The Weekend Report

Real Steel nosed ahead of a couple of newcomers to take top spot at the weekend box office with an estimated $16.1 million. Dusted off but hardly gleaming were new versions of Footloose and The Thing that followed with respective grosses of $15.8 million and $8.7 million. The third new release was the birder comedy The Big Year that laid an egg with a $3.3 million launch.

Friday Estimates: October 15, 2011

27 years ago, Footloose opened and went on to do almost 10x its opening weekend. This weekend, the Footloose remake will open to about twice what the original did. 29 years ago John Carpenter’s The Thing opened to about the same amount in 3 days as the new remake opened to do on Friday. And Steve Martin’s hair is still white.

Critics Roundup — October 13

Footloose |Yellow||||Red The Thing |Red|||| The Big Year |||||Yellow The Skin I Live In (limited) |Green|||Green|Green Texas Killing Fields (limited) |||||Yellow The Swell Season (Austin, NY Oct 21) |||Green|Green|

Box Office Hell — October 13

Our Players|Coming Soon|Box Office Prophets|Box Office Guru|EW|Box Office . com Footloose |17.7|13.6|20.0|19.0|18.0 Real Steel|17.5|15.2|15.0|15.0|15.5 The Thing|12.6|10.9|13.0|11.0|8.5 The Big Year|7.6|7.2|6.0|8.0|6.8 Dolphin Tale|6.5|6.3|6.0|6.3|6.6 The Ides of March|6.2|6.9|6.0|n/a|6.7

Wilmington on DVDs. Co-Pick of the Week: New. The Princess of Montpensier

The Princess of Montpensier (Four Stars) France: Bertrand Tavernier, 2010  (MPI Home Video) The Princess of Montpensier is a splendid French historical drama, a movie in the tradition of  sumptuous, intelligent epic-makers like Jean Renoir, Luchino Visconti, or Jean-Paul Rappeneau — and of course, in the best tradition of the filmmaker who made it, the usually good,…

The DVD Wrapup: Tree of Life, Green Lantern, Zookeeper, Mr. Nice, Four Feathers, Horrible Bosses, The Trip, Beautiful Boy, Submarino, Red State, Maniac Cop …

The Tree of Life: Blu-ray If all one knows about Terrence Malick’s “The Tree of Life” is that it was awarded the Palme d’Or at this year’s Cannes Film Festival, watching it at home could either be a tremendously exhilarating or hugely bewildering experience. A highly personal project, the movie has been gestating in his…

Wilmington on DVDs: Green Lantern; Horrible Bosses; Zookeeper; Judy Moody and the NOT Bummer Summer

Green Lantern (Two Stars) U.S.: Martin Campbell, 2011 (Warner Bros.) Maybe I’m just getting really, really tired of Superhero movies —  but I had trouble sitting through Green Lantern. A half an hour or so into the show, I started checking my watch, and soon I was checking it every few minutes or so– even though…

The Weekend Report: October 9, 2011

Real Steel provided the TKO to ascend to the top of weekend movie going charts with an estimated $26.8 million debut. The sessions other national freshman, the political thriller The Ides of March, was a distant second with $10.4 million launch. The lull pre-Thanksgiving also saw another Telugu movie out-pacing the traditionally stronger Hindi newcomer…

Weekend Estimates: October 9, 2011

Real Steel|26.8||26.8 The Ides of March|10.4||10.4 Dolphin Tale|9.1|-35%|49.0 Moneyball|7.3|-39%|49.1 50/50|5.6|-35%|17.4 Courageous|4.5|-50%|15.8 Dream House|4.4|-46%|14.4 Lion King 3D|4.4|-58%|85.8 Whats Your Number|3.1|-43%|10.3 Abduction|2.9|-49%|23.4

Wilmington on Movies: Dream House

  Dream House (Two Stars) U.S.: Jim Sheridan, 2011  In Dream House, an almost mystifying misfire of a would-be classy, smart horror movie, Daniel Craig plays Will Atenton, a New York City publishing house editor who quits his job and moves out of the city — with his angelic wife Libby (Rachel Weisz) and their two…

Wilmington on Movies: The Ides of March

The Ides of March (Two and a Half Stars) U.S.: George Clooney, 2011   Why in Great Caesar’s Ghost did George Clooney make a movie like The Ides of March now? That question kept needling me as I tried to enjoy this suave but dispiriting drama about a Democratic presidential primary gone rotten. I could never really…

Friday Estimates, October 7, 2011

Reel Steel easily beats up Clooney & Gosling, as expected. Dolphin Tale keeps on flipping with the best Friday hold in the Top 10. And in spite of the Blu-ray/DVD going on sale, people are still coming out to see the circle of life in The Lion King 3D. In limited release, IFC has an excrement-eating grin, as the very crappy Human Centipede 2 is making the most out of its notoriety.

