Heeeeeeere's Willie!

Friday Estimates by Klady – Oct 12

What’s the most interesting thing about the Top Five from Friday? They are exactly in reverse order of the number of theaters in which the films are playing.
That and that releasing three movies with the same demographic in the same weekend isn’t the best idea. It looks like the winner of the Serious Trio will be the one sold most as an action film with the most consistent box office star in the group, Wahlberg, and a popular actress showing cleavage.

BYOB – October 12

After cracking 100 entries on the last one, perhaps a little more room to flex…

Box Office Hell – October 12

(updated friday 3:30p)

Will The Academy Kill Lars

Word is that the AMPAS committee that sets official screenings has taken a pass on Lars & The Real Girl, the Toronto Film Fest phenom starring Oscar nominee Ryan Gosling. This call could well be the beginning of the end for any Best Picture Oscar hopes for this film, which gets a great reaction from audiences who see it and real resistance to the premise from people who have not. A poorly attended official Academy screening can be as bad as none at all… but for a small indie-level release, that foot in the door means a lot.
Of course, good box office momentum, starting with this weekend

BYOB – October 10

anyone… anyone…

12 "Questions" For Nikki Finke

ELLE: You are a powerful woman in Hollywood, Nikki. A lot of moguls there are scared of you.
ELLE: How do the male executives treat you? Do they think of you as a woman?
ELLE: Do you swear when you talk to them?
ELLE: Moron. I’ve seen you call them morons.
ELLE: When you write something incendiary, it does free up other reporters to follow you.
ELLE: What have you suffered?
ELLE: So that they can justify whatever

THB – Wandering Into HD

Here is the column I wrote for today…
But I wanted to add something for your consumption.
I go into this aware that someone (or two) will make this into an issue of my sense of entitlement. All I can do is to assure you that my interest is, for the most part, elsewhere in having this discussion.
I am not going to name people or studios, but another reason I am concerned for the future of Blu-ray and HD-DVD is that I have now had the experience at two studios with a fighting interest in the future of these technologies of trying to get software product (DVDs) to look at on the equipment in which I have already invested. I’m not looking for catalog product, just new releases that are being promoted with disc distribution now. And keep in mind, I have no problem getting normal DVDs when I request them.
Not only haven

For The Record

Since Nikki Finke hasn’t bothered to report it or run it, someone should probably point out that Warner Bros denied the report Nikki made on her gossip blog outright to CBS News, stating, “Mr Robinov never made that statement nor is it his philosophy.”
Personally, I don’t really believe that the studio doesn’t feel burned by five box office dissapointments in one year with star actresses in the primary lead or that they will not cut back severely on the number of films made – especially expensive ones – with actresses in the lead… as every other studio in town has done for years.
But at the very least, an unequivocal statement by the studio should be given as much space as gossip run by Nikki.

Redactarrhea

I don’t actually think the drama at the NYFF press conference for Brian de Palma’s Redacted was manufactured so we’d be talking about it. (Read and watch up on it on Movie City Indie.)
What I do think is that Magnolia has a very real problem with real life photos being used in a fictional motion picture that doesn’t have the cooperation of the people in the photos. And they have director who doesn’t choose to understand.
The most significant problem? De Palma has made a deeply mediocre movie that demonizes and stereotypes soldiers instead of the intended targets, the Iraq War and George Bush. And the 10 or so photos of real human desecration in Iraq at the end? It’s the only great drama in the film. But aside from the legal issues, it is cheap, lame, lazy drama that distracts from the film’s weak script and sends you out of the theater outraged for reasons that have nothing to do with DePalma’s skills behind the camera.
And if they stay, there likely will be a lawsuit because it underlines the offensive-to-me effort of DePalma to blur the line between truth (the photos) and fiction (the movie).
Do yourself a favor and find Nick Broomfield’s infintely superior Battle For Haditha, which tells the story of a massacre by America soldiers in an honest, honorable, and more realistic drama.

Matching Shots…32 Years Apart

BEFORE

BUCKET LIST (The Trailer)

Heart Broken

The thing about a Farrelly Bros movie is that spoilers are still spoilers, but they generally are shock laughs, so there is no great loss in being spoiled. I guess I would prefer to see, say, There