Weekend Box Office And Your Monday Must-Read.

Posted on August 1, 2011 by jlmicek

Good Monday Morning, Everyone.
Little blue people partly ruled the box office this weekend. And we’re not talking about those of you who were holding your breath waiting for a debt deal in Washington. Nosirree, Bob. As implausible as it may seem, the animated adventures of the resurrected Smurfs fought for domination this weekend with some cowboys and some aliens.

Let’s do the numbers.

Name: Weekend: Total:
1. Cowboys & Aliens $36.2m $36.2m
2. The Smurfs $36.2m $36.2m
3. Captain America $24.9m $116m
4 Harry Potter … $21.9m $318.4m
5. Crazy, Stupid, Love. $19.3m $19.3m
6. Friends with Benefits $9.3m $38.2m
7. Horrible Bosses $7.1m $96.2m
8. Transformers: Dark of the Moon $5.9m $337.8m
9. Zookeeper $4.2m $68.7m
10. Cars 2 $2.3m $182m

Your Monday Must-Read:
The Guardian sits down to chat with the eternally luminous French actress Juliette Binoche, who explains why acting is like peeling an onion.

Here’s the germane part of the story:

“For each character she plays, Binoche prepares intensely. She slept rough on the streets of Paris before playing a homeless woman in Les Amants du Pont-Neuf (1991) and spent months learning to play the violin for her role in the 1998 film Alice et Martin. Ahead of her star turn in Chocolat – the 2000 adaptation of Joanne Harris’s novel, one of Binoche’s few forays into Hollywood – she turned up unannounced at Harris’s house in Barnsley and stayed for the weekend. So how did she prepare for her role as Julie? “Oh, I went to see Strindberg.” She laughs wickedly. “He’s an interesting character. I wouldn’t like to be his wife or lover.”

In the past, Binoche has said she prefers working with independent auteurs – Kiarostami; Krzysztof Kieślowski; Michael Haneke – rather than Hollywood directors owing to her frustration with the way mainstream American films depict women. When I ask about this, she gives an exasperated sigh.

‘That’s a very old question for me,’ she says. ‘That’s a very old way of thinking.'”

You can click through for the full story.

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Our (Planet of the) Apes, Ourselves

Posted on July 31, 2011 by jlmicek

Here’s one from this morning’s New York Times arts section.

Film critic Terrence Rafferty spends some time thinking about the upcoming “Planet of the Apes” reboot and takes a moment to consider what the new movie, along with the original 1960s franchise, says about contemporary culture and the culture that spawned it.

Here’s the germane part of the story:

“It’s a witty notion, of a kind that characterized old-school science fiction: the fantastic “what if?” premise that allows the writer to examine the conditions of his own time from a different perspective. The novel and the first movie, which had a screenplay by Michael Wilson and Rod Serling, came out at the height of the cold war, when bomb anxiety made the end of the humanity as we know it seem a not entirely fanciful notion. In the film’s famous final sequence, Taylor, having escaped from the apes, sees the head of the Statue of Liberty on the beach and realizes to his horror that he has been on a post-nuclear-holocaust Earth all along. (Thanks to relativity, his space odyssey has landed him a couple of thousand years into the future.) Nuclear worries may not be as high as they were in the 1960s, but the image still resonates. We know that our species hasn’t yet developed to the point where blowing ourselves up is unthinkable.

But most of the interest of the original “Planet of the Apes” and its sequels lies in their skewed, satiric take on human nature. The apes are disconcertingly like us, and it’s fun both to imagine them as better than we are and to watch their civilization developing some very familiar discontents. They have race and class issues and a rather rigid social hierarchy: orangutans rule, gorillas enforce, and chimpanzees do most of the intellectual work — subject to the approval of the orangutans, who sit in judgment like the Académie Française or the Holy Office. The chimp scientists who try to save Taylor are accused of heresy: the orangutans and the gorillas are, to an ape, staunch creationists.”

Read the full story here.

Posted in Film News, Our Films, Ourselves, Sci-Fi, Sequel-Itis, Thinking About Movies | Tagged , , , , | Leave a comment

What’s In Store For Pittsburgh With “Dark Knight” Filming?

