Brand new poster for The Hobbit, coming out December 13th!
BOX OFFICE 11/01-11/03: 'Ender's Game' Tops With OK Numbers
Orson Scott Card's famous novel finally made it to the big screen this weekend, as Ender's Game debuted with $28 million, a so-so opening for a movie that cost about $110 million to make. The film played to a make audience mostly over the age of 25 and received a "B+" Cinemascore, so it's final gross may be a bit underwhelming. In second place was Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa, which fell a pretty soft 36%, pulling in another $20 million and ensuring that a Jackass movie may actually make over $100 million, as its gross stands today at a healthy $62 million.
In third was Last Vegas, otherwise known as The Hangover for seniors, as the comedy starring four Oscar winners earned $16.5 million and an "A-" from its mostly over 45 audience. That particular crowd has few movies targeting them, so this could play well over the next month and potentially earn $60 million total, which is pretty good for a small comedy with a fairly low budget. And the other new release, the animated film Free Birds, came in fourth with $16 million, which is pretty low for a family movie, but another one that could hold up the way Planes did for so long, due to a lack of competition until Disney's Frozen opens at Thanksgiving.
Top 5:
- Ender's Game- $28 million
- Jackass Presents: Bad Grandpa- $20.5 million
- Last Vegas- $16.5 million
- Free Birds- $16.2 million
- Gravity- $13.1 million
In the holdovers, Gravity fell its first pretty steep week to week drop, as it lost a lot of IMAX screens to Ender's Game, and now looks to finish with at least $250 million. In limited release news, 12 Years a Slave continues its successful expansion by Fox Searchlight, as it opened in more theaters and came in with $4.6 million, so the word of mouth on that one is clearly pretty strong. Next up it's Marvel's Thor: The Dark World, which has already made a killing overseas and is expected to open well here too.
SPECIAL ANIME REVIEW: "Iron Man: Rise of Technovore" (2013) Dir. Hiroshi Hamasaki
Iron Man: Rise of Technovore is an anime movie made as a follow up of sorts to the 2010 Iron Man anime series. It’s the second time that Marvel and the animation studio Madhouse have teamed up to tackle the golden avenger, but this time with a different writer, director, and team. Having seen and enjoyed the 12-episode anime, I was looking forward to watching this movie. Aside from the music and cast however, no other connection to the series can be found. In fact, they make more connections to the live action franchise than anything else.
The story opens with Iron Man (Keiji Fujiwara) and War Machine (Hiroki Yasumoto) goofing around in their armors prior to Tony’s press release concerning his new “Howard” satellite. It’s meant to watch over the entire planet in an effort to protect people from danger, and the media is in an uproar over its potential for invading privacy. Rightfully so. There’s never a clear response for this from Tony unfortunately (I would have liked to hear his defense of it), as the site is attacked by a group of armored goons. They’re in the service of Ezekiel Stane (Miyu Irino), the deranged son of Obadiah Stane, and he’s out to destroy the planet. Why? It’s not really clear. Something about technology…I don’t know.
It’s easy to discuss what’s good about this movie because there’s not much. First of all, the animation is quite nice. The characters and their armors all have interesting designs, particularly the shape shifting Technovore armor that Zeke wears. We also get a large variety of Marvel heroes, like War Machine, Black Widow, Nick Fury, Hawkeye, and even the Punisher. That’s right, the Punisher’s in this, too. The action is fast paced and frantic, making the Iron Man armor seem incredibly powerful and advanced. To match this, the original Japanese cast (those from the series reprised their roles) is quite good and sound fitting for the characters.
Unfortunately, the rest of the movie can’t back up how nice it looks. The plot is paper thin, and the characters are about half that deep. After seeing quite a few of them now, it’s safe to say that Iron Man stories tend to work the best when they’re about Tony Stark. He’s an incredibly complex and fascinating character to dissect and learn more about. It’s a shame nobody told Brandon Auman, the guy who wrote this story, because Iron Man is just an action stand in here. He’s a cartoon version of the human character most have come to know, stripped down to his bare basics, being bad one liners and plot convenient intelligence.
