Screener

Top Ten Summer Movies by the numbers

By Sarah Sluis

Sure, it's not Labor Day yet, but all the movie moneymakers of the summer have already been released. So far, the top ten grossing movies of the summer (from May 1st on) are as follows:

1. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen
2. Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince
3. Up
4. The Hangover
5. Star Trek
6. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs
7. X-Men Origins: Wolverine
8. Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian
9. The Proposal
10. Angels & Demons

By the numbers:

• 7 of the 10 are sequels or franchise relaunches
• 2 are animated
• 1 comedy and 1 romantic comedy made the list
• 9 have a rating of PG-13 or lower
• the #1 movie made 3 times as much as the #10 movie ($400 million vs. $133 million)
• 4 of the 10 have colons in the title
• 7 of the 10 involve creatures with human properties (talking animals, machines, aliens...)
• The average score on Rotten Tomatoes was 57.6%; 4 of the 10 had approval ratings above this number

I love this information. From one perspective, you could look at the statistics and decide that if you want to make the next blockbuster, you need to find a franchise with human-like creatures, include a lot of action but not enough that it reads as a comedy, make it PG-13 or under, and use a colon in the title if necessary. And don't really worry too much about the critics. Just your audience.

The other way involves looking at all the ways these titles don't fit into the mold. The Hangover is the biggest outcast of the bunch, an R-rated comedy that came out of nowhere, with no franchise, pre-sold title, or even A-list stars.

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen was the #1 movie, but an absolute bomb (19% on Rotten Tomatoes) among critics. I know I still haven't fully figured that one out. Pixar's Up is an incredibly original movie, but it actually fits into the mold of a "top ten" film: it's rated PG, involves (ingeniously) talking creatures, and is an animated kid-to-adult movie. It's also part of a franchise, not one defined by repeating characters or plotlines, but by its studio, Pixar, which has cultivated a must-see reputation among its films.

There's still a chance for movies to rise into the ranks of the summer top ten, but right now the mix seems about right: a few CGI/animated movies that appeal to kids, action and action franchises, and at least one dark horse (in 2008, it was Mamma Mia!). The past few years, six of the movies in the top ten were released in the summer, three or so in the November-December holiday season, and a fourth in March, during the Spring Break holidays. At least six of these movies are going to hang around with Monsters vs. Aliens in the 2009 top ten. With summer movie season coming to a close, my eyes are on the three or so movies that will make their way into the top ten: New Moon? Avatar?

Weinstein Co.'s 'Inglourious Basterds' aim to conquer box office

By Sarah Sluis

Inglourious Basterds, which opens today in 3,165 theatres stateside, already has enjoyed auspicious results abroad. While the movie received a mixed reception at the Cannes Film Festival, it opened in France to the best numbers ever for a Tarantino-directed film. Basterds' toughest competition may be District 9, a sci-fi pic that's been embraced by fans, critics, and general audiences: exactly the breakdown that Basterds is looking for. A.O. Scott from the New York Times wryly notes that "Mr. Tarantino gives you a lot to chew on, though there's plenty to gag on as well." Its length, episodic structure and relative talkiness compared to its action-packed marketing could surprise viewers--in a good way, or a bad way.

The latest kid adventure from Robert Rodriguez, Shorts, is opening in 3,105 theatres. Unlike his Spy Kids franchise, which "found favor among most family members, Shorts directly aims at the shorter members of the family," possibly limiting its box office. For those in the pre-teen demographic, however, there's plenty of kids-are-smarter-than-adults plot points, magical powers, and even a Booger Monster wreaking havoc.

Post Grad (1,958 theatres) stars Alexis Bledel as a smart, quirky, confused young person. No, it's not a sequel of the "Gilmore Girls." Critic Kirk Honeycutt explains it best: "This essentially is a 13-year-old's fantasy of what it's like to be 22. Naturally, it gets just about everything wrong, but its audience probably will lap it up." Post Grad sounds like a chance to spend an hour and a half with your friend's cool older sister who never talks to you, but who you desperately aspire to be. Alas, it's exactly the kind of movie that cool older sister would eschew.