Posted on July 29, 2011 by jlmicek

Well, snow, for one thing.
Christian Bale and Christopher Nolan spill some of the beans to the Pittsburgh press as filming begins:

“Nolan confirmed that they will be simulating snowfall to show Gotham City in winter, that Heinz Field would be used for a football game, and that they would be shooting scenes in Carnegie Mellon University. Bale promised there would be “fighting in the streets, a great deal.”


IO9, via Pittsburgh Business Times.

And Kenneth Branagh is out for the “Thor” sequel. Star Chris Hemsworth shares with Hero Complex:


“I’m really disappointed. Ken built that character, and everything I know about the Thor world, I learned while shoulder-to-shoulder with Ken. I learned so much from him… As long as he’s happy, that’s the thing. I learned so much from Ken while we built [the first film], so at least I had that time with someone like that. The start of anything creative is the most important period in a way. That’s when the most can go wrong, and Ken made sure we got it right.”

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Avengers Footage Posted Online (MAJOR SPOILERS AHEAD).

Posted on July 29, 2011 by jlmicek

Warning — serious spoilers ahead. So skip right over this if you haven’t been to see “Captain America” yet.

Otherwise, read on for the goodness.

IGN Online has posted the “easter egg” footage of the new superteam flick that appears after the very end of the end credits of the Cap flick. They’ve also posted some screen grabs, which will likely be pored over like some superpowered Zapruder film by the legions of fanboys out there.

First up: The trailer, courtesy of Yahoo! Movies:

Now, some of the screen-grabs:

Here’s Chris Evans as Cap:

Here’s Scarlett Johannson’s Black Widow.

Chris Hemsworth as Thor:

And, last but not least, Samuel L. Jackson as Nick Fury.

Click through to read the full piece. Once again, major spoilers ahead. Don’t say we didn’t warn you.

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Review: “Cowboys & Aliens” Is The Chicken Caesar Salad of Filmmaking.

Posted on July 28, 2011 by jlmicek

Salon’s Andrew O’Hehir tees up and takes a big, fat swing at “Cowboys & Aliens,” which is so implausibly named that it ought to work. But it does not. And in a review so funny that it actually made me snarf up my coffee, O’Hehir explains that the action flick is the chicken Caesar salad of film-making

In other words, it’s so tarted up with limp chicken, slivered walnuts, dried cranberries and those ubiquitous bits of crumbled bleu cheese that it doesn’t know what it is anymore.

Here’s the germane bit:

“I’m not going to claim that “Cowboys & Aliens” is badly made (as chicken Caesar salads go). Viewed strictly as an exercise in technique and pop-culture savvy — the only standards we’re encouraged to apply to Hollywood movies — it’s reasonably accomplished. As director Jon Favreau has demonstrated in the “Iron Man” movies, cleverness and indulgence are his strong suits, and cinematographer Matthew Libatique (of “Black Swan,” e.g.) makes sure that the western/sci-fi mashup looks great. Daniel Craig makes a terrific western drifter in the Eastwood mold, with no name and no past, and he doesn’t look, sound or act anything like James Bond. Harrison Ford plays the ruthless cattle baron who runs an empire on the outskirts of town, and Paul Dano is his wussed-out, stringy-haired, overly arrogant son. If it’s 100 percent predictable that Ford’s crusty old coot will ultimately be revealed as a Civil War veteran (from the right side) with a few fragments of nobility still lodged within his soul, and that he’ll eventually break out that one-sided Harrison Ford smile, it’s nonetheless an enjoyable spectacle.”

Read the full review here.

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Dark Knight, Spiderman Tops THR’s List of “The Top 10 Summer Superheroes.”

Posted on July 28, 2011 by jlmicek

Ahhh … Summer. Where would we be without the filmed adventures of some costumed do-gooder to offer us some respite from the heat?

In recognition of the fact that Superheroes rule at the cinema during the dog days of summer, the good folks at the Hollywood Reporter have put together a photo essay of the Top 10 Moments Ever in Superhero Cinema.