If the plot were at all intriguing, maybe they could get away with this. Perhaps by having an interesting and dangerous villain to make up the difference. No luck here, either. Ezekiel Stane is modified from the comics to be a generic young anime villain, seeking to destroy all mankind for the sake of his vague and lofty ideals. He spews pretentious dialogue devoid of greater meaning, often to a woman that’s never explained. Who was she? Why did she hang around with this creep? I guess we’ll never know.
The rest of the cast is just as bland, with Hawkeye (Shuuhei Sakaguchi) and Black Widow (Miyuki Shawashiro) serving as meaningless foils to Iron Man who’s on the run. Why S.H.E.I.L.D. spends so much time and money trying to bring in Iron Man is beyond me. It’s a flimsy excuse for more mind numbing action scenes that don’t need to be there. If they would have just helped Iron Man find the bad guys instead of impeding his progress at every turn, the movie would have been over twice as fast. The time wasted on these would have been better served developing the characters; getting them invested in what’s going on. Maybe they could have found something substantial for War Machine to do, instead of removing him from the majority of the movie. Or giving a better excuse for Iron Man and the Punisher, two characters on pretty opposite sides of the superhero spectrum, to team up. This is probably wishful thinking on my part, because the awkward script prevents the dialogue from making any of these characters matter.
Iron Man: Rise of Technovore is a mediocre and generic foray into anime that had me wanting to just go back and watch the far superior show. Despite the nice animation, its visual success is dwarfed by the simplistic and uninteresting plot, wooden dialogue, bland villain, and excessive action.
Movie of the Day: "The Innocents" (1961)
Our final Movie of the Day leading up to Halloween in this 1961 thriller The Innocents, which continues the incidental theme this week of ghosts who happen to be haunting children. I guess kids provide an even scarier target of terror for supernatural occurrences. This movie stars Deborah Kerr as the new nanny for a couple of orphaned British siblings who happen to be harboring secrets about what's going on in the old, dark mansion they live in. It's a truly disturbing movie, especially the ending, which goes way further that you'd ever expect a film from 1961 to go. It's a good choice for tonight, so have fun discovering this lesser known film and Happy Halloween everyone!
1961 Trailer:
TRAILER: "Labor Day"
Finally, the trailer for Jason Reitman's Labor Day, starring Kate Winslet and Josh Brolin. This romance is coming out Dec 25th in limited release.
Movie of the Day: "The Sixth Sense" (1999)
A terrific ghost movie with one of the all-time great child performances, Haley Joel Osment as the little boy who sees dead people. This now classic film is still a haunting mystery with great performances all around (Osment and Toni Collete were Oscar-nominated, and Bruce Willis is no slouch in this either). There are probably few who haven't seen it by now (and even fewer who haven't heard the famous surprise ending), but it's always a good watch, still as eerily effective as when it first came out. It's too bad director M. Night Shyamalan has had such a dismal career since Signs (2002), but perhaps it was one of those cases where huge success at such an early age fell on somebody who just couldn't handle it. But The Sixth Sense is still great and will always be remembered as his crowning achievement.
Trailer:
Oscar Roundup: Best Actress
Starting today we're going to be doing a weekly feature rounding up the Oscar contenders for the top 6 categories: Picture, Director, Actor, Actress, Supporting Actor, and Supporting Actress. After that the major precursor awards will all start coming in, right around the first week of December- we'll get the various critics' awards, the Golden Globe nominations, the Screen Actor's Guild noms, and in January the British Academy Award nominations (BAFTA's). Finally, the Oscar nominations will be in on Jan 16th, but by then we'll have a pretty clear picture of who's likely to be nominated. So we start off today with Best Actress, where there's probably a good 7 or 8 candidates right now, with a couple of longshots on the outside, and at least three clear locks.
The first lock is Cate Blanchett, who ever since Blue Jasmine came out in June, has been touted as the immediate frontrunner, and has even been described as giving one of the best female performances ever in some reviews. The movie did pretty well at the box office for a Woody Allen film, and though she's a previous winner, she's never won in the lead category (she won Best Supporting Actress in 2004 for The Aviator). Blachett will be hard to beat, because she'll probably win a lot of critic's awards for this performance, but the second lock in this category is neck and neck with her right now and just as likely to win.