For one week only, sports aficionados will get a kick out of X Games 3D: The Movie. Its smaller-scale release at just 1,399 locations will ensure that selected theatres will be packed with extreme sports lovers. But its X Games 3D's big-screen worthiness has been questioned by critic Honeycutt, who pointed out that "even with 3D, the events themselves, which come with ESPN commentary, still feel like a TV event." For the true enthusiast, however, that information is unlikely to dampen interest.

On Monday, we'll see if Inglourious Basterds is the box office behemoth it needs to be in order to bolster up the Weinstein Co., and if Shorts, Post Grad, and X Games were able to connect with their respective niche audiences.

'Ice Age 3' breaking up 'Transformers,' and 'Asteroids' in our future

By Sarah Sluis

First, a note on yesterday's box-office returns. Ice Age: Dawn of the Dinosaurs debuted with $14 million, followed by Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen's $10 million, then Public Enemies' $8 million. If these results hold, it looks like Transformers 2 will be unseated in its second week.

One of the producers on the Transformers franchise, Lorenzo di Bonaventura, has another game adaptation on his list: Asteroids. The 1979 Atari game (which you can play online here) has no plot and no backstory. It's just shooting asteroids before they shoot you. Since many video games with complicated backstories fail to thrive at the box office, perhaps creating a story out of such a bare-bones premise could actually work. After all, Hasbro has been licensing versions of its games like Monopoly, Battleship, and Stretch Armstrong. The property even ignited a bidding war, with four studios vying for rights to the work. Matt Lopez, who has recently penned high-profile projects like The Sorcerer's Apprentice, Race to Witch Mountain, and Bedtime Stories, is in charge of the first draft.

Although the game Asteroids debuted in 1979, about five years before the Transformers television show, people played the game for years afterwards. Later-model consoles, arcades, and early computers (where I first played an Asteroids-type game) carried versions of Asteroids. People from teens to 40-somethings have probably had some direct exposure to the game, making this picture a potential "four-quadrant" film, the term marketers love. What direction will they take? The 1984 movie The Last Starfighter featured a boy good at an Asteroids-type game who is recruited by a stranger from another galaxy to save its world from invading aliens. That kind of plot is every kid's fantasy, though I'm not sure it's the direction the studio will go. In the Transformers franchise, the machines are always "real," it's just that their reality isn't universally acknowledged. You don't have to go to another world for it to become real. Universal has a great property on its hands--hopefully it will swim, not sink, in development.

'Transformers' revving for a blockbuster weekend

By Sarah Sluis

Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen (4,234 theatres) earned $60.2 million in its opening day (including $16 million from midnight screenings the night before), and an additional $28.6 million on Thursday. It's set for a $160-$180 million five-day total, which would put it behind The Dark Knight but among films from an elite group of franchises, like Star Wars and Spider-Man. Still, as someone who squirmed through the entire film and found it to be a CGI version of six-year-old children playing with their transformers, I'm at a loss. There's no way this can be a "four-quadrant" film, the kind that's supposed to cross over to all audiences. Judging from its PG-13 rating, and the lines I saw outside AMC Empire 42 in New York City on Tuesday night for late-night showings, pre-teens to early teens seem to be the biggest fans of the film. While its opening weekend should be stellar, it should expect to drop at least in the mid-40%'s each week, consistent with the first Transformers.

When women drop off their kids at the movie theatre, perhaps they'll catch My Sister's Keeper, which opens in 2,606 theatres. I reviewed the film, and found it to be a surefire way to have a good cry. While the sick child premise isn't as big of a draw as director Nick Cassavetes' romantic tearjerker The Notebook, the film celebrates life and family, and is quite satisfying despite being repetitious at times. However, the film will face competition from the more upbeat The Proposal, which won the box office last week.

