Weekend Box Office Report – November 14

Take the A Train The animated Megamind with an estimated gross of $29.9 million again topped the weekend viewing charts despite a trio of new contenders in the marketplace. Second on the rails was the kinetic Unstoppable with $23.2 million while the District 9 homage Skyline slotted fourth with $11.5 million and echoes of Broadcast…

Weekend Estimates – November 14

Megamind|29.9|-35%|89.6 Unstoppable|23.2||23.2 Due Date|15.6|-52%|59.1 Skyline|11.5||11.5 Morning Glory|9.4||12.1 For Colored Girls|6.6|-64%|30.8 Red|5.1|-41% |79.8 Paranormal Activity 2|3.0|-57%|82.0 Saw 3D|2.8|-64%|43.5 Jackass 3D|2.3|-54%|114.7

Friday Estimates – November 13

Unstoppable wasn’t quite a runaway boxoffice train, but did speed past Megamind Other newcomers Skyline and Morning Glory opened to the fourth and fifth slots on Friday.

Critics Roundup – November 12

Unstoppable|Yellow|Green|Green||Green Skyline||||| Morning Glory|Yellow|Yellow|||Yellow Tiny Furniture |||Green|| Cool It |||Yellow|Yellow| You Wont Miss Me|||Green||

MW on Movies: Unstoppable and Saw 3D

Unstoppable (Four Stars) U.S.: Tony Scott, 2010 Unstoppable, a blow-you-out-of-your seat and slam-you-against-the-wall thriller about a runaway train — by Tony Scott, who knows how to make action movies, but rarely makes them this well — starts strong, hits the tracks fast, tears out the brakes, takes off like a shot, and then just keeps…

Box Office Hell — November 11

This week our pundits appear to be in agreement on the staying power of Megamind, with the unscreened sci-fi thriller Skyline duking it out with Denzel Washington’s Unstoppable star power for second place in the frame.

Review: Morning Glory

The heart of this film shoulda/coulda been McAdams, deeply connected to classic TV news, but forced to pander in Morning Show World because that is the only place she can get a job, a little lost in the pandering, perhaps forgetting what really makes her happy. Ford is the symbol of excellence and a lost generation of news thinkers. He’s lost his job and his sense of perspective as well. Paring the two up will be rocky, but they will fight and give up and fight some more to find a balance that allows him self-respect and raises her to the top of a generation that can barely remember when The News was THE NEWS.

But it’s not that.

The DVD Wrap: Antichrist, The Elia Kazan Collection, Scott Pilgrim Vs The World, Grown Ups … and more

Antichrist: The Criterion Collection Controversies that erupt at film festivals, Cannes especially, practically define what it means to stir “a tempest in a teapot.” For two weeks, the upper crust of the international film community – and way too many crusty critics – come together for the sole purpose of promoting cinema and themselves. The…

MW on DVDs: Scott Pilgrim vs. The World, Chaplin at Keystone, Moulin Rouge … and more

PICK OF THE WEEK: NEW Scott Pilgrim Vs. The World (Three Stars) U.S.; Edgar Wright, 2010 Oh, to be a kid again. To feel the juices and saps running madly, to get wildly excited about comic books and top ten hit-lists and about the last good new teen movie you saw (the whole canon from…

DVD Geek: Frozen

—‘I would take my skis and wrap them around the cable, upside-down, and I would reverse-helicopter down to safety.’ Or, ‘I would take my pole and I would vault to the next chair, till I could get to safety.’ It’s hilarious how everybody became Indiana Jones or Spider-Man. ‘Oh, it’s only fifty feet. I would just jump.’”

Review: Unstoppable

It’s just this simple. Ethan Suplee… funny fat guy… has to move a really long train a really short distance. He gets in the engine, starts it rolling, realizes he hasn’t switched the track and if he gets past the switch, it will take hours to fix the mistake. He jumps out of the slow-moving…

Weekend Box Office Report – November 7

The latest from DreamWorks Animation, Megamind, was generally pegged to debut in a mid-$40 million arena though some felt it could have performed better on a less competitive weekend. Though that contention is dubious, the rest of the year really doesn’t offer that option with both pre-sold and award titles beginning to open up the multiplex floodgates.

Weekend Estimates – November 7

The weekend’s new entries fall pretty much in line as expected, with Megamind taking the lead position. Meanwhile, REDS continues to surprise pundits with its tenacious staying power.

Friday Estimates – November 6

It’s a newbies’ weekend, with Megamind and Due Date kicking off the weekend neck-and-neck, while For Colored Girls has a clear hold on third, leaving the rest of the pack to battle it out for box office leavings.

Review: Megamind

Let’s get this out of the way right up front: You don’t really need to pay the premium to see Megamind in 3-D. It’s a sharp, nice looking film as it is, but I didn’t find the 3-D elements, though relatively seamless and painless, to be anything I couldn’t live without.

MW on Movies: Due Date, Megamind and Fair Game

Due Date (Two and a Half Stars) U. S.; Todd Phillips, 2010 An odd-couple road trip comedy about a wired-tight middle class architect (Robert Downey, Jr.) and an effete but slobby Hollywood-bound wanna be actor (Zach Galifianakis), thrown together on an impromptu cross-country drive from Atlanta to L.A., Due Date isn’t up to the best…

Critics Roundup — November 5

Megamind||||Green| For Colored Girls|Yellow|||| Due Date|Yellow|Green||| 127 Hours |Green|Green|Green|Green| Client 9: The Rise and Fall of Eliot Spitzer ||Green||Green| Fair Game|Red|Yellow||| Four Lions|||Green|| Guy and Madeline on a Park Bench|||Yellow|| Outside the Law (Hors-la-Loi)|Green||||

Box Office Hell — November 4

This week, our pundits predict kiddie flick Megamind will be smart enough to lure plenty of kids (and their parents) to the multiplex. Meanwhile, Due Date and For Colored Girls, aiming for different demographics, jostle for second position.

The DVD Wrap: Toy Story 3, The Pacific, Please Give, Don’t Let Me Drown, V: The Complete First Season … and more

Toy Story 3: Blu-ray The third edition of the Toy Story saga will resonate more with parents, I think, than their children. Youngsters will enjoy it, of course, but most of them won’t be able to appreciate the melancholy that informs the underlying themes: separation and loss. Now 18, Andy is about to leave for…

Wilmington on DVDs: Toy Story 3, The Toy Story Trilogy, The Magician, Centurion, Winnebago Man … and more

PICK OF THE WEEK: NEW Toy Story 3 (Four Stars) U. S.: Lee Unkrich, 2010 Toy Story 3 is just what we’ve come to expect from Pixar: a brilliantly conceived and immaculately animated knockout of a family show: witty and scrumptious, moving and marvelous, and something that parents can enjoy every bit as much as…