Author: Bob Westal (Page 264 of 265)

Writer guy Bob Westal was literally born in Hollywood and has commented on the worlds of movies, popular culture, politics, and food ever since. His interest in cocktails is more recent, but he made up for lost time with hundreds of “Drink of the Week” blog posts for Bullz-Eye. In addition to writing and editing, Bob also talks a lot.

Mulitplex Mayhem: Case Closed

April 13, 2008 /

So, once again, my optimistic world view is crushed. Last time, I guessed, against conventional wisdom but a bit cautiously, that audiences would take an apparently so-so action film with some good dialog and (mostly) good actors, if not good acting, over an almost certainly weak entry in the ongoing spate of PG-13 horror films that no one over thirteen seems to like.

I was wrong, oh, so wrong. As the good folks at Box Office Mojo demonstrate, “Prom Night” seriously outperformed the last non-pre-screened horror film, “The Ruins” and grabbed up some $22.7 million over the weekend, perhaps partially aided by the unseasonably hot weather out here on the west to some degree. In any case, audiences didn’t seem to hold a spate of recent PG-13 horror remakes against “Prom Night” — presumably because it wasn’t based on a Japanese ghost story from the last few years, but an R-rated American slasher film from when Jamie Lee Curtis was playing teenagers.

“Street Kings,” on the other hand, soaked up an anemic $12 million, just barely edging out “21,” which continues to perform so well at a healthy $11 million that I feel not quite insane in my suggestion that it actually had a shot at winning this rather lame weekend. At least “21” appears to have an interesting story, so the world might not be ending, even if the weather makes it feel as if it is.

“Smart People,” as expected did pretty blah (or perhaps “bleah”) business, with a rather sad $4.2 million in just over 1,100 theaters.

As for the indies, the drama “The Visitor” opened strong with a $22,000 per screen average in four theaters. The senior-centric comedic documentary “Young@Heart” opened with a reasonably spry, if not quite exuberant, $13,000 average in the same number of theaters.

Kind of an uninspiring week all around, but next week promises to be a bit more fun, with a buzzworthy new release from the Judd Apatow gag-factory and with a cinematic summit meeting of martial arts titans Jet Li and Jackie Chan. Let’s hope there’s not a whole lot of CGI action. I don’t think martial arts fans are wanting another “Bullet Proof Monk.”

Actors, Actresses, Horror Movies, Movie Comedies, Movie Dramas, News

Multiplex Mayhem: The Preliminary Invesigation

April 11, 2008 /

A sorry weekend seems to be in store at America’s mainstream mansions of mass entertainment this week. So sorry, in fact, that a movie nobody seems to particularly care for, the youth-oriented gambling drama, “21,” has a chance of staying at the #1 spot for a third week, but more likely not.

*”Street Kings” has an okay shot at the #1 spot this week. In fact, until I looked a bit more closely at the reviews (including our own David Medskar’s ho-hum take) and the writing credits, I thought this one showed some promise of being be a pretty strong piece of entertainment, despite the often problematic nature of its star, Keanu Reeves. What excited me was that this film is the screenwriting debut of one of my favorite novelists, James Ellroy. Ellroy’s work has, with the exception of “L.A. Confidential,” pretty much defied decent movie adaptations up to now, particularly in Brian DePalma’s highly regrettable adaptation of perhaps my all-time favorite detective novel, “The Black Dahlia.” So, why not give the Demon Dog of American Letters the chance to come up with something original. Since “Training Day” had a bit of an Ellroy feeling to it with Denzel Washington‘s humorously charismatic bad cop, the choice of director David Ayers, not a great director by any means but an efficient storyteller, made sufficient sense.

Also, an unusually strong supporting cast would seem to help, including a couple of personal favorites — Oscar winner (and fellow Daniel Webster Junior High alum) Forrest Whitaker, Hugh Laurie (“House” to most, charming twit Bertie Wooster and ultra-twit Prince Regent from “Blackadder” to BBC America fans and me), plus Jay Mohr and Cedric the Entertainer, who just seem to make sense in this context…I’d love to hear those guys enunciating some of Ellroy’s poetic, blood-spattered profanity. But, with his original screenplay rewritten by two other credited writers, the reviews are not discussing dialogue that snaps, crackles and pops like it comes from Satan’s own furnace, just another average-to-below-average violence-packed thriller that, at least, doesn’t sound like it’s extremely boring. The bar is set awfully low right now, and this one might just jump over it.