A more adult action film than Transformers, The Hurt Locker (4 theatres) centers on a group of bomb diffusers in Iraq. The film has received a sensational response among critics, who have praised the film for its realism and for its unusual choice to be a war film, without coming out pro-war or anti-war. The New York Times' A.O. Scott made the advertising-ready pronouncement "If The Hurt Locker is not the best action movie of the summer, I'll blow up my car," which sounds like a pretty strong endorsement to me.

Presciently topical, The Stoning of Soraya M. (27 theatres) will likely pick up audiences due to its Iranian setting, as well as its politically aware message. Based on a true story, the film follows a woman whose husband accuses her of adultery in order to get rid of her and marry someone younger. For her punishment, she is stoned to death.

Also opening today is Cheri (76 theaters), a costume romance starring Michele Pfeiffer. Directed by Stephen Frears (The Queen), who Kirk Honeycutt praised for "simply [bringing] out the best in his collaborators," and based on two novels by French writer Colette, the film's exceptional pedigree produced a romance just as rewarding to watch.

On Monday, we'll circle back to see how Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen fared through the weekend, whether My Sister's Keeper will beat The Proposal, and which specialty releases packed the most seats.

'Terminator Salvation' keeps the action, loses its resonance

By Sarah Sluis

The new Terminator Salvation has all the action you would expect from a franchise that once starred Arnold Schwarzenegger. Filmmaker McG is incredibly comfortable directing car chases, planning for CGI-created monster machines, and making machine-to-human combat look fresh and engaging. Unlike in many action movies I've seen, you never get worn out by the fighting and chases. The characters' interactions with each other are believable, necessary, and real. You better believe that Christian Bale, as evidenced by his on-set outburst, was taking his job seriously.

It's also worth noting the performance of John Connor's opposite, Marcus Wright, who is played by newbie Australian actor Sam Worthington. His performance is a preview of what audiences can expect with Avatar, the action film directed by original Terminator director James Cameron, which releases later this year. Worthington plays a death-row criminal resurrected as something else, and he gives his character just the right attitude: redemptive without beating himself up over his never-explained crime. There's a moment where he realizes that he's not who he thinks he is, and watching him act through it is one of the most satisfying moments of the film. He's also forced into a Matrix-like scene where information is downloaded into his head. He makes the moment feel original and fresh, but the scene symbolized my main problem with Terminator Salvation: the sci-fi world of post-apocalypse Skynet seems tired, and little has been done to refresh it.

I prefer my action films to have some kind of soul, and for their battles to be proxy for some greater cultural anxiety (I loved The Matrix). The earlier Terminator films play on that Frankenstein fear, the idea of our creations taking over us. There's also the popular trope of malignant, devious corporations (Skynet) that pursue profits against the common good. Added to mix is the allure of seeing what a world looks like post-apocalypse, and, of course, time travel. All of these struggles seem global, epic, and resonate with the times. But McG doesn't seem interested in syncing up Terminator with today's sci-fi fears.

In this Terminator, the characters display little interest in their predicament. Even Marcus Wright, who woke up in 2018 after being executed in 2003, doesn't show any surprise at the great change in humanity's fortune. And devious corporations going rogue? That certainly could have been stressed more, to great effect. The one thematic glimmer is the tension between members of the resistance and people who merely try to survive, avoiding the Terminators where they can and not bothering to fight. Because it's an action film, we're on board with the fighting side, but the few scenes with the gaunt refugees who preferred avoidance to confrontation stayed with me. Odd, I know, but they piqued my interest in seeing the upcoming adaptation of Cormac McCarthy's The Road, which follows a father and son on a path to survival--with only people, not machines, to fight.

The buzz after the Terminator Salvation screening, as everyone gathered their cell phones (which were checked into zip-loc baggies for security reasons) was "not as good as Star Trek." I'll add in myself that I found the film to be better than Angels & Demons. I expect the box office for Terminator Salvation will stack up somewhere between the two films, and wouldn't be surprised if we see a Terminator 5.