Friday Analysis by David Poland can be found here

Box Office Hell — October 6

Our Players|Coming Soon|Box Office Prophets|Box Office Guru|EW|Box Office . com Real Steel|27.6|n/a|23.0|n/a|24.5 The Ides of March|14.2|n/a|14.0|n/a|12.0 Dolphin Tale|10.0|n/a|10.5|n/a|11.0 Moneyball|7.6|n/a|8.0|n/a|7.9 Courageous |6.0|n/a|n/a|n/a|5.7

Critics Roundup — October 6

The Ides of March |Yellow||Green||Yellow Real Steel |Yellow||||Yellow Blackthorn (limited) |||Green|| Everyday Sunshine: The Story of Fishbone |||Green|Green| The Swell Season (LA., NY Oct 21) |||Green|| Dirty Girl (limited) ||||Green| The Way (limited) |||||Green 1911 (limited) |Yellow|||| Woman on the Sixth Floor (limited) |Yellow||||

Wilmington on DVDs. The Rest: Scre4m (Scream 4)

    (Also 2 Disc Blu-ray/DVD Combo) (Three Stars) U.S.: Wes Craven, 2011 Weinstein Company/Anchor Bay. (Also Amazon Instant Video)   What’s your favorite scary movie? Excuse me? Who is this?   I said: What’s your favorite scary movie? Well, Psycho, of course. Though M and Vertigo and The Night of the Hunter and Nosferatu and…

Wilmington on DVD. Pick of the Week: New. African Cats

(Four Stars) U.S.-U.K.: Alastair Fothergill & Keith Scholey, 2011 (Walt Disney/Buena Vista) African Cats, a wildlife documentary from Disneynature, shot in Kenya on the savanna —  with real lions and cheetahs as its main characters — strikes me as 2011’s best family movie so far. But why be limiting? Why ghettoize this film by calling it a…

The Lion King, African Cats, Submarine, Fast Five, Buck, Nostalgia, Dust, Gamera, Bette Midler, Pee-wee Herman …

The Lion King: Diamond Edition: Blu-ray/Digital Copy/DVD/3D Disneynature: African Cats: Blu-ray/DVD Combo After 17 years in circulation, one way or another, it would be reasonable to think that the only people who would be interested in shelling out even more hard-earned money to see “The Lion King,” would be those viewers who collect their favorites…

Wilmington on Movies: What’s Your Number?

  What’s Your Number? (One Star) U.S.: Mark Mylod, 2011 When an Anna Faris movie is so bad it makes you yearn for the good old days of Scary Movie 2, you know you’re in trouble. What’s Your Number?, a Faris rom-com of flabbergasting silliness and an awful smirking cheeriness that sets your teeth on…

The Weekend Report: October 2, 2011

Families continued to hold sway at the multiplex as Dolphin Tale ascended to the top of the weekend movie charts with an estimated $14.3 million. Holdovers dominated frame sales with a quartet of new national releases bowing to mostly fair to poor response. The exception was the inspirational Courageous that ranked fourth with $8.8 million from a modest run of 1,161 playdates.

Trailing behind were the Cancer comedy 50/50 with $8.7 million, the chiller Dream House with $8.1 million and the teen targeted What’s Your Number eking out $5.5 million.

Wilmington on Movies: Weekend

  Weekend (Three Stars) U.K..: Andrew Haigh, 2011 Weekend, a sometimes remarkable low-budget British movie about a pickup in a Nottingham disco bar and its aftermath, starts out as a movie frankly about sex and one (or two) night stands, and winds up being closer to a classic love story. I haven’t mentioned that the…