Wilmington on Movies: Man on a Ledge

Man on a Ledge has that slick, self-satisfied gleam movies can get when they cost too much and they’re stuffed with formula and clichés and stars, and nobody can do anything about it. It also has a plot so preposterous, motivations so inane, and an ending so bonkers that the only possible way to play them may be for laughs, if the show were good at comedy.

Wilmington on Movies: The Grey

At its best, The Grey reminds you of such classics as Boorman’s and Dickey’s Deliverance, or Lev Kuleshov‘s London-derived Russian silent Outside the Law, or even a flawed but exciting show like Lee Tamahori’s and David Mamet’s The Edge, The Grey makes the wilderness a terrifying place. And it works, sometimes smashingly.

The Weekend Report: Wolf at the Door

There was a lack of Lupophobia at the multiplex as The Grey ascended to the top of the weekend movie charts with an estimated $19.5 million debut. Two other national bows figured into the top five with the romantic actioner One For the Money slotted third with $11.7 million and the suspenseful Man on a Ledge two notches back at $7.9 million.

Friday Estimates, January 27, 2012

Open Road’s first big opening comes with The Grey, which should be in the top 5 of all indie openings for the last year. Meanwhile, Lionsgate returns to HeiglLand, not breaking any records, but continuing to make an argument that Ms. Heigl can consistently open movies to 8 figures. And SummitGate’s Man On A Ledge fell off.

Critics Roundup — January 26

The Grey |Green||Green||Green Man on a Ledge |||||Red One for the Money ||||| Albert Nobbs (limited) |Green||Green|Green|Green Declaration of War (limited) |Yellow||Green||

Wilmington on DVDs. The Rest: Real Steel, Journey to the Center of the Earth (2008), Welcome to L.A.

PICK OF THE WEEK: CLASSIC
Identification of a Woman (Also Blu-ray) (Four Stars)
Italy: Michelangelo Antonioni, 1982 (Criterion Collection)

Wilmington on DVDs. Pick of the Week: Classic. Identification of a Woman

  PICK OF THE WEEK: CLASSIC Identification of a Woman (Also Blu-ray) (Four Stars) Italy: Michelangelo Antonioni, 1982 (Criterion Collection) 1. Identification of a Woman. Antonioni. Why? 2. Michelangelo Antonioni, maker of Identification of a Woman (1982), L’Avventura (1960) and Blowup (1966), one of the great international filmmakers  of the 20th century, is an exemplar of that era…

The DVD Wrapup: Real Steel, Whistleblower, 8 more

Everyone in the movie looks as if they belong there, except Jackman, whose Charlie Keaton is altogether too soft and unscarred to be a broken-down boxer and hard-drinking grease monkey. Kids who only know the Aussie actor through his “Wolverine” persona won’t mind the discrepancy.

Wilmington on Movies: Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close

          EXTREMELY LOUD & INCREDIBLY CLOSE (Two and a Half Stars) U.S.: Stephen Daldry, 2012   I don’t want to come across as mean and heartless here, but, though there were parts of it I liked a lot,  the movie Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close affected me something like a persistent urchin…

Wilmington on Movies. Red Tails

            RED TAILS (Three Stars) U. S.; Anthony Hemingway, 2012   There are two ways to look at Red Tails, producer George Lucas’s long-gestating  World War II movie about the storied all-black Air Force unit, The Tuskegee Airmen. You can see the show as a big spectacular action movie, with incredible…

The Weekend Report: Float Like a Butterfly … Sting Like a Bee

The debut of Underworld: Awakening led weekend ticket sales with an estimated $25.2 million. Two other films bowed nationally and a fourth platformed after four weeks in Oscar-qualifying exclusives. The saga of the Second World War Tuskegee Airmen, Red Tails, ranked second with $19.1 million and the take no prisoners actioner Haywire kicked out with $8.9 million. Wedged in-between was the expansion of Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close in position four with $10.4 million.

