Meet In The Lobby

UPDATE (07.02.09) The summer box office numbers do move fast… The dollars below have been updated to reflect business on June 30 and July 1. The biggest additions affected — no surprise — Transformers and Up.

ORIGINAL POST
In June, four new films landed on the box office Top Ten list for the year. The newest opened last Wednesday (and is doing astounding business); the movie with the most longevity has been hanging around since late January — and is still out in theaters.

Of the genres in the Top Ten, there are three sci-fi, three comedy, two animated, two action. Not a drama in the bunch, unless you consider a ”serious” action film a drama. Hey, and only four sequels! Happy Fourth of July weekend to everyone in the Lobby.

:: 2009 Movie Releases Top Ten

1. Up ($255 million)
This Pixar mega-hit just ascended to the top spot this past weekend (but will quickly be knocked out this week by Transformers). After five weeks in theaters, Up is doing remarkably steady business, still in the weekly Top Five. This past week, the animated adventure handily outearned newer movies, including Year One and The Taking of Pelham 1 2 3.

2. Star Trek ($247 mil.)
The box office take for J.J. Abrams’ super-successful franchise rejiggering is just starting to slow after two months. Star Trek’s still chugging along on just under 2000 screens, and will finally fall out of the weekly Top Ten this coming weekend.

3. Transformers: Revenge of the Fallen ($228 mil.)
I always predicted Star Trek would be in the company of The Dark Knight this year, but I stand corrected. That honor falls to Transformers, leaping to $200 million in just five days (in fact, the film is now the #64 highest grosser of all time); and the global take is around $390 million. Say what you will about this Michael Bay kiddie epic, but it will keep rolling for a while. $500 million in North America?

4. Monsters vs. Aliens ($196 mil.)
If this were Paramount’s real biggie of the year, well okay… But the enormous success of other Paramount titles Star Trek and Transformers makes this just another strong entry in the catalog. The film’s still doing okay on fewer than 400 screens, performing better than Terminator: Salvation and Wolverine on a per-screen basis.

5. The Hangover ($188 mil.)
Here’s the real hit of Summer 2009. A party-hardy comedy of errors benefiting from amazing word-of-mouth power, chill marketing and buzzworthy word of a sequel. This one’s heading for Bruce Almighty’s comedy record of $243 million.

6. X-Men Origins: Wolverine ($178 mil.)
Fox’s top entry this year proves that X-Men fans will easily accept a prequel. To a point. The take for Wolverine is strong, but this will be the first X-Men film since the 2000 original to gross under $200 million.

7. Night at the Museum: Battle of the Smithsonian ($164 mil.)
This family comedy may get some overflow business during the busy July 4th weekend, but its per-screen average last week was the lowest of any movie in the weekly Top Ten. The original, a 2006 Christmas hit, earned over $250 million.

8. Fast and Furious ($155 mil.)
After thin kiddie fare like The Pacifier and weak sci-fi like Babylon A.D., who knew Vin Diesel could still carry an action movie? Seems like fans were just waiting for the original cast to pop up again: this is the highest grossing entry in the four-film series.

9. Paul Blart: Mall Cop ($146 mil.)
Here’s the only film in the Top Ten not still in theaters, ending its run in late May. Its Top Ten stay will end soon, but what a run. One of the more remarkable success stories of the year.

10. Taken ($145 mil.)
This revenge thriller has been playing in theaters since January 30, and could still be found on a few big screens this past week. Business is wayyy down (just a few hundred dollars per screen in about 15 theaters) but it’s been out there for 22 weeks. And it’s on DVD.  I think most of America pictures Liam Neeson taking his anger out on Bank of America or Bernie Madoff…

:: Indie Winners

Sunshine Cleaning: About $12 million on under 650 screns
Sin Nombre: $2.5 million on 87 screens
Sugar: Just over $1 million on 51 screens

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Author: Norm Schrager

June 30th, 2009
Categories: Box Office News . Comments: No Comments

Describe a movie as a “Woody Allen New York comedy” and most people know exactly what you mean. A film with romantic hits and misses, urban excitement and angst, and a focal character full of both hope and ridiculous anxiety.

Whatever Works is a quintessential version of this sub-genre, one that Allen actually first wrote in the 1970s; it’s also the filmmaker’s first such attempt since 2004, a return to his beloved Big Apple after four movies set in Europe. The copycat content works both for and against: there’s great fun and warmth in its familiarity, but we’ve sure seen this all before.