* But the smart money at both Variety and the Hollywood Reporter says I’m wrong about “Street Kings.” (Okay, I’m not all that smart and if I was into money, do you think I’d be doing this?) It’s entirely likely this weekend will be won by another in a recent string of review-protected horror flicks, this one a remake of a a movie that wasn’t all that much liked the first time around, “Prom Night.” (The original was a “Halloween” follow-up with Jamie Lee Curtis and Leslie Nielson back when people thought he took this stuff seriously.) The trick here is that this a slasher film that’s rated PG-13, which strikes me as a bit wrong, like showing the pre-sex intros from a gonzo porn film to twelve year boys. Still, while “wrong” often works in show bidness, there has been a glut of horror, both PG-13 and R, lately. Without some real buzz behind it, “Prom Night” may pleasantly disappoint.

*No one’s expecting very much commercially from this week’s semi-indie Fox-Searchlight dark comedy, “Smart People.” With a strong cast led by Dennis Quaid, Thomas Haden Church, Sarah Jessica Parker, and Ellen Page, the set-up and casting — which has Quaid as a recently widowed, ultra-elitist academic dealing with a dysfunctional family and a new girlfriend (Parker) — has resonances with recent “small” hits like “Juno,” “The Squid and the Whale” and “Sideways.” However, even though Bullz-Eye’s Jason Zingale liked it a bit more than most, I think he’d agree this one has nothing like the buzz that accompanied those. Almost always, this kind of picture needs to be seen as unusually good to succeed, and I’m definitely not getting that here.

In fact, the reviews, can get pretty negative, but one did remind me of a grammatical fine point I’d become hazy on. Here’s what Rick Groen of Canada’s Globe and Mail said:

Here, trouble starts early when the rumpled academic in question – Lawrence, the widowed English prof tilling the fields of Victorian literature – is heard misusing the word “loan” as a verb.

I’m embarrassed to admit this took me a second. Yes, it’s not “I’ll loan you the money.” It’s “I’ll lend you the money.” After all, the soon to be Hamlet-stabbed Polonius didn’t advise Laertes, “Neither a borrower nor a loaner be.” A good reminder.

Meanwhile in Indiewood….I’m happy to say, things are looking much more interesting on the arthouse side of things this week. The big indie this week may be “The Visitor,” the new film from writer-director Tom McCarthy — creator of the 2003 Sundance hit, “The Station Agent,” which made Peter Dinklage a household name…well, assuming your household is in Santa Monica or Tribeca.

Anyhow, when I went to Sundance with a bunch of critics for another website, one of my cohorts reported writing the phrase “unlikely friendship” in four separate reviews. And so, like its predecessor, “The Visitor” is a star-free tale of an unlikely friendship, this time between an depressed professor and a young immigrant couple. On the strength of McCarthy’s prior film, I’m wiling to say this one is worth a look and may do some decent business with older filmgoers seeking gentle but smart fair.

Other than that, most of the action is on the documentary front. By far the most high profile doc with solid critical buzz is “Young@Heart,” about a senior citizen’s chorus dealing with a repertoire that includes the words of Sonic Youth, the Clash, James Brown, and Coldplay. Speaking of buzz, but showing up in only four theaters, is “Super High Me,” a film which takes pothead comedian Doug Benson and gives him the Morgan Spurlock treatment. Aside from appearances by such comic luminaries as Sarah Silverman, Bob Odenkirk, and Patton Oswalt, I’m mentioning this one because it’s directed by a guy who played the straight man in this great comedy short a few years back.

I maybe shouldn’t, because it’s only playing at New York’s Film Forum, but I can’t resist bringing up the mega-Freudian documentary “Stalags,” about pornographic Israeli novels, which started popping up during the 1961 trial of German Holocaust planner Adolph Eichmann. The subject of this porn: Nazi she-wolves administering what we’d now call “enhanced interrogation techniques” (nudge nudge wink wink) to brave British and American soldiers. Let me repeat, these books were written and consumed by Israelis. I’m also plugging the well-reviewed documentary “Bra Boys,” about Australian surfing hooligans. If I don’t, narrator Russell Crowe might beat the crap out of me.

Action Movies, Actors, Actresses, Documentaries, External Movies, Horror Movies, Movie Comedies, Movie Dramas, News, Reviews

Multiplex Mayhem, Post Game Edition

April 6, 2008 /

Okay, so this is more like what I expected…me being wrong.

On Friday, I went with the supposedly smart money and prognosticated that the star-driven, retro-sports romcom, “Leatherheads” would win the weekend. Sadly, like the good people at Variety, I underestimated the appeal of pretty people gambling and perhaps overestimated the power of over-40 stars to draw young audiences. And so, as per this weekend’s studio estimate, it turns out that “21” has managed to hang on to the top spot with a less than spectacular $15.1 million return.

