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Gurus o’ Gold – What Would The Oscars Look Like As Of Today?

Saturday, February 19th, 2011

There still may be some changes. Just adding in the last few late votes, for instance, pushed Melissa Leo back into the top Gurus slot in Supporting Actress.

But if The Gurus are right, just 3 days before balloting closes, the scoresheet the next morning will look like this…

The King’s Speech – 4 Oscars – Picture, Actor, Original Screenplay, Score
Inception – 4 Oscars – Sound Editing, Sound Mixing, Visual Effects, Art Direction
The Social Network – 3 Oscars – Director, Adapted Screenplay, Editing
The Fighter – 2 Oscars – Supp Actor, Supp Actress
Toy Story 3 – 2 Oscars- Song, Animated Feature

And getting 1 Oscar each….

Black Swan – Actress
Inside Job – Documentary
In A Better World – Foreign Language
The Wolfman – Make-Up
Day & Night – Animated Short
Wish 143 – Live Action Short
Alice In Wonderland – Costume
True Grit – Cinematography

And with half an Oscar each (the Gurus have them tied for the lead)…

Strangers No More/The Warriors of Qiuang – Short Doc

Tags: Alice in Wonderland, Black Swan, day & night, In A Better World, Inception, Inside Job, strangers no more, The Fighter, The King's Speech, The Social Network, The Warriors of Qiuang, The Wolfman, Toy Story 3, True Grit, wish 143
Posted in Awards Update, Awards Watch, Gurus o' Gold, MCN Originals, Movie City News | 6 Comments »

MW on DVDs: Let Me In, Alice in Wonderland, Conviction, and Never Let Me Go

Tuesday, February 1st, 2011

CO-PICK OF THE WEEK: NEW

Let Me In (Three Stars)

U. S.; Matt Reeves, 2010 (Anchor Bay)

Matt Reeves’ American remake of the widely praised Swedish kid-vampire movie Let the Right One In — its title now shortened to Let Me In — is not a bad movie, as modern vampire movies go. It’s not unintelligent, crass or hokey. Nor is it a big fancy expensive gory-glossy-teen-romance like Twilight, or a mindless travesty like Vampires Suck.

Let Me In’s delicate portrayal of childhood angst, its more sensitive tale of an outsider romance between two alienated 12-year-olds — culled by Reeves from the original film made in 2008 by novelist-screenwriter John Ajvide Lindquist and director Tomas Alfredson — has been cited often for its moody lyricism, its respect for its audience‘s intelligence, and praised by many critics as a good, maybe great, genre piece.

I can see justification for some of the nearly universal praise the movie has gotten. But, truth to tell, I also found Let Me In somewhat unpleasant, unscary, slightly pretentious and relatively unmoving — good at times, but not perfect, or near-perfect.

Let me out. Perhaps I’m wrong. My reaction surprised me because — though I haven’t yet seen the Alfredson-Ajvide-Lindquist original — I’d been looking forward to both. I’m predisposed toward my Swedish cinema ancestors, and fully supportive of their famous propensity for gloom and suffering, appreciative of their coups of mood, landscape, intense acting, milieu and deep drama. (Ingmar Bergman, Victor Sjostrom and Jan Troell are three of my all-time favorite filmmakers). And I was even partial to Matt Reeves’ previous movie, the brilliantly gimmicky false-home-video “let it run” horror show Cloverfield.

But something about Let Me In alienated me almost from its first scenes, including the grisly nocturnal hospital episode that kicks things off. In it, a burned, blood-caked man (Richard Jenkins) — shown in grim, chilly shots that resemble cinema verite for ghouls — is brought into a room (not the emergency room, it seemed, where he obviously would have been taken) and later joined by a cute, determined little girl, maybe his daughter, named Abby (Chloe Moretz) who wreaks havoc and disappears. A taciturn policeman (Elias Koteas) arrives, investigates, begins to suspect a satanic cult behind this and other recent murders. Maybe he’s right. But the images of that flayed, burned, dying man and the runaway little girl hang over the movie from then on.

We are in another time and place — in Los Alamos, New Mexico (bomb-testing territory) in 1983, in the depths of winter and of the Reagan era. (We soon see the President himself, greatly communicating, on good and evil, on TV.) Flashbacks show us our other main identification figure, besides little Abby: an incongruously doll-like little 12-year-old boy named Owen (Kodi Smit-McPhee), who lives with a drunken mother (Cara Buono) and peers at his neighbors in an apartment complex (Abby is one) with a ‘scope through his darkened window, like the young voyeur in Kieslowski’s A Short Film About Love from The Decalogue, or like Jimmy Stewart in Rear Window.

He’s a bit of a creep, but the movie doesn’t play him that way, drawing him instead as a victim in search of affection and human love. And a victim he certainly seems — at least initially. Owen, an only child of a neglectful alcoholic mother, is being tormented by bullies at school, who obsessively razz and assault him. His new neighbor, Abby, we soon learn, is a vampire. (No surprises there.) And the burned man was not her father, but her familiar, a creature charged with finding Abby blood snacks and blood feasts.

“We can’t be friends,” Abby tells Owen, near a jungle gym. But of course they do become friends, headed toward maybe more. And, of course, Owen‘s sadistic tormentors are in trouble. The arena of menace and carnage for them all is a huge indoor swimming pool, next to a dark room of metal lockers, where Owen is attacked and where revenge brews.

It sounds eerie, and it looks eerie too. Greig Fraser’s (Bright Angel) cinematography and the Michael Giacchino (Up) score plunge us into twisted-up edgy melancholy. The attacking bullies (led by Jimmy “Jax” Pinchak) are nasty little shits. Koteas’ snoopy cop bristles with threat. The very air seems cold and dead, heavy with dread, and Jenkins looks like man grown tired of hell, but stuck in his contract. There are some very, very effective moments and scenes in Let Me In — never more so than during the moments when the youngsters are huddled together, hiding, in darkness, alone against the world.

SPOILER ALERT

But this movie’s romance and tenderness did nothing for me, and they should have. (Twilight,“ I hasten to say, does nothing, or less than nothing, for me either.) I liked these kids sometimes, but they seemed weirdly disconnected from their states, their beings. When Abby turns vampire, she’s a bit like the demon-possessed swivel-headed Regan in The Exorcist, a fiend with mad eyes and a gorgon’s voice, who’ll rip you apart. I liked being shocked by The Exorcist. I didn’t like it in Let Me In.

END OF SPOILER

Here’s the trouble with the story. It wants to make us feel for these outsider kids. But it’s sadistic and self-pitying in a way I found off-putting, steeped in a trash-strewn gloom that uneasily mixes real-life sadness, viciousness and deadly supernatural fantasy. The kids are attractive, but they show little empathy or feeling, except for each other. When Owen bashes his lead attacker with a pole on a school outing, and cuts his face open, it’s strangely callous, even though it also prefigures the carnage we know is probably to come. And I never felt much real suspense. Even the driven cop (even played by Koteas) didn’t seem much of a threat.

Let Me In, in a way, is probably being seen as the anti-Twilight, which, in a way, it is. But I liked the film vampire legend better when the vampires were genuinely evil and deeply frightening — as they were in Murnau‘s Nosferatu, Dreyer‘s Vampyr, the Tod Browning-Bela Lugosi Dracula, and in the Christopher Lee Hammer Horror shows, or even among the scuzzy bloodsucking rebels of Kathryn Bigelow‘s Near Dark — than more recently, when the vampires began to clean up the cobwebs, dust off their capes and become more romantic or sympathetic figures, as with Frank Langella’s Count, or Gary Oldham‘s for Francis Coppola (the best of this approach) or the hunks of Twilight. (Let Me In by the way, revives the Hammer brand.)

SPOILER ALERT

In a way, Let Me In (and maybe Let the Right One In before it) represents the ultimate example of a sympathetic vampire: an attractive, loving, vulnerable-looking little girl whose vamp talents may save a little boy from his tormentors. But doesn’t this sympathy and half-happy romance throw our emotions off kilter? Let Me In might have been better, more powerful, if it had had a really shocking ending, if Owen had recoiled from Abby, and she had been forced to kill and eat him, and wept over the bloody chunks.

END OF SPOILER

The best argument for remaking good foreign films here is that at least you‘re starting with good material. Even if I didn’t like it as much as others, Let Me In has good stuff in it, good ideas, a good mood, a good source. Good blood, I guess. And if my reaction to it seems perverse or even skittish, remember that I grew up in a small Midwestern village with only about 1,114 people. Stephen King wasn‘t around, Twilight wasn‘t around. I don’t think we had any vampires.

Extras: Commentary by Matt Reeves; Deleted scenes; Trailers.

_________________________________________________

PICK OF THE WEEK: CLASSIC

Alice in Wonderland (60th Anniversary Blu-ray/DVD Combo Special Edition) (Two Discs) (Three and a Half Stars)

U.S.; Clyde Geronimi, Hamilton Luske, Wilfred Jackson, 1951 (Walt Disney)

Of all the many adaptation of Lewis Carroll’s enchanting yet oddly disturbing children’s story — the Don Quixote of fairytales — this Walt Disney feature cartoon is one of the most sheerly likable. The animators bestow a voluptuous color on the John Tenniel-derived images. The songs (“I’m Late,“ “The Unbirthday Song”) are lively, pe-Shermanesque. The boisterous cast of Wonderlanders includes Ed Wynn, Richard Haydn, Jerry Colonna (“Greetings gate! Let‘s palpitate”), Sterling Holloway, Verna Felton, and, as Alice, pert little Kathryn Beaumont — who is also featured on this DVD’s extras.

Mysteriously, Disney himself apparently didn’t like this movie much, though he’d adapted Alice before, in a series of live action/animation shorts back in the ‘20s, B. M. (Before Mickey). As a child, I found Carroll straight up both a mesmerizing and eerie experience, when I read him at seven or so. Except for the terrifying Cheshire Cat, the Disney version doesn’t have the weird intensity that makes the book not just a child’s, but an adult classic. Maybe that’s what worried Walt. ‘Shrooms, anyone?

Extras: Color TV Walt Disney intro; Guide to Wonderland; Games; Deleted Cheshire Cat song, “I’m Odd.”

_________________________________________________

PICK OF THE WEEK: BLU-RAY:
Conviction (Three Stars)

U. S.: Tony Goldwyn, 2010 (20th Century Fox)

Movies about travesties of justice always boil my blood — and I felt a lot of the old simmer and rage while watching “Conviction.“ (This whole review, by the way, is potentially SPOILER ALERT, but you probably know the story anyway, and if you don’t, knowing it won’t really hurt the movie much. But, if you want, quit reading here. See the picture anyway.)