Unsurprisingly, ruling the roost is the late Heath Ledger’s truly terrifying turn as The Joker in “The Dark Knight Returns.” We can’t say we agree with the inclusion of “Spiderman 3: Jazz Hands,” in the No. 2 spot. But we’re not the ones making the lists here.

The first — and best — “Spiderman” finishes third, with “Spiderman 2,” and the Will Smith vehicle “Hancock” (???) rounding out the Top Five.

Click through for the full list.

Meanwhile, indispensable Sci-Fi site IO9 talks to earthbound geek god Joss Wheedon, who explains why he almost didn’t sign to direct next summer’s massive anticipated Avengers flick. It’s well worth your time.

To finish things out, here’s a bit of Spiderman animation from “Spiderman and his Amazing Friends.” Y’know, just because …

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Have They Sunk This Battleship?

Posted on July 27, 2011 by jlmicek

Here’s the trailer for the new “Battleship” flick … Because movies based on board games are always a fabulous idea. Coming next: SCRABBLE! THE MOVIE, where a low word score means death in the arena!

Oy … But at least Brooklyn Decker is in the movie. Read more at NY Mag’s Vulture page.

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Emma Stone’s Big Summer Continues.

Posted on July 27, 2011 by jlmicek

It’s turning out to be a pretty good summer for actress Emma Stone.

She has a decent cameo in “Friends with Benefits” and plays a key role in “Crazy Stupid Love” which opens on Friday. That’s not to mention a role in “The Help,” which also opens this summer.

And, now according to Orlando Sentinel film critic Roger Moore, the comely, auburn-haired actress has apparently been offered the lead in Warners’ “The Gangster Squad:”

“Ryan Gosling, Sean Penn, Josh Brolin, Anthony Mackie and Giovanni Ribisi have already been cast as the cops vs. gangsters leads in this LAPD period piece about the 1940s-50s fight against Mickey Cohen and the forces of organized crime,” Moore writes this morning.

That’s some pretty august company.

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Olivia Wilde Wants More Sci-Fi Roles.

Posted on July 26, 2011 by jlmicek

So here’s some good news for the fanboys.

“Tron” actress Olivia Wilde tells the Daily Star of the UK that she thinks Hollywood directors need to build more sci-fi franchises around strong, female stars:

“I think there are some great sci-fi films in the works that have some really interesting female roles. It takes people taking risks and understanding the public will go see a movie starring a woman. I think Sigourney proved that so hopefully I’ll get to do more sci-fi roles and take on more of the burden on my shoulders of playing the lead as opposed to the wise helpful female sidekick.”

Read the full story here.

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Weekend Box Office: The Reign of the Superheroes Continues.

Posted on July 25, 2011 by jlmicek

“Captain America: The First Avenger” rocketed to the top of the weekend’s box office heap, finally breaking Harry Potter’s death-grip on the top spot. Here’s the weekend, by the numbers.

Name: Weekend: Total Haul:
1. Captain America $65.8m $65.8m
2. Harry Potter $48m $274.1m
3. Friends with Benefits $18.5m $18.5m
4. Transformers $12m $325m
5. Horrible Bosses $11.7m $82m
6. Zookeeper $8.7m $59.2m
7. Cars 2 $5.7m $176m
8 Winnie the Pooh $5.1m $17.5m
9. Bad Teacher $2.6m $94.3m
10. Midnight in Paris $1.9m $44.8m

What’s really striking about this week’s list is the disparity between the top two movies — Captain America and Harry Potter and the rest of the Top 10. Both are seriously outdrawing “Friends with Benefits,” the sex-comedy with Justin Timberlake and Mila Kunis which also premiered over the weekend.

These smaller movies, in general, are the exception to the rule in a summer dominated by big-budget actioners and kid-friendly movies such as “Cars 2,” which is still drawing respectably and Disney’s new “Winnie the Pooh” movie.

For my money, though, this summer’s biggest surprise is Woody Allen’s paen to the Lost Generation “Midnight in Paris,” which is one of his best-performing movies in years. It’s an encouraging sign that there’s still room for the grown-ups at the multiplex.

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