MCN Originals Archive for July, 2013
The Weekend Report
Despite formidable competition Despicable Me 2 eked out ahead of the pack to top the weekend chart with an estimated $44.7 million. Close to the Minions were a pair of newcomers. Comedy ensemble Grown Ups 2 bowed to $42.7 million while science-fiction spectacle Pacific Rim opened with $38.2 million.
Read the full article »Friday Box Office Estimates
Adam Sandler tells the critics to grow up to the tune of a 13% opening day-increase over the first Grown Ups. Pacific Rim opens to $14.4m, which suggests an opening in the high 30s, though no one actually will know enough to estimate properly until Saturday night. And Despicable Me 2 will clearly leapfrog Monsters vs Robots but could also end up of top of the weekend again, depending on how well Grown Ups 2 holds today. The Lone Ranger‘s unhappy start has been compounded with a big Friday-to-Friday drop. And Kevin Hart should pass $25m with his concert film this weekend, edging closer to the Big Three of comedy concert grossers, but already the biggest one in the last dozen years.
Read the full article »Wilmington on Movies: Pacific Rim
Because del Toro is an artist as well as (when he wants to be) a big-movie technician, this show sucks you in emotionally as well as arousing you viscerally. The movie is jam-packed with amusing nonsense and knock-your-eyes-out visuals, but it also actually has dollops of heart, humanity and humor, that stuff most movies like this don’t have and could really use.
Read the full article »Wilmington on Movies: Grown Ups 2
Sandler’s humor is often rough, if a little Jerry Lewis-ishly sentimental by the end, but Grown Ups, which was about infantile guys reliving the past but also growing up a little, was both congenial and even a little sweet—and it mopped up at the box-office, while displeasing many critics (who don’t pay for their tickets anyway), me included. Now comes the sequel—minus Rob Schneider. (I‘m not saying this is a loss comparable to the disappearances of Richard Castellano and Robert Duvall in the sequels to The Godfather, but Schneider should have done the movie.)
Read the full article »Wilmington on DVDs: Spartacus; Backdraft; Spring Breakers
Who needs school? Who needs life? Harmony Korine’s movies are outlaw pictures and weirdo comedies about people who don’t want to grow up.
Read the full article » 1 Comment »The DVD Wrapup
Spring Breakers, Host, Vixens of Kung Fu, Gatekeepers, How West Was Won, Orphan Black.. And so much more…
Read the full article »Wilmington on DVDs: Safety Last!
The sight of Jazz Age comedy icon Harold Lloyd, in Safety Last!, desperately clinging to the hands of a clock as they bend and dangle him above the street, has to be one of the imperishable images in all American movie comedy.
Read the full article »The Weekend Report
Despicable Me 2 set a new box-office record with an estimated $83.1 million opening weekend. That left the frame’s other major debut The Lone Ranger, on the distant horizon with $29.4 million. And it was stand-up business of $9.9 million for Kevin Hart: Let Me Explain in his concert performance. Among the limited/exclusive freshmen The Way, Way Back passed on its way, way down the water chute to an excellent $558,000 launch at 19 vacation spots.
Read the full article » 1 Comment »Friday Box Office Estimates
A dominant opening by Despicable Me 2 threatens the record July 4 weekend grosser, Transformers: Dark Of The Moon‘s $97.9 million… but will probably come up just short. Meanwhile, The Lone Ranger will open to about a $47m 5-day, which leaves Disney praying for international, just like many of the films that have been touted as summer hits based on somewhat better openings. The Way, Way Back, on just 19 screens, is looking at around $25k per, which is solid, but not overwhelming.
Read the full article »Wilmington on Movies: The Lone Ranger
There are one or two good pictures buried inside Gore Verbinski’s The Lone Ranger, which stars Johnny Depp as Tonto and Armie Hammer as The Lone Ranger, and is actually long enough (149 minutes) to have several movies extracted from it.
Read the full article » 6 Comments »Wilmington on Movies: Kevin Hart: Let Me Explain
Standup comedians are, in some ways, the decathlon athletes of show business. They have to do it all, do it fast, do it strong.
Read the full article » 1 Comment »Review: The Lone Ranger
The issue of how the “talent” is maneuvered in the choice of what they can and cannot do by “the studio” is always a fun conversation. The theory from the art side is that the more freedom allowed to the artist, the better and that all studio interference is stupid and about marketing not filmmaking. Not true. Obviously. Time after time, we see artists who have a big enough hit to force the studio hands off of their throats (for the most part) with some pretty big budgets… and as often as not, the results are a mess. Where do Johny Depp, Jerry Bruckheimer, and Gore Verbinski fit into this at Disney? Anywhere they want.
Read the full article » 43 Comments »Wilmington on Movies: Despicable Me 2
Zippily done, but somehow less emotional and more forgettable this time around, Despicable Me 2 is our second antic cartoon look at the despicable if lovable bad guy Gru (a bald, fat, knife-nosed super-villain voiced by the ubiquitous Steve Carell) and his despicable, if lovable Minions (pop-eyed little ambulatory yellow balls voiced by the movie’s super-directors Pierre Coffin and Chris Renaud). Together, they made a wry, horrific ensemble and they‘re joined (or rejoined) this time by Kristen Wiig, Russell Brand, Ken Jeong, Benjamin Bratt and other skillful, funny actors playing bizarre, if sometimes lovable, people and creatures.
Read the full article »The DVD Wrapup
“Dobie Gillis,” The Girl, Inescapable, Into the White, Tai Chi Hero, 6 Souls, Blood for Irina, House I Live In, Burn … and so much more.
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