'Wolverine,' meet 'Star Trek'

By Sarah Sluis

Everyone seems to like Star Trek. Many people will see it this weekend. But how will it all add up at the box office? Currently running a 96% on Rotten Tomatoes, the time-traveling origin story juxtaposes car chases in vintage roadsters in Iowa with galactic attempts to wrench ships out of black holes ("More warp!" There is no more warp! More warp!!!"). It's great fun, and includes J.J. Abrams' signature time-bending, a space vocabulary that heavily references Star Wars (When will they put up safety rails next to deep abysses in spaceships?), and a plotline accessible to those who have never even heard of the Enterprise fan club. In other words, Trek has all the makings of a summer popcorn movie.

Currently, the film's tracking way up, as the marketing blitz continues to raise awareness of the film. There are conflicting reports about whether Star Trek or Wolverine has better female support, which surprised me, given that for me it was pretty clear-cut. My interest in Wolverine hovered around zero, while I was enticed from day one by the Star Trek trailer that included the aforementioned Iowa car chase scene and promised me there wouldn't be hard-to-decipher techno-conversations on the flight deck.

Last week, headlines for Wolverine gave the film a range of $60-$100 million, and it came in at $75 million. This week, estimates for Trek seem to be in the $65-$100 million range, but the studio's low-balling, saying they would be happy with $50 million. In Trek's favor are 7pm screenings tonight which should jump-start its grosses, as well as data from Movietickets.com that shows that sellouts have already exceeded those of Wolverine. The space actioner will also be showing up on bigger IMAX screens, which carry a ticket premium and could push grosses higher.

Internationally, the film will open everywhere but Japan and Mexico, where the swine flu has made public gatherings impossible. Based on previous performances in the franchises, X-Men's Wolverine claws are supposed to read better than the Spock/Kirk interactions of Star Trek, but since the reboot is all about drawing in new, younger viewers, there's a chance the film can create new audiences. The fact that Trek avoids using its plot as a Cold War parable will undoubtedly make the film more universally appealing.

Among, say, your typical young male fan who missed Wolverine last week because of a soccer game, there will definitely be competition for the box-office dollar, and last week's $75 million open still leaves many viewers choosing between the two films, or opting to take a week off from moviegoing. From my standpoint, that hard-to-quantify buzz has always been higher for Star Trek, but, then again, I'm not hanging out in middle and high school hallways.

Summer season gets some competition

By Sarah Sluis

Hollywood used to have a scheduling formula: blockbusters and tentpoles in the summer, awards films in the winter, and more blockbusters to cover the winter holidays and Easter/spring break. While the logic makes sense, it's left many moviegoers high and dry when they want to see a good film at an off time. There's nothing worse than wanting to catch a movie with a friend in late January, only to be faced with stale awards fare or some unappealing horror film or teen comedy.

However, just as television stations colonized the rerun space of summer a few years back, studios are looking hard at the recent succeses of "off-time" movies that opened, like 300, Paul Blart: Mall Cop and Taken. In a model that pits quality films against quality and junk against junk, these films managed to rise above the pack, doing consistent business week after week because they were more than "just junk," they (arguably) were films that people would have seen at any time of year.

Fox is jumping on this strategy, and recently moved several of its upcoming films to these less competitive but more and more lucrative slots. Tooth Fairy, the Dwayne Johnson movie planned for a pre-Thanksgiving November 13th release in 2009, has been pushed back to January 22, 2010. Race to Witch Mountain, which Johnson recently starred in, also opened on a slightly off time, March 13 of this year, and racked up $63 million, so the studio can expect similar results.

The comedy Date Night will open on April 9, 2010, also a light time at the box office, but one that coincides with the television schedules of Tina Fey and Steve Carell--expect many commercials for the film during "30 Rock" and "The Office." In another off spot (though coming in around when some lucky students have mid-winter break), the kid fantasy adventure Percy Jackson will release on February 12th.