For the #2 spot, it turns out we have a photo finish. As per the estimates linked to above, “Leatherheads” managed $13,485,000 while, in a somewhat surprising turn, the apparently pretty lame family picture “Nim’s Island” grossed $13,300,000. So close are the two films’ grosses, in fact, the big V’s Pamela Mcclintock warns us that we may have a reversal in store and the queen of schadenfreude, the one they call Nikki Finke, using different numbers, promises as much, reporting that Hollywood insiders are “aghast” that George Clooney can no longer “open” a film. I presume, therefore George is subject to immediate banishment to the island of misfit toys. (She also chooses to make the reviews for the film sound even more disappointing than they were by using the Rotten Tomatoes “Cream of the Crop” rating, which selects only reviews by “Top Critics” — a designation that includes only the best known critics from the largest outlets.) To me, all this portends is that, these days, getting people over thirty or forty into a movie theater has a higher bar. Multiplexes have become increasingly hostile surroundings for non-teens, and there’s no doubt that Clooney’s films skew to an older audience. I mean, isn’t he like 75 or something now? At least Ms. Finke and I seem to agree that reviews actually do matter for some films.

Meanwhile, “Horton Hears a Who” is hanging on quite nicely in the fourth spot. As the first Dr. Seuss-based feature to not cause parents and some children to run screaming into the night, I guess that’s no more a surprise than the “soft” $7,840,00 for the unreviewed horror flick, “The Ruins“.

In other news, “Superhero Movie” isn’t doing great, but at the #6 spot, it’s doing better than it probably deserves. Also, “Under the Same Moon” may not quite be “My Big Fat Undocumented Tearjerker” after all. It made the #12 spot, but its grosses have finally begun a modest decline even after expanding into 47 more theaters.

And there may be more disappointing news for fans of quality movies with perhaps more appeal to the middle-aged set. “Shine a Light” opened on 273 screens, many of them IMAX, extracting about $1.5 million from Rolling Stones fans. It’s per screen average of $5,474 sounds okay — it’s just a couple hundred shy of the per-screen of “21” — but IMAX theaters typically charge about five dollars more per ticket and may often have more seats available than other screens. I know I’m new at this, and I may be missing something, but it looks like the film might not be hitting expectations. On the other hand, this kind of release pattern allows time for word of mouth to have an impact, so there’s still hope.

AND IN INDIEWOOD…. There’s hope here as well, as two crossover films by arty Asians did strong business in very limited release, netting by far the highest per-screen averages of any films this week. Hou Hsiao-hsien’s remake/expansion of a French children’s classic, “The Flight of the Red Balloon” grabbed a paltry sounding $37,000 — but did it on two screens only. Wong Kar-Wai’s Norah Jones’s starring “My Blueberry Nights” had a per-screen average of over $12,000 on six screens, more than double that of “21.”

And, finally, totally ignoring a very sound Bullz-Eye review, according to the Hollywood Reporter some people are seeing the John Lennon assassination drama “Chapter 27” anyway. It has managed to eke out an acceptable per screen average in nine theaters, and has netted $34,377. Hey, folks, it’s your money.

Actors, Actresses, Movie Comedies, Movie Dramas, News

Multiplex Mayhem, Pre-Game Edition

April 4, 2008 /

It’s the second week of this little experiment in Thursday evening/Friday morning film quarterbacking. And there’s no time to be wasted….Or maybe there is. That’s because, whatever else may be true, with the possible exception of one exciting experiment in larger than life rock and roll and an art-house experiment with children’s attention spans, this weekend does not look to be anything for the history books.


*Generally speaking, “Leatherheads” is the kind of mainstream flick I root for. A romantic comedy hearkening to the thirties and forties screwball era when, weird as it might sound to younger folks, examples of the genre were quite frequently watchable or better, because they bothered to employ devices like characters and stories. These days we expect that sort of thing only from Judd Apatow and sometimes Jane Austen. In this case, of course, you add a little football history for some male appeal and a top-draw cast featuring A-listers George Clooney (who also directs) and Renee Zellweger, A-list farm team draft pick John Krasinski of “The Office”, outstanding character actors Jonathan Pryce and Stephen Root (who, when he dies, will no doubt see his grave adorned with a certain crimsom office product) and you might think you could wind up with some superior entertainment, if not necessarily box-office gold.

On the other hand, Clooney’s attempt at true screwball has received mediocre reviews — surprising considering that the third-time director is something of a critical darling, given his last film was “Good Night and Good Luck,” but then neither that film nor Clooney’s directing debut, “Confessions of a Dangerous Mind” showed anything like a light touch, and he’s playing in a field where giants like Howard Hawks, Ernst Lubitsch, Preston Sturges, and lots of other dead guys you’ve never heard of once roamed. Still, given the star power and the simple date-movie compromise premise, this one seems destined to do reasonable to good business. Variety thinks it’ll be #1. Not proof, of course, but to quote history’s most famous sportswriter, Damon Runyon: “The race is not always to the swift, nor the battle to the strong, but that’s the way to bet.”