Tony Goldwyn’s real-life crime and courtroom saga, which is a very good job all around, is about the unjust incarceration (for murder) of a reckless working-class guy named Kenny Waters (Sam Rockwell), who was suspected of killing a lady friend, got framed for the murder by a vindictive cop, Nancy Taylor (Melissa Leo), a bully who didn’t like his manner, and got him sent up for life — but whose determined, loving, indefatigable sister, Betty Anne (Hilary Swank) refused to give up on him.

Instead, Betty Anne studied law, became a lawyer, dug up every record, re-interviewed the witnesses, and finally after nearly two decades, and after her own family and marriage fell apart, connected with Barry Scheck (Peter Gallagher) and Peter Neufeld’s Innocence Project, which uses DNA evidence to clear wrongly incarcerated, even condemned, prisoners. It was still a chore, because, as in many cases like this, the police and the prosecutors don’t like to admit mistakes.

The movie should make you happy on several levels. It shows us believably, that love counts, that the little guy can beat back even the most stubborn abuses of power, and that no matter how huge the task and long the odds, the heart and brain may find a way.

Swank plays Betty Anne with just the right mix of guts, slightly pain-in-the-ass grit and raw devotion — and though I hesitate to say it so semi-schmaltzily, she creates a character here both achingly real and a real role model. Swank has probably gotten her quota of Oscars for a while. But Rockwell, who gets both the good and bad sides of Kenny — he makes us like him, makes us understand why Betty Anne loves him, but also shows why he can be dangerous — is worth the prize talk he’s generated. I just hope he’s nominated in the lead actor Oscar category, which is winnable for him, and not supporting actor, a seemingly more probable slot, but a game-plan that’s not really fair to most of the other supporting candidates — then forced to compete against this movie’s lead male role, against something so deep and rich, and, as any actor will tell you, the best acting part this movie has to offer.

Elsewhere, Melissa Leo (a powerhouse in Frozen River) is a chillingly blank-eyed Officer Taylor, and Minnie Driver is the best, toughest, warmest gal-pal Betty Anne, or this movie, could have. The smaller roles are equally high caliber — like Gallagher as the sharp-eyed Scheck, or Juliette Lewis in one of her sleazy-sexy roles as a bad witness. And the movie has that actor-friendly, perfectly staged Sidney Lumet feel I’m sure Conviction director Goldwyn wanted.

Back in 1999, Goldwyn made a moving family drama called A Walk on the Moon, set in 1969 in the Catskills, and back-dropped by Neil Armstrong’s moon landing and Woodstock. Goldwyn’s very talented screenwriter then was Pamela Gray, and she also wrote Conviction, which has some of the same qualities, the same laser eye on part-dysfunctional but loving families, the same sure structure, the same kind of meaty roles. I’m sure all the actors were glad that her name, and her words, were on the page. Thanks to Gray and all of them, and thanks above all to Betty-Anne Waters, this is a bio-drama full of feeling, strength and the right sense of justice.

Except for one thing.

SPOILER ALERT (seriously, this time).

Roger Ebert brings up something important in his review, that had puzzled me, and that may actually be a notable script flaw. In the final pre-credits notes, we learn what happened to the main characters, but not what happened to Kenny. According to Roger, Betty Anne’s brother died in an accident a half-year or so after being released from jail, while going over a high wall on the way to his mother’s house.

When I read this, I was stunned. Why in the world wasn’t this information in the movie? Was it cut out of the script, or the film? Was it nixed by some exec with a rulebook and a happy-ending fetish? It’s hard for me to believe that Goldwyn and Gray would have wanted that scene, or even just at mention in the crawl, deleted — or that Rockwell and Swank would want it gone either.

Doesn’t anybody in power realize what a potentially great sequence they threw away (Kenny saying goodbye, and then Kenny taking the leap, falling, dying), what an unforgettable piece of real-life drama and irony they just ignored? The ending right now in Conviction is a piece of more conventional uplift. The real-life ending (if that’s it) just rips your heart out, tears your guts open — besides reinforcing and driving home as strongly as possible the movie’s core theme of injustice, and of how it can ruin lives, and why it’s so necessary to fight it every chance you get.

By the way, Peter Neufeld, of Neufeld and Scheck, and the Innocence Project, is an old college friend of mine, and a fellow movie buff; I once tried to get him a spot on the UW Memorial Union Film Committee, with Joe McBride, Gerry and Danny Peary and the rest of us. Now, I’d just like to thank him and his partner Barry for the incredibly good jobs they keep doing. And thanks too to all the people who made Conviction, for the good work they did here as well, in this picture, in this heartfelt story. They really meant it; we can tell.

END OF ALERT

Extras: Conversation with Tony Goldwyn and Betty Anne Waters.

_________________________________________________

OTHER CURRENT AND RECENT DVD RELEASES

Never Let Me Go (Two and Half Stars)

U.K.; Mark Romanek, 2010 (Fox)

This adaptation of an austere, melancholy science fiction novel by Kazuo Ishiguro (who wrote the book from which Merchant-Ivory-Jhabvala made the splendid Remains of the Day) gives us a world where test tube babies are bred to become organ donors for the terminally ill. Icy premise, awful world. In scenes well-written by Alex`Garland, well-directed by Mark Romanek (who made the 1985 sleeper Static), and very well-acted by all, we follow three of the donors-to-be — big-hearted Kathy (Carey Mulligan), her howling great love Tommy (Andrew Garfield) and her sexy over-competitive friend, and Tommy’s seducer, Ruth (Keira Knightley) — through lively but troubling school years (Charlotte Rampling is their cool headmistress), with broken hearts haunted by a cassette with Helen Monheit singing, pleading “Never Let Me Go,“ to a mournful adulthood, full of recurring, cloudy ocean-side beach scenes where a somber sky is spread above abandoned sands, and waves lap, lap the shore.

SPOILER ALERT

I confess I am one of those viewers who finds this very well-made movie somewhat unaffecting and even alienating because nobody makes a break for it — because we never even seem to hear a false rumor of revolt, but instead watch these sympathetic people walk placidly, inexorably, toward what’s called “completion.” Is it a Holocaust analogue? Is it programmed cloning? Is it the worst example of the secret psychic chains of the old British class system? Is it some warped desire not to be accused of excessive melodrama by upper-class British literary critics? Is it incomplete writing?

END OF SPOILER

Whatever, it inhibits empathy. For me, at least. And as someone who would have liked very much to donate a kidney to his dying mother, I find health care nightmares devastating.

Extras: Featurette; Mark Romanek photos; Trailers.

Tags: Alice in Wonderland, convicted, Let Me In, Never Let Me Go
Posted in DVD & Blue Ray, DVD Reviews, MCN Originals, MCN Weekend, Movie City News, Reviews | Comments Off on MW on DVDs: Let Me In, Alice in Wonderland, Conviction, and Never Let Me Go

Wilmington: The Ten Best of 2010

Friday, December 31st, 2010

So here’s my list of The Ten Best Movies of 2010, plus Honorable Mentions and a separate list of documentaries. I know it’s customary at this time to write about how awful a year it was, and how I had to struggle to find ten movies worthy of recognition, and how Hollywood is so bankrupt artistically and so bereft intellectually that the mere act of compiling a ten best list has become supremely dubious and morally questionable. But actually, I thought the moves were one of the few good things about 2010. (They’re certainly better than the last election.) And if you couldn’t find ten good ones, you weren’t trying.
(more…)

Tags: 127 Hours, Alice in Wonderland, Another Year, Biutiful, boxing gym, carlos, Casino Jack and the United States of Money, Flipped, Inception, Inside Job Exit Through the Gift Shop, Lebanon, Oceans, Restrepo, Shutter Island, Sweetgrass, The Illusionist, The King's Speech, The Millenium Triology, The Red Riding Trilogy, The Social Network, Toy Story 3, True Grit, unstoppable, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, White Material, Wild Grass
Posted in Columns, MCN Originals, Movie City News, Wilmington | 1 Comment »

Weekend Box Office Report — December 19

Sunday, December 19th, 2010

Da Doo Tron Tron

TRON: Legacy commanded the multiplex with an opening salvo estimated at $43.4 million. The movie stocking was stuffed with two other new releases plus a couple of platform films that went wide to significant response.

Yogi Bear filched $16.6 million to rank second in the marketplace while the star-laden romantic comedy How Do You Know struggled to position eight with $7.5 million.

The Fighter proved itself a contender with a $12.1 gross and Black Swan spread its wings with an impressive $7.9 million. Meanwhile there were two freshmen titles tossing their hat into the ring for award season. The starkly dramatic Rabbit Hole had an encouraging $51,700 from five venues while Casino Jack failed to beat bank with $32,100 at seven tables. In Quebec, local action comedy L’Appat had a soft debut of close to $170,000.

Overall weekend revenues saw a significant boost from the early December doldrums, but couldn’t quite overtake 2009 box office when Avatar arrived at the multiplex. Friday domestic box office inched past $10 billion (4 days faster than last year) and through the weekend it stands just 1% better than at this point last year.

The current session promised an even better result than transpired with new entries appealing to different demographics. Only TRON: Legacy conformed to tracking that predicted a result between $40 million and $45 million. The 28-year hiatus from the original has allowed the 1982 movie to accrue a cult status and brought out an avid young male audience. Stereoscopic engagements accounted for an unusually strong 80% plus, though their numbers accounted for 55% of its screen count. Its ultimate potency will be determined by building a wider audience.

The animated-live action Yogi Bear was expected to gross in the low $20 million but came up short several pic-a-nic baskets. It won’t expand beyond the family market and should limp through the holiday season. How Do You Know is already hobbled and while there were low expectations of $10 million to $12 million it failed to meet an already low bar.

The session generated roughly $135 million for a 47% bump from the prior weekend but dipped 4% from 2009. Last year’s Avatar bow of $77 million led the frame with The Princess and the Frog trailing behind with $12.2 million and Did You Hear About the Morgans? limping into theaters with $6.6 million.

Black Swan shows early signs of becoming the season’s adult hit. Though the film has divided critics and the public, it has generated fierce debate that’s translated into sales … an asset in short supply for the likes of such films as 127 Hours and Fair Game. The Fighter, while not a knockout, looks likely to get traction from awards season recognition in a race that seems — despite already announced critics awards and the Golden Globe announcement — a bit amorphous.

