A lot of new trailers today, and here's a second for one of the Toronto Film Festival favorites, about Stephen Hawking's relationship with his wife Jane. I know people seemed to like this movie a lot at Toronto, but I'm still wary about the sentimental tone of these trailers. Obviously Eddie Redmayne looks like he turned in a great performance as Hawking, but I just can't get too invested in a marriage that ended the way theirs did in real life. I'm in wait and see mode on this one, which is coming out in the U.S. on Nov 7th.
TRAILER #2: "Exodus: Gods and Kings"
So, now we get a longer look at Ridley Scott's Exodus, and I gotta say...not liking what I'm seeing. First of all, the makeup on Joel Edgarton looks ridiculous and I'm probably not going to be able to get past that while watching it. Second, screaming your dialogue is not acting to me (as Angelina Jolie showed in Maleficent), and there's an awful lot of that going on in this trailer. Christian Bale doesn't look that great in the part of Moses, and finally, it just looks like the showing off of a ton of CGI, which is frankly, not that impressive when you look at old movies like The Ten Commandments and see that they had to actually use a cast of thousands of extras to get this done. At least back then what was on the screen was really there. So yeah, looks like a misfire to me, and Ridley Scott's had quite a few of those lately, so I wouldn't be surprised if this one doesn't measure up.
TRAILER #3: "Interstellar"
Another new and presumably final trailer for Christopher Nolan's space epic Interstellar shows more of the actual space stuff, which is really the part I'm most looking forward to. I'm not a huge fan of his in particular, mostly because his human characters never seem very human to me, always talking in dialogue that sounds overly written and borderline speechifying, so that we are bludgeoned in the face with whatever the movie's "about." I assume that will be the case with this one too, but the part where they take off for space looks pretty awesome, and in IMAX, where it's debuting early, I'm sure it's going to leave quite an impact. Interstellar's coming out Nov 7th.
Blu-Ray Pick of the Week: "Elmer Gantry" (1960)
The movie that Burt Lancaster won Best Actor for, and he's a bombastic ball of energy who tears up the screen with his sleaziness in this film based on the 1927 novel. He stars as a traveling salesman who turns his talents to preaching evangelism when he stumbles across a revival meeting and immediately becomes infatuated with Jean Simmons, the lady in charge of the troupe. Lancaster's having a great time preaching hellfire to all who'll listen, a kind of early Billy Graham or Ted Haggard. It's a hugely entertaining and eerily prophetic movie that most people probably haven't seen, so you should seek it out.
Original 1960 Trailer:
TRAILER: "Inherent Vice"
Finally! The long-awaited trailer for Paul Thomas Anderson's Inherent Vice (which is premiering this Saturday at the New York Film Festival) has finally dropped, giving us the first look at what the eclectic, sometimes oddball director has up his sleeve for this one. It looks wacky alright, as though it wants to be something like The Big Lebowski, in my opinion. Can't wait.
BOX OFFICE 9/26-9/28: 'The Equalizer' Dominates the Box Office
Denzel Washington's revenge thriller The Equalizer took first place this weekend with a strong $35 million debut. Reviews were mixed on the movie, but word of mouth looks to be good, since it came in with an "A-" Cinemascore and played well with both men and women (audiences were split equally). That Denzel, he can draw in just about anybody. It was the third best opening of his career and frequent collaborator director Antoine Fuqua's best. In second place was last week's The Maze Runner, which fell about 50% and came in just ahead of the other new release this week, Laika Studio's The Boxtrolls. The family audience movie did very well actually, despite divisive reviews, and it's the best opening yet for the studio, which was behind other stop-motion animated features Coraline and ParaNorman.
Holdovers made up the rest of the top five, with This is Where I Leave You coming in fourth, falling just 39%, and Dolphin Tale 2 in fifth, which made another $4.8 million. Liam Neeson's A Walk Among the Tombstones did not fare well in its second week, plunging a hefty 67% for a $20 million total so far.
Top 5:
- The Equalizer- $35 million
- The Maze Runner- $17.5 million
- The Boxtrolls- $17 million
- This is Where I Leave You- $7 million
- Dolphin Tale 2- $4.8 million
In limited release, the indie film Pride did well, earning over $84k from 6 locations and receiving an "A" Cinemascore, so look for that to expand and probably get some good word of mouth as it does. Next week it's David Fincher's Gone Girl versus Annabelle, the prequel to last year's horror hit The Conjuring. I have a feeling Annabelle's going to take the crown, but hopefully there's an adult audience out there that's ready for a more prestige thriller, since it's been getting great reviews out of the New York Film Festival this week. See you then!
Movie of the Day: "Good Will Hunting" (1997)
Our last Fall movie this week is another "Robin Williams as mentor/father figure" choice, which is the movie he did win his Oscar for, and the film that gave us the dynamic duo of Matt Damon and Ben Affleck. The two of them famously wrote the Oscar-winning screenplay for this film, which featured Matt Damon as Will, the troubled kid from the south side of Boston, who just happens to be a naturally gifted mathematics whiz and could do literally anything he wanted with that talent, if he could just get out of his own way. It's a familiar story (I admit, there were a lot of those this week), but beautifully and subtly rendered by the minimalist Gus Van Sant, and featuring some great performances, especially from the supporting cast, including Minnie Driver and Affleck, but most of all Williams as the counselor who helps Will to get over his traumatic past. It was a deserved win that year, which doesn't always happen.
Original 1997 Trailer:
TRAILER #2: "Mommy"
I thought I'd draw some more attention to Xavier Dolan's Cannes Jury Prize winner Mommy, which has now secured an official U.S. release date in early January, and has also been officially submitted by Canada as their Foreign Language Film entry in this year's Oscar race. From the reviews, it may be a little too wild and campy for the normally conservative Academy, but I can't wait to see it. Here's the new U.S. trailer:
TRAILER #2: "Big Hero 6"
Another new trailer for the upcoming Disney movie, and with the company on a hot streak, this sure looks to me like another hit. But watching this new trailer, it suddenly struck me how similar this actually looks to the first How to Train Your Dragon. Seriously, it's all about the bond between a boy and his robot, working to save the world, his friends all get their own robotic heroes. The only difference is the pet/friend itself.
Movie of the Day: "Rushmore" (1998)
Wes Anderson fans will be very familiar with today's Fall movie entry, which many people say is one of his best films. A young Jason Schwartzman kicked off his long association with the director here, along with Bill Murray, who was given one of his best roles. Schwartzman is 15 year old Max Fischer, a semi-psychotic student at the prestigious Rushmore Academy who will do anything to stay there and eventually starts a war with Murray over the attentions of Olivia Williams, a widow they both fall in love with. Even though all the usual Wes Anderson quirks got their seeds planted here, there's something about the characters in this one that help the film feel a little more authentic than his later ones would. I think that's why many consider it his best, but my personal favorite is still The Royal Tenenbaums (I do think his films lost something after he stopped collaborating with Owen Wilson on the screenplays).
Original 1998 Trailer:
TRAILER: "Blackhat"
Chris Hemsworth's latest attempt to branch out from his Thor persona is in Michael Mann's cyber thriller Blackhat, where he stars as a convicted hacker released to help track down a new one. I don't know- this looks kind of generic and lame. I mean, to start off with, the huge, muscle-bound Hemsworth looks like no hacker you'd imagine, and of course in the movie it looks like he's doing a lot more fighting and shooting than hacking. But worst of all is the release date for this thing- it's coming out January 15th, which almost automatically means it sucks, even if the trailer had been good. So, yeah- not a lot of hope for this one.
Movie of the Day: "Rudy" (1993)
Today's fall movie is Rudy, a great fall choice and football choice, which is perfect timing as football season kicks off. Sean Astin is the idealistic Rudy, whose one big dream in life is to play for the football team at Notre Dame, even though he's too small and he can't get into the school anyway. But he won't take no for an answer and he wants it so badly he's willing to do literally anything, including attending the junior college in a long shot attempt to transfer and making friends with the stadium groundskeeper just so he can look at the field at night. Rudy eventually does realize his dream, and the movie earns its sentimentality through Astin's absolute and heartfelt determination to achieve his goal. This is also one of those films where the score was far better than the movie itself, and you'll probably recognize the Rudy "theme" the minute you hear it, and be stunned to find out this was the film it came from.
Original 1993 Trailer:
