Screener

Liam Neeson's 'The Grey' expected to lead the pack

Liam Neeson scored big in 2009 with Taken, and The Grey (3,185 theatres) could be his next shot at bringing in the hyper-masculine crowd with an adrenaline-filled story. Neeson has a bit of an everyman feel to him, and in The Grey he plays the leader of several oil-riggers who survive a plane crash in Alaska. This is man vs. nature all the way. They not only need to survive against the cold and snow, but packs of wolves! Whoa. Critic Maitland McDonagh had some doubts about the movie as a whole, but all was saved by the actors. "Every performance is a low-key, high-impact marvel in a movie that's true to its ruthless self to the very end," she praises. The Grey is in good shape to survive--it cost just $25 million to produce, and some think to the flick could open strong and actually make that much this weekend, although others are giving more conservative, $10-15 million range estimates.

Critic Marsha McCreadie describes Man on a Ledge (2,998 theatres) best, complaining that "so many people end up on a hotel ledge with the hero it could be a small cocktail party." It just kills the suspense. Sam Worthington plays a disgraced cop who is trying to clear his name by threatening to jump off a building, and Elizabeth Banks the negotiator trying to talk him down. With just a 22% positive Rotten Tomatoes rating compared to The Grey's 75% positive rating, I predict that audiences looking for a thrill will choose The Grey.

One for the Money (2,737 theatres) has two strikes against it. It didn't screen for critics, and it was moved from more optimistic spots on the schedule (like the summer) to a January dumping ground. Fans of Janet Evanovich's books may turn out for the picture, but it seems pretty stupid and honestly offensive. Katherine Heigl doesn't appear to be that strong of a heroine, and the blue collar characters don't feel authentic in a way that goes beyond their bad New Jersey accents. Then there's the trailer where Sherri Shepherd plays a hooker who needs "a snack" in order to give up information. Blech. Opening weekend estimates of the detective comedy indicate it would be lucky to reach $10 million.

Following star Glenn Close's Oscar nomination for Best Actress, Albert Nobbs will swoop into 246 theatres. The play adaptation, which stars Close as a woman who poses as a man in order to get by, has had mixed reactions from critics and audiences alike, with roughly half coming out in favor of the movie on Rotten Tomatoes.

After receiving five Oscar nominations, The Descendants will aggressively expand into 1,997 theatres, an addition of more than 1,000 theatres. The comedy-drama may not have earned the most nominations, but it received significant ones, including George Clooney for Best Actor, Best Picture, Director, and Adapted Screenplay.

The two most nominated pictures, Hugo and The Artist, are also adding screens. The family-friendly Hugo will go from around 600 to 995 theatres. Silent darling The Artist will add a couple hundred theatres for a total of 897 theatres. Hugo has been a bit of a disappointment, and while The Artist did extremely well in limited release, last week it seemed to falter while in release on so many screens. Will the Oscar nominations get people back into theatres to see these pictures?

On Monday, I'll report on the box office swings of the Oscar-nominated films, and see if The Grey's pack of wolves grabbed enough audiences to trounce the competition.

 

Sundance horror flick V/H/S picked up for $1 million

I'm not sure I have the guts to watch V/H/S, a horror film currently screening at Sundance. In the grand tradition of William Castle, screenings of the film have been accompanied by reports that people were so scared, they fell ill. THR tempers its report by noting that exhaustion, dehydration, and altitude sickness were later indicated as factors, not the movie's disturbing content.

Paying somewhere over $1 million, Magnolia picked up the movie with plans for a premium VOD release followed by a theatrical release. V/H/S has quite a bit going for it. One, it's a found footage movie, which cleaves to horror's trend for mockumentary and realism, as exemplified by the successful Paranormal Activity franchise. Second, it reminds me of The Ring, another movie with "found footage" as a plot element that was the talk of my high school for weeks and weeks after it came out. Finally, it has five found footage-within-found footage segments created by various directors including horror helmers Ti West and David Bruckner.

