Wilmington on Movies: The Wind Rises

Miyazaki‘s The Wind Rises. A lovely name. A lovely film. A poem to flight, as soaring and lyrical as those of the sometimes heart-piercing French writer-artist-pilot Antoine de St. Exupery.

The DVD Wrapup

Gravity, Thor 2, You Will Be My Son, Come Back Africa, Mother of George, Twice Born… and more.

The Weekend Report

The Lego Movie (and the Canadian hockey team) got the hat trick as it once again commanded session moviegoing with an estimated $31.5 million. That left fair to poor results for a couple of new national releases. The thriller 3 Days to Kill performed pretty much to expectations with a $12.2 million bow but the historically explosive Pompeii was left to stew with a disappointing $10.1 million.

Friday Box Office Estimates

The Lego Movie clicks into the top slot for the second weekend. Kevin Costner in faux-Neeson actioner 3 Days to Kill, from Relativity, places while Pompeii shows. In an unusual circumstance, Sony Pictures is responsible for 4 consecutive slots in the Top Ten (3-6) with 3 different divisions releasing and the 2 Columbia titles coming to the studio through very different means. On the smaller side, two films will do about $12k per screen for the weekend, Elaine Stritch: Shoot Me and The Wind Rises.

The DVD Wrapup

Nebraska, Pervert’s Guide, Darkman, Shadow, Inn of 6th Happiness, Devo, 419, 1984 and more.

The Weekend Report

Despite considerable incoming heat (or because of it) The Lego Movie retained top spot during the Presidents’ Day holiday session with an estimated $48.9 million (all figures reflect the 3-day portion of the session).

The new crew included a potent $26.7 million start for a contemporized version of About Last Night in second spot; fair returns of $20.5 million for a re-engineered RoboCop and disappointment for a new embrace of 1981’s Endless Love and the weekend’s sole screen original Winter’s Tale with respective openers of $13.4 million and $7.5 million.

Wilmington on Movies: Winter’s Tale

Any time you see a movie based on a hugely popular, critically-hosannaed, densely-populated epic romance novel like Mark Helprin‘s Winter‘s Tale—a prestige movie about endless, undying love boasting such first-class actors as Colin Farrell, Russell Crowe, Jessica Brown Findlay, William Hurt and Eva Marie Saint—and the picture gets stolen by a flying horse, you know the show is in some kind of trouble.

Friday Box Office Estimates

Everything remains awesome for The Lego Movie, with a Friday drop from last week that suggests an even better overall weekend drop. The Kevin Hart party continues with About Last Night, his third $30m+ opening in the last year. Romances Endless Love and Winter’s Tale probably hurt each other, with Endless looking at double the opening of the Tale. And RoboCop won’t quite make it to $20m, which in part may be the price of being one of two movies being opening by the same marketing department in the same week.

Wilmington on Movies: Endless Love

  ENDLESS LOVE (One and a Half Stars) U.S. Shana Feste, 2013 Endlessly, undyingly…No, we’ve already done that one. Still, if your appetite for  a Valentine’s Weekend of unfettered romance and unashamed date movies hasn‘t been satiated by Winter‘s Tale or About Last Night, you can always dive in to the endless malarkey of another…

Wilmington on Movies: Like Father, Like Son

Here is a beautiful film, whichever way you look at it.

The DVD Wrapup

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The Weekend Report

The Lego Movie snapped the industry to attention with a record-breaking estimated debut of $68.8 million. The bridesmaid slot went to another freshman, fact-based Second World War caper The Monuments Men, with a sterling $22.1 million.

Friday Estimates

Build them, and they will come: The Lego Movie fields WB’s dreams.

Wilmington on Movies: The Monuments Men

George Clooney’s The Monuments Men, which is pretty good, but not as good as it should have been, is based on a fascinating historical episode, unknown to me (and to many others, I’m sure), that makes for one of the most inspiring stories of World War II.

The DVD Wrapup

Dallas Buyers Club, Armstrong Lie, McConkey, Case of You, Scorned, White Queen, Code Red and more.

Wilmington on Movies: Labor Day

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The Weekend Report

Ride Along led the pack again with an estimated $12.3 million. And there was good news for debuting rom-com That Awkward Moment that took second with $9 million. The session’s only other debuting title was the under-the-radar drama Labor Day that ranked seventh, cutting a thin slice of $5.3 million. Exclusive newcomers largely shaped up as commercial casualties. Acclaimed nonfiction Tim’s Vermeer entered the marketplace with a talkative $54,600 tally from four engagements.

Friday Box Office Estimates

The buddies of Ride Along will wrestle the buddies of That Awkward Moment for the top slot… though as this is Ride Along‘s third weekend on top, it can’t really lose. Even more so, both Universal and Focus are Comcast Kids, so the family is happy. Lone Survivor and The Wolf of Wall Street pass 100, Frozen passes 350, and The Nut Job stays on pace to outgross Jack Ryan: Shadow Flop.