For Mother's Day, we have one of the few films Martin Scorsese ever made about a woman, and one of his best at that. I think this movie isn't often remembered as part of his canon mostly because it doesn't fit into the Scorsese "mold" of gangsters and violence that he's most known for, but it's just as good and interesting as any of those, and a perfect time capsule for the era in which it was made. Ellen Burstyn plays Alice Hyatt, a housewife in a miserable marriage to a guy who abuses both her and her 12 year old son. When he dies in an accident and leaves them penniless, she has to step up and do something to support herself and her kid for the first time in her life. Burstyn is fantastic in the role which earned her a Best Actress Oscar, and the mother-son relationship is funny, earnest and specifically drawn. The ending is slightly controversial, given the movie's ostensibly feminist message, but it's also kind of realistic for the time. This movie was so popular it actually inspired a long running sitcom. Happy Mother's Day everybody!
BOX OFFICE 5/06-5/08: 'Civil War' Pulls in 180 Million
As expected, Marvel dominated Mother's Day weekend with Civil War earning over 181 million at the box office, making it good for the fifth biggest domestic opening in history. There were some who thought it would make over 200 million, but it fell short of that, and it also fell short of Avengers: Age of Ultron, which managed 191 million. But, obviously, all these weekends are huge to the point where it's unexpected if a movie that for all intents and purposes basically was the next Avengers film, didn't make around the same amount. It earned an "A" Cinemascore, which means its legs will probably hold up better than Batman v Superman. Its worldwide total is already at 700 million after just 12 days in release in select countries.
In second place was The Jungle Book with 21 million, earning a new total of 285 million, while Mother's Day actually increased 8 percent from its terrible opening, thanks to the holiday of course. The Huntsman and Keanu filled out the top five, while I just want to mention here that Zootopia has now crossed 327 million, which officially puts it ahead of Batman v Superman, which earned just 1 million this weekend, plummeting 73 percent since last week and adding to the impression that it's a disappointment financially, despite earning over 850 million worldwide. Both Zootopia and Deadpool will earn more domestically.
Top 5:
- Captain America: Civil War- 182 million
- The Jungle Book- 21.9 million
- Mother's Day- 9 million
- The Huntsman: Winter's War- 3.6 million
- Keanu- 3.1 million
Again, not much to talk about in limited release, although I should mention that some slightly successful indie releases this year were Sally Field's Hello, My Name is Doris, which is sitting at 13 million, and Helen Mirren's Eye in the Sky, at 17 million. So, good for older audiences, who now can only see actors and actresses of their era starring in small films with minimal screens. Captain America will dominate the box office for a while, with just Jodie Foster's Money Monster out next week, along with smaller releases like The Darkness, Love and Friendship and The Lobster. See you guys next week.
Full Trailer for Blake Lively in 'The Shallows'
Well, the full trailer for this Blake Lively vs. a shark movie definitely didn't disappoint. It's pure camp ridiculousness all the way, from Blake outsmarting the great white to Blake apparently pretending to be a doctor (I honestly don't know which one of those is more ludicrous). I may have to see this, after all. The laugh per minute ratio could be out of this world.
Mila Kunis Battles Christina Applegate in 'Bad Moms'
Okay, so, this looks horrendous, but aside from the general awfulness of this trailer, am I the only one who is confused as to why Mila Kunis's kids look about 12 and 13 in this? Is she really supposed to have had them as a teenager? It looks like it's supposed to be completely normal, but Mila Kunis is in her early thirties and looks very young, why would they make her kids adolescents? I know people can get started early, but it seems like it'd make more sense if they were around 5 or 6 years old at most, wouldn't it? Especially because she also looks like she's well off and with some kind of important job...yeah, not buying that. She's miscast here, but something tells me they didn't want this film headlined by only fortysomething women. Typical.
10 Movies to See in May
Happy May Day, everyone! As it's the first of the month, it's time now for the new crop of movies to recommend for the next thirty days, and as is our custom here, the theme for May is "In Commemoration, Part 1" for Memorial Day, as we celebrate war movies that take place mostly before the 20th century, although we do have some WWI choices in there too. We choose to celebrate this holiday all month long so we can make as many varied picks as possible, and some of my favorites for this theme include Gone With the Wind, A Very Long Engagement, Paths of Glory, Grand Illusion and so on. Go to the Movies for Every Month page to read more about this month's theme and why these particular films were chosen, and click here for the full list of ten films, including the original trailers. Happy Movie Watching!
