9sgo4k/
If I can pull a sanj, I wish Poland would get a DP/30 with The T-Mobile Girl.
I’d like to give her a Star 69.
Went for my second viewing of DRIVE tonight. What a total masterpiece. I loved it first time but second time was maybe even better, you can really appreciate everything even more – the way Refn slowly builds the tension, the fantastic little set pieces, the epic badassery of Gosling’s character, the look of it, the absolutely pitch perfect performances by like a dozen different people. Brooks and Gosling are amazing but so are Perlman, Isaac, Cranston, everybody. I think I read somewhere that Cranston turned down a nice paycheck in X-Men to do DRIVE, which makes me love him dearly. Final standoff in parking lot, incredible. Also one of the most romantic movies in a long time…fuck, I could go on and on. Movie heaven.
Not sure that I get the love going out there for DRIVE. Seems more like a feature length film school exercise than a realized movie. Here’s the first lie of the movie…a guy that looks like Ryan Gosling, works in the film industry and never meets women…doesn’t have women throwing themselves at him. He’s so lonely that he has to meet the next door neighbor by accident. And this is one of the most romantic movies in a long time? Seriously? These two people barely know each other…and we barely know them. I had zero emotional investment in the movie….the plotting is almost embarrassing…but it is cool to look at.
Im with glamourboy.
Drive is an average movie in a pretty package.
Yeah I think it’s super romantic. Who cares if they barely know each other. It is the way they look at each other…SPOILERS the way she knocks on the door at the end and he isn’t there. It’s like REMAINS OF THE DAY. It’s epic. Does it ever say he doesn’t meet women? I dont think that was ever said or even implied, really. He’s like DeNiro in HEAT, kind of an introverted guy, a loner…who knows what his past is or why he is the way that he is…seems super nitpicky to say Gosling would have women throwing themselves at him, not sure what that has to do with anything. Never even crossed my mind.
And Krillian…REAL STEEL SPOILERS…I thought it was very odd that Jackman’s robot loses the last fight. I get it in FRIDAY NIGHT LIGHTS or MONEYBALL but it seemed oddly pointless in a movie like this. Trying to get some street cred or something? Just let the fuckin’ robot win at the end, sheesh.
The new “Harold and Kumar” is their best pairing yet, and its also the finest “holiday” movie since 2003 when “Bad Santa” and “Elf” dueled off.
I didn’t even mind the 3-D which is usually a deal-breaker for me.
Uh, Drive is the most romantic movie of the year by a mile, followed by Crazy Stupid Love. They should make a movie called Ryan Gosling Gazes at His Female Co-Star.
Ah, Breedlove, there should be more than just glances to make it the most romantic film in ages. And your comparison with Remains of the Day is totally off. Those two characters are completely fleshed out (they even both have names…imagine). And in Drive, the Gosling character likes her why? She has a cute kid that he enjoys playing with? In Remains of the Day, those two characters EARNED those yearning looks…they could never be together. In Drive it is much more vague. And SPOILER: The East Coast mob is going to want revenge for all the deaths of the west coast mob members…that woman and her kid will be dead within 2 days after the movie ends. By going into a situation where he knows he will be killed, there is no one to protect her anymore. Doesn’t seem all that romantic to me.
But see, this way, Real Steel has more in common with Rocky than we thought. It opens it up for Real Steel 2, where Atom and Zeus have a rematch. Then Real Steel 3, where a new bot with a mohawk challenges Atom, and then Hugh Jackman dies halfway through, but then Zeus comes to personally train Atom. And then Real Steel 4, when Zeus gets killed by a Russian bot, Atom must rediscover his roots to beat him. Then Real Steel 5, Atom’s washed up, but he and the kid, now an adult, decide to take a new robot under their wing, but that bot’s cocky and he turns on them and they fight it out at the Zoo. Then in Real Steel 6, the kid’s dead; it’s just Atom now, but a simulation game says the current bot champ would lose to Atom, so he taunts him into one last match…
Krillian, I demand to see those sequels. I hope I live long enough, especially to see Zeus and Atom homoerotically race along a beach.