__________________________________________________

Weekend Estimates – December 17-19, 2010

Title	Distributor	Gross (average)	% change *	Theaters	Cume
Tron: Legacy	BV	43.4 (12,580)	NEW	3451	43.4
Yogi Bear	WB	16.6 (4,710)	NEW	3515	16.6
The Chronicles of Narnia: Voyage of the Dawn Treader	Fox	12.5 (3,530)	-48%	3555	42.9
The Fighter	Par	12.1 (4,850)		2503	12.6
Tangled	BV	8.7 (2,720)	-39%	3201	127.9
The Tourist	Sony	8.4 (3,040)	-49%	2756	30.5
Black Swan	Fox Searchlight	7.9 (8,260)	140%	959	15.3
How Do You Know	Sony	7.5 (3,030)	NEW	2483	7.5
Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows, Part 1*	WB	4.8 (1,690)	-43%	2860	265.5
Unstoppable	Fox	1.8 (980)	-51%	1874	77.4
Burlesque	Sony	1.3 (880)	-58%	1510	35.4
Due Date	WB	1.2 (1,060)	-52%	1157	97.3
Love and Other Drugs	Fox	1.1 (970)	-64%	1093	30.2
The King’s Speech	Weinstein Co.	1.1 (24,880)	81%	43	2.9
Megamind	Par	.69 (680)	-73%	1025	141.6
127 Hours	Fox Searchlight	.51 (1,660)	-49%	307	9.3
Faster	CBS	.41 (620)	-76%	660	22.5
Red	Summit	.31 (710)	-28%	439	88.4
The Social Network	Sony	.29 (1,270)	2%	228	91.9
Fair Game	Summit	.23 (860)	-59%	268	8.7


Weekend Total ($500,000+ Films)		$129.60
% Change (Last Year)		-4%
% Change (Last Week)		47%


Also debuting/expanding
L’Appat	Alliance	.17 (2,350)		72	0.17
I Love You Phillip Morris	Roadside	.14 (2,830)	-10%	49	0.51
The Tempest	Miramax/Maple	52,400 (2,490)	22%	21	0.12
Rabbit Hole	Lionsgate	51,700 (10,320)		5	0.05
Casino Jack	IDP	32,100 (4,440)		7	0.03
La Rafle	Seville	28,200 (2,170)		13	0.03

Domestic Market Share (Jan. 1 – Dec. 16, 2010)

Distributor (releases)	Gross	Market Share
Warner Bros. (29)	1837.8	18.40%
Paramount (19)	1622.6	16.20%
Fox (19)	1427.1	14.30%
Buena Vista (16)	1296.2	13.00%
Sony (25)	1221.2	12.20%
Universal (18)	798.5	8.00%
Summit (11)	521.7	5.20%
Lionsgate (15)	518.9	5.20%
Fox Searchlight (8)	96.1	1.00%
Overture (8)	87.3	0.90%
Focus (7)	75.2	0.70%
CBS (3)	72.1	0.70%
Weinstein Co. (9)	64.5	0.60%
Sony Classics (22)	59.4	0.60%
MGM (1)	50.4	0.50%
Other * (315)	251.4	2.50%
	10000.4	100.00%
* none greater than .04%

Top Domestic Grossers * (Jan. 1 – Dec. 16, 2010)

Title	Distributor	Gross
Avatar *	Fox	476,899,300
Toy Story 3	BV	415,071,937
Alice in Wonderland	BV	334,191,110
Iron Man 2	Par	312,445,596
Twilight: Eclipse	Summit	300,551,386
Inception	WB	292,485,544
Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows, Part 1	WB	260,701,257
Despicable Me	Uni	250,322,315
Shrek Forever After	Par	238,667,087
How to Train Your Dragon	Par	218,685,707
The Karate Kid	Sony	176,797,997
Clash of the Titans	WB	163,214,888
Grown Ups	Sony	162,171,789
Megamind	Par	140,950,962
The Last Airbender	Par	131,733,601
Shutter Island	Par	128,051,522
The Other Guy	Sony	119,534,389
Tangled	BV	119,142,932
Salt	Sony	118,485,665
Jackass 3D	Par	116,857,736
* does not include 2009 box office

Tags: 127 Hours, Alice in Wonderland, Avatar, Black Swan, Burlesque, Casino Jack, Chronicles of Narnia: Dawn Treader, Clash of the Titans, Despicable Me, Due Date, Fair Game, Faster, Grown Ups, Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows, how do you know, How to Train Your Dragon, I Love You Phillip Morris, Inception, Iron Man 2, Jackass 3D, L'Appat, La Rafle, Love and Other Drugs, Megamind, Part 1, Rabbit Hole, Red, Salt, Shrek Forever After, Shutter Island, Tangled, The Fighter, The Karate Kid, The King's Speech, The Last Airbender, The Other Guy, The Social Network, The Tempest, The Tourist, Toy Story 3, Tron - Legacy, Twilight: Eclipse, unstoppable, Yogi Bear
Posted in MCN Originals, MCN Weekend, Movie City News, The Weekend Report | Comments Off on Weekend Box Office Report — December 19

Weekend Box Office Report — December 5

Sunday, December 5th, 2010

The Warrior’s Weigh

The first weekend of December has the ignominious tradition of being one of the lowest moviegoing periods of the year. This year is no exception with but a single new wide release and holdover titles generally experiencing declines of more than 50%.

The newcomer arrived from the re-constituted Relativity Media with the martial arts actioner The Warrior’s Way. It barely squeaked into the top 10 with an estimated $3 million. Industry trackers hadn’t expected much for the picture but even their estimates were pegged significantly higher at roughly $5 million.

The frame leader was the animated Tangled with an estimated $21.5 million with Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 taking the consolation prize with $16.9 million. The rest of the holdovers were indeed the deathly hallows.

However, there were a couple of spectacular exclusive debuts. The controversial and intense drama Black Swan bowed to $1.4 million, which translated into a jaw dropping per engagement average of $76,670. And the left-for-dead black comedy I Love You Phillip Morris hit the target with $109,000 from six locations and an $18,200 average. Also encouraging was the two-screen bow of the ironically titled All Good Things with $37,500.

The rest of the new niche crowd ranged from fair to poor including several new films on the Indian circuit, the independent Night Catches Us and the documentary Bhutto.

All added up, revenues amounted to about $86 million and a 54% drop from the weekend slice of Thanksgiving. It was also off 15% from the 2009 edition when the top new entry was third-ranked Brothers with $9.5 million. The 2009 leader with $20 million was The Blind Side.

Domestic box office should push past $10 billion next weekend and register a slight gain for the year when the dust settles in 26 days. It also unquestionably marks another year of theatrical admission declines; likely between 5% and 7%.

As to award’s contenders, it remains anyone’s game and last week’s announcement of honors from the National Board of Review provided scant indication of what’s to follow from major critical groups or the Hollywood Foreign Press. Apart from James L. Brooks’ How Do You Know, the anticipated upcoming releases have been seen and left prognosticators fumbling to identify leaders in any of the talent categories.

__________________________________________________

Weekend Estimates – December 3-5, 2010

Title	Distributor	Gross (average)	% change *	Theaters	Cume
Tangled	BV	21.5 (5,970)	-56%	3603	96.5
Harry Potter & the Deathly Hollows, Part 1*	WB	16.9 (4,090)	-66%	4125	244.4
Burlesque	Sony	6.1 (2,020)	-49%	3037	27
Unstoppable	Fox	6.1 (1,930)	-47%	3152	68.9
Love and Other Drugs	Fox	5.7 (2,310)	-42%	2458	22.6
Megamind	Par	4.9 (1,550)	-61%	3173	136.6
Due Date	WB	4.2 (1,720)	-41%	2450	91
Faster	CBS	3.8 (1,550)	-55%	2470	18.1
The Warrior’s Way	Relativity	3.0 (1,870)	NEW	1622	3
The Next Three Days	Lionsgate	2.6 (1,150)	-45%	2236	18.3
Morning Glory	Par	1.7 (760)	-56%	2263	29.1
127 Hours	Fox Searchlight	1.6 (3,790)	-4%	433	6.6
Black Swan	Fox Searchlight	1.4 (76,670)	NEW	18	1.4
Fair Game	Summit	1.0 (2,320)	-27%	436	7.3
Red	Summit	.75 (960)	-45%	779	87.2
For Colored Girls …	Lionsgate	.45 (930)	-67%	485	37.3
Lance et compte	Seville	.43 (4,480)	-31%	96	1.3
Skyline	Uni/Alliance	.42 (730)	-63%	578	20.9
The Social Network	Sony	.41 (1,580)	-42%	260	91
The King’s Speech	Weinstein Co.	.32 (53,000)	-10%	6	0.8


Weekend Total ($500,000+ Films)		$81.25
% Change (Last Year)		-15%
% Change (Last Week)		-54%


Also debuting/expanding
I Love You Phillip Morris	Roadside	.11 (18,200)		6	0.11
Raktacharitra 2	Viva/Happy	94,200 (4,100)		23	0.09
Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey	Viva	65,300 (960)		68	0.07
Nutcracker 3D	FreeStyle	45,700 (1,040)	-31%	44	0.14
Made in Dagenham	Sony Classics	39,600 (3,600)	-37%	11	0.18
All Good Things	Magnolia	37,500 (18,750)		2	0.04
Dead Awake	New Film	31,400 (570)		55	0.03
Mar Jawan Gur Khake	Punjabi	18,800 (6,270)		3	0.02
Night Catches Us	Magnolia	12,100 (3,020)		4	0.01
Bhutto	First Run	7,800 (3,900)		2	0.01

Domestic Market Share (Jan. 1 – Dec. 2, 2010)

Distributor (releases)	Gross	Market Share
Warner Bros. (27)	1792.9	18.40%
Paramount (18)	1609.2	16.50%
Fox (18)	1371.7	14.00%
Buena Vista (16)	1252.3	12.80%
Sony (24)	1185.4	12.10%
Universal (18)	797.2	8.20%
Summit (11)	517.9	5.30%
Lionsgate (15)	512.4	5.20%
Fox Searchlight (7)	84.7	0.90%
Overture (7)	81.9	0.80%
Focus (7)	75.2	0.80%
CBS (3)	64.2	0.70%
Weinstein Co. (8)	63.1	0.70%
Sony Classics (22)	58.7	0.60%
MGM (1)	50.4	0.50%
Other * (301)	246.6	2.50%
	9763.8	100.00%
* none greater than .04%

