Box Office Hell – October 7

It’s a horse race for the box office winner’s circle this week, with our pundits picking Secretariat as the favorite by a nose over Life As We Know It and The Social Network.

Matt Reeves, director Let Me In

DP/30 – Let Me In director Matt Reeves asks the musical question, “Why bother?” when it comes to his new film, a remake of an instant arthouse classic. And the answer may be the best ad for the film yet. That and more…

Media Movement

So Howard Kurtz goes to the Daily Beast and Todd McCarthy, after a primarily revenue-sharing blogging stint at indieWIRE, heads on to The Hollywood Reporter… And people think this is complicated.

To quote The Washington Post’s most famous source, “Follow the money.”

10 Reasons Why The Academy Moving To January Makes Perfect Sense

Some people think Oscar will be ruined by moving into January. All I can say is, “What have they been waiting for?”

Tamara Drewe, actors Gemma Arterton & Luke Evans

DP/30 – Tamara Drewe stars Gemma Arterton & Luke Evans chat about the film and about their ascending movie careers. (Also see Tamara Drewe’s director, Stephen Frears’s DP/30 interview here.)

Wilmington on DVDs: The Thin Red Line, Mid-August Lunch, Grindhouse, The Twilight Zone, A Nightmare on Elm Street … and more

PICK OF THE WEEK: CLASSIC The Thin Red Line (Two Discs) (Four Stars) U.S.; Terrence Malick, 1998 (Criterion Collection). Let‘s talk about a really great American movie that has been somewhat underrated and neglected, and shouldn’t be any more, not after this superb new Criterion two-disc release. The movie is Terrence Malick‘s 1998 film of…

The DVD Wrap: The Karate Kid, Beauty and the Beast, The Human Centipede, The Rig, A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Slumber Party Massacre Collection … and more

The Karate Kid The concept is simplicity itself: The Karate Kid in China, with Will and Jada Pinkett Smith’s way-cool son, Jaden Smith, in the Ralph Macchio role and Jackie Chan in the place once reserved for Pat Morita. Instead of shooting a silver-anniversary version of Karate Kid in Vancouver or a back lot in…

The Exit Through The Gift Shop Diaries, pt 1 of 2

An anonymous phone call from a mysterious woman signaled the beginning of a two year odyssey for documentary producer Jaimie D’Cruz. Here he charts the behind the scenes story of the making of Banksy’s Exit Through the Gift Shop. (Part 1 of 2)

DVD Geek: The Thin Red Line

“Terry had never done a film on this scale before. That’s where sort of the frustration came in at times. If you have five hundred people halfway up the mountain and for some reason, a technical reason or some performance reason, you have to stop and re-set, it’s 40 minutes by the time everybody is back to original positions, which was part of the reason Terry just decided to let them run out, because he figured maybe he’d get something in the last half of the roll.”

Frenzy on the Wall: Is The Social Network Fincher’s Best Film?

The Social Network is the best film of the year so far and we’ve got three more months to go, but I feel it’s safe to say that it’ll be somewhere near the top of my ten best list in December. However, where does it rank with other Fincher films? That’s what I’ve been debating ever since I walked out of the movie and I’ve been wrestling with it all weekend.

Weekend Box Office Report — October 3

The uber-ballyhooed The Social Network buzzed above the pack with an estimated $22.6 million to lead weekend ticket sales. Two other national releases proved commercial disappointments. The much-admired horror remake Let Me In ranked seventh overall with $5.3 million and the thriller Case 39 was a peg behind with $5.2 million.

Friday Estimates

The Social Network is being estimated at $8.5m for Friday by Sony, $8m by Klady and Variety. The studio is hoping for a significant Saturday bump, as we have seen for The Town and Inception. At under $2 million for Opening Friday, the most seemingly commercial arrow left in the Overture quiver didn’t fly very far. And the indie house are dominate this weekend by Indian product.

MW on Movies: The Social Network

But, in the top fillip of The Social Network’s many, many ironies, we see that maybe Mark and his fellow web movers and shakers — and the whole new social-communal wrinkle that they‘ve been chosen to dramatically represent — don’t really “need” things like empathy, sympathy, what we’d call humanity.

Review: The Social Network

So now I’ve seen it and yes, okay, The Social Network really is all that and a bag of chips, as the kids say — for what it is. Not a “masterpiece.” Not “astounding.” Probably — almost definitely — not a film that will “literally” change your life. Maybe — dare I say it? — not even the absolute “best” film of Fincher’s oeuvre.