Columns By Mike WilmingtonWilmington@moviecitynews.com
Wilmington on Movies: A Nightmare on Elm Street, Please Give and Harry Brown…
A Nightmare on Elm Street (One and a Half Stars) U.S.; Samuel Bayer, 2010 Twenty-six years ago, I walked into the only theater that ever stood on the very same block where I lived — the Vogue in Los Angeles on Hollywood Boulevard between La Brea and Cherokee — and got the living, screaming
Read the full article »Picasso Summer
Pablo Picasso came this close to doing the work on the animated sequences in Picasso Summerhimself, and if he had, the film would have become one of the most important cinematic works of the Twentieth Century. But for whatever reason, he chose not to explore and conquer the one remaining artform open to him, and so…
Read the full article »Revisiting Synecdoche
SPOILER WARNING : This column is an analysis of Synecdoche, New York and contains heavy spoilers. I saw Charlie Kaufman‘s sublime film Synecdoche, New York for the third time at this year’s Ebertfest. I was interested to overhear the post-screening conversations outside the Virginia Theater after the screening, because I’ve always connected strongly to Kaufman’s work, and…
Read the full article »Date Night: How to Make Funny People Unfunny
Comedy is subjective. What one person finds hilarious might leave someone else cold. So, when people tell me that they think certain comedians or films are funny and I don’t agree, I don’t really see the point in arguing. You will never be able to convince someone of what is funny; you either feel it…
Read the full article »The B Team …
April 25, 2010 The entry of some short timers did little to energize the movie going bug and through the rubble How to Train Your Dragon emerged as the weekend favorite with an estimated $15.1 million. Top among newcomers was J-Lo’s rom-com The Back-Up Plan that slotted second with $11.7 million. The other national debs…
Read the full article »What You Don’t Know About Persian Cats
It wasn’t until March, 2001, when Mullah Mohammed Omar ordered the destruction of the magnificent Buddha statues at Bamyan, that most Americans realized the Taliban weren’t your garden variety Islamic fundamentalists. After all, when the Russians exited Afghanistan, with their tails between their legs, U.S. policy returned to: out of sight, out of mind. That would…
Read the full article »Interview with Juan Jose Campanella: The Eyes Have It
This year’s Oscar for Best Foreign Language Film went to an Argentine romantic crime thriller that few people beyond Academy voters and film festival goers were lucky enough to have seen: The Secret in Their Eyes (El Secreto de sus ojos), directed by Juan Jose Campanella, a filmmaker who calls both New York and Argentina home….
Read the full article »Wilmington on Movies: The Back-Up Plan, The Losers and Oceans …
The Back-up Plan (One and a Half Stars) U.S.; Alan Poul, 2010 If you don’t have a back-up plan when you wander into The Back-up Plan, the new Jennifer Lopez picture, you may
Read the full article »Kick-Ass or: Geeks Love Geeks
I remember reading about how Kick-Ass blew the roof off the Alamo Drafthouse when it played during Harry Knowles’ birthday party. I grew up reading AICN every day and I still do out of habit, but it’s been a while since I read anything on the site without taking a heavy dose of salt first. And it’s…
Read the full article »Butt, Butt, Butt …
April 18 , 2010 The seemingly unending potency of 3D fare continued with How to Train Your Dragon a winner by a snout with a weekend estimate of $19.9 million. The debut of Kick-Ass — the session’s presumed winner based on early tracking — had to settle for a second place position with $19.2 million…
Read the full article »Let’s Be Perfectly Franque
With Cannes and COLCOA in the wings, I was reminded of an encounter with the actor Philippe Leotard (now deceased) in the streets of the French festival town. He was walking in the street with actress Nathalie Baye and I stopped him just to say how much I admired his performance in Le Gueule Ouverte, a searing family…
Read the full article »Why Kick-Ass Isn’t Reprehensible, Morally or Otherwise
Now that I’ve reviewed Kick-Ass, the movie, I thought I’d take a moment to write about the most controversial aspect of the film: Hit-Girl, the 11-year-old vigilante trained by her father to kill bad guys. The part of Hit-Girl, played rather brilliantly by the now-13-year-old Chloe Moretz, begs the question (yet again) of where the lines in…
Read the full article »11 Movies to See This Summer
It’s funny how, as I’ve gotten older, the “thrill” of summer movies aren’t what they used to be. I remember counting down the days until I got Entertainment Weekly’s Summer Movie Preview and reading every story about every film, marking the magazine up with check marks, all the films that I wanted to see immediately…
Read the full article »Night at the Bistro
April 11 , 2010 The Titans didn’t clash but there was considerable jostling at the top of the box office charts with fierce competition for win, place and show positions. Freshmen entry Date Night scored the lead in its opening day with $9.1 million but lost ground as the session proceeded. The final frame scoreboard…
Read the full article »Anime, Hot Chicks and Feminism
What’s so great about anime and manga? And isn’t most of it sexist and objectifying of women, anyhow? I am not an anime expert, but I do know about vile attitudes towards women, and in general, I find more in anime and manga that’s empowering towards women than vile. While it’s true that some anime…
Read the full article »Wilmington on Movies: Date Night, When You’re Strange, The Greatest and more …
Date Night (Three Stars) U.S.; Shawn Levy, 2010 Steve Carell and Tina Fey make a potentially great movie comedy couple in Date Night — even though
Read the full article »Couples Retreat
There are, fortunately, a number of secondary players in Couples Retreat, a Universal release, who are funny in a classic, movie bit part sort of way, including Jean Reno, Peter Serafinowicz, Carlos Ponce, and Temuera Morrison, and between them and the Bora Bora location shooting, the 2009 film is not a complete waste of time, but it nearly…
Read the full article »J. Lo, You Coulda Been a Contenda
Watching the ads for Jennifer Lopez’s latest film, I can’t help but feel a bit wistful. I think about the potential that was clearly there, but more often I think about how stupid she made me seem. For years I defended Lopez and her abilities based on the talent displayed in the remarkable Out of Sight. She…
Read the full article »A Touch of Clash
April 4 , 2010 Ye Gods! Clash of the Titans felled the competition to take weekend bragging rights with an estimated $61.1 million. The record setting session also saw excellent results of $30.1 million for Why Did I Get Married Too?; a strong hold that generated $29.3 million for How to Train Your Dragon; and…
Read the full article »Wilmington on Movies: Clash of the Titans, The Last Song and Mid-August Lunch
Clash of the Titans (Three Stars) U.S.; Louis Leterrier, 2010 The Kraken, the Medusa, the Pegasus and the lobster monsters are smashing successes in director Louis Leterrier’s lavish remake of Clash of the Titans — the 1981 Ray Harryhausen mythological epic.
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