Top Global Grossers * (Jan. 1 – Dec. 2, 2010)

Title	Distributor	Gross
Avatar *	Fox	1,955,694,414
Toy Story 3	BV	1,065,128,004
Alice in Wonderland	BV	1,024,537,295
Inception	WB	840,550,911
Shrek Forever After	Par	738,351,966
Twilight: Eclipse	Summit	699,325,617
Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows, Part 1	WB	634,033,738
Iron Man 2	Par	622,718,600
Despicable Me	Uni	534,415,944
How to Train Your Dragon	Par	495,921,283
Clash of the Titans	WB	489,778,913
Sherlock Holmes *	WB	367,796,599
The Karate Kid	Sony	359,429,551
Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time	BV	335,816,141
The Last Airbender	Par	319,062,129
Robin Hood	Uni	312,207,159
Shutter Island	Par	301,977,955
Sex and the City 2	WB	301,158,934
Salt	Sony	293,955,694
Resident Evil: Afterlife	Sony/Alliance	292,972,689
The Expendables	Lionsgate	272,550,235
Grown Ups	Sony	271,417,359
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel	Fox	264,341,533
Knight and Day	Fox	261,206,060
Percy Jackson & the Olympians	Fox	226,497,298
* does not include 2009 box office

Tags: 127 Hours, Alice in Wonderland, All Good Things, Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel, Avatar, bhutto, Black Swan, Burlesque, Clash of the Titans, Dead Awake, Despicable Me, Due Date, Fair Game, Faster, For Colored Girls …, Grown Ups, Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows, Harry Potter & the Deathly Hollows, How to Train Your Dragon, I Love You Phillip Morris, Inception, Iron Man 2, Khelein Hum Jee Jaan Sey, Knight and Day, Lance et compte, Love and Other Drugs, Made in Dagenham, Mar Jawan Gur Khake, Megamind, Morning Glory, night catches us, Nutcracker 3D, Part 1, Percy Jackson & the Olympians, Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, Raktacharitra 2, Red, Resident Evil: Afterlife, Robin Hood, Salt, Sex and the City 2, Sherlock Holmes, Shrek Forever After, Shutter Island, skyline, Tangled, The Expendables, The Karate Kid, The King's Speech, The Last Airbender, The Next Three Days, The Social Network, the warrior's way, Toy Story 3, Twilight: Eclipse, unstoppable
Posted in MCN Originals, MCN Weekend, Movie City News, The Weekend Report | Comments Off on Weekend Box Office Report — December 5

Royal Helena Bonham Carter

Thursday, November 25th, 2010

Royal Helena Bonham Carter

Tags: Alice in Wonderland, The King's Speech
Posted in Awards Watch, Curated Headlines, MCN Curated Headlines, Movie City News | Comments Off on Royal Helena Bonham Carter

Frenzy on the Wall: Anne Hathaway is a Great Actress … Right?

Monday, November 22nd, 2010

“Anne Hathaway is a great actress.”
“Is she, though?”

Both speakers in that conversation are me. This was the dialogue I was having with myself as I watched Hathaway on Saturday Night Live this past weekend. She was so effortlessly charismatic, her timing excellent, and her presence inviting. Whether she was playing a hillbilly waiting in line at MegaMart or a very frightened Kate Middleton, she seemed at ease getting into the skin of many varied characters. She, like Justin Timberlake, was one of the rare guest hosts who I could see being a regular cast member (provided, of course, she wanted to take a huge step back career-wise and make far less money).

I found myself thinking that it should have been obvious how good she would be (and she was excellent last time she hosted too) based on how talented she is. Then I started to think of all the great performances she had given.

That’s where I ran into a bit if a problem. I rushed onto IMDb and found that, despite the universal praise for her acting skills, she has given only one unquestionably great performance – Rachel Getting Married – and a whole lot of forgettable or passable or pretty good ones. Have we all been brainwashed by some kind of massive conspiracy plotted by a team of publicists and journalists into believing that Hathaway was the next Meryl Streep?

Let’s look at the evidence.

Hathaway burst onto the scene with The Princess Diaries, a film that is admittedly not aimed at me. However, I thought that she was pretty good, considering the material. Although I don’t really know how much of that performance is due to good acting and how much is simply due to the fact that, as we’ve already covered, she’s immensely likable and charismatic. She has something that is completely separate from any kind of talent – she has a face that we trust and like and she projects warmth as a human being, especially in interviews. So I’m inclined to believe that her portrayal of Mia Thermopolis is really the result of her being a performer we like rather than one who is truly crafting something special.

I never saw The Other Side of Heaven, but I’m fairly certain that if she set the world on fire with that one, I would have watched it by now. Her next film is Nicholas Nickleby, the adaptation of the Dickens novel. I thought the film was passable and utterly unmemorable. In fact, I remember very little about it – including Hathaway’s performance. I would fault the filmmakers more than Hathaway for that, however, because as we’ve already established – Hathaway is memorable. To somehow take a performer like her and have her not make much of an impression is a shame. But I do like that Hathaway was attempting to make a “prestige” film, so points to her for that.

Next we have the one-two punch of Ella Enchanted and The Princess Diaries 2. If anything, these two films proved that Hathaway had officially outgrown films aimed at people under thirteen. Once again, she gets by on her luminosity and smile rather than finding an interesting character in a complex film and then making complicated choices once on set. Because these films are aimed at younger folks, they have characters that aren’t particularly well-drawn and Hathaway doesn’t add that much performance-wise that another performer that was equally charismatic wouldn’t have. In other words, she was coasting.

After that, we have Havoc, in which Hathaway wanted to show exactly how grown up she was. Unfortunately for her, the film was utterly awful and sadly, she was terrible in it. She was not convincing as this damaged character, unable to really make me believe that she was as troubled as she’s supposed to be. And the script doesn’t do her any favors, with lines like “We’re teenagers and we’re bored.” I doubt any actor could say those lines and make them sound right. I admire the fact that Hathaway attempted something that would be a complete 180 for what she had been known for, but she was flat, stilted, and mannered. I saw the wheels spinning the whole time.

With Brokeback Mountain, she had finally picked a winner. It’s a terrific film and while she’s good in it, she is absolutely blown off the screen by Jake Gyllenhaal (who seemed much more focused), Heath Ledger, and Michelle Williams. I thought Hathaway got the part right mostly, although I think she went over the top a few times, whereas the rest of the cast underplayed – making her stand out a bit more, for the wrong reasons. But she was passable and I think the rest of the cast just seemed a lot more comfortable with that kind of material that she was venturing into for the first time.

Then we have The Devil Wears Prada, a choice that I can’t fault because it gave her the opportunity to work with Meryl Streep. A lot of people point to this film as Hathaway’s coming-out party because it was such a massive hit. Unfortunately, she is completely overshadowed by Emily Blunt and – of course – Meryl Streep. So she’s working primarily with two performers who steal every scene from her and, as a result, make her seem like the least interesting character in her own movie.

A good deal of the problem rests with the character herself, who is not pleasant to be around, but Hathaway plays her in such a whiny way that I found myself siding with Streep’s character way more than was intended. I didn’t understand why this snotty girl stuck around if she thought the work she was doing was so beneath her. I found her arrogant, stuck-up, and pouty. It was the first time I had seen Hathaway lose her charms and play a character who was utterly unlikable.

Next was Becoming Jane, which I think I remember as being fine, but truthfully it’s a blur in my head. I remember walking out of the theater and thinking that she had redeemed herself partially, but I wasn’t exactly thrilled with the performance. At this point in Hathaway’s career, I was certainly not a fan.

Her role in Get Smart didn’t make me jump on the bandwagon either. But I thought it was actually an interesting step in the right direction for her. She had found a character that was sexy and in control and she seemed very much at ease in that role, while able to bring back her charisma and likability and winning smile. Her chemistry with Steve Carell was good and I believe in her character. She wasn’t aiming very high in that one, but at least she hit the mark.

Okay, then comes Rachel Getting Married, where for the first time I felt like I “got it” with Anne Hathaway. She was playing a character that was dark, tortured, beaten up and beaten down and supposed to be putting on a happy face for her sister’s wedding. This is the stuff that drama – and great acting – is made of: putting characters in a combustible situation in which outward actions belie inner emotions. It’s also the type of role that needs to be played expertly or else the entire film falls apart under the weight of that failure. Hathaway hit it out of the damn park, taking the audience on a whirlwind of tumult with a biting wit to help us ride out the bumps.

Other actors shine – notably Bill Irwin and Debra Winger – but none brighter than Hathaway. I walked out of the movie believing that Hathaway would win the Oscar that year and I’m pretty surprised that she didn’t. Either way, I could finally see that not only was Hathaway charismatic but she had greatness in her.

And then she does the following: Passengers, Bride Wars, and Valentine’s Day. I don’t think I can express to you how awful all three of those movies are. Granted, the last one she’s not in for more than twenty minutes and she’s actually pretty charming in it and the first one just seemed like it got mangled somewhere in production, but Bride Wars is just inexcusable. I suppose I can’t begrudge actors for trying to get paid, but why that movie?

With the other films, I could understand that it might be about the opportunity to work with a certain actor or director, but was Hathaway’s desire to work with Kate Hudson so great that she would lower herself to those depths of idiocy? I mean, that movie just flat-out doesn’t work. It’s a film that purports that all women want is a fancy wedding at a certain place and they are so persnickety and self-centered that they can’t even allow their friendships to alter their plans. It boggles my mind how Hathaway could stoop to this. I can’t even judge her performance in it because I spent the entire time screaming at the screen, “Why are you doing this?!” (Note: not literally.)

Earlier this year she played the White Queen in Tim Burton’s useless remake of Alice in Wonderland and she was fine in it. The movie was boring and silly, but she got to work with Depp and Burton, so all is forgiven.

Love and Other Drugs comes out this week and I really need for it to be good. More than that, though, I need Hathaway to pick projects worthy of her talents. It’s all well and good to have a fun time at work, doing projects that don’t make you miserable, but the best actors and actresses – I’m thinking Daniel Day Lewis and Kate Winslet, among others – do indeed make themselves mad playing certain characters. Acting is an art form and if I’m to believe that Hathaway is a talent worthy of calling great, I need to see evidence that she believes it’s an art form as well.

While it’s possible that she is the great actress of her generation, the evidence sadly isn’t there to support that. I think she’s got all the talent in the world, but until she starts consistently picking better projects and difficult roles, I can’t put her in that upper echelon. Here’s hoping Love and Other Drugs gets her closer.