The latest actor to channel the nebbishy, nervous, needling protagonist is Larry David, a seemingly perfect fit if there ever was one. Thanks to David’s series Curb Your Enthusiasm, his sole acting strength precedes him, that of the annoyingly pessimistic Jew. David and Allen even share similar Eastern European looks and mannerisms. Should be a hand-in-hand match for Woody’s type of lead character, here an aggressively negative genius named Boris Yellnikoff. But there’s a problem: David’s skills are painfully small-screen, and his one-trick delivery seems grossly overdone here.

In fact, the first 20 minutes of Whatever Works is flat-out aggravating. As Yellnikoff, David breaks the fourth wall immediately, addressing the camera with a soapbox-style diatribe made to illustrate his distaste and contempt for everything and everyone. But the Curb star is unable to grab hold and introduce the character; he’s just kvetching really and it’s a bit much. Others who’ve stepped into the Allen “role” haven’t done much better — Kenneth Branagh and Jason Biggs come to mind — but Larry David sort of has a head start, you know?

So while Larry David pushes his self-conscious style of big city crank, Evan Rachel Wood appears as young, naive Southern runaway Melodie Celestine. Wood also displays her own level of self-conscious acting, but her character carries less dimension and more humor, and Wood is smart enough to let it happen. The actress leans in with some natural spunk and suprisingly dead-on timing to brighten things up.

She also delivers the first real laugh of the movie: While staying with the neurotic Boris, Melodie attempts to calm his night terrors by putting on the TV. Recalling his nightmare, Boris mutters “The horror… I’ve seen the abyss…” Her reply: “Oh, that’s okay, we’ll watch something else.” Her dumb sincerity lights up the scene and the movie. Enormous kudos to Allen for seeing comedic talents in Wood that others may have overlooked.

From there, Allen introduces all manner of fish-out-of-water situations, as Melodie’s family comes calling (happy performances by the wonderful Patricia Clarkson and Ed Begley, Jr.). Of course, they end up acting far against Southern type, changing their ways once they realize two things: They can be who they really are, and they can find happiness in peculiar, unintended ways.

There’s a beauty to that message and its place in the film, and it happens to be the origin for the title. As Boris explains to us, in that dark abyss, if you can find a person to share life with, that moment of happiness, hey, whatever works. If Woody Allen had spread that more generously throughout Boris’ one-dimensional cynicism, Whatever Works would have worked a bit more.

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Author: Norm Schrager

June 28th, 2009
Categories: Reviews . Comments: No Comments

We shared the Daybreakers teaser poster with you earlier this week. Now we’ve got the official trailer. Ethan Hawke and Willem Dafoe star.

This looks like an awfully blue-colored film, sorta reminds me of that glowing blue James Cameron was so fond of for Terminator 2.

If you’ve gotta see more, here’s the Daybreakers official site.
You can catch the film in theaters on January 8, 2010.

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Author: Norm Schrager

June 26th, 2009
Categories: Trailers . Comments: No Comments

Ridley Scott’s intense space thriller has held up so well over the decades — but the movie trailer has too. IFC just listed Alien at the very top of their list of Top 50 movie trailers of all time. It spooks from the get-go, shows off the film’s awesome title animation, and probably focuses too much on a cat. You’ll see.

Here’s what IFC’s Aaron Hillis had to say about the trailer.
And if you’d like, you can churn through the entire Top 50 list (IFC, we love you, but one per page? C’mon.)

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Author: Norm Schrager

June 26th, 2009
Categories: Trailers, Lists . Comments: 1 Comment

It’s 2019. Most humans have been transformed into vampires thanks to a massive plague of unknown origin. With humans disappearing, the vampires’ blood source is drying up faster than you can say ‘28 Days Later’. But a small clandestine group of bloodsuckers has made a remarkable discovery than might save the human race… The film is Daybreakers, Ethan Hawke and Willem Dafoe star, and here’s the teaser poster, courtesy our friends at Lionsgate. (Click on it for the biggie.)

Daybreakers is written and directed by Michael and Peter Spierig, the guys behind the 2003 Australian horror-comedy, Undead. Look for it in theaters on January 8, 2010. Or, roughly nine years before we all get metamorphosized into vampires.

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Author: Norm Schrager

June 23rd, 2009
Categories: Movie Posters, Movie Previews . Comments: 1 Comment