I’m happy to report back that ANONYMOUS was really good, an intelligent, handsomely made piece of speculative, historical fiction. It tells a fascinating story that brings up a lot of interesting themes and concepts, and it’s a nice mix of costume drama and political thriller. I totally get the Redgrave love, but I can’t write about this movie without mentioning how tremendous Rhys Ifans is. It’s a truly great, commanding kind of lead performance, and I think he should, without question, be part of the Best Actor conversation in the months to come. I’m curious as to how the movie would have been received had a name other than Emmerich been on it.
That’s just pure gold Krillian.
I had two “gut feelings” on box office this year. I thought Cars 2 would end up doimg around 200 million. Amd it felt like Tower Heist was a 100 million, 120 million film domestic.
Still, the international on Tower Heist could be enormous.
The marketing was odd, as were the casting choices. You have no marketable female lead. Tea Leoni or Precious. You have “the stars of yesteryear” in Broderick amd Alda. Casey Affleck only helps sell the idea that its an Oceans style film.
So youre left with Stiller and Murphy. Murphys team up movies rarely do exceptional business. But he and Stiller can get this to 100+ million here and probably a lot more overseas.
Cars 2 doing $200 million is no gut feeling, it was the industry expectation. Cars 2 not doing $200 million would be more of a gut feeling. Same for Kung Fu Panda 2 as well.
I was very wrong about many films over the summer, but my gut feeling told me Tower Heist would be no box office bonanza. To me it had mid-level hit written all over it. Ironically if Tower Heist was a reunion of Eddie with Dan Ackroyd, Jamie Lee and John Cleese doing a similar type of Trading Places take down, I think that would have been box office gold. Especially if its some wall street tycoon as the baddie.
JKill- I totally agree with your take on “Anonymous.”
The adjective that best describes the movie is, “yummy.”
It looks great (sumptuous art direction/costume design/cinematography), the performances are uniformly strong
(some–including Ifans’–are even better than that) and I found it immensely entertaining from start to finish.
While hardly an Oxfordian myself, the film is so seductively persuasive while you’re watching that it’s easy to suspend your disbelief (at least for two hours of solid guilty pleasure).
My only real beef was with the Derek Jacobi bookending scenes.
Why NYC instead of London???
Perhaps anghus means he had a gut feeling “Cars 2” would top out around $200 million.
Yes. I saw 200 million as the ceiling for Cars 2.
I gotta side with the stratford/avon people here. The problem with the oxford theory is:
-not one bit of evidence. A bunch of laughable surmise. Plus it’s held up by a lot of transparent nonsense like the idea de Vere had a vault with Othello and Lear and Coriolanus to be released episodically after his death.
Not criticizing a movie I haven’t seen but the premise is no more defensible than Emmerich’s 2012 turkey shoot.
I’m hardly a proponent of the Oxford theory, Torpid. (To be perfectly honest, I find the whole thing as patently risible as the other “let’s debunk Shakespeare conspiracy theory” that Christopher Marlowe wrote all of WS’s plays.)
I just dug the movie as a “kind of movie they don’t make anymore” guilty pleasure. It’s also (easily) Emmerich’s best crafted, acted and written film since “Independence Day.”
Yeah, I’ve always been opposed to the Oxford theory and don’t find it remotely convincing. That said, the movie works like gangbusters for what it is, and I would make the argument that it’s about much more than that conspiracy. It’s kind of like how you don’t have to jibe with the different theories presented in Stone’s JFK in real life to appreciate what’s going on within the film.
Movieman, the NY thing didn’t cross my mind at the time but that is quite strange. Maybe they were trying to show how W.S.’s works have traveled and remained despite large world change, including England’s position on the world stage…?
JKill-
No idea why they opted to open (and close) the film in a NYC theater. But it definitely struck a discordant note with me.
Felt more like a sop/suck up to the American audience than anything else.
I saw MARTHA MARCY MAY MARLENE yesterday and was surprised by how lukewarm I was on it. Hawkes is great but pretty underused and I totally agree that Elizabeth Olsen is incredible but I dunno. It didn’t do much for me overall.
I will say it’s grown on me in the 24 hours since I saw it but I guess I expected a little more. And also, I have no issue with vague movies or ones that don’t have a real beginning/middle or end so those weren’t my issues at all. I just wasn’t that into it.