Tags: Alice in Wonderland, Anne Hathaway, Bride Wars, Brokeback Mountain, get smart, havoc, Love and Other Drugs, passengers, Rachel Getting Married, The Devil Wears Prada, the other side of heaven, the princess diaries, the princess diaries 2, Valentine's Day
Posted in Columns, Forrest, Frenzy On Column, MCN Originals, Movie City News | 7 Comments »

Weekend Box Office Report — November 21

Sunday, November 21st, 2010

Harry and the Deathly Swallows … Gulp!

Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Part 1 ascended to an estimated $126.2 million and corralled more than 60% of weekend ticket sales. Comparatively speaking the remaining films in the multiplex had to settle for chump change, including the bow of the thriller The Next Three Days which slotted fifth with $6.7 million.

The session also included the new Bollywood release Guzaarish, which garnered a better than respectable $423,000 at 108 venues. Among the few exclusive bows both the British import Made in Dagenham and France’s White Material were just OK with respective openings of $39,300 and $35,800, each playing on three screens.

It was the biggest opening yet for a Harry Potter film but while the juggernaut provided a big box office boost from last weekend it was insufficient to stave off a decline from 2009.

Expectations were high for the first installment of the last chapter of the Potter franchise. Advance sales and online tracking anticipated a $100 million debut and that number expanded following word of advance Thursday midnight screenings estimated at $24 million. Large format engagements were estimated at $12.4 million and if that number holds up it will be a record.

Internationally the early estimates are roughly $205 million from 54 markets. It includes all-time records in the U.K. and Russia and otherwise just sensational debuts elsewhere. The final, final Potter putter is schedule for July 2011.

On a decidedly downbeat note, The Next Three Days came in well below tracking that suggested a $10 million launch. The film also received a drubbing from critics.

Weekend revenues lurched toward $200 million, which translated into a 64% hike from seven days back. It was however 25% behind the 2009 slate led by the second installment of Twilight (New Moon), which bowed bitingly to $142.8 million with the unexpectedly $34.1 million potency of The Blind Side right behind it.

The contender’s roster failed to see any additional dynamos this weekend and the titles already in the marketplace were finding the Darwinian aspect of the exercise unrelenting. Both Fair Game and 127 Hours added a significant number of playdates with the latter continuing to maintain a hefty $8,330 engagement average. The other surprise in the mix is the continuing stamina of the non-fiction Inside Job that’s racked up $2.2 million to date.

__________________________________________________

Weekend Estimates – November 19-21, 2010

Title	Distributor	Gross (average)	% change *	Theaters	Cume
Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows, Part 1*	WB	126.2 (30,600)	NEW	4125	126.2
Megamind	Par	16.2 (4,280)	-45%	3779	109.5
Unstoppable	Fox	13.0 (4,060)	-43%	3207	41.9
Due Date	WB	8.9 (2,760)	-42%	3229	72.4
The Next Three Days	Lionsgate	6.7 (2,590)	NEW	2564	6.7
Morning Glory	Par	5.2 (2,050)	-43%	2544	19.8
Skyline	Uni/Alliance	3.4 (1,170)	-71%	2883	17.6
Summit	2.4 (1,190)	-51%	2034	83.5
For Colored Girls …	Lionsgate	2.3 (1,920)	-64%	1216	34.5
Fair Game	Summit	1.4 (3,730)	41%	386	3.7
Secretariat	BV	1.0 (970)	-56%	1010	56.4
Paranormal Activity 2	Par	.93 (840)	-69%	1101	83.6
The Social Network	Sony	.91 (1,590)	-49%	571	89.2
127 Hours	Searchlight	.90 (8,330)	104%	108	1.9
Saw 3D	Lionsgate	.82 (1,020)	-71%	806	45.3
Jackass 3D	Par	.72 (1,050)	-68%	687	116.1
Life As We Know It	WB	.52 (930)	-50%	558	51.6
Guzaarish	UTV	.42 (3,910)	NEW	108	0.42
The Girl Who Kicked the Hornet’s Nest	Music Box/Alliance	.41 (2,180)	-22%	188	3.5
Inside Job	Sony Classics	.37 (1,770)	-22%	211	2.2


Weekend Total ($500,000+ Films)		$191.50
% Change (Last Year)		-25%
% Change (Last Week)		64%


Also debuting/expanding
Today’s Special	Reliance	88,400 (1,670)		53	0.09
Made in Dagenham	Sony Classics	39,300 (13,100)		3	0.04
White Material	IFC	35,800 (11,930)		3	0.04
Queen of the Lot	Rainbow	16,400 (2,730)		6	0.02
Copacabana	Seville	14,100 (2,010)		7	0.01

Domestic Market Share (Jan. 1 – Nov. 18, 2010)

Distributor (releases)	Gross	Market Share
Paramount (18)	1555.1	16.80%
Warner Bros. (26)	1538.8	16.70%
Fox (17)	1320.7	14.30%
Buena Vista (15)	1173.4	12.70%
Sony (23)	1160.3	12.60%
Universal (18)	790.4	8.60%
Summit (11)	508.5	5.50%
Lionsgate (14)	490.6	5.30%
Overture (7)	81.7	0.90%
Fox Searchlight (7)	80.3	0.90%
Focus (7)	75.1	0.80%
Weinstein Co. (7)	62.5	0.70%
Sony Classics (21)	57.3	0.60%
MGM (1)	51.2	0.50%
CBS (2)	50	0.50%
Other * (288)	240.7	2.60%
	9236.6	100.00%
* none greater than .04%

Top Domestic Grossers * (Jan. 1 – Nov. 18, 2010)

Title	Distributor	Gross
Avatar *	Fox	476,883,415
Toy Story 3	BV	414,681,777
Alice in Wonderland	BV	334,191,110
Iron Man 2	Par	312,445,596
Twilight: Eclipse	Summit	300,551,386
Inception	WB	291,914,445
Despicable Me	Uni	248,900,040
Shrek Forever After	Par	238,667,087
How to Train Your Dragon	Par	218,685,707
The Karate Kid	Sony	176,797,997
Clash of the Titans	WB	163,214,888
Grown Ups	Sony	162,147,232
The Last Airbender	Par	131,733,601
Shutter Island	Par	128,051,522
The Other Guy	Sony	119,256,755
Salt	Sony	118,485,665
Jackass 3D	Par	115,357,091
Valentine’s Day	WB	110,509,442
Sherlock Holmes *	WB	106,967,985
Robin Hood	Uni	105,425,146
	* does not include 2009 box office

Tags: 127 Hours, Alice in Wonderland, Avatar, Clash of the Titans, copacabana, Despicable Me, Due Date, Fair Game, For Colored Girls …, Grown Ups, Guzaarish, Harry Potter & the Deathly Hallows, How to Train Your Dragon, Inception, Inside Job, Iron Man 2, Jackass 3D, Life As We Know It, Made in Dagenham, Megamind, Morning Glory, Paranormal Activity 2, Part 1, Queen of the Lot, Red, Robin Hood, Salt, Saw 3D, Secretariat, Sherlock Holmes, Shrek Forever After, Shutter Island, skyline, the girl who kicked the hornet's nest, The Karate Kid, The Last Airbender, The Next Three Days, The Other Guy, The Social Network, Today's Special, Toy Story 3, Twilight: Eclipse, unstoppable, Valentine's Day, White Material
Posted in MCN Originals, MCN Weekend, Movie City News, The Weekend Report | Comments Off on Weekend Box Office Report — November 21

Weekend Box Office Report – October 24

Sunday, October 24th, 2010

Back to Paranormal

Paranormal Activity 2 exceeded pundit expectation (though not necessarily fans) with an estimated $41.6 million to lead weekend movie ticket sales. The session’s only other national bow was Hereafter, which shot up to $11.9 million following last weekend’s limited opener.

Niche and regional bows included a solid $212,000 (in Hindi and Telegu versions) bow for the Indian crime saga Rakhtcharitra. Fans won’t have to wait long for its second part conclusion that’s scheduled for late November. Meanwhile up in Canada the Toronto fest curtain raiser Score: A Hockey Musical failed to live up to its name with a discordant $143,000 from 127 rinks.

Exclusives included good though unsensational debuts that included non-fiction Boxing Gym with a $6,100 TKO in its solo bout and Taqwacores — the tale of an Islamic rock band — grossing $5,500 also in a single outing.

Though there was a marginal dip from last weekend’s box office, the frame saw its first uptick from 2009 in a month with industry mavens already predicting expanded revenues through the end of the year.

Critical response to sleeper sensation Paranormal Activity 2 was at best tepid with the more negative reviews viewing it as a cynical rehash of its inspiration. Nonetheless avids were cueing up to provide Thursday midnight shows a record preview for an R-rated film. It lost traction as the weekend proceeded but the fast start was sufficient to speed past tracking that suggested an opening salvo of not much more than $30 million.

Exit polls for both Paranormal Activity 2 and Hereafter were disappointing. The latter film pretty much brought in the anticipated older crowd and filmmaker Clint Eastwood’s films have a history of hanging in for longer than typical runs and much higher multiples than is the industry norm. Still, this yarn could well stray from that trend.

Weekend revenues amassed roughly $130 million in torn ducats. It represented a slight 2% dip from seven days back but the unexpected Paranormal Activity 2 and overall strong holdovers translated into a 13% box office boost from 2009. A year ago the first Paranormal Activity (in its initial wide weekend) led with $21.1 million followed by Saw VI and Where the Wild Things Are with respective tallies of $14.1 million and $14 million.

With the exception of Waiting for “Superman” it’s been a brutal season for Oscar hopefuls trying to set an early footprint on the awards landscape. Granted, very few have received a wholehearted critical embrace, but even by niche standards the likes of Nowhere Boy, You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger and Jack Goes Boating among others have been comparative under-performers when measured against past films that have employed this tactic.