I can't say I like very scary movies, but V/H/S sounds too creative to pass up. The framing device is a tape of a group of criminals who are hired to break into an attic and steal some videos. Each of the five videos they watch, however, uses an entirely different recording technique. One is a recorded Skype chat, another uses a secret spy camera hidden in a pair of glasses.  There are also looks at a motel security system and some teens in the woods who can only see the monster through the video camera.

Seeing filmmakers embrace new technology is thrilling. So frequently, movies lag behind new technology. For years after people switched to voicemail, answering machines were used as plot devices.  Conversely, horror movies absolutely ran the idea of "No Signal" into the ground (I love this supercut of the trope), in part because they were forced into answering the question their viewers were undoubtedly asking--why don't they just call for help? Sundance films, particularly, often release just a year or so after their conception, so they're better able to take advantage of new technology or pop-culture trends. I may need to take a deep breath and see V/H/S, if only for its embrace of new technology despite its decidedly retro name.

 

 

Fox Searchlight picks up 'Beasts,' 'Surrogate' at Sundance

For film buffs not attending the Sundance Film Festival, the hardest part is hearing the great raves for a film you might not be able to see for months, if not a year. This year's Sundance market has been hot for pickups. Fox Searchlight has picked up two high-profile films so far at the festival. Fortunately, both are set to release theatrically later this year.

Beasts of the Southern Wild. The director of this movie, Benh Zeitlin, actually graduated from my college a couple years before me. His talent was evident. His thesis film, "Egg," a stop-motion, silent, animated recreation of Moby Dick taking place inside an egg that itself was about to be destroyed, was a sight to behold. It later won the Grand Jury Prize at Slamdance. 

Beasts reportedly has a similar fantastical bent, with Variety calling it a "stunning debut" and THR naming it "one of the most striking films ever to debut at the Sundance Film Festival." Set in New Orleans and starring a poor black girl, the movie likely offers oblique commentary on the post-Katrina landscape. Fox Searchlight paid $6 million for the pickup, a high but not record figure.

The Surrogate. John Hawkes stars as a man confined to an iron lung who wants to lose his virginity. The plot sounds sad, but THR reassures that the movie is more similar to The King's Speech than The Diving Bell and the Butterfly. In his review, Todd McCarthy characterizes the 1980s-set movie as a "feel-good fairytale," a "cheerful" story that "argues in favor of living a full life, whatever one’s personal constraints." Still, an iron lung sounds tougher to market than a king with a lisp, but the message could have a nice awards resonance. Searchlight is also planning a 2012 release.

I'll continue to report on the Sundance films that have been picked up to open in a theatre near you.

Nine Best Picture nominees and a few surprises in Oscar nominations

This year's Oscar nominations are out. Along with the expected films, performers, and crew nominations, there are a decent amount of snubs and a few surprise inclusions.

The most nominated film was the box-office disappointment Hugo. Director Martin Scorsese's feature received great critical reviews, but it's earned just $55 million compared to competing family pick Alvin and the Chipmunks: Chipwrecked's $124 million. I wonder if the nominations will convince adults, with our without children, to catch it while it's still in theatres.

Even with nine films nominated for Best Picture, there was still one snub: The Girl with the Dragon Tattoo. The David Fincher-directed picture landed four technical nods (including well-deserved ones for cinematography and editing), but only one in a "major" category. Rooney Mara received a nomination for Best Actress, no doubt in part because of the extreme changes she underwent to her physical appearance. I think Fincher is like Hitchcock--one of those directors whose genius always goes unrecognized by the Academy because of his chosen genre and subject matter.

A surprise inclusion in the Best Actor category was Demián Bichir in the little-seen A Better Life. Oscar voters love socially conscious films, and I'm sure this Los Angeles-set tale of underclass hardship hit close to home. Undoubtedly, many of the well-heeled Academy voters have probably employed a landscaper like him at one time, so the story has special resonance.