Critics Roundup — January 19

Red Tails |Yellow||||Green Extremely Loud and Incredibly Close |||Red||Yellow Coriolanus |Yellow|||Yellow| The Flowers of War (limited) |Red||||Green Miss Bala |Green|||Green|Green Haywire |Green||||Green Crazy Horse (NY) |||Green|| Viral Factor |Yellow|||| Front Line |Yellow||||

The DVD Wrapup: Moneyball, Dirty Girl, Bombay Beach, Division III, The Overcoat, Belle du Jour, Mysteries of Lisbon, Cold Sweat …

Moneyball: Blu-ray The term, “inside baseball,” often is used when a conversation about anything from politics to food preparation becomes so complex that only a professional could possibly understand its complexities. While it isn’t always used in a derogatory way, the term does suggest that one participant is attempting to dazzle the other with numbers,…

Wilmington on DVDs. Co-Pick of the Week: New. The Ides of March

  Despite my low-to-moderate rating of The Ides Of March, I still believe it’s a movie that should be seen by all movie types. Which is why it’s a co-pick.   The Ides of March (Two and a Half Stars) U.S.: George Clooney, 2011 (Sony Pictures)   Why in Hell did George Clooney make a movie…

Wilmington on DVDs. Pick of the Week: New. Mysteries of Lisbon

    MYSTERIES OF LISBON (Four Stars)  Portugal: Raoul Ruiz, 2010-11 (Music Box Films) Take the book down from the shelf. Open the pages. Interesting title. “‘Mysteries of Lisbon”…    Raoul Ruiz’s mesmerizing movie Mysteries of Lisbon, which was adapted from Camilo Castelo Branco’s 19th century novel about psychological/romantic torment in the Portuguese upper classes,…

Wilmington on Movies: Joyful Noise

        JOYFUL NOISE (Two Stars) U.S.: Todd Graff, 2012  Joyful Noise — in which squabbling small town Southern gospel divas Queen Latifah and Dolly Parton take their small town Georgia church choir to the improbable finals of the National Joyful Noise Competition in Los Angeles — is really two movies: one good, one bad.  …

The Weekend Report: January 15, 2012

The slam-bang Contraband proved to be sturdier than the expected $16 million to $20 million tracking pundits predicted. According to exit polls the audience was pretty much evenly split between the sexes with about half the viewers aged 30 years old and younger. It emerged as the unexpected date night movie of the holiday period.

Also out-pacing estimates was Beauty and the Beast that was dominated by families with 60% of buyers. Couples comprised 28% of the crowd with 53% aged 25% years and younger overall. The studio was also tracking the percentage of the audience seeing the venerable animation film for the very first time but hadn’t finished collating that data at press time.

Wilmington on Movies and DVDs: Beauty and the Beast. Movie: Truesdale/Wise. DVD: Cocteau/Clement.

BEAUTY AND THE BEAST 3D (Four Stars) U.S.: Gary Truesdale, Kirk Wise, 1991-2012 BEAUTY AND THE BEAST (La Belle et la Bete) (Blu-ray) (Four Stars) France: Jean Cocteau/Rene Clement, 1946 (Criterion Collection) The new 3D version of the Disney Studio’s 1991 Beauty and the Beast — which is called by some the best animated feature of…

Friday Estimates: January 13, 2012

Three newcomers on top of the chart this weekend… kind of. Contraband, a remake, is on top. The 3D re-release of Beauty & The Beast is #2. And Joyful Noise, which brings back Dolly Parton’s breasts and what’s left of her old face, is #3. The Devil Inside drops almost as hard as Paramount hitting its knees in thanks for last Friday’s number.

Wilmington on Movies: The Iron Lady

      THE IRON LADY (Three Stars) U.K.-U.S.; Phyllida Lloyd, 2010 Love her or hate her — and there were plenty of strong feelings on both sides of the fence —Margaret Thatcher remains one of the most fascinating and influential Western world leaders of the 20th century, richly deserving of the classy dramatization she gets…