__________________________________________________

Weekend Estimates – October 22-24, 2010

Title	Distributor	Gross (average)	% change *	Theaters	Cume
Paranormal Activity 2	Par	41.6 (12,930)	New	3216	41.6
Jackass 3D	Par	21.5 (6,920)	-57%	3111	87.1
Red	Summit	15.1 (4,620)	-31%	3273	43.6
Hereafter	WB	11.9 (5,450)		2175	12.2
The Social Network	Sony	7.2 (2,450)	-31%	2921	72.8
Secretariat	BV	6.9 (2,210)	-26%	3108	37.3
Life As We Know It	WB	6.1 (2,010)	-32%	3019	37.5
Legend of the Guardians	WB	3.1 (1,390)	-26%	2236	50.1
The Town	WB	2.7 (1,390)	-33%	1918	84.6
Easy A	Sony	1.7 (1,050)	-35%	1632	54.7
Wal Street: Money Never Sleeps	Fox	1.2 (960)	-49%	1255	50
My Soul to Take	Uni/Alliance	1.0 (600)	-68%	1689	13.9
Waiting for “Superman”	Par Vantage	.76 (2,620)	2%	290	3.7
Alpha and Omega	Lionsgate	.71 (980)	-14%	727	23.5
It’s Kind of a Funny Story	Focus	.66 (1,180)	-46%	560	5.1
Devil	Uni	.63 (980)	-35%	642	32.4
You Again	BV	.61 (680)	-50%	901	24
N Secure	FreeStyle	.53 (1,190)	-55%	445	1.9
Toy Story 3	BV	.42 (1,211)	-21%	350	413.4
You Will Meet a Tall Dark Stranger	Sony Classics	.40 (1,060)	46%	381	1.8
Case 39	Par Vantage	.38 (530)	-69%	721	12.7


Weekend Total ($500,000+ Films)		$123.90
% Change (Last Year)		13%
% Change (Last Week)		-2%


Also debuting/expanding
Stone	Overture	.34 (3,030)	49%	113	0.76
Conviction	Fox Searchlight	.30 (5,420)	192%	55	0.34
Rakhtcharitra	Viva/Happy	.21 (6,230)		34	0.21
Nowhere Boy	Weinstein Co.	.21 (870)	-39%	215	0.76
Score: A Hockey Musical	Mongrel	.14 (1,130)		127	0.14
Jhootha Hi Sahi	Viva	64,700 (1,350)		48	0.06
My Girlfriend’s Boyfriend	Fiftyfilms	10,300 (5,150)		2	0.01
Boxing Gym	Zipporah	6,100 (6,100)		1	0.01
Taqwacores	Rumanni	5,500 (5,500)		1	0.01
Inhale	IFC	5,600 (2,800)		2	0.01

Domestic Market Share (Jan. 1 – Oct. 21, 2010)

Distributor (releases)	Gross	Market Share
Warner Bros. (25)	1403.9	16.30%
Paramount (15)	1310.6	15.30%
Fox (16)	1287.9	15.00%
Buena Vista (15)	1144.7	13.30%
Sony (23)	1129.9	13.20%
Universal (17)	771.4	9.00%
Summit (10)	453.6	5.30%
Lionsgate (12)	411.5	4.80%
Overture (7)	79.7	0.90%
Focus (7)	73.2	0.90%
Fox Searchlight (6)	72.7	0.80%
Weinstein Co. (7)	61.6	0.70%
Sony Classics (21)	53.7	0.60%
MGM (1)	50.4	0.60%
CBS (2)	50	0.60%
Other * (271)	226.9	2.70%
	8581.7	100.00%
* none greater than .04%

Top Domestic Grossers * (Jan. 1 – Oct. 21, 2010)

Title	Distributor	Gross
Avatar *	Fox	476,726,209
Toy Story 3	BV	413,013,123
Alice in Wonderland	BV	334,191,110
Iron Man 2	Par	312,445,596
Twilight: Eclipse	Summit	300,531,751
Inception	WB	289,881,124
Despicable Me	Uni	247,148,995
Shrek Forever After	Par	238,667,087
How to Train Your Dragon	Par	218,685,707
The Karate Kid	Sony	176,797,997
Clash of the Titans	WB	163,214,888
Grown Ups	Sony	161,942,598
The Last Airbender	Par	131,733,601
Shutter Island	Par	128,051,522
The Other Guy	Sony	118,236,912
Salt	Sony	118,229,865
Valentine’s Day	WB	110,509,442
Sherlock Holmes *	WB	106,967,985
Robin Hood	Uni	105,425,146
The Expendables	Lions Gate	103,068,524
* does not include 2009 box office

Tags: Alice in Wonderland, Alpha and Omega, Avatar, boxing gym, Case 39, Clash of the Titans, Conviction, Despicable Me, Devil, Easy A, Grown Ups, Hereafter, How to Train Your Dragon, Inception, inhale, Iron Man 2, It's Kind Of A Funny Story, Jackass 3D, Jhootha Hi Sahi, Legend of the Guardians, Life As We Know It, My Girlfriend's Boyfriend, My Soul To Take, N Secure, Nowhere Boy, Paranormal Activity 2, Rakhtcharitra, Red, Robin Hood, Salt, Score: A Hockey Musical, Secretariat, Sherlock Holmes, Shrek Forever After, Shutter Island, Stone, Taqwacores, The Expendables, The Karate Kid, The Last Airbender, The Other Guy, The Social Network, The Town, Toy Story 3, Twilight: Eclipse, Valentine's Day, Waiting For 'Superman', Walt Street: Money Never Sleeps, You Again, You Will Meet A Tall Dark Stranger
Posted in MCN Originals, MCN Weekend, Movie City News, The Weekend Report | 1 Comment »

Frenzy on the Wall: Who’s the Biggest Star in the World (Right Now)?

Monday, September 6th, 2010

William Goldman is one of the greatest screenwriters of all-time, but he was also a fantastic essayist and one of the most insightful minds when it came to writing about films. His collection of essays, The Big Picture, has been read so many times by me that the pages are starting to break free from the binding. But one of the questions he came back to was: who is the biggest star in the world right now? Almost every year during the ’90s, he tried his best to answer that very question.

For whatever reason, Goldman’s not writing (or at least not publishing) his essays about film and I decided that I would try to answer the question as we wind down the year 2010. Just like Goldman, I won’t use a ton of numbers or charts and graphs, but I’ll present my evidence as best as I can.

Last year, I think the answer would have been a bit easier. James Cameron was clearly the biggest star in the world in 2009 and it wasn’t even close. The man released his first film in twelve years and just happened to make a movie that broke every box office record imaginable. It is now clear that any year in which Cameron releases a film, he will be the biggest star in that year. One could make a case that he’s the biggest star of this current year since Avatar raked in most of its dough after the calendar flipped to 2010, but by the time this year ends, I don’t think he’ll still be on anyone’s mind.

As for those in front of the camera, it would be easy to name folks like George Clooney or Brad Pitt. Up in the Air and Inglourious Basterds were hits both critically and commercially and it’s reasonable to expect every film to which one of these handsome men is attached will at least make its money back. People will go to the movies specifically because they hear the names “Clooney” or “Pitt” and that’s becoming increasingly rarer.

If you need evidence of this, check out this weekend’s grosses for The American. It was the number one film of the weekend, despite the fact that Clooney was the only actor anybody heard of and despite the fact that it’s a deliberately-paced film that most American audiences would usually find dull. I doubt it’ll have strong legs next weekend, when word of mouth spreads, but the bottom line is that Clooney put butts in seats this weekend. Audiences in this country feel comfortable with Pitt and Clooney, that they will deliver the goods in projects that are worthy of their time and money.
Johnny Depp might want in on this conversation.

I personally think he’s fading as an actor I trust, but Alice in Wonderland still made a ton of money. Although, I don’t know how much if it is Depp and how much of it is Burton and how much of it is the recognizable brand. Depp certainly didn’t help Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus get seen by very many people, and while Public Enemies did okay, it didn’t do as well as expected in a cushy Independence Day slot. The Tourist will be a good test for him, where he’s paired with one of the top female stars out there.

Speaking of Angelina Jolie, could she be the biggest star in the world? She’s certainly one of the most recognizable faces, gracing the covers of magazines on newsstands around the globe. She was the only major draw in Salt and that film has grossed over a hundred million dollars at the box office. Jolie and action is a formula for success, as she had already proved with Wanted. Unfortunately, put her in a serious drama – even one she’s excellent in, like Changeling – and audiences turn away.

Speaking of Clint Eastwood, I must make mention of him because I think he was on William Goldman’s list every single year he made it. And the weird thing is that you could probably still put him somewhere on the list. The guy has been a commodity for about forty years already and has shown no signs of slowing, releasing a film every single year. When he actually gets in front of the camera, (a rare sight these days) people tend to show up, even if it’s something as dumb as Gran Torino.

Box office gross of the aforementioned film: nearly 150 million bucks and Eastwood was the only draw. Dude is nearly eighty and he still gets audiences to come out. His next film, Hereafter, reunites him with Invictus star Matt Damon and comes out in the fall.

Matt Damon, you say? Why yes, I did. I’d love to put him somewhere on this list, but the truth of the matter is that while he’s a recognizable face and name and he gives any film he stars in the air of respectability…he’s not quite in the running for biggest movie star status. The Bourne films were cash-cows, of course, but the truth of the matter is that he’s too much of a damned artist to be a movie star.

He’s the kind of guy who gains forty pounds to star in a Soderbergh film, the kind of guy who brings subtlety to his pitch-perfect performance in The Good Shepherd (one of my favorite performances of the last twenty years). He’s the kind of guy who will take time out of his schedule to film cameos in Soderbergh’s Che or Coppola’s Youth Without Youth. He doesn’t seem especially motivated by money or fame; instead it seems his one big desire is to work with as many great directors as possible.

The guy has worked with Scorsese, Coppola, Soderbergh, Minghella, Van Sant, Gilliam, Redford, Eastwood, and has a film coming up with the Coen Brothers. He might be one of the finest popular actors of his generation, but he’s not one of its biggest movie stars.

Damon also worked with Steven Spielberg on Saving Private Ryan and Spielberg used to be a staple on this list. You could always put him on it because he’s easily the most famous film director in the history of motion pictures. If you ask any bozo off the street to name a film director, they’ll definitely be able to mention Steven Spielberg. Unfortunately the man hasn’t released a film since Munich (What Indiana Jones film? I keep telling you, it doesn’t exist!).

He’s got a couple of projects on the horizon, including War Horse and Tintin, but I can’t put him anywhere near the top until he finally makes that damned Abraham Lincoln movie. Or, you know, if War Horse is brilliant and makes a ton of money. But he deserves a place on this list, even as just a producer. Hell, every Transformers movie is a gigantic hit and he’s one of the men responsible for it.