I'm also enthused that Melissa McCarthy was recognized in the Best Supporting Actress category for Bridesmaids. She was so much fun and also underwent quite a physical transformation. In fact, most of the female acting nominees looked quite unlike themselves in their performances. Glenn Close played a man in Albert Nobbs, and Meryl Streep and Michelle Williams both had to convincingly play a famous person (Margaret Thatcher and Marilyn Monroe, respectively).

In the foreign language category, I was at least a little disappointed that Mexico's Miss Bala didn't make the cut. The fast-paced, suspenseful tale of a beauty queen who gets caught up in the drug wars brought a human face to the destruction the drug lords have wrought in the area. Maybe it just had too many machine guns?

I'm surprisingly unfamiliar with the Best Documentary contenders. Pina, a 3D dance doc, has been a critical darling and has drawn plenty of audiences since it opened in late December. It's also earned three-quarters of a million dollars, along with over $11 million abroad. The rest of the nominees aren't so lucky--yet. I caught If a Tree Falls: A Story of the Earth Liberation Front when it played on PBS this year (pretty good). When the environmental activism doc played for nine weeks this summer, it earned just $61,000. Soldier doc Hell and Back Again has played for fifteen weeks while only grossing $37,000. Undefeated won't even open properly until February 10th. Neither has Paradise Lost 3: Purgatory, which will probably be seen by the most people when it plays on HBO, not in theatres.

Overall, Hugo leads with eleven nominations. Two-thirds of the time the most-nominated movie also wins Best Picture. There's a chance this might be the one-third of the time. The second-most nominated movie, The Artist, didn't have as much of a chance to pick up the technical nominations as Hugo. After all, who would nominate The Artist for sound editing or sound mixing? Like The Artist, The Descendants, which had just five nominations, still scored in all the major categories: Best Picture, Best Adapted Screenplay, Best Actor, Best Director, and Best Editing (which almost always goes along with Best Director). Despite its win for Best Drama at the Golden Globes, it now seems like more of a dark horse. Most people have been predicting The Artist for Best Picture, but Hugo's multiple nominations now make me think perhaps the Scorsese picture could win for Best Picture. With its mix of snubs and surprise nominations, this year's ceremony should have plenty of suspense, and pose at least a few challenges for those looking to win their Oscar pool.

'Underworld' claims top spot with 'Red Tails' swooping in for second

Featuring leather bodysuit-clad Kate Beckinsale, Underworld: Awakening easily grabbed first place over the weekend with a $25.4 million total. The fourth installment in the action-horror franchise opened just slightly off the third, all but insuring there will be more Underworld films to come. 3D and IMAX ticket sales definitely boosted the movie's bottom line, wtih 59% of sales from 3D and 15% from IMAX. The slightly male-dominated audience loved the picture, rating it an A- in CinemaScore exit polls.

In second place, Red Tails overperformed significantly with a $19.1 million total. The historical picture, which focuses on the aerial assaults carried out by black Tuskegee airmen during WWII, drew raves from its audiences. The movie averaged an A in exit polls, with the very young and very old giving it an A+. Executive producer George Lucas had to finance and distribute the movie himself (20th Century Fox contributed nothing to the distribution) so this movie's success is a big nose-thumb at the major studios, who apparently didn't trust that a movie with an all-black cast could do well.

Two spots down in fifth place, Haywire debuted to just $9 million. I thought the Steven Soderbergh-directed flick was awesome, without succumbing to all the pifalls I associate with action movies. Apparently I was in the minority. Audiences gave the movie an astoundingly awful D+ rating in exit polls. Wow. Well, the movie was about as far as you can get from star Gina Carano's previous stint on "American Gladiators," so I suspect the negative rating had something to do with people's expectations not jiving with what they actually saw.

Post-9/11 drama Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close went wide in its fifth week and earned $10.5 million. The drama has been pretty much shut out of awards season, and some people may not be excited to buy tickets in order to revisit 9/11. It's actually the worst opening in some time for stars Tom Hanks and Sandra Bullock, though the tale really centers on a young boy, not Hanks and Bullock.