I agree on MMMM. I felt myself admiring the editing and the composition of the shots more than actually being disturbed or moved by it.
I’m not saying this was part of Emmerich’s thinking, but: Have you guys ever counted the number of Shakespeare festivals in this country? Seriously: I wouldn’t be surprised if there are more WS plays performed just during summer here than in all of England throughout the year. (And yes, I am aware of Statford upon Avon.) And before anyone argues about the superior quality of all the Brit productions, let me say: I have seen some great Shakespeare in Fort Worth, and some bad Shakespeare in England. A few years ago, I caught Rufus Sewell in a London staging of “Macbeth” How bad was the production? I would say a third of the audience didn’t return after the interval… er, the intermission.
I’m wondering if the tepid b.o. reception for “Anonymous” could be attributed to the fact that Shakespeare fans (and various “high cultcha” types) may have boycotted the film on principle because they were offended by the very premise.
And if you can’t even count on that demographic, who’s left to buy tickets?
Twi-hards? Fanboys?
Methinks not.
Except, perhaps, for the presumptuousness of trying to fill Mann’s and Demme’s shoes by making RED DRAGON or the geek-jihad over his being chosen to do X:3, I’ve never really understood the genesis of all the Ratner hate out there. At bare minimum, his movies are always reasonably competent and entertaining, he inspires a nice, relaxed vibe among his actors, and he at least has enough good taste to know what NOT to do. Like seriously, he is Kurosawa compared to hacks like Shawn Levy or Robert Luketic or Gary Marshall or the overrated Rob Marshall, who make aesthetically offensive movies every year and never get called out on it. And don’t even get me started on the inept stylings of Nora Ephron or Nancy Meyers, both wonderful writers who can’t direct their way out of a paper bag. Like, how did RATNER become synonymous with shitty directing? Are any of his movies THAT bad or cringe-worthy? Really? He’s extracted Eddie’s best non-DREAMGIRLS performance in 10 years. Coincidence?
You HAVE to be joking, film fanatic….Ratner is one of the worst directors of our time. Rush Hour? The Family Man? Red Dragon (or, how to kill a Hannibal Lector franchise?), X-Men Last Stand (or, How To Completely fuck up a successful trilogy), After The Sunset????, Rush Hour 3??? These are all TERRIBLE, terrible films.
Red Dragon wasn’t exactly a TERRIBLE film…the problem is that after two awesome Lecter movies, Ratner made an absolute mediocre, somewhat boring film. It could have worse, it could have been directed by Darren Lynn Bousman. No doubt, Ratner fucked it up…he had an amazign cast and then let everyone sort of flounder. But it’s not terrible.
And Rush Hour? That’s not terrible! Again, it ain’t GREAT, but it’s a fun buddy comedy that was out of style in 1991 anyway. Those are alright.
X-Men wasn’t great but neither were the others in my opinion. The second was pretty good but I never cared for that series a whole lot. The first was really so-so.
I’m not here to really defend Ratner, because if he makes a movie you pretty much know it will be mildly enjoyable or kind of boring, or a mix, and he will never direct a really great movie…but he gets way too much hate for being the worst director out there. He’s a studio guy who makes forgettable studio movies, I’ve seen worse.
Yes, but what you have to look at is that someone made two pretty good or great films in a series…and Ratner comes along and fucks up the third. The first two X-Men movies were pretty solid pieces of entertainment and the third was sooooo terrible….it completely ruined the momentum that the first two had. Yes, perhaps there are worse directors out there, but I can honestly say that he’s maybe the worst of the well known directors. But his name on a film ABSOLUTELY keeps me away now. It’s why my group of friends passed on Tower Heist this weekend. And I know our group can’t be the only ones.
Ratner falls nicely into the mid-80’s Richard Fleisher or J. Lee Thompson category of B-movie craftsmanship, often bland and by the numbers, but functional. Mostly forgettable.
He still hasn’t reached the John Badham level.
But he tries.
“Glamourboy.”
Really?
Stephen Dorff is back with Carjacked. he plays a bad
guy who car jacks a family and crazy stuff happens.
i want another dp/30.
Carjacked (2011) – Official Trailer
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VOQqmHzVOPs
hey look an actor trying to fix something real and nobody from the movie blogs pay attention.