Like Paramount last year with Iron Man, Fox is pushing the boundaries of "summer movie season." While, like the color white, tentpoles were taboo before Memorial Day, X-Men Origins: Wolverine, which has all the markers of a tentpole, will release on May 1st, weeks before the kick-off holiday. The studios's not abandoing the Memorial Day slot, as it's positioned Night at the Museum 2: Battle of the Smithsonian there against Terminator Salvation, but it's front-loading its films that can easily be classified as tentpoles, leaving movies like Fox Searchlight's Jennifer's Body (September 18) to finish up the summer, a time when back to school leads to a temporary drop in the box office.

For me, evenly spacing quality films will lead to more trips to the box office. While I certainly go to the movies more in the summer and the winter, it's because there are more films I want to see, not necessarily because I have more spare time. While I do have some nostalgia for childhood trips to air conditioned theatres during summer break, and seeing a special film the day after Thanksgiving, nostalgia alone does not sell movie tickets (unless we're talking about a drive-in theatre). Making movie marquees appealing year-round is an excellent decision by Fox, and one that many studios will likely follow.

'Hellboy II' Pumps Up The Magic

By Katey Rich

Does any summer blockbuster really have the right to look as fabulous as Hellboy II does? In an era where CGI stands in for anything and everything, and you only need to throw a spandex suit on someone to make them a superhero, you have to wonder why Guillermo del Toro puts the painstaking care and minute details into his vision of a world packed with underworld creatures. Then, of course, you have to thank him dearly for doing it, and making a wildly entertaining blockbuster that, even if it lacks the depth of his breathtaking Pan's Labyrinth, shares the same inspiring visual wizardry.

The story of Hellboy II, which involves a pact between humans and the underworld and an army of brass transformers and all kinds of other hokum, invites a vast menagerie of creatures to come take part, from the central trio of Liz (Selma Blair), Abe Sapien (puppeteer extraordinaire Doug Jones) and Hellboy himself (Ron Perlman) to a giant Jack-and-the-beanstalk figure gone Little Shop of Horrors on a Brooklyn street. Some are CGI, like the monster plant, but most are puppets and prosthetics on humans who are rendered almost unrecognizable within their creatures. One character, the ectoplasmic Johann Krauss, who lives inside what resembles an old diving bell, is played by two people. How??? Never mind, I don't want anyone to spoil the magic.

And that, actually, is the best part of Hellboy II--the idea that there is movie magic at work here that can't be explained through well-placed mouse clicks. OK, Doug Jones isn't actually magical, but the way he moves his arms as Abe, and then transforms into the Angel of Death later on (no, really, that's a character), defies logical explanation. The mixture of the brick-and-mortar wizardry with the standard CGI flair has the wonderful effect of grounding it all in reality, turning off the section of your brain that grumbles, "Oh, well, it's all just CGI." You don't know which part of the movie actually walked the earth, or a soundstage, at some point. That's all the fun.

Hellboy II is funny and adventurous, but it also loses itself from time to time in the faux-mythic language and portentous music that virtually every fantasy movie seems to require these days. But the overall combination favors sheer glee, whether it's Hellboy's tossed-off one-liners or the spectacle of watching a hideous ogre walk down the street. And with relatively little of that glee being digitally manufactured, the satisfaction is all the greater.

Dark Knight Could Be One for the Ages

By Katey Rich

Any frequent reader of movie blogs might be under the impression that The Dark Knight is the only movie coming out within the next six months. It's seemingly the only thing any moviegoer, blogger or even critic wants to talk about, now that Wall-E has impressed us all and we're left waiting for the next thing to be, perhaps erroneously, dubbed a masterpiece.

Now that early reviews are trickling in, it seems that The Dark Knight might actually be capable of living up to the massive hype. The Hollywood Reporter calls it "pure adrenaline," and Variety chimes in and calls it an "enthralling second installment of [director Christopher Nolan's] bold, bracing and altogether heroic reinvention of the iconic franchise." Plus, the movie gets fanboy cred, with a handful of movie blogs predictably going nuts for the dark superhero epic.

