MCN Weekend Archive for December, 2011
Wilmington on DVDs. Pick of the Week: The Help. The Debt.
“The Help” (Three Stars) U.S.: Tate Taylor, 2011 Like smooth Kentucky Bourbon or hot cornbread and jambalaya, or like Ray Charles’ great bluesy versions of “Georgia on my Mind” and “America the Beautiful,” The Help is old-fashioned, flavorsome stuff — old-fashioned in many good ways, and a few not-so-good ones. Set in Jackson, Mississippi…
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Moviegoers were otherwise engaged this weekend and overall box office sank by slightly more than half. With no new national releases in the mix, The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn easily held onto the top spot with an estimated $16.8 million.
Niche and exclusive newcomers generally did little to brighten the picture. The exception was the exclusive bow of the controversial Shame that grossed $364,000 from 10 engagements. Also good was Bollywood newcomer The Dirty Picture with a $263,000 tally at 52 venues. But otherwise it was the blahs across the ages and genders.
Read the full article »Wilmington on Movies: Hugo
Hugo (Four Stars) U.S.: Martin Scorsese, 2011 Martin Scorsese’s Hugo — a movie masterpiece if there ever was one — is a film for film lovers to dream on. It’s an incredibility entertaining show. But how could it not be? Scorsese has made it at the peak of his craft and art,…
Read the full article » 1 Comment »Friday Estimates, December 2, 2011
It’s not easy being green. But the green flows like blood for those wacky Twilight kids sucking the life out of The Muppets and the rest of he parade of family films (and Jack & Jill and The Descendants). Maybe Kermit should have worked on his abs.
Read the full article »Wilmington on Movies: Shame
Shame (Three and a Half Stars) U.S.-U.K.: Steve McQueen, 2011 There have always been lots of movies that show or exploit sex, but far fewer that try to explore it seriously, as a rich, meaningful subject, whether psychological or social. And there’s only a handful of that few that try to portray…
Read the full article » 2 Comments »Box Office Hell — December 1
Our Players|Coming Soon|Box Office Prophets|Box Office Guru|EW|Box Office . com The Muppets|14.5|n/a|13.0|14.5|16.5 The Twilight Saga: Breaking Dawn, Part 1|14.0|n/a|14.5|15.0|16.0 Hugo|6.5|n/a|9.0|8.0|8.0 Happy Feet Two |6.4|n/a|n/a|6.0|6.3 Arthur Christmas|5.8|n/a|6.0|6.1|6.5
Read the full article »Critics Roundup — December 1
Shame |Yellow||Green||Green Coriolanus (NY, LA – one week Oscar run) |Yellow||Green|| Sleeping Beauty (Julia Leigh) (limited) ||||Yellow|Red Outrage (limited) |||Yellow||
Read the full article »The DVD Wrapup: Our Idiot Brother, Cave of Forgotten Dreams, Radioactive Wolves, Another Earth, The Future, The Art of Getting By, Horror Express, Rules of the Game, Smallville …
Our Idiot Brother: Blu-ray It’s interesting how individual members of a family can be a close as peas in a pod or, in this case, as different from each other as snowflakes. For “Our Idiot Brother” to work, viewers must suspend their disbelief long enough to accept the possibility that a guileless flower child (Paul…
Read the full article » 1 Comment »Wilmington on DVDs. Pick of the Week: Classics, Sets. Orpheus; La Villa Santo-Sospir; Jean Cocteau: Autobiography of an Unknown
Orpheus (Also Blu-ray) (Two Discs) (Four Stars) France: Jean Cocteau, 1950 (Criterion Collection) Jean Cocteau, the French artist-of-all-trades who mastered many forms — he painted, drew, wrote and made movies — was a fountain of talent and an apostle of art. He was also a bit of a dandy and a…
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