The Descendants, the Golden Globe winner for Best Drama, went up 17% to $2.4 million even as it shed 100 locations. It sounds like this George Clooney starrer is aiming for an Oscars push instead. The Artist, which won in the Best Comedy category, went from 216 to 662 locations, but it didn't soar as much as it should have. The silent picture averaged $3,500 per screen for a total of $2.3 million, finishing behind The Descendants. I wouldn't be surprised if the black-and-white movie has difficulty catching on beyond arthouse audiences.

Coriolanus, which is directed by and stars Ralph Fiennes, earned $60,000 from nine screens. The $6,700 per-screen average, however, is far behind the debut needed to launch an indie success.

This Friday, action drama The Grey will open along with the self-explanatory Man on a Ledge and Katherine Heigl detective comedy One for the Money.

 

'Underworld' expected to outperform 'Red Tails,' 'Haywire'

The fourth installment in the Underworld series, Underworld: Awakening (3,078 theatres) is expected to lead the weekend box office with an opening in the low $20 million range. Kate Beckinsale stars as a vampire "warrioress" in the action-horror sequel, which did not screen in advance for critics.

My recommendation for female-driven action this weekend is Haywire (2,439 theatres), which will definitely be the best film I'll see in January. Mixed martial arts fighter Gina Carno stars as a contract worker for the CIA who's double-crossed by her colleagues. In the extremely realistic fight scenes, she'll literally be picked up and thrown around by her hulking male opponents, then somehow manage to overpower them. Director Steven Soderbergh really does a great job showing how she's outmatched in certain respects, but absolutely able to dominate in others. I left the theatre with a huge smile on my face, a pretty rare thing. This is definitely an action movie for those who are pretty selective about their action movies, in part thanks to the great direction by Steven Soderbergh. The critical community as a whole gave the spy-action pic an 82% positive Rotten Tomatoes rating. Despite these enthusiastic responses, an opening weekend of just $8-10 million is expected. That's too bad, and I hope word-of-mouth gives this movie the number of eyes it deserves.

George Lucas shepherded Red Tails (2,512 theatres) through 23 years of development, funding it himself when Hollywood studios refused to finance a movie with an all-black cast. The WWII-set tale focuses on the Tuskegee airmen, a group of black male fighter pilots who fought the Nazis abroad and prejudice back home. Critic Doris Toumarkine admits the plotting is "formulaic," but lauds the actioner for its "solid entertainment and sensational special effects," as well as its coverage of the "civil-rights struggle" of the time. Red Tails is expected to be neck-and-neck with Haywire, with both coming close to $10 million. I think at least one of these could be a surprise overperformer.

On the heels of its Golden Globe win for Best Comedy, The Artist is expanding into 662 theatres. But will patrons demand refunds, as those in the U.K. did, claiming they didn't know the retro-styled movie was silent?

Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close, which has quietly and successfully been in release for a month in six locations, will go wide to 2,660 theatres. Critics are divided, with exactly 50% on the positive side, and the other half giving it a thumbs-down.  67% of Rotten Tomatoes commenters liked the movie. I'm curious how the nation as a whole will respond to the post-9/11 drama.

On Monday, we'll see if audiences went with the heroine of Haywire or Underworld, if Red Tails can attract audiences of every color, and if The Artist and Extremely Loud can successfully scale their release.

So let's talk about 'Moonrise Kingdom'

Despite some recent films that disappointed more than they charmed, the fans haven't left Wes Anderson. Since his trailer for the upcoming release Moonrise Kingdom (May 25!) was posted last week, I've seen plenty of people repost it on Facebook. People I thought would have been jaded about the director were expressing excitement. Why?

