MCN Weekend Archive for December, 2012
The DVD Wrapup
Cosmopolis, Looper, A Man Vanishes, Trouble With Bliss, War of the Dead, Justified, Climate of Doubt … and more.
Read the full article »Wilmington on Movies: Django Unchained
Quentin Tarantino‘s Django Unchained—his most entertaining movie since Pulp Fiction and Jackie Brown and a movie of almost inspired tastelessness—pulls us into a movie land that movie buff Tarantino knows well: the world of mid-to-late ’60s-early ’70s Italian spaghetti Westerns—a roost ruled by director Sergio Leone and star Clint Eastwood with their “Man With No Name” Trilogy, but also home to a variety of trashy offshoots by men with lesser names.
Read the full article » 1 Comment »The Weekend Report (3-Day)
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey nudged ahead of some fierce competition to retain the top spot on the weekend charts with an estimated $32.9 million. The Christmas day behemoths followed close behind with Django Unchained grossing $30.5 million and the screen adaptation of Les Misérables scoring with $28 million. The frame’s other wide release, Parental Guidance, ranked fourth with $14.8 million to win the seasonal comedy honors by default. Other newcomers included Matt Damon-starring Promised Land with an okay $190,000 at 25 venues and a disappointing $14,200 at five sites for Peter Jackson’s production of West of Memphis.
Read the full article » 2 Comments »Friday Estimates
The Hobbit continues its expected journey, passing the $200m domestic marker. And Django Unchained beats back the French for Liberté!
Read the full article »Wilmington on DVDs: Jean Gremillon During the Occupation
Jean Gremillon, a forgotten giant of French cinema, a genius as neglected in America as he is idolized in France, gets a long-overdue DVD revival in this superb package from Eclipse, Criterion’s budget-label-for-the-cognoscenti. The three films inside the box—Remorques (1941), Lumiere d’ete (1943) and Le Ciel est a Vous (1944)—may be little known to most of us, but they’re among the genuine French film classics of the Occupation years. And, if Gremillon is among the very best, so were the people with whom he worked.
Read the full article »Wilmington on DVDs: Ai Weiwei: Never Sorry
I don’t want to come across like an uptight philistine or a bourgeois simpleton, but the one thing this movie didn’t convince me about was the stature of Ai Weiwei’s art—which may be either my fault, or the film’s, or possibly Ai Weiwei‘s.
Read the full article »The Torontonian Reviews: Django Unchained
Riding up as the sunset of 2012 falls, Quentin Tarantino’s latest revenge narrative spurs another fire in the hearts of cinemagoers who have grown to love the director’s particular brand of raucous story-telling. Although boiled twenty minutes too long, this spaghetti Western is nonetheless thrilling, meaty, and immensely enjoyable.
Read the full article » 1 Comment »Wilmington on DVDs: The Words
THE WORDS (Three Stars) U.S.: Directed & written by Brian Klugman & Lee Sternthal, 2012 (Sony) I have a confession to make. I didn’t write this review. As a youngster, I adored books and the words that made them up, loved the very feel of the pages on my fingers. Some of that…
Read the full article »Wilmington on DVDs: Arbitrage; Ten Years
ARBITRAGE (Three Stars) U.S.: Nicholas Jarecki, 2012 (Lions Gate) Arbitrage is a movie about big money and big crime in America, so naturally it’s set on Wall Street, a district and subculture awash in both. It’s also a picture that demonstrates how we tend to accept people who do bad things s long as…
Read the full article »Wilmington on DVDs: It’s a Wonderful Life
PICK OF THE WEEK: CLASSIC It’s a Wonderful Life (Also Blu-ray) (2 Disc Collector‘s Set) Four Stars U.S.; Frank Capra, 1946 (Paramount) It’s a Wonderful Life is Frank Capra’s Yuletide masterpiece about George Bailey (Jimmy Stewart), a small-town guy on the edge of self-destruction, who is shown by a pixilated guardian angel named Clarence (Henry…
Read the full article »The DVD Wrapup: Gandu, Killer Joe, Wimpy Kid, Liberal Arts, Red Hook … More
If the distance between Mumbai and Calcutta can easily be measured in kilometers – 1,663, to be exact — the gap between Bollywood and the traditional Bengali cinema is every bit as wide. One is obsessed with romantic fantasy, while the other is more invested in real-life scenarios and everyday people. As wildly inventive as it is deliberately transgressive, “Gandu” widens that fissure with a study of urban youth so intense and disturbing that it could have emerged fully blown from the bowels of infamous Black Hole of Calcutta prison.
