Friday, October 17, 2008

Now Playing: Misunderestimated W. Grizzly Bruce and Teenage Dakota... but Rachel is Still Not Getting Married

This weekend's newbies from least to most screens (links go to trailers)

Filth & Wisdom -Madonna directs this racy film about up and coming creative types moonlighting as sex workers of sorts. Featuring the band Gogol Bordello
<--- What Just Happened -An insider comedy about Hollywood. Hollywood never tires of making these. Audiences never tire of ignoring them. Starring: Robert De Niro, Robin Wright Penn, Catherine Keener and Bruce Willis as a fat bearded version of himself. Mmmm, Bruce Willis
Morning Light billed as a "true life documentary" --are there other kinds? I'm confused. It's a heartwarming Disney film about a Disney sponsored sailing event. Awwww

The Secret Life of Bees ---> Queen Latifah headlines an all-star cast in the story about a girl on the run (Dakota Fanning is a teenager. My how time flies...) and the black sisterhood that takes her in in 1960s South Carolina
W. Once Oscar beloved Oliver Stone directs his third presidential-focused film. Can it measure up in any way to Nixon and JFK?
Sex Drive virgin teenager trying to lose it. How mindblowingly original! The trailer tries to entice me with a little Jimmy Marsden but I ain't falling for it, not even for the man with the cheshire grin
Max Payne is NOT the sequel to Constantine. Believe it or not! I'm still having trouble believing it due to the trailer. Anyway... Keanu does not appear but freaky slightly angelic/demonic entities due. Mark Wahlberg is the star of this video game adaptation

<--- Unfortunately for many of you they're still totally withholding Rachel Getting Married. Not sure why they're not trickling it wider... I hope they don't miss their window like Vicky Cristina Barcelona seemed to by waiting for its fourth weekend to add any screens and then only a couple dozen extras. It seemed to peak a week earlier (which was a holiday weekend --what were they thinking?). It looked for a moment like the fourgy romantic comedy would beat Match Point in Woody's box office hierarchy but now it's going to fall short. They should've been more aggressive, I tell you. This comparison is riddled with problems as Match Point never went as wide as Vicky did and Rachel is still 600+ screens shy of how Vicky opened. Never mind. Ignore the crazy person typing at you! It's just that he worries excessively about middling box office for movies made for adults that don't contain explosions, firearms or supernatural creatures...
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What are you seeing this weekend?
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10 comments:

Anonymous said...

Nathaniel, what do you think of Brolin's chances for W. (best actor)?

I have a feeling that if the category stays crowded, he'll get his dues for Milk.

NATHANIEL R said...

my feelings exactly.

Anonymous said...

FINALLY, I am going to see "Blindness".

Anonymous said...

I share your thoughts on VCB. I don't usually follow what's going on at US Box Office, but with all the buzz aroung VCB I was curious. I even thought VCB would be a great Woody Allen hit that would bring him back some audience love. And then I saw the number of screens... The first weeks its average per screen was as much as the movies in the first places! So I expected the wider
screening would put things in its right place, but alas it was so ridiculous. Are they afraid that if they show Woody Allen's pictures to a wider audience they might find people actually like them? I just don't understand it, but I give up.

And about sex (or the lack of it) comedies, I think that even though the truly American genre is supposed to be the western, the awful truth is that dog-themed movies (really, what's the big deal with dog movies?) and desperate teenagers looking for sex movies are the most productive entirely American genres, if you ask me. ;)

Iggy

Deborah said...

I may finally go see Appaloosa. I've been so busy. And I have The Visitor sitting at home, which I'm excited about. I totally intended to see it in the theater and go (I'm repeating myself) so busy.

Anonymous said...

New "review" of Benjamin Button (from HR, Jeff Wells..)

http://hollywood-elsewhere.com/2008/10/up_to_you.php

At Your Discretion
True story: a conversation among three or four guys with film-industry ties happened a couple of days ago in a major southern-region city. Included was a sound mixer who's been around a couple of decades and knows some formidable people. The subject was upcoming movies, and the sound mixer interjected at one point, "Guys, guys, I've seen the Best Picture Oscar winner, okay? And it's Benjamin Button." You've seen the whole thing? he was asked. "I've seen most of it and that's enough," he answered. "Forget it, it's over. It's an eight-hankie movie and it's going to win."

NATHANIEL R said...

that's not a review! ;)
but thanks for the heads up.

I love 'overheard' conversations.

Anonymous said...

lol that's why I put "review" in quotation marks! I don't think I'll believe anything, though, until I hear what the critics have to say. Jeff Wells is obsessed with Fincher anway. =b

Glenn said...

Apparently they were distributing Vicky Cristina Barcelona all over the place, but kept the screen count the same. Like, it was playing in 600 cinemas one week and while it was still playing in 600 a week later it was playing in difference cinemas (or, at least, some). So they did add cinemas, they just counters the cinemas they were losing. Er, make sense?

Vicky Cristina Barcelona is still a Woody Allen movie starring a bunch of people only film buffs seem to care much about (most are entirely unaware of the great strides Cruz has made in the past few years and so on).

I saw The Duchess last night (so that'd be Friday). Quite pleased. Nothing extraordinary like Pride & Prejudice, but it's still good.

I also watched Deception on DVD, which was so strange. For a while it felt like the sort of movie I expect to see pop up on tele at, like, 1am (which is when I turned the DVD on) and get sort of absorbing in the way that your attention and thoughts are skewed at 1am and watching a movie about Hugh Jackman and Ewan McGregor being involved in a sex club is indeed better than telemarketers or televangelists (aren't they the same thing? boom tish!) but then you realise that it's actually not very good at all. I was so confused as to why the New York City in this movie was so deserted. Like, where were all the people?! How bizarre. The end was ridiculous mind you. Really silly.

Anonymous said...

So "W." ended up being kinda awesome. Go Josh Brolin!