 

Personally, I was most charmed by Anderson's style when it was still novel. Rushmore and The Royal Tenenbaums are my favorite Anderson films, and the rest of them felt like rehashes of his earlier work. If it's possible to OD on irony,  an Anderson film can provide that dangerous dose. Fantastic Mr. Fox was something of a rebound for the director, but I still found myself wearied by his stylized dialogue rather than energized by its arch formality and preciousness.

Moonrise Kingdom has a couple things going for it. One, its 1970s-esque feel. Anderson's always been nostalgic, and at least this time the cast members that look like they are wearing thrifted clothing will be doing so since they're actually supposed to be part of another era.

Two, Anderson's once again returned to children. The story centers on two pre-teens who run away together, sending their small town and the staff of a summer camp on a wild chase in order to find them. At this age, children are often trying to be adults unsuccessfully, so hearing adult words put in their mouth rings true to me. The irony of their statements and actions only underscores what it's like to grow up, during that period when your adult and children parts are all jumbled together.

As a footnote, it's worth noting that Anderson has included some bigwig action stars (Bruce Willis) as well as an arthouse darling (Tilda Swinton). Swinton has one dashing scene where she bursts in and declares "Where is the boy? I am told that he has just been struck by lightning." This is quintessential Anderson, but it also reveals one of the weaknesses of his work. If a scene like this is played for comedy instead of drama, it undercuts the emotional impact of the narrative.

When I think about Rushmore, I think of the sadness and betrayal Max Fischer (played by Jason Schwartzman) experienced after he found out Bill Murray's character was having an affair with his teacher crush. The heart of The Royal Tenenbaums was Royal's (Gene Hackman) isolation after he was abandoned by his family. Though Anderson's other films had characters designed to provoke empathy, it didn't stick. In order to work for me, Moonrise Kingdom can't just charm me with its wit. It will have to make me care.

'Bridesmaids' star Melissa McCarthy is on a roll

Melissa McCarthy's commitment to her character Megan in Bridesmaids, who dresses and acts like a hyper-masculine gym teacher, was so absolute I was shocked to see her with styled hair and a full face of makeup in "Mike and Molly" and on the red carpet. McCarthy has long been a working actor in Hollywood, but since the success of Bridesmaids she's gotten three projects off the ground.

First, she will star in Tammy, a project she co-wrote with her husband Ben Falcone (who played the air marshal her character comes on to in Bridesmaids). She will play a woman who loses her job at Hardee's and finds out her husband has been cheating on her. Ready to escape her daily life, she goes on a road trip with her foul-mouthed, eccentric grandma. Veteran TV director Beth McCarthy-Miller (not related to Melissa) will direct the New Line project, which is in pre-production. I've seen plenty of road trip comedies, but none with this casting.

Today, two more McCarthy projects were announced. The first is more Falcone's project, but she will serve as co-executive producer of a comedy TV pilot that centers on a 37-year-old living at home with his parents.

The other project, Identity Theft, will star McCarthy as a woman who steals the identity of a man (Jason Bateman). Seth Gordon (Horrible Bosses) just signed on to direct, and word is production will start in early 2012.

I'm impressed that McCarthy has been able to not only sell her own projects, but actually be cast in an existing screenplay. Perhaps the role in Identity Theft was originally written for a man? Or the joke was that the thief looks nothing like the person in the ID but somehow she's still able to pass for the guy? Everyone in Bridesmaids was funny, but McCarthy took the most risks. Hollywood gives Oscars to actors that make themselves look ugly for roles, and McCarthy did the same thing for comedy and it's made her career take off. With so many successful female-driven projects in the mix right now, I'm happy that McCarthy is among them.

'Contraband' hijacks first place over MLK Day weekend

The long Martin Luther King, Jr. Day weekend was a boon to studios and exhibitors, with 2012 totals up an estimated 2-4% from last year. On Sunday, the Golden Globes provided publicity to awards darlings like The Iron Lady, The Artist, and The Descendents, all of which should see bumps next week as audiences put these films on their must-see lists.