Read the full article »The Weekend Report
The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey staved off a torrent of new product to easily retain top spot in the marketplace with an estimated $36.6 million. Its closest competition came from the Tom Cruise actioner Jack Reacher and the mid-life comedy This is 40 that debuted respectively with $15.5 million and $12.1 million. Two other national releases opened to listless results.
Read the full article »Friday Estimates
The Hobbit‘s journey is, not unexpectedly, still on top. The new Cruise arrives with $5 million and if it grosses $15.5m, it will match the opening of 1992’s A Few Good Men. Happy anniversary! This is 40 and The Guilt Trip open to fairly intimate crowds.
Read the full article »Wilmington on DVDs: Trouble With the Curve
Trouble With the Curve is Eastwood’s first onscreen role since the valedictory-seeming tough guy-retiree part of Walt Kowalski in 2008’s Gran Torino. It’s a good role, and, for the most part, a good movie, even though it’s, at times, corny and predictable and full of clichés and a shameless star vehicle and yadda-yadda-yadda. Clichés don’t damage a movie as much as most people think though; what matters is how you play them. But if anyone can liven up a gunfight or a bar-fight or a car-chase or a put-down, it’s Eastwood.
Read the full article » 1 Comment »Wilmington on DVDs: Baron Blood
The director is the legendary Mario Bava (Black Sunday, Black Sabbath), a visual movie-making genius who gives us something fascinating or interesting to look at in almost every shot, including a long homage to the Vincent Price-Andre de Toth 3D horror classic House of Wax, and more twisting staircases, somber towers, shadowy torture chambers, gargoyles, well-used Iron Maidens and impaled victims than you could imagine outside of Transylvania on a dark and windy night.
Read the full article »DVD Gift Guide Redux: The Story of Film, Qatsi, Ice Age, The Point … More
If there is such a thing as a no-brainer gift this holiday season, it’s The Story of Film: An Odyssey.” I can say this here, without fear of being contradicted, because anyone already drawn to a website dedicated to movies would certainly relish spending all 916 minutes in the company of Mark Cousins as he chronicles the history of the international cinema.
Read the full article »DVD Geek: Lawrence of Arabia
One of the greatest color films ever produced, David Lean’s 1962 Lawrence of Arabia shows the Earth unadorned by its decorative vegetation or man-made blemishes, with landscapes so vast that humans are no more than tiny specks passing across the surface, hardly larger than the grains of sand beneath the feet of their camels. Set during World War I in the Middle East, the film concerns not only battles, but the political maneuvering which would set the stage for power equilibriums in the region that are continuing to this day.
Read the full article »Wilmington on DVDs: Pitch Perfect; Total Recall; Tell No One
PITCH PERFECT (Two Disc Combo Pack: DVD/Blu-ray/Digital Copy) (Two and a Half Stars) U.S.: Jason Moore, 2012 (Universal) In the mood for a teen-oriented movie musical comedy about college boys and girls’ A cappella groups? Want to watch (and hear) a bunch of enthusiastic unaccompanied singers slugging it out in the ICCA (International Championship of…
Read the full article »The Weekend Report
Critical indifference to The Hobbit failed to blunt fan enthusiasm that began with early Thursday screenings generating $13 million. Overall the film rang up screen averages of more than $20,000 with its 326 Imax and 461 48 f.p.s. excursions performing at a more ramped up level. The film accounted for about 60% of all weekend sales and the Tolkien adaptation itself roughly split viewers with 49% opting for stereoscopic engagements. The audience itself skewed 57% male with 58% of the crowd aged 25 years-older and advanced.
Read the full article » 1 Comment »Friday Estimates
The Hobbit lands… and delivers the single biggest day in the history of film in the month of December, passing LOTR: Return Of The King by an estimated $2 million. That’s only the 58th best single day in history, but December box office is like no other month of the year. This includes a real question about whether this $36.5m opening will lead to a $100m weekend. It may. But in December, it may well not. After LOTR:ROTK broke the December record on opening day, it never saw a day over $27.5m again.
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