BOX OFFICE: 4/29-5/01: 'Jungle Book' Stays in 1st as Newcomers Flop
It was a pretty quiet weekend, as The Jungle Book easily stayed in first place, pulling in another 42 million for a new total of 252 million, as it fell just 31 percent from last week. It was the only movie to earn double digits this weekend, and its worldwide total is now at 684 million. Key and Peele's comedy Keanu, meanwhile, opened to a soft 9 million and a so-so "B" Cinemascore, so it looks like the duo's first film isn't going to make much noise, though it tied for second place with The Huntsman. That film fell about 52 percent over last week, bringing in around 9 million as well, for a new total of 34 million, but of course, as we mentioned last time, given the budget on that one it's an epic bomb.
Garry Marshall's horribly reviewed ensemble rom-com Mother's Day debuted with 8 million, which is a sign that he can maybe stop making these now, as they seem to exist only to employ A-list actors as favors to the director. His Valentine's Day opened big with 56 million back in 2010, but New Year's Eve bombed with just 13 million in 2011, so I think it's safe to say these are over. Rounding out the top five was Barbershop, which is sitting at 44 million total.
Top 5:
- The Jungle Book- 42 million
- The Huntsman: Winter's War- 9.4 million
- Keanu- 9.4 million
- Mother's Day- 8.3 million
- Barbershop: The Next Cut- 6.1 million
So, not much to report in limited release this week either, as we're all waiting for the inevitable box office storm that Captain America: Civil War will bring next week, especially seeing as it's essentially the next Avengers movie anyway. As it is, the movie's already debuted overseas and brought in a record 200 million from just a few territories, so we can expect this to be very big. I'd say a 200 million domestic weekend is pretty likely at this point, and the good reviews don't hurt it, of course. See you guys then.
Alicia Vikander and Dane DeHaan Fall in Love in 'Tulip Fever'
Oscar winner Alicia Vikander may be looking to match her record set just last year of appearing in about six movies. These were all filmed before her win of course, so whatever the reason, she's really in demand right now. This Weinstein release doesn't look to have the Oscar goods though, because it's another one he's dumping in the summer, although it doesn't look especially bad either. Just kind of a typical period costume drama. Lots of people you'd expect to see in this kind of film, like Christoph Waltz, Judi Dench, and...Zach Galifianakis? Okay, maybe that's the reason it's being released in July.
See Barack and Michelle Obama's First Date in Trailer for 'Southside With You'
This fictionalization of the Obama's first date in 1989 premiered at Sundance to pretty good reviews, described as a Before Sunrise type of film that centers on just the two of them over the course of one day. It's funny though- this is the first of what's bound to be many, many Obama biopics that will inevitably be made over the next who knows how many years, don't you think? He's just one of those presidents, the kind that will be depicted on screen for decades to come. There's already another being made as we speak about him in his college years, and he's not even out of office yet. I have to say, neither of these actors looks or tries to sound much like Barack or Michelle, but maybe that's a good thing. Like Anthony Hopkins' portrayal of Nixon, it's more about just capturing the spirit without attempting to imitate the person. Joseph Gordon-Levitt should take note of that. This one is coming out August 26th.
Joseph Gordon-Levitt Does Another Funny Voice in 'Snowden' Trailer
Okay, so, I don't know if Joseph Gordon-Levitt is trying to convince people he's a terrible actor, but this guy cannot, I repeat, cannot transform himself Daniel Day-Lewis-style, the way he apparently thinks he can. Was there any reason he had to do this off-putting, distracting and absurdly comical voice to make himself try to imitate Edward Snowden? Yeah, I didn't think so. Aside from that detail though, the rest of this movie looks god awful anyway. Getting shades of that Julian Assange biopic The Fifth Estate from this. No wonder they moved it away from Oscar season.
Mystique Takes Charge in Final 'X-Men: Apocalypse' Trailer
Okay, so this last trailer puts Myst- oh I'm sorry, Jennifer Lawrence sans makeup, front and center as the undoubted leader of the X-Men after Charles gets kidnapped and Magneto looks to be brainwashed by Apocalypse or something. Fantastic. Mystique always was the most interesting character in these new X-Men movies, especially out of her suit/makeup. Wait, what's that? She's incredibly dull, emotionless, and they're only doing this because Jennifer Lawrence plays her? Right. That's what I thought. You see Wolverine's claw in the last second of this trailer, and the rest of it makes me wish he was just starring in it again as the lead.