Opening nearly as well as surprise hit Taken, Contraband earned $28.8 million over four days. The slightly male-skewing, older audience turned out for the remake of Icelandic hit Reykjavik-Rotterdam. The action pic drew praise in exit polls, with most rating the movie an A-.

In second place, the re-release of Beauty and the Beast in 3D conjured up $23.5 million in four days. The animated classic did especially well on the Monday school holiday, which was the second-highest grossing day of the weekend. Unsurprisingly, audiences rated the 1991 movie an A+.

In fourth place, Joyful Noise called out to females over 30. The Dolly Parton-Queen Latifah gospel dramedy earned a praiseful $13.7 million. That's better than the opening of Country Strong last year and on par with Queen Latifah's previous openings.

Word got out about The Devil Inside, and the horror stinker plummeted 76% over the three-day period. Since the movie cost less than $1 million, even this weekend's $9.1 million total is all gravy to the folks at Paramount.

Moving into 800 theatres, The Iron Lady skyrocketed 3,571% to $6.4 million. Meryl Streep's win for Best Actress at the Golden Globes should make this biopic rise even further next week.

Golden Globes Best Drama winner The Descendants dipped 18% to earn another $2.5 million. The Hawaii-set tale has been shedding theatres over the past several weeks (from 878 to 660), perhaps part of a more long-range distribution plan? With its second win by George Clooney for Best Actor, this Alexander Payne-directed film seems like a prime target for further expansion.

The Artist, winner of Best Comedy on Sunday night, was directly behind The Descendants with a total of $1.4 million, a slight increase from last week. This silent, black-and-white tale has done surprisingly well given the hesitations most people usually have with watching movies in such an antiquated mode.

This Friday will be a busy one. Director Steven Soderbergh's action pic Haywire will debut, along with Red Tails, which chronicles the missions of black pilots during WWII.  Underworld Awakening, the fourth in the series, will also open. Finally, 9/11 drama Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close will go from six theatres to over 2,000.

'Beauty and the Beast 3D,' 'Contraband,' and 'Joyful Noise' vie for MLK Day audiences

91% of students have Monday off for the Martin Luther King, Jr. holiday, and Hollywood wants everyone to go to the movies. Following up its successful release of The Lion King in 3D this fall, Disney will open Beauty and the Beast 3D in 2,625 theatres. "Princess" movies are seen as a harder sell, since boys aren't as interested, so that could dampen the gross of the classic animated film. With an opening in the $20 million range, Beauty and the Beast should beat out the re-release of Toy Story in 3D but fall short of The Lion King's surprise success.

Action audiences in need of an "efficient" fix can seek out Contraband (2,863 theatres). Based on an Icelandic hit, the thriller stars Mark Wahlberg as a reformed smuggler. He has to go on one last job in order to help his brother. The "fairly effective thriller," according to critic Daniel Eagan, has a "by-the-numbers plot," but "builds up just enough suspense to tide over hungry action fans until something better comes along." Forecasters predict up to $20 million for the picture.

Dolly Parton and Queen Latifah team up for Joyful Noise (2,735 theatres), which should land somewhere over or under $10 million if it effectively pulls in the country and urban followers associated with its two stars. Though it's rife with "commercial clichés," critic David Noh still couldn't help but find the gospel music-filled movie "rousing fun," helped in part by the enthusiastic writer/director Todd Graff. He reveals "a deep-grained love of music and performance." The moms in Joyful Noise's female demographic, however, may find themselves buying tickets to see Belle, Gaston, and the Beast instead.

Meryl Streep's spot-on impression of Margaret Thatcher will be seen in more theatres this weekend, as Oscar hopeful The Iron Lady expands into 802 theatres. Man on a Mission, which details Richard Garriot's $30 million trip into space, will open in one theatre. In my review, I praised the interesting story, but was frustrated with the many missed opportunities that would have made the documentary more captivating and emotionally resonant.

On Tuesday, we'll see if the four-day weekend helped attract family audiences to Beauty and the Beast 3D, and if the holiday helps pull the U.S. box office out of its slump.