That's Sandra Bullock for Gravity, whose movie has made over $200 million and counting, along with garnering her the best reviews of her career in the lead performance. She totally carries this movie and is the only thing in it for the majority of its running time. Many think that if she hadn't won just 4 years ago for The Blind Side (which was kind of a popularity win in the first place) she'd be a complete lock or the win right now, ahead of Blanchett. I don't happen to think that matters though- Sandra Bullock is so popular with the public and in the industry that she could easily pull off a second win, as a kind of validation Oscar after The Blind Side. Plus, going back every decade in Oscar history you can find several people who won two Oscars in a short period of time (Sally Field, Jane Fonda, Jodie Foster, Hilary Swank, Tom Hanks, Sean Penn, etc.) It's not uncommon if they really, really like you (as Sally Field famously noted). So if you ask me, I think she could easily win here, especially if the Academy wants to award Gravity in a bigger category than just the techs (I don't think its chances at winning Best Picture are all that strong).
The third lock is Judi Dench, a six-time nominee who received rave reviews at the film festivals for Philomena, which hasn't opened yet in the United States (it comes out on the 22nd). But Dench is a beloved veteran and if there's a chance to reward her she usually gets in, so I think she's a sure thing. The last two slots are where it's kind of an open field, as there are several viable contenders looking to get in. We've got Emma Thompson in Saving Mr. Banks, who right now looks the most likely to me, as her reviews out of London were wonderful, but the movie hasn't opened here yet, so there's a little bit of ambiguity surrounding its Oscar chances.
There's a wild card in Amy Adams for American Hustle, which hasn't been seen by anyone except at test screenings, so even though we know she's being positioned as the Lead Actress and she's a four-time nominee already, it's uncertain whether she can live up to the hype. And of course, there's perennial nominee Meryl Streep, who always gets in if she has a movie out, and this year it's August: Osage County, coming out in December. This movie got less than enthusiastic critical reaction, with some accusing Meryl of going over the top and even hammy, but frankly that kind of criticism doesn't hurt somebody like 17-time nominee Meryl Streep. If the Academy and/or the public likes the movie, she's in.
Now we come to the longshots. The first one is Adele Exarchopoulos, the 19-year old from Blue is the Warmest Color, who I'm starting to wonder lately might not be such a longshot after all. The Academy has nominated plenty of foreign language performances before (Marion Cotillard for La Vie En Rose, Emmanuelle Riva for Amour) and the critics adore this performance (she may be winning a bunch of critics awards soon), so the only question is whether voters would sit through a three hour French film. But with all those hyped sex scenes in it, the answer may be yes for more people than I think. Other outside contenders are Kate Winslet for Labor Day (which hasn't come out yet but got pretty underwhelming reviews out of the film festivals), Brie Larsen for Short Term 12 (outstanding reviews, but such a small movie that no one really saw it and from a brand new studio that doesn't know how to run Oscar campaigns; her chances depend on critics awards), and Julie Delpy for Before Midnight (another small movie whose chances depend on attention from the critics, she's probably the biggest longshot despite stellar reviews).
As of right now, I'd say these are the Top 5:
- Cate Blanchett
- Sandra Bullock
- Judi Dench
- Emma Thompson
- Adele Exarchopoulos
It may be crazy to go with Adele over Meryl Streep (who could frankly knock out anyone besides Blanchett and Bullock), but usually there is at least one outsider in the category, so right now I'm betting on her. But this could all change as the critics awards roll in and we see who's got the edge.
REVIEW: "Spring Breakers" (2013) James Franco, Selena Gomez. Dir. Harmony Korine
It's hard to describe this movie in any way that would make the average person want to see it- I guarantee you a lot of people won't make it through the first 40 minutes (I myself was struggling for a while). But if you are going to venture onto this wild ride through the surrealist underbelly of Florida "spring break culture" (if there is such a thing), it's around the 40-minute mark that James Franco makes his entrance, and he gives such a mesmerizing and memorable performance that it just might make the journey worth it.