How about the star of that hit franchise? No, not Michael Bay or Optimus Prime, but Shia LaBeouf. He’s only 24 years old and he’s the lead actor in a franchise that has grossed a kajillion dollars (he was also in that Spielberg movie that doesn’t exist and grossed a lot of money). But, come on, we know people weren’t going to the theater for a chance to see LaBeouf. And while Disturbia was a decent-sized hit, Eagle Eye was a disappointment. We’ll see how he does with the Wall Street sequel, but even if it’s a huge success, it probably won’t be due to him. He might be the biggest star in the world in five to ten years, but he’s not there yet.

There’s no natural transition to this one, so I’m going to try not to snap my neck with this segue: Will Smith! What about Big Willie? He’s still getting jiggy with audiences, whether it’s in the atrocious Hancock or the even more atrocious Seven Pounds. It’s actually an amazing testament to his star power that the latter film managed to gross seventy million dollars, despite its subject matter.

I mean, that’s not an easy film to sell and basically they marketed it as “Will Smith…in a movie!” Nobody had any clue what it was about, but the promise of Will Smith drew people in. That’s pretty impressive. But he’s been absent from screens for two years now and Men in Black III isn’t coming out until 2012, so he’s taking a break from his throne.

No, Jaden Smith isn’t where I’m going next.

I don’t know who to blame or praise for the success of Twilight, so I can’t really put any of those kids or filmmakers on here. I’ll chalk that one up to “phenomenon” and move on. Same goes for the much better Harry Potter films.

Leonardo DiCaprio? He’s the star of one of the most talked-about movies of the year, Inception, which will end up with around 300 million bucks in the bank. Not too shabby. He’s also Scorsese’s favorite actor and DiCaprio has helped turn Scorsese into a legitimate box office favorite. Or maybe it was the other way around? Unfortunately, he couldn’t help turn Revolutionary Road or Body of Lies into hits.

In the right project, DiCaprio is gold. And Inception might have been more about Christopher Nolan than DiCaprio. I think his turn as the title character in Eastwood’s J. Edgar Hoover biopic will probably garner some awards buzz, but we’ll see if he can take it to the top of the box office.

Adam Sandler was the answer to this question for a while. But that was back when his movies cost nothing to make and grossed insane sums of money. Now the movies cost more, he costs more and he can’t even guarantee a hit when he’s working with Judd Apatow. Grown Ups grossed about $160 million, but it definitely cost quite a bit to make and market. He’s near the top of the list, but it seems he’s veering closer towards modern-day Eddie Murphy family-movie territory. And that’s a hit or miss world to live in.

Okay, enough beating around the bush, the answer to the biggest movie star in the world? Well, who could it be other than Sandra Bullock? She’s gracing the cover of Entertainment Weekly this week despite the fact that she’s got nothing to promote and she wasn’t even interviewed. She starred in two massive hits last year, got an Oscar and could get anything greenlit immediately. She was the star of 2009 and is the biggest movie star to grace a cinema screen right now.

But that’s not the answer. She might be the biggest actor in the world, but the biggest movie star right now (and I would argue, for the last decade) is very simple…

PIXAR.

Name me another company, actor, director, etc. in the history of cinema that has never made a film that bombed either critically or commercially. You can’t do it. (Okay, maybe John Cazale?) Every year, Pixar releases a film that grosses a ton of money and tops critics lists. This year, they put out Toy Story 3 and it grossed over 400 million dollars. I don’t think any movie star on the planet can guarantee you half that. Well, except for Pixar. I’m putting the over/under on the next five Pixar releases at 250 million and I’ll take the over. I’ll win every time.

Without a doubt, the biggest movie star in the world is Pixar. And it’s not even close.

Tags: adam sandler, Alice in Wonderland, Angelina Jolie, Avatar, Brad Pitt, Changeling, christopher nolan, clingt eastwood, George Clooney, Gran Torino, Grown Ups, Hereafter, Inception, Inglourious Basterds, Invictus, James Cameron, Johnny Depp, judd apatow, Leonardo DiCaprio, Matt Damon, men in black III, Michael Bay, pixar, Salt, Sandra Bullock, shia labeouf, Steven Spielberg, The American, Tim Burton, Toy Story 3, Twilight, Up in the Air, Wall Street: Money Never Sleeps, wanted, Will Smith, william goldman
Posted in Frenzy On Column, MCN Originals | 12 Comments »

The Language of Wonderland

Thursday, May 13th, 2010

Did the language of Underland drive you completely gallymoggers? Well, summon your muchness and you can be fluent after studying this glossary! Just be careful not to speak slurking urpal slackush scrum in front of the Queen… The Alice in Wonderland language guide.

Tags: Alice in Wonderland
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Showest Serves Up Newsworthy-Lite Fare

Monday, March 22nd, 2010

LAS VEGAS — Exhibitor or journalist, one no longer attends ShoWest for its newsworthiness. Celebrity sightings are duly noted, as are the latest improvements in cookie-dough confections and sneak previews of tent-pole movies.

The absence of any real news went out with the administration of the late, ever-quotable Jack Valenti. When Valenti was ringleader of the MPAA circus, he would invite reporters to breakfast at on ungodly hour on the morning of the opening day, so they could fill their notebooks with data, statistics, dire warnings about over-spending and piracy, and praise for the ratings system he invented.

Those sessions no longer exist. All relative box-office data is released ahead of ShoWest, and the MPAA no longer reports costs related to the production and marketing of studio films. If there was one thing highly paid executives didn’t like about their former chief lobbyist in Washington, it was being admonished for their absurd budgets and lavish spending. It was especially unpleasant when Valenti borrowed from the Bible, Greek mythology and Shakespeare to make his points.

Even if all succeeding MPAA czars will be required to link world peace to the end of movie piracy, the days of rhetorical sturm und drang at ShoWest are long gone. In case anyone was keeping score at home, outgoing MPAA boss Dan Glickman announced that lots of people are making lots of money in Hollywood – thanks, in large part, to 3-D and foreigner revenues — even if 90 percent of its titles suck. And, copyright infringement continues to threaten our and every other democracy.

Amazingly, perhaps, after several years of pessimistic debate over the future of digital cinema and 3-D, there appears to be a shortage of screens capable of showing advanced 2-D and 3-D movies. The extraordinary success of Avatar and Alice in Wonderland provided merely the latest proof that 3-D is here to stay. It was only two years ago that the industry was stunned by the box-office success of Hannah Montana & Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert, and some observers feared it was a fluke occurrence. Now, 3-D movies are circling multiplexes like so many airplanes awaiting clearance to land in a storm.

With Avatar and Alice still selling Hefty bags full of popcorn for exhibitors – and 3-D hardware at a premium – the arrival of several major titles is reason for some concern. The imminent release of DreamWorks/Paramount’s How to Train Your Dragon and Warner Bros.’ re-formatted Clash of the Titans has prompted several studios to pressure exhibitors to clear – or retain – 3-D space for their titles. The penalty would be the withholding of 2-D versions of the same movies.With the release of such sure-fire titles as Toy Story 3, Shrek Forever After and Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, Parts I and II right around the corner, distributors are busy marking their territory.

While screen manufacturers, such as Harkness, pledged to ramp up production of 3-D-friendly screens, studios promised to continue making blockbuster movies. Nineteen 3-D movies are scheduled for release in 2010, alone. No one at ShoWest wanted to consider the downside, however. If, for example, the quality of such entertainment declined to the point where it ceased to be a lucrative diversion, the boom might quickly go bust.

Patrick Corcoran, spokesman for the National Association of Theatre Owners, voiced his concern that overexposure to 3-D format “might wear your audience out,” while the potential oversaturation of specialized screens in a market could cut into profits for competing exhibitors. Their ability to charge consumers extra for the privilege of watching movies in 3-D and large format could also be impacted.

Indeed, the biggest bummer all week came after Disney/Pixar announced it wouldn’t be able to preview Toy Story in 3-D. Anticipation had caused block-long lines to form outside the Paris and Bally’s Hotel theaters. It turned out, however, that the dispersal of 3-D glasses ahead of the screening was to facilitate the animated short, Night and Day. Undeniably fun to watch, Toy Story 3 lacked a certain je ne sais quoi in 2-D.

Ironically, the ShoWest schedule — apart from a sneak of Harry Potter and Technicolor’s product demonstration — was mostly devoid of 3-D presentations. In previous years, attendees had enjoyed full screenings and snippets of Up, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, Battle for Terra, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Kung Fu Panda and Monsters vs. Aliens. If nothing else, these films assured exhibitors of the seriousness with which the major studios were taking 3-D.

With the proof of that commitment already in the pudding, this year’s selection of previews included Toy Story 3, in which the non-human characters must deal with Andy’s coming of age; Summit’s sumptuous romance, Letters to Juliet, with Amanda Seyfried and Vanessa Redgrave; the Sony crowd-pleaser, The Karate Kid, which contemporizes the 1984 hit by setting it completely in China and substituting Jackie Chan for Pat Morita; Lionsgate’s insanely frenetic, Kick Ass, a superhero epic that was as funny as it was hyper-violent; CBS Films’ second feature, the urban rom-com Back-Up Plan, in which Jennifer Lopez is unable to find the perfect mate and father to her children … until she becomes pregnant, natch; Warner Bros.’ star-studded showcase offered glimpses of Sex and the City 2, the 3-D Clash of the Titans, Todd Phillips’ Due Date,” with Robert Downey Jr. and Zack Galifianakis, and the Jerry Bruckheimer-produced Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, an action-adventure that makes Pirates of the Caribbean look lethargic, by comparison. The Monday-night indie showcase, which last year, previewed The Hurt Locker, offered Focus’ The Kids Are Alright, an offbeat family dramedy, with Annette Bening, Julianne Moore, Mark Ruffalo and Mia Wasikowska; Apparition’s Aussie thriller, The Square; Roadside Attractions darkly comic, The Joneses; Sony Classics’ Get Low, with Bill Murray, Robert Duvall and Sissy Spacek; and Zipline’s go-karting doc, Racing Dreams.

(It’s worth remembering, perhaps, that Sandra Bullock’s commercial comeback can be traced to last year’s ShoWest preview of The Proposition, which exhibitors loved. Another future Oscar-winner, The Cove, was screened here in 2009.)

– Gary Dretzka
March 22, 2010

Tags: Alice in Wonderland, Avatar, Battle for Terra, Clash of the Titans, Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs, Hannah Montana, Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows, How to Train Your Dragon, Journey to the Center of the Earth, Kung Fu Panda, Miley Cyrus: Best of Both Worlds Concert, Monsters vs. Aliens, Shrek Forever After, Toy Story 3, Up
Posted in Columns, Digital Nation, Dretzka | Comments Off on Showest Serves Up Newsworthy-Lite Fare

Who’s Who in Wonderland?

