The DVD Wrapup

The Master, Holy Motors, Kid With a Bike, Loneliest Planet, Silent Souls, Chicken With Plums, How to Survive a Plague and more.

Wilmington on DVDs: The Master

    PICK OF THE WEEK: NEW THE MASTER (Also Blu-ray) (Two Discs)  (Four Stars) U.S.: Paul Thomas Anderson, 2012 (Starz/Anchor Bay)   No, I won’t call it a masterpiece — though it’s certainly a brilliant and beautiful movie, better than any other American film I saw last year. Better than Argo. Better than Lincoln. (Not by much,…

The Weekend Report

The revenge actioner Snitch debuted to $12.9 million but that put it in the bridesmaid slot behind returning champ Identity Thief that topped session charts with an estimated $14 million. Thief is poised to become the first 2013’s release to hit $100 million domestic. The frame’s only other incoming national release was the alien terror puzzler Dark Skies that opened to $8.6 million to rank sixth overall.

Wilmington on Movies: Snitch

As for The Artist Formerly Known as The Rock, Johnson is unusually good here at projecting vulnerability and a good-guy likeability, qualities he didn’t necessarily need in his earlier action movies, but which were the only saving graces of comedy dreck like The Tooth Fairy—and which could now lead him to better roles.

Friday Estimates

Snitch won the Friday, but will lose the weekend war to Identity Thief. The other new wide release, Dark Skies, is okay for The Weinsteins… not very good in the real world.

Wilmington on DVDs: Argo

Though based on fact, Argo plays like a mad combo of mixed genres: Spy Games espionage stuff, Wag the Dog government trickery, Close-Up Iranian street film and The Sting, an intricate con game, except that this time the picture puts the CIA in a favorable light, instead of tapping into the usual Three Days of the Condor Company nightmare.

The DVD Wrapup

Bullet Collector, Argo, Thief of Bagdad, Deadfall, Sushi Girl, Undefeated, Laura, Naked City, Bath Salt Zombies… and more.

Wilmington on DVDs: Two-Lane Blacktop

All three of these existential car dudes (they’ve got no past, they’ve got no future, and what little there is of either was probably something made up by Warren Oates), get together for an outlaw car race — the Chevy against the GTO, for the pink slips. They head out from California through Santa Fe and up to Little Rock, to Tennessee and North Carolina — by which time the race and these people have changed a little — including the hitch-hiker, who comes in, grabs a ride and messes everybody up. She’s called The Girl (Laurie Bird) and she adds sex or potential sex to the equation.

Wilmington on DVDs: Monsters, Inc. 3D; Sinister; Top Gun; Twilight’s Last Gleaming; Grand Hotel..

    Monsters, Inc. 3D  (Five Disc Ultimate Collector’s Edition or Three Disc 3D/Blu-ray Combo) (Three Stars) U.S.; Pete Docter,  2001-2012 (Disney)   More good, funny, beautifully crafted, heartfelt stuff from Pixar, set in the scream-powered factory of Monstropolis among all the most horrible or brainy toy monsters — notably big, scary Sulley (John Goodman)…

Weekend Review (3-Day)

It was a good weekend for A Good Day to Die Hard as it nosed out the competition to take top spot on the holiday charts with an estimated $24.9 million (all figures represent the 3-day portion of the Presidents Day frame). In an unexpectedly competitive session the three-hanky Safe Haven slotted third with $21.5 million; a jot behind the $23.4 million holdover of Identity Thief.

Two other films made national debuts. The kidcentric anime Escape from Planet Earth slipped into the fourth slot with $15.9 million and trailing the field was the supernatural rom-com Beautiful Creatures grossing $7.4 million.

Wilmington on Movies: Safe Haven

Safe Haven, directed by that estimable Swedish-born filmmaker Lasse Hallström and produced by the author himself, is the eighth movie to be derived from a Nicholas Sparks novel, and like the others, including Message in a Bottle (where Kevin Costner found undying love), The Notebook (where Ryan Gosling and Rachel McAdams found undying love) it’s a romantic fantasy delivered with maximum efficiency and apparently just the right amounts of warmth, coolness, poignancy, picturesque scenery, sex appeal, niceness and (let’s face it), undying love.

Friday Estimates

Four new releases… and only one satisfactory opening weekend, it seems. Die Five may win the weekend, but come up well short of reasonable expectations. Escape From Planet Earth will do okay by Weinstein Animation standards, but it will need some long legs to clear $50m domestic. Beautiful Creatures is a big-studio shot at the Twilight crowd that missed in spite of a ton of advertising. And Safe Haven, starring TV-level talent, will be Relativity’s #2 or #3 biggest opening ever.

Wilmington on Movies: A Good Day to Die Hard

A Good Day to Die Hard is the fifth of the Bruce Willis Die Hard movies — and it’s obviously, irretrievably, die-hardishly one too many.

Wilmington on DVDs: Skyfall

    PICK OF THE WEEK: NEW SKYFALL (Also Blu-ray/DVD/Digital Copy) (Two Discs) (Three and a Half Stars) U.K.-U.S.: Sam Mendes, 2012 (MGM) Skyfall may be a James Bond movie for both the masses and the cognoscenti, but it begins with something as old as The Perils of Pauline — a chase and a battle…

The DVD Wrapup

Skyfall, Bully, Wallflower, Thieves, Mimesis, Serena, Jedi Junkies, Coalition, Gossip Girl… and more.

The DVD Geek: Searching for Sugar Man

Searching for Sugar Man doesn’t just deserve the Oscar nomination, it deserves to win. Running 87 minutes, it lulls you into believing—or perhaps even not believing—the story of a few enthusiastic South African fans that attempt to uncover the biography of an American balladeer from the early Seventies called ‘Rodriguez,’ who had a smooth, articulate voice, reminiscent of Jose Feliciano (with his dark glasses, he also looks a lot like Feliciano), and adept recording engineers that brought a detailed complexity and color to his orchestrations.

Wilmington on Movies: Identity Thief

Up to that point, Identity Thief actually looks as if it might be a good movie, or at least a bad funny one. I was actually looking forward to it. (The more fool me.) But then, in a bewildering, mind-numbing plot twist that bewilders and mind-numbs me still…

The Weekend Report

Americans were ready for a good laugh and Identity Thief tickled the funny bone to an estimated $36.4 million, readily topping weekend ticket sales. The session’s only other new wide release was dramatic thriller Side Effects that prescribed third with a decent bow of $9.6 million.

Also sorta-new was a stereoscopic version of 1986’s Top Gun that grossed $1.9 million at 300 venues. In the niches, activity was fierce among Indian imports. China box-office tsunami Lost in Thailand ($200 million box office) hardly brought in the New Year with a bang, grossing just $28,400 from 35 screens. The “Oscar Bump” seems to have been reserved for Silver Linings Playbook, though Argo‘s re-release is doing well.

Friday Estimates

Universal’s “Giant Heads Of Comedy” ad campaign for the not-well-reviewed Identity Thief worked like gangbusters, likely heading to the biggest opening of 2013 so far. Also opening, Soderbergh’s last pre-retirement theatrical release, Side Effects to a touch over $7 million. And Top Gun IMAX has an icy launch.

The DVD Wrapup

House of Cards, Flight, Peter Pan, Cabaret, Narayama, Hello I Must Be Going, PA4, Vreeland, Side By Side and more…