So, with the July 18 release date growing nearer, what exactly are we looking at here? Humongous box-office grosses aren't really in doubt-- The Dark Knight seems likely to play to even the slightest of comic-book movie fans, and given the glut of superheroes in the last decade, who isn't one? But with Oscar talk for Heath Ledger swirling everywhere-- and some Oscar-centric blogs predicting even more awards love for the movie-- The Dark Knight has the potential to be the kind of gigantic populist entertainment the likes of which we haven't see since Titanic.

No, seriously. Of course there have been gigantic blockbusters that virtually everyone has seen this decade-- the Spider-Mans, the Pirates, at least the first two Shreks. But nearly all of them feel disposable, even now, and especially after third installments of all three franchises tarnished the reputations. It's been a long time since a movie immediately pole-vaulted its way into the canon through sheer ubiquity, the kind of movie that both mom and grandma are willing to see and aren't embarrassed to adore. There was a time when romantic epics or movie musicals filled the niche; though the 2000's have been dedicated to superhero movies to an almost overwhelming degree, not a one of them has truly managed that crossover.

Yes, I realize this post is just part of a crazy tailwind left by the endless hype and hyperventilating reviews that are anticipating The Dark Knight as some kind of second coming. But it's undeniably exciting when something like this hits everyone-- not just because of promotion or name recognition, but what seems to be genuine attention and craft in a movie where much, much less could suffice. In a way, Christopher Nolan is doing the same thing the Pixar geniuses have done over and over again-- giving us the kind of broad-appeal entertainment we deserve, and not just what we'll settle for. If Nolan and company pull off what Pixar did with Wall-E, maybe we can remember this summer as the one when the blockbusters actually gave us something worth seeing, and were justly rewarded for their effort.

WALL-E Finds Sorely Needed Magic in Humanity

By Katey Rich

How many neat things are there about being human? Let Pixar count the ways. We have the ability to create things like Rubik's cubes, refrigerators, sporks and bras. We can sing and dance and wave our hats like the specimens on display in Hello, Dolly! We can love, understand and even talk to a creature like WALL-E, a tiny robot with a box for a torso and binoculars for eyes. And, perhaps most importantly, there are a few geniuses among us who can tie ideas like this into a stunning, emotional and life-affirming movie like WALL-E.

There's no real need for me to join the chorus of praise for WALL-E, which opens today in the kind of hail of accolades that we last saw... well, when Pixar's last film, Ratatouille, came out a year ago. It's thrilling that Pixar can continue such a winning streak, melting the most cynical critic's heart and opening our eyes all over again to what animation can be. Just reading the endless good reviews puts the same warm feeling in my heart that I had watching WALL-E and his lady love, EVE, dance a strange ballet among the stars.

After seeing Wanted on Monday, a movie that revels in hating most everything about everyday people, I desperately needed WALL-E to reaffirm my faith that there is something good about being human, something worth saving even when the population as a whole doesn't give you a whole lot to appreciate. And, sure enough, like the people in the film who interact with the beeping robot, the dark scales were lifted from my eyes thanks to WALL-E. It's hard to decide what is the most wondrous: a nation of critics throwing up their hands in delight over a movie meant for children, a movie meant for children that makes adults tear up in joy, or the very people who made this movie to begin with.

Wanted has its own pleasures, in the good old American tradition of watching people kill others as a kind of catharsis for whatever is plaguing our lives. But WALL-E, which isn't afraid to look at the troublesome aspects of our current way of life, finds a way for you to forgive others rather than kill them, in a manner that's never overly sentimental or forced. When one character marvels over all the wonders that Earth can hold-- square dances! the ocean!-- no one can resist his enthusiasm. Going to see WALL-E may involve sitting in a dark room, but it's all about opening your eyes to what's outside it. At the end you won't need WALL-E's binocular eyes to see the beauty he found in us.