04: 'The Martian' Blasts Off With $55 Million

Ridley Scott's sci-fi drama The Martian surpassed expectations this weekend to land at 55 million for the three day opening, just falling short of Gravity's October record from two years ago of 55.8 million. It could actually beat the record when official numbers come in tomorrow, but even if it doesn't, the second best opening weekend of October is nothing to sneeze at. The movie landed an "A" Cinemascore as well, so expect it to hold up over the coming weeks, and it's also Matt Damon's personal best headliner opening since 2007's The Bourne Ultimatum. In second place was Hotel Transylvania 2, falling just a tad to earn another 33 million for a new total of 90 million domestic.

Meanwhile, The Walk pretty much bombed in its IMAX only release, bringing in just 1.7 million and 2 million since Wednesday- not a good number as it looks to go wide next weekend. But Sicario did well in its expansion, pulling in 12 million after its successful limited release, also a bit more than expected, and with the best PTA in release- 67k per theater. The Intern held well in its second week also, bringing in another 11 million for a 36 million total, and Maze Runner 2 rounded out the top five.

Top 5:

The Martian- 55 million
Hotel Transylvania 2- 33 million
Sicario- 12.1 million
The Intern- 11.6 million
Maze Runner: The Scorch Trials- 7.7 million

In specialty release, the gay rights drama Freeheld opened to 40k on about five screens- not great, while the documentary He Named Me Malala opened to 56k in five theaters nationwide. Next week we have the wide release of The Walk against the opening of the 150 million family film Pan, which is tracking very low at the moment, so The Martian may have the field to itself again. See you then.

REVIEW: "The Martian" (2015) Matt Damon, Jessica Chastain. Dir. Ridley Scott

The Martian is a well told piece of crowdpleasing entertainment that wants you to like it so much that it doesn't bother to put its hero in any real danger, emotional or otherwise. You'd think being trapped on Mars by yourself for a year and a half might not be such an enjoyable experience set to disco montages and wisecracks every five minutes, but such is Matt Damon's plight- not so much a plight but an unwelcome extended vacation.

Maybe I'm being a little harsh. This film is based on the bestselling science fiction novel by Andy Weir, and plays as sort of a cross between Apollo 13 and Cast Away- two movies that had far more emotional impact than this one is able to manage. Damon plays the wisecracking astronaut who's part of a wisecracking crew, on a mission to Mars in the presumably near future, who gets stranded and left behind by his teammates when an unexpected storm hits. As the crew leaves him for dead, he turns out to have been accidentally impaled (not fatally) and wakes up on Mars alone, doomed to live out the remainder of his days in the ship and starve to death, since it will be four years before a rescue crew would be able to reach him.

This is a dangerous and depressing situation, but Damon's innovative Mark Watney rallies to the challenge, deciding to vlog his daily activities (the better to keep us up to speed on his jokes) and in his words "science the shit" out of his situation to extend his survival while attempting to reach NASA. Damon pretty much carries the movie, but half of it is set on Earth with the NASA officials, led by Chiwetel Ejiofor and Jeff Daniels, also not shy with the wisecracks, as they lead a crack team to formulate the rescue plan, which eventually involves Watney's crew that left him behind and is now on their way home.

You might be able to tell that the jokey dialogue in this movie bothered me some, and I don't deny that I found it mildly irritating. That combined with the disco soundtrack (all the requisite hits you'd imagine) serves to lower the stakes in this film to the point where you never for one second feel that Watley is in any real danger or that we won't get the inevitable rescue scene followed by the crowds back home on Earth cheering for the American ingenuity of it all. The good part of the film is the hard and very real science pulled directly from the book and included as a kind of geekfest of how Watney's survival and NASA's rescue mission might actually come together if this were really happening- but if it were, I think the emotional involvement might be a little higher. In Cast Away, we were so invested in Tom Hank's plight that we cried when his best friend Wilson the volleyball was taken away by the ocean waves. Here there is no single moment when we are asked to feel anything other than easygoing amusement and superficial satisfaction brought on by a soundtrack which of course includes "I Will Survive." It plays nothing at all like a Ridley Scott movie, usually a master of mood and atmosphere, and you can't help but think he needed a paycheck from the studio for this one. This may be enough to satisfy the masses, but the shallowness of the experience left me wanting more. Much more.

* * 1/2

Romance Mixes with Dogs in New Trailer for 'The Choice'

Man, is there any difference between a Nicholas Sparks movie and a Lifetime movie at this point? The dogs, the car crash, the cheating, the pop music soundtrack, it's all just so...ugh. It's coming out next February, but I really think these movies are just parodies of themselves by now, and besides that, who even sees them? Have any of these been a hit since The Notebook? And seriously, what the hell is Tom Wilkinson doing in this?

James Bond Runs From a Building in Final 'Spectre' Trailer

I see every Bond movie so I'll be seeing this one regardless, but I'm always wary of the one that follows a good entry, as everyone acknowledges Skyfall was. There are very rarely two good Bond films in a row, have you ever noticed that? Still, it looks exciting like they always do. November 9th, everyone.

10 Monster Movies For Halloween Month

Happy October 1st, everybody- it's the start of Halloween month and with it come the horror movies for the occasion. In our October movie page we have ten classic and modern classic monster movies and trailers, including some of my very faves like 28 Days Later, The Exorcist, Shaun of the Dead, An American Werewolf in London and Night of the Living Dead. That's a lot of zombies, I know, but what can you do? There's so many different takes on the zombie flick that it's become a genre in and of itself. But we also have Satan, Frankenstein, werewolves, aliens and Mr. Hyde to mix things up. Check out the Monthly Movie Page for a longer description of the month, keep the lights on and have fun with these terrifying monsters for the holiday!

Blu-Ray Pick of the Week: "A Room With a View" (1986)

Criterion Collection is out this week with A Room With a View, the classic that introduced the world to Merchant-Ivory (they'd been around before but this was their big breakthrough) and a young Helena Bonham Carter. A period romance done about as well as it could possibly be, with an absolutely unforgettable score to match. Sweeping romance comes into a young girl's life as she decides to go for her heart's desire over the stuffy suitor (an unrecognizable Daniel Day-Lewis) she's supposed to marry for her family's sake. A gorgeous, sumptuous, overtly romantic story that still catches you up in every moment.

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Leo Dicaprio and Tom Hardy Battle in 'The Revenant' Trailer

Finally, a full trailer for The Revenant is here, and it looks awesome. The cinematography alone is bound to get the Oscar, which will coincidentally, be DP Emanuel Lubezki's third in a row. I can't wait to see this- it's coming out in limited release on Christmas and set to expand in January, like the typical late-breaking Oscar entry.

Ben Foster Inhabits Lance Armstrong in New Trailer for 'The Program'

This movie still doesn't have a North American distributor yet, but it's coming out in the UK in October. Even just from this trailer, it looks to me like Ben Foster really nailed it as Lance Armstrong here- I almost forgot who he was in two minutes alone. Stephen Frears directed this, and he's a solid filmmaker who made Philomena, The Queen, High Fidelity and Dirty Pretty Things, among others, so I'm not sure what the holdup is on a release over here. We'll just have to keep an eye out, I guess.

Romance Blooms Between Bradley Cooper and Sienna Miller in New 'Burnt' Trailer

Another look at Burnt, the movie about Bradley Cooper's chef that got saddled with a really stupid title, but the movie itself doesn't look too bad. It's not meant to be an awards player, but it's coming out in October amid all those awards titles anyway, looking to hit commercially, although I believe it's going to be a limited release. Let's hope it fares better than Bradley Cooper's other movie this year, Aloha.

BOX OFFICE 9/25-9/27: 'Hotel Transylvania 2' Sets a New September Record

The family audience has been starved for content for a while, and they flocked to theaters this weekend to see the Hotel Transylvania sequel, which pulled in 47 million for a new record for September. The original made 42 million in 2012, and that also sets it up as Sony's biggest hit this year. Expect it to stick around for a while with most of that market to itself, unless Pan happens to break out in a couple of weeks.

In second place was Nancy Meyers' The Intern, which did a better than expected 18 million over the weekend- also targeting an older, female heavy demo that hasn't had any films aimed at them in months. The movie snagged an A- Cinemascore, so we'll see if that one can stick around with the onslaught of adult oriented films in the coming weeks. Everest meanwhile, did less than expected after its strong IMAX start last weekend- it only brought in 13 million for a 23 million total so far, a slow start, one of Universal's only ones this year, although it has done well overseas, with a worldwide total of just about 100 million already. Black Mass and The Scorch Trials rounded out the top five, with Black Mass falling a steep 49 percent since last week, not boding so well for the film's awards prospects, of which Depp remains its strongest bet.

Top 5:

Hotel Transylvania 2- 47.5 million
The Intern- 18.2 million
Maze Runner 2: The Scorch Trials- 14 million
Everest- 13.3 million
Black Mass- 11.5 million

In limited release, Sicario continues to do well, earning a high 30k per screen average in 59 theaters ahead of its nationwide expansion next week, although it will be facing direct competition from The Martian. And Stonewall bombed hard, pulling in just 842 dollars per theater on 129 screens, one of the lowest PTA's I've ever seen. Yikes. Next week it's The Martian and the IMAX only release of The Walk- it should be a big weekend, as The Martian has gotten spectacular reviews and is said to be a big crowdpleaser, so we'll see. Stay tuned.

Movie of the Day: "Far From Heaven" (2002)

We started off the week with a Douglas Sirk melodrama and so it's a perfect cap to conclude with a tribute to Sirk, this 2002 film made by Todd Haynes as direct homage to Sirk's canon, and All That Heaven Allows in particular. This exquisite drama was made in the style of a 1950's film, right down to the way it was shot, written and acted by the principle players, yet it went one step further in dealing with things under the surface beyond what Sirk could have dared to (although he undoubtedly would have had his films been made just a number of years later). Julianne Moore is a lonely housewife who once again falls in love with her gardener, but this time he happens to be an African-American man played by Dennis Haysbert, and her husband neglects her not due to his work, but because he's a gay man suffering the stifling effects of the closet. It's a gorgeous, movingly rendered film for which Moore should have won her Best Actress Oscar, and not for last year's Still Alice. I still think to this day it's her best performance.

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Movie of the Day: "The Straight Story" (1999)

In 1999, David Lynch of all people directed this very straightforward, sentimental film about an elderly man named Alvin Straight who travels from Iowa to Wisconsin on a lawnmower in order to visit his estranged brother, played by Harry Dean Stanton. It was based on a true story and there were no typical, Lynchian, surreal twists on the material- he just told the story as it was, letting the movie rest on the performance of Richard Farnsworth, who received an Oscar nomination for the role. Sadly, Farnsworth was terminally ill with bone cancer at the time of filming, and committed suicide not long afterwards, at the age of 80 years old, a sad end to a life spent acting in films and television since 1937. The movie takes place in September, making it a perfect fit for out fall theme this week.

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