Thursday, March 4th, 2010

ALICE is a 19-year-old woman contemplating her future. An independent soul, she feels trapped in the narrow-minded views of women in aristocratic Victorian London and uncertain how to balance her dreams with other people’s expectations. Following the death of her beloved father, she attends a garden party with her mother and sister, although, unbeknownst to her, it’s been planned as her engagement party. Just as the arrogant and dull Hamish Ascot proposes to her, Alice spots a White Rabbit wearing a waistcoat and pocket watch scurrying across the grounds. She rushes off after the furry fellow, tumbling down a rabbit hole and into Underland, a place she first visited as a child (and called Wonderland)—though she has no memory of it or its inhabitants. Alice nevertheless reunites with her childhood friends, including Absolem the caterpillar, the Cheshire Cat, Tweedledee and Tweedledum, and of course, the Mad Hatter—and seeks her true destiny.

______________________________________________________________

UNDERLAND is a part of the earth. “But it lies somewhere far beneath our world. The only way to get there is to fall down a rabbit hole.” It is the same fantastical land that Alice visited as a child, but she misheard the word “Underland” and thought they said “Wonderland.” Time has passed. The Red Queen rules the whole land. It’s under her thumb. And the people of Underland need Alice. Underland has come upon hard times since the malevolent Red Queen took over the throne. It is, however, a truly wonderful land, which might explain why the girl who mistook it for Wonderland has been called upon to help return it to its glory. But, Underland has always been Underland since the Beginning, no matter who sits on the throne. It will remain Underland until the End.

______________________________________________________________

THE MAD HATTER doesn’t just wear his heart on his sleeve—his ever-changing moods are quite literally reflected in his face and his attire. He’s been anxiously awaiting Alice’s return and is, arguably, her one true friend, believing in her when nobody else does. He is fearless, going to great lengths to protect her at his own risk. Once the proud hat maker for the White Queen, the Hatter has been affected by mercury poisoning, an unfortunate side effect of the hat-making process, and isn’t altogether well.

______________________________________________________________

IRACEBETH, THE RED QUEEN is the tyrannical monarch of Underland. With her oversized head, fiery temper and propensity to scream for people’s heads to be chopped off, she rules her subjects through fear. “She’s got emotional problems,” says Bonham Carter. “It takes nothing, practically, for her to lose her temper. Her tantrums are that of a two-year-old.” Her younger sibling, the White Queen, has designs on the throne and crown that Iracebeth once stole from her.

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MIRANA, THE WHITE QUEEN is the younger sister of the Red Queen, and while she appears to be all sweetness and light, beneath the surface there’s a hint of darkness to her character. “She comes from the same gene pool as the Red Queen,” says Hathaway. “She really likes the dark side, but she’s so scared of going too far into it that she’s made everything appear very light and happy. But she’s living in that place out of fear that she won’t be able to control herself.” When Alice returns to Underland, the White Queen takes her under her wing, offering her protection, although her motives aren’t completely altruistic.

______________________________________________________________

TMCTWISP, THE WHITE RABBIT is always late, always in a hurry, always rushing about. Charged with finding Alice and bringing her back to Underland so that she can fulfill her destiny, he shows up at her garden party in an effort to lure her back down the rabbit hole. He’s a warm character but, at the same time, he can be quite fussy and quite strict with Alice as well. He has an edge to him, a nervous energy, always feeling like he’s behind time. Time is very important to him, but he’s quite brave when called upon.

______________________________________________________________

ILOSOVIC STAYNE, THE KNAVE OF HEARTS is the head of the Red Queen’s Army. Seven feet, six-inches tall, with a scarred face and a heart-shaped patch covering his left eye, Stayne is an arrogant, tricky character who follows the Red Queen’s every order. He’s the only one capable of pacifying her and calming her dramatic mood swings. The Red Queen has a fair amount of short-tempered reactions to things that people do, and so the Kave has to be quite diplomatic. His darker side emerges in the shadows of the castle hallways.

______________________________________________________________

TWEEDLEDEE and TWEEDLEDUM are rotund twin brothers who constantly disagree with each other and whose confusing chatter makes little sense to anyone but them. When Alice arrives in Underland, she looks to the Tweedles for guidance. Innocent and infantile, adorable and sweet, they mean well but are of little real help since they speak in weird rhythms and riddles.

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ABSOLEM, THE CATERPILLAR is the all-knowing and absolute guardian of the Oraculum, an ancient document that depicts every major event, past, present and future, in Underland’s history. Alice is taken by the White Rabbit and the Tweedles to meet Absolem, so that he can ascertain whether she is, in fact, the real Alice who first visited Underland as a child, the Alice who is destined to help them. They find the bulbous blue caterpillar atop a mushroom in a mushroom forest surrounded by misty smoke. Several times Absolem challenges Alice to come to a better understanding of herself, forcing her to face the difficult question: “Who are you?”

______________________________________________________________

CHESSUR, THE CHESHIRE CAT is a dapper tabby with the ability to appear and disappear. He is all calm, casual sensuality with a seductive grin that masks his cowardice. It’s the cat’s disembodied head that first appears to Alice in Tulgey Wood after she’s been attacked by the vicious Bandersnatch. He offers to purify the gashes on her arm by licking them. Alice declines, although she allows him to lead her to the Hatter’s Tea Party where the Hatter blames him for deserting them on the day the Red Queen seized control of Underland. Using his skills and the Hatter’s coveted top hat, Chessur later finds a way to redeem himself.

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THE MARCH HARE hosts the Mad Hatter’s Tea Parties at his Hare House. Paranoid, anxious and slightly insane, he constantly wrings his paws and ears and has a thing for tossing teapots and other items. He has a penchant for cooking and is one of the few Underland inhabitants to escape the Red Queen’s clutches all together.

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BAYARD THE BLOODHOUND is an unwilling accomplice to the Red Queen’s forces, fearful that his imprisoned wife and pups will be injured if he doesn’t do Stayne’s bidding. He proves to be secretively loyal to the Underland Underground resistance, becoming both Alice’s ally and a rather convenient transportation system.

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THE DODO is one of the first residents of Underland Alice sees upon entering the fantastical world. One of the oldest Underland inhabitants, the Dodo wears eye-glasses and carries a walking stick. Both quiet and wise, he stops his friends bickering over Alice’s true identity by suggesting they bring her to the even wiser Absolem.

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THE BANDERSNATCH is a disgusting, drooling, foul-smelling creature with a big filthy body and the squashed, teeth-baring face of a rabid bulldog. A swipe of his long claws leaves Alice with a rather painful reminder of the Red Queen’s horrible reign.

Tags: Alice in Wonderland
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Wilmington on Movies: Alice in Wonderland, Brooklyn’s Finest and Terribly Happy

Thursday, March 4th, 2010

Alice in Wonderland (Three and a Half Stars)
U.S.; Tim Burton, 2010

Curiouser and curiouser.

Tim Burton has made another of his goofy-giddy visual marvels out of Lewis Carroll‘s oft-filmed classic Alice in Wonderland. And while (more…)

Tags: Alice in Wonderland, Brooklyn's Finest, Terribly Happy
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Wilmington on DVDs: Ponyo, Where the Wild Things are, Beaches of Agnes, King Lear and more…

Tuesday, March 2nd, 2010

Ponyo (Also Blu-Ray) (Three and a Half Stars)
Japan-U.S.; Hayao Miyazaki, 2009 (Disney)

Hayao Miyazaki‘s devotion to old-fashioned animation, in an age of computerized cartoon virtuosity of all sorts, gives his movies a charmingly personal, beguilingly hand-crafted feel (more…)

Tags: 2012, Alice in Wonderland, Beaches of Agnes, King Lear, Kit Kittredge: An American Girl, Lodz Ghetto, Ponyo, The Private Lives of Pippa Lee, Where the Wild Things Are
Posted in Columns, DVD & Blue Ray, DVD Reviews, MCN Originals, Movie City News, Reviews, Wilmington | Comments Off on Wilmington on DVDs: Ponyo, Where the Wild Things are, Beaches of Agnes, King Lear and more…

Alice in Wonderland: Clothe this enormous girl!

Monday, February 22nd, 2010

Tags: Alice in Wonderland
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Alice in Wonderland: Johnny Depp Behind The Scenes

Wednesday, February 10th, 2010

Tags: Alice in Wonderland
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Alice in Wonderland: The Super Bowl Spot

Sunday, February 7th, 2010

Tags: Alice in Wonderland
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Behind Wonderland: Alice

Thursday, February 4th, 2010

Tags: Alice in Wonderland
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“Alice (Underground)”

Thursday, January 28th, 2010

Avril Lavigne’s new song, from the end credits of Alice in Wonderland.

Tripping out, spinning around
I’m underground, I felt down, I felt down
I’m freaking out to all am I now
upside down and I can’t stop it now
it can’t stop me now

I’ll, I’ll get by
I’ll, I’ll survive
while the worlds crashing down,
while I fall and hit the ground,
I will turn myself around,
don’t you try to stop me
I, I walk around

I found myself in Wonderland
get back on my feet on the ground
is this real, is it pretend
I’ll take a stand until the end

2 X
I’ll, I’ll get by
I’ll, I’ll survive
while the worlds crashingn down,
while I fall and hit the ground,
I will turn myself around,
don’t you try to stop me
I, and I walk around

Tags: Alice in Wonderland
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Posts Tagged ‘Alice in Wonderland’

MW on DVDs: Let Me In, Alice in Wonderland, Conviction, and Never Let Me Go

CO-PICK OF THE WEEK: NEW

PICK OF THE WEEK: CLASSIC

OTHER CURRENT AND RECENT DVD RELEASES

Royal Helena Bonham Carter

Frenzy on the Wall: Anne Hathaway is a Great Actress … Right?

Frenzy on the Wall: Who’s the Biggest Star in the World (Right Now)?

The Language of Wonderland

Showest Serves Up Newsworthy-Lite Fare

Who’s Who in Wonderland?

Wilmington on Movies: Alice in Wonderland, Brooklyn’s Finest and Terribly Happy

Wilmington on DVDs: Ponyo, Where the Wild Things are, Beaches of Agnes, King Lear and more…

Alice in Wonderland: Clothe this enormous girl!

Alice in Wonderland: Johnny Depp Behind The Scenes

Alice in Wonderland: The Super Bowl Spot

Behind Wonderland: Alice

“Alice (Underground)”

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