BOX OFFICE 4/22-4/24: 'Jungle Book' Crushes 'Huntsman: Winter's War'
Well, that was uneventful. Disney's The Jungle Book easily bested the new release of the week, a prequel to 2012's Snow White and the Huntsman, which opened to a mere 20 million, nothing compared to Jungle Book's second weekend haul of 60 million, as it declined just 41 percent for a 10-day total of 191 million. Looks like this will become Disney's second 300 million grosser of the year and it's only April. Huntsman's opening is quite a bomb, considering the budget was at least 115 million, so count that one as yet another non-opener for Chris Hemsworth, outside the Thor movies.
Meanwhile, Barbershop: The Next Cut held pretty well, falling just 46 percent for a new 36 million total, and Zootopia took in another 6 million, bringing its own total to 316 million and a staggering 907 million worldwide. It remains to be seen if it can cross that billion mark, but it's now the third biggest Disney release ever, behind Frozen and The Lion King. Rounding out the top five was The Boss, which sits at 49 million for Melissa McCarthy and her husband Ben Falcone.
Top 5:
- The Jungle Book- 60.8 million
- The Huntsman: Winter's War- 20.1 million
- Barbershop: The Next Cut- 10.8 million
- Zootopia- 6.6 million
- The Boss- 6.1 million
In limited release, Susan Sarandon's The Meddler opened to an okay 15k PTA, while Tom Hank's A Hologram For a King (has anyone even heard of this movie??) debuted with 1 million on 401 screens. It's sad when you see movies starring big names like Sarandon and Hanks being forced into tiny limited release where hardly anyone will ever see them, isn't it? Next week it's the Key and Peele comedy Keanu against Julia Roberts in Mother's Day (I also just heard that film existed about a week ago, but hey, at least it's opening in wide release). Expect Jungle Book to stay on top before Civil War opens on May 6th.
REVIEW: "The Jungle Book" (2016) Neel Sethi, Bill Murray. Dir. Jon Favreau
Disney's annual live-action remake of one of their classic animated films continues with a new version of The Jungle Book, directed by Jon Favreau and essentially an animated film itself, aside from the human Mowgli, played by Neel Sethi, who's asked to act alongside virtually nothing for the entire running time.
As an exercise in visual achievement, this film is tops. All of the animals and backgrounds are CG-rendered and flawless at that, leaving the most you can get out of this as a viewer the absolute wonder of the stunning and realistically rendered images. The sweeping jungle is filled with a spectrum of colorful detail that transports you thoroughly inside the habitat. But as to everything else this movie has to offer, I can't really praise it to the heavens. It of course has one foot set in the 1967 beloved cartoon version, which means it pulls the nostalgia strings by evoking pieces of George Bruns' iconic score (just hearing those notes over the opening titles will make you want to go back and watch the original), and the Sherman Brothers' beloved songs "The Bare Necessities" and "I Wanna Be Like You." (Fun fact: the Oscar-nominated "Bare Necessities" actually lost Best Song to "Talk to the Animals" from Doctor Dolittle (!)- I guess handing last year's win to Sam Smith's Bond song may not have been the absolute worst in the history of the category).
But the movie wants to yank on those chains without morphing into a full musical, so the scenes in which it resurrects those songs feel obligatory and half-hearted, especially the King Louie sequence, which aside from the spectacle of Louie himself (voiced by Christopher Walken and this time depicted as a gargantuan, dinosaur-esque creature of mythic proportions), really isn't handled all that well and feels awkward in its lurch toward full blown "let's just burst into song" territory.
The story is structured in a way that follows similar beats to the original. You know it well- Mowgli is a man-cub raised by wolves in the jungle until the day that Shere Khan (intimidatingly voiced by Idris Elba) decides to make him his next human prey, before he can turn into a menacing, full grown man who plays with fire. So the panther Bagheera (Ben Kingsley) and new bear friend Baloo (Bill Murray) escort Mowgli through the jungle and save him from near fatal encounters, etc., etc. There's nothing too surprising or below the surface involved here, and frankly, the animals' interactions with Mowgli are hindered by the just below mediocre acting abilities of the 11-year-old Sethi. It's more convincing when you see them talking with each other. Favreau does a nice job moving the action along, and kids will probably go for this in droves, but the humor and the character relationships of the old movie are starkly missing from this one. It's a nice effort that in the end just doesn't amount to much overall. Except for those amazing visuals, of course.
* * 1/2