Harmony Korine (writer of the notorious Kids from 1995) definitely wants to give you an experience with this film, which takes four college girls from so-called normalcy to dark and nightmarish depths, and this movie is filmed with an undeniable energy and vivid color palette that more or less succeeds in enveloping you as part of the intoxicating experience of spring break (I was actually getting dizzy at times in the first half hour). The girls include Selena Gomez and Vanessa Hudgens as part of this quartet (the irony is undoubtedly intentional) who are so obsessed with going to Florida for spring break that they rob a chicken shack for the money with no scruples about it whatsoever.
Then they make it to Florida and here's where the exhausting nature of Korine's style really goes overboard with the dizzying, flashing and excessive montage scenes of drugs and partying. It's hard to discern any kind of a story for a while, even if the filmmaking is immediate and immersive- you feel you're being sucked into a vortex, which I'm sure is exactly what you're supposed to feel. But right at the moment where you can't take much more of this, James Franco walks in as "Alien," the wannabe gangsta rapper and drug dealer, armed with a heavy artillery and one serious grill as he bails the girls out of jail and seduces them with his boasting and obsession with material success and violence (which they've already shown a propensity for). He's absolutely electric in the part, very nearly disappearing into this insane character, and if we ourselves can't take our eyes off of him, it only makes sense that the girls would be drawn in too. It's here that the story takes a dark turn and starts to go somewhere, even if that destination is unpredictable and filled to the brim with silly excess and Britney Spears songs set to violent, slow-motion montages.
What's Korine trying to say with this film? I couldn't tell you, although there are seeds of all kinds of messages to read into it if you want- from the debauchery of the American college kid to the violence that goes hand in hand, and the attraction of young women who seem to run in packs toward the dominant alpha male who ultimately proves himself useless, as the women assert the control they've exhibited all along. If there really is such a thing as "great trash," that's what this movie is really trying to be (it seems to be influenced in part by a movie like Wild Things), and to that end it's mostly successful, although I couldn't say it was exactly pleasant or takes you to a place most people would ever want to go. Still, there's something to be said for boldness and originality, and the attempt to embrace all these loosely related ideas together in one hallucinatory fever dream- which is probably the best term to describe Spring Breakers in the end.
* *
TRAILER #2: "The Wolf of Wall Street"
New trailer for Martin Scorsese's The Wolf of Wall Street, now officially set for release on Christmas Day. This looks so awesome, I can't wait:
Movie of the Day: "Lady in White" (1988)
A really spooky and chilling ghost story involving a kid in the 1960's (the always otherworldly looking Lukas Haas) who keeps seeing the ghost of a dead little girl from years earlier, along with the re-enactment of her murder. This movie is lesser known than a lot of others but it's really worth seeking out, because the creepiness and disturbing nature of the mystery is quite effective. In fact, the dark material may be the reason that this film is not better known- the topic of child murders is unsettling enough without all the ghosts thrown in, but it really is quite scary, and the more serious subject matter adds to the weight of the story. This one will definitely stick with you, and it happens to be set on Halloween too.
1988 Trailer (this is a really weird trailer for this movie- it's trying to make it look a LOT more lightweight than it actually is, and again, I think that was due to the subject matter involving children):
Blu-Ray Pick of the Week: "La Notte" (1961)
Michelangelo Antonioni is not for everyone. His films tend to glide along at a leisurely pace, the plot (if there is one) unfolding seemingly despite itself. But for those who can appreciate his meditative tone and the aimless, unhappy wandering of his characters, this is one of his more accessible movies. La Notte is about a married couple who have grown bored with their life and each other, and spend one long night at a friend's party, rethinking and rekindling their marriage. It's a beautiful, introspective look at love with one of the most romantic endings in the movies.
Original Trailer from 1961:
TRAILER: "X-Men: Days of Future Past"
The trailer for the new X-Men movie is here! Looks pretty good. The movie comes out in May of next year:
