MCN Weekend Archive for June, 2011

The DVD Wrapup: True Grit, Another Year, Just Go With It, Carancho, Night Flight, The Housemaid, The Big C, White Collar … …

By Gary Dretzka - Wednesday, June 8th, 2011

True Grit: Blu-ray There is a considerable difference between the re-making a classic movie for contemporary tastes and the re-adaptation of a novel, based primarily on a re-interpretation of the source material. While staying true to the original version of “True Grit” – for which, in 1969, John Wayne was awarded an Academy Award as…

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Wilmington on DVDs. Pick of the Week: New. True Grit

By Mike Wilmington - Tuesday, June 7th, 2011

PICK OF THE WEEK: NEW. True Grit (Four Stars) U.S.: Ethan and Joel Coen, 2010 (Paramount)        The Western is one of the great America movie myths, and the Coen Brothers’ new version of Charles Portis’ novel, “True Grit” seems to me one of the great movie Westerns.  America movies and American literature should join hands…

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Weekend Estimates: June 5, 2011

By David Poland - Sunday, June 5th, 2011

X-Men: First Class|56.1 (15,410)|NEW|56.1 The Hangover Part II|32.6 (9,010)|-62%|187 Kung Fu Panda 2|24.5 (6,190)|-49%|100.6 Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides|18.0 (4,530)|-55%|190.2 Bridesmaids|12.1 (4,140)|-27%|107.2 Thor|4.2 (1,500)|-56%|169 Fast Five|3.2 (1,440)|-49%|202 Midnight in Paris|2.8 (18,840)|43%|6.8 Jumping the Broom|.85 (1,440)|-53%|35.9 Something Borrowed|.83 (1,210)|-55%|36.6

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The Weekend Report: June 5, 2011

By Leonard Klady - Sunday, June 5th, 2011

The opening of X-Men: First Class provided the franchise with a strong re-boot and the new chapter easily led weekend ticket sales with an estimated $56.1 million.

All those folk that fell in love with the movies in the 1970s and 1980s have found the likes of Midnight in Paris and The Tree of Life and have provided Beginners with a good start. These shifts in movie going trends are receiving close scrutiny in the industry and one can expect release patterns to see at least nominal change from rather entrenched patterns dating back to 1989 including a few high profile debuts in March and October.

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Friday Estimates: June 3

By David Poland - Saturday, June 4th, 2011

X-Men: First Class|20.4|3641|NEW|20.4 The Hangover 2|10.6|3615|-65%|165 Kung Fu Panda 2|6.3|3952|-52%|82.4 Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides|5|3966|-55%|177.2 Bridesmaids|3.6|2919|-23%|98.7 Thor|1.2|2780|-52%|166.1 Fast Five|0.95|2237|-48%|199.7 Midnight in Paris|0.7|147|44%|4.7 Something Borrowed|0.25|688|-52%|36.1 Jumping the Broom|0.25|589|-51%|35.3 Also Debuting Ready|0.14|98|| Beginners|38,100|5|| 17 Miracles|15,300|11|| Submarine|10,200|4|| Empire of Silver|9,900|18|| Lion of Judah|6,600|81|| Beautiful Boy|4,600|4|| Women, Art, Revolution|2,100|2|| Rejoice and Shout|2,100|1|| YellowBrickRoad|2,050|24|| Film Socialisme|1,330|1||

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Wilmington on Movies: X-Men: First Class

By Mike Wilmington - Friday, June 3rd, 2011

(Two and a Half Stars) U.S.: Matthew Vaughn, 2011 Maybe I’m getting tired of super-heroes and super-heroines. Or maybe X-Men: First Class just has too many of them. In any case, the latest Marvel movie, by my reckoning, puts a first-rate cast into a third-rate story, nearly saves it with first or second rate production…

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Box Office Hell — June 2

By Kim Voynar - Friday, June 3rd, 2011

Our Players|Coming Soon|Box Office Prophets|Box Office Guru|EW|Box Office . com X-Men: First Class |72.6|n/a|58.0|60.0|69.0 The Hangover Part II |40.0|n/a|38.0|40.0|37.0 Kung Fu Panda 2 |26.5|n/a|24.0|26.0|26.0 Pirates of the Caribbean: On Stranger Tides|18.1|n/a|12.0|18.0|19.5 Bridesmaids |12.4|n/a|n/a|13.0|12.0 Midnight in Paris|2.8|n/a|n/a|n/a|2.7 The Tree of Life |.76|n/a|n/a|n/a|n/a

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Critics Roundup: June 2

By Kim Voynar - Thursday, June 2nd, 2011

X-Men: First Class |Yellow||Yellow||Yellow Beautiful Boy |Yellow|||Yellow|Yellow Submarine |Green||Green|Green| Beginners |Green||Green|Green| Film Socialisme |Yellow||Green||

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Wilmington on DVDs: Pick of the Week, Box Set. Marlon Brando

By Mike Wilmington - Wednesday, June 1st, 2011

PICK OF THE WEEK: BOX SET Greatest Classic Legends: Marlon Brando (Four Stars) U.S.: Various Directors, 1951-1967 (TCM/Warner) Marlon Brando, America‘s finest movie actor by general consensus, began his career at the top, in his early 20s, with a revolutionary stage and film performance — as Stanley Kowalski in playwright/screenwriter Tennessee Williams’ and director Elia…

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Wilmington on DVDs: Co-Picks of the Week, Classic. Platoon, Shoeshine

By Mike Wilmington - Wednesday, June 1st, 2011

 CO-PICK OF THE WEEK: CLASSIC Platoon (Blu-ray/DVD) (Two Discs) (Four Stars) U.S.: Oliver Stone, 1986 (MGM/20th Century Fox) Oliver Stone, as most of us know, fought in the Vietnam War as a young man, and this is the story of what he went through there, translated into the fictionalized experiences of a young rifleman named Chris…

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The DVD Wrapup: Drive Angry, Once Upon a Time in the West, Adua & Her Friends, A Clockwork Orange, Undertow, The Joke, Passion Play, Kaboom, Harvest …

By Gary Dretzka - Wednesday, June 1st, 2011

Drive Angry: Blu-ray Apparently, the only person unaware that Nicolas Cage’s career is stuck in replay mode is Cage, himself. If the Oscar-winner is disturbed by how predictable he’s become since “Leaving Las Vegas,” “Honeymoon in Vegas” and “Moonstruck” put him on the A-list – and roles in “Face/Off,” “Adaptation” and “World Trade Center” further…

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It shows how out of it I was in trying to be in it, acknowledging that I was out of it to myself, and then thinking, “Okay, how do I stop being out of it? Well, I get some legitimate illogical narrative ideas” — some novel, you know?

So I decided on three writers that I might be able to option their material and get some producer, or myself as producer, and then get some writer to do a screenplay on it, and maybe make a movie.

And so the three projects were “Do Androids Dream of Electric Sheep,” “Naked Lunch” and a collection of Bukowski. Which, in 1975, forget it — I mean, that was nuts. Hollywood would not touch any of that, but I was looking for something commercial, and I thought that all of these things were coming.

There would be no Blade Runner if there was no Ray Bradbury. I couldn’t find Philip K. Dick. His agent didn’t even know where he was. And so I gave up.

I was walking down the street and I ran into Bradbury — he directed a play that I was going to do as an actor, so we know each other, but he yelled “hi” — and I’d forgot who he was.

So at my girlfriend Barbara Hershey’s urging — I was with her at that moment — she said, “Talk to him! That guy really wants to talk to you,” and I said “No, fuck him,” and keep walking.

But then I did, and then I realized who it was, and I thought, “Wait, he’s in that realm, maybe he knows Philip K. Dick.” I said, “You know a guy named—” “Yeah, sure — you want his phone number?”

My friend paid my rent for a year while I wrote, because it turned out we couldn’t get a writer. My friends kept on me about, well, if you can’t get a writer, then you write.”
~ Hampton Fancher

“That was the most disappointing thing to me in how this thing was played. Is that I’m on the phone with you now, after all that’s been said, and the fundamental distinction between what James is dealing with in these other cases is not actually brought to the fore. The fundamental difference is that James Franco didn’t seek to use his position to have sex with anyone. There’s not a case of that. He wasn’t using his position or status to try to solicit a sexual favor from anyone. If he had — if that were what the accusation involved — the show would not have gone on. We would have folded up shop and we would have not completed the show. Because then it would have been the same as Harvey Weinstein, or Les Moonves, or any of these cases that are fundamental to this new paradigm. Did you not notice that? Why did you not notice that? Is that not something notable to say, journalistically? Because nobody could find the voice to say it. I’m not just being rhetorical. Why is it that you and the other critics, none of you could find the voice to say, “You know, it’s not this, it’s that”? Because — let me go on and speak further to this. If you go back to the L.A. Times piece, that’s what it lacked. That’s what they were not able to deliver. The one example in the five that involved an issue of a sexual act was between James and a woman he was dating, who he was not working with. There was no professional dynamic in any capacity.

~ David Simon