Mark Ruffalo talks Climate Change at Occupy Wall Street
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wbxe1HWvJNw
Big, big fan of both these guys, but there needs to be a Sniglet for when a Rourke or a Dorff has ONE big year of “comeback” talk and mainstream attention… then promptly goes right back to the low-rent/DTV/junky crime movies they were doing right before. Burt kinda pulled this move, too, immediately after Boogie Nights.
I couldn’t tell the difference between X-Men 1 and 3. They both seem like the same bland, low rent superhero movie to me. I think most problems that people have with the third is the shitty script, which DID fuck up some stuff. But that’s not on Ratner, they brought him in fast to shoot the movie for a release date. Blame Fox.
And I agree, he should have NEVER been even close to a fucking Hannibal Lecter movie. That was a huge mistake, Ratner didn’t make a terrible movie…until you compare it to the great previous movies.
Basically, Ratner should stick with Tower Heist/Rush Hour types of movies. Solid fun programmers that you watch on tv. He’s fine for that.
Ok, I can agree that Ratner’s Red Dragon was a massive fuck-up with that cast – it’s really one of the great wasted casts, even in including the fact that Ed Norton was very miscast. He’s still Ed Norton!
But….when did Hannibal get paired with Silence of the Lambs when it comes to quality??
Since I just feel like whinging about minor shit:
Isn’t there kind of a societal contact among moviegoers that busting out new popcorn or candy in the second half of the movie is kind of a low-renter dick move? Poland had some throwaway weeks back about how the second halves of movies play so intense and capture the audience so much more once everybody’s settled in and stopped chomping and lost themselves in the movie.
Doesn’t happen often, but twice in the last week– once at Rum Diary, today at MMMM– I had some dude pull the move of breaking out NEW FOOD in the last half-hour. Like, at that point, can’t you fucking wait?
The RD incident wasn’t that egregious, just someone who had eaten popcorn earlier, but then in the last 20m decided (once the movie gets pretty serious) he starts trying to tear open some Starkist or gum drop bag for three minuts.
But at MMMM, some tool at the 1:10 mark actually left the show– for TEN MINUTES– and came back with this Cheech and Chong Barrel O’Popcorn from It Came from Hollywood, which he chomped with all the decorum of WAR HORSE over the pin-drop quiet last act of the movie.
Would anyone ever ACTIVELY LEAVE a movie to buy food for five-ten minutes? And am I just over sensitive about this, or is it an ass move to chomp and crunch AT ALL during the last act of a movie?
Also is there a more disgusting sound in a pindrop quiet scene than someone sucking a Coke down their gullet with rattling ice cubes?
Lex, you need to work on that obsessive compulsive thing, sir. Seriously work on it, because giving people shit for being hungry is very very weird. If a guy wants a pretzel and can pay for a pretzel, then he has the right to go get a pretzel. Stop worrying about anyone else and focus on yourself during those moments.
Lex: take a cue from Cheech & Chong in same movie name-checked in your awesome-as-usual obscure reference and “accidentally” dump a soda on the seat in front of you next time so you don’t have to deal with that.
watched Alyce 2011 …horror movie.
small movie – unknown cast – lots of violence.
a girl goes over the edge after something happens to
her friend.
overall – i liked it …
Jade Dornfeld who plays Alyce needs a dp/30…
Lohan is free – now she can do a dp/30 …
Lindsay Lohan Freed After Grueling Five Hours in Jail
this is pretty good … 2 minute video
Keira Knightley Video Diary 1
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-ecNTYRZims&feature=related
the economy is hurting mickey mouse
http://i.imgur.com/YnTbb.jpg
Jenn in Japan – lots of different videos about Japan…
she’s got interesting stuff to say so she should get
a dp/30…
Jenn in Japan – The Ichi Oku Yen Toilet
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yQrZeWJKQfA&feature=relmfu
Alison was one of my favorites on g4 …shes doing acting
in a tv show now .
her fan base is probably less than 100,000 people but it don’t mean shes bad …
hopefully she’ll get popular enough she’ll finally get a dp/30 … but she’s done so many different audio podcssts which is good enough for now.
Alison Haislip Bids Farewell to G4
http://www.g4tv.com/videos/56179/alison-haislip-bids-farewell-to-g4/