TRAILER + POSTER: "The Grandmaster"

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The Weinstein Co. acquired this film out of the Berlin International Film Festival, where it was received tremendously well. Written and directed by Wong Kar Wai, one of the great Chinese filmmakers (Chungking Express, In the Mood for Love), and starring Tony Leung and Zhang Ziyi, it tells the story of the legendary martial artist Ip Man, who trained Bruce Lee and others. Looks pretty awesome. Comes out in limited release this Friday.

New York Film Festival Lineup

The festival runs from Sep 27- Oct 13, and is, along with Telluride and Toronto, where big Oscar season movies often make their debut. Captain Philips is opening the fest this year, the centerpiece film is The Secret Life of Walter Mitty, and closing night is Spike Jonze's Her. Those are three Oscar buzzed movies right there.

The rest of the lineup includes these potential contenders: 

ALL IS LOST- Robert Redford, dir, J.C. Chandor

BLUE IS THE WARMEST COLOR- dir. Abdellatif Kechiche (debuted at Cannes to rave reviews) 

THE IMMIGRANT- Marion Cotillard, dir. James Gray

INSIDE LLEWYN DAVIS- dir. Joel and Ethan Coen (also opened at Cannes to great reaction) 

NEBRASKA- dir. Alexander Payne

THE WIND RISES- dir. Hayao Miyazaki

There aren't a lot of bombs out of New York- if you bring a film to this festival it's usually a winner, which is why I'm most curious about Ben Stiller's Walter Mitty. They must think this is a pretty significant step forward for him, right?

BOX OFFICE 8/16-8/18: The Butler Soars, Kick-Ass Crumbles

After a summer of world-ending disaster spectacles, audiences proved ready for some adult fare, which Lee Daniel's The Butler served up accordingly. The $25 million bow is right in line with the debut of The Help two years ago on this date, and time will tell if The Butler will go on to match that film's extraordinary $169 million total. It played to a similar audience- over 60% female and 76% over the age of 25, and it received an "A" Cinemascore, so it's certainly possible. Either way it's a success, given the film's $30 million budget, but with its reputation as the first big Oscar contender of the year, look for it to hold on strong.

The three other new releases this weekend were not as successful, with Kick-Ass 2 delivering a measly $13.5 million for a fourth place finish, significantly less than the original's nearly $20 million opening 4 years ago. It got a "B+" from the crowd, but it doesn't look likely to sustain itself to much of a total. Meanwhile the Ashton Kutcher biopic Jobs opened in 7th with a dismal $6.7 million and the Harrison Ford-Gary Oldman thriller Paranoia completely bombed, not even cracking to top 10 with $3.5 million from its 2500 theater release. Ouch. All of these movies were critically slaughtered by the way, and audiences seemed to agree for once.

Top 5: 

  1. Lee Daniels' The Butler- $25 million
  2. We're the Millers- $17.8 million
  3. Elysium- $13.6 million
  4. Kick-Ass 2- $13.5 million
  5. Planes- $13.1 million

We're the Millers had an impressive hold from last weekend, dropping just 33%, and solidifying its chances at crossing $100 million, but Elysium fell 54% and likely won't reach that marker. Planes has $45 million total so far, which isn't terrible for a film that was originally headed straight to DVD, despite the critical savaging that one took as well. Next week, The World's End faces off against the new horror comedy You're Next, and the latest young adult fantasy novel to film adaptation The Mortal instruments.

5 Summer Concert Movies

Today marks the anniversary of Woodstock, the landmark concert festival in 1969 that instantly became one of the most iconic moments in music history. 500,000 hippies attended, and some of the most greatest rock performers ever graced the stage for 3 days of music, peace and drugs. What was ultimately seen as the peak of the countercultural movement was never to be repeated (although tried and failed many times). And so we commemorate with these, some of the best rock biopics of all time, a genre that has now become so routine it can be easily spoofed (see Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story), but that nonetheless almost always manages to illicit great performances, and even greater music.

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  • The Buddy Holly Story (1978) Gary Busey, Don Stroud. Dir. Steve Rash. The short, sweet life of the great Buddy Holly is documented here, in an Oscar nominated performance by Busey, who seems to embody the legend entirely, despite the scant physical resemblance. Covers the barely two year period in which the teenage Holly revolutionizes early rock and roll, by insisting on writing and producing his own music, and playing to majority black audiences. The music is incredible, made more so by the cast doing their own singing and playing. Holly’s life was cut tragically short in that infamous plane crash, but few manage to do so much in so little time, as his impact was felt for generations.
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  • What’s Love Got to Do With It (1993) Angela Bassett, Laurence Fishburne. Dir. Brian Gibson. The life of Tina Turner takes center stage, based on her autobiography and brought to vivid, fierce reality by the two central performances of Basset as Tina and Fishburne as Ike. It’s a portrait of an abusive marriage, one that would forever cement Ike Turner’s image as the monstrous wife beater Fishburne embodied. It’s a powerful, emotional experience, with the two stars (both nominated) in high speed mode from start to finish. Likely to stay with you for days.
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  • The Doors (1991) Val Kilmer, Meg Ryan. Dir. Oliver Stone. Stone’s chronicle of the 60’s band The Doors and frontman Jim Morrison has polarized some, garnering criticisms for being indulgent and overlong, a somewhat fitting critique of Morrison himself, excellently portrayed by Val Kilmer. Nonetheless, Stone renders a vision of late 1960’s America with scenes of brimming energy and tremendous power that places you squarely in the center of the action, caught up in the excitement of the times. And the music is pretty damn great too.
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  • Coal Miner’s Daughter (1980) Sissy Spacek, Tommy Lee Jones. Dir. Michael Apted. One of the best of the straightforward biopics that takes you through 60’s and 70’s country superstar Loretta Lynn’s entire life, from poverty-ridden childhood in West Virginia to adolescent marriage to eventual chart topping success, nervous breakdown and beyond. Best Actress winner Spacek’s most celebrated role, she inhabits Lynn fully, even doing her own singing. This is an example of the routine by-the-numbers format later biopics would take on, but the material here is fully fleshed out and given life by Apted’s feel for Loretta’s cultural roots and background, especially in the early, pre-fame scenes.

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  • I’m Not There (2007) Cate Blanchett, Heath Ledger. Dir. Todd Haynes. Bob Dylan is given the biopic treatment by a director who would never condescend to the routine, especially when it comes to Dylan. He's played by seven actors who represent different facets of the Dylan mystique, accompanied by various filmmaking techniques to shape and sort the assorted incarnations, which may or may not resemble episodes from the real Robert Zimmerman's life. It's an endlessly fascinating puzzle and thereby an ideal tribute to the artist himself. Includes an amazing all Dylan soundtrack in accordance.

TRAILER: "The Wind Rises"

One of the films coming to the Toronto and Venice film festivals in the next couple of months is The Wind Rises, the new film from Hayao Miyazaki, the director of great animated films like My Neighbor Totoro  and Spirited Away. If this is released in the U.S. this year it would presumably have a good shot at the Oscars in the Animated Feature category, especially given the dearth of quality animated films this year.