*Still, it’s just a gut-call that “Nim’s Island“, not exactly beloved by our own David Medsker, won’t win this weekend and, if nothing else, it has the most screens. A lame-sounding premise about a “magical island ruled by a young girl’s imagination” doesn’t bode well, nor does the low-key promotion (of course, I’m not a parent and I have a DVR — any Nickelodeon-prisoners out there tired of commercials for this one?). What’s weird is that this one is headlined by Jodie Foster, Gerard “300” Butler, and “Little Miss Sunshine” herself, Abigail Breslin — I mean how’s that for uniting three disparate audience groupings? And, of course, it’s a family film and as such should never be discounted if adults can pleasurably sit through it. An open question (well, not to Dave!) and all I’ve got to go with otherwise is a 49% Tomatometer rating, but I’m going to guess “not so much” is the answer.

* And, who knows, it’s in more theaters than “Leatherheads” and this week’s entry in the unscreened for critics horror sweeptakes, “The Ruins” could pull an upset…but I doubt it. It feels as if I’ve been suffering through the trailers since the Carter Administration. And my hunch is this film from nature photographer-turned-first-time-director Carter Smith and author/screenwriter Scott B. Smith (the Smith Brothers?) didn’t look anything other than oddly disgusting — yet also sort of dull. The often easy-to-please Box Office Mojo readers seem none too excited about this one and the vibe is getting is that it’s probably too soft for today’s masochistic young fans of extreme horror, while, at least as per its promotion, it’s too harsh and uninviting for everyone else. The one interesting wrinkle — Scott Smith is the ultra-lauded writer of both the screenplay and original novel behind 1998’s outstanding “A Simple Plan.” Maybe it’s not quite as bad as looks, but maybe it’s worse.

*That’s pretty much it for the week’s major release — unless you count the 273 largely IMAX screen release “Shine a Light,” Martin Scorsese’s first concert film since 1978’s near-perfect “The Last Waltz,” starring none other The Rolling Stones, still freaky — actually freakier — after all these years. The critics dig it. Bill Clinton apparently digs it, and shows up onscreen, and Hillary has praised the Stones recently, but no word yet on whether she remembers nearly being stabbed by Hell’s Angels at Altamont. But seriously, this is the release I’m most looking forward to checking out this week, even if the answer to the big question asked in a million dorm rooms is, of course, “The Beatles.”


Meanwhile, in Indiewood…. The big news in the Cinephile crowd this week is the appearance of two Asian princes of contemplative cinema, aka “boring art films,” working in the west. The more promising of two is also an interesting stretch, unpronounceable cineaste fave Hou Hsiao-hsien takes a stab at a Parisian child’s classic with “The Flight of the Red Balloon” and has the gang at Greencine chattering away. And how’s this for a quote:

“A remarkably rich, rewarding, and restful experience, Hou’s latest is a film like no other – in the simplicity of its lines, colors, and framing, and in the complexity of how those elements compound and contextualize its emotional subject matter, The Flight of the Red Balloon can, in my mind, be compared to the works of Matisse.”

Bring the kids! Bring sedatives! But seriously folks, I’ve missed Hsia-hsien’s other films, but this one appears to be a pretty intriguing take on the classic 1956 French short, “The Red Balloon,” that was frequently trotted out on 16mm at my elementary school. Also it’s got Juliette Binoche — and you never know what’s going to grab the little ones. If you want real contemplative cinema for kids, try watching an old episode of “Thunderbird” sometime.

And Sophia Coppola’s favorite Hong Kong slow-mo romantic, Wong Kar Wai, makes his American debut and gets a mixed response with “My Blueberry Nights.” Personally, I haven’t been a big fan of even for the HK maverick’s most lauded films, “In the Mood for Love” or “Chungking Express” but he does know how to craft some truly stunning imagery, and with cast that includes Rachel Weisz, Natalie Portman, and, making her film debut in the lead role, singing/piano playing sensation Norah Jones, there’s be plenty to look at, with Jude Law on hand for the ladies and David Strathairn challenging the Kar Wai aesthetic with his good-acting nonbeauty.

Also opening this week in limited release is a highly praised Israeli film anthology film, “Jellyfish” and the poorly received, and poorly titled black comedy from Daniel Waters (“Heathers”) “Sex and Death 101“. The film stars Winona Ryder, who I always appreciate (really), and Simon Baker — who I’m glad as on hand because his presence, and the release of the Scorsese-directed “Shine a Light” gives me the excuse to close with this mini-classic, which made the rounds last fall…The greatest ever Alfred Hithcock tribute that’s also a mockumentary, and a sparkling wine commercial. Directed by M. Scorsese and starring Marty and Baker.

Actors, Actresses, External Entertainment, External Movies, Horror Movies, Movie Comedies, Movie Dramas

Multiplex Mayhem, the Sunday Night Post-Mortem

March 31, 2008 /

Shockingly, terrifyingly, it turns out that most of my predictions in the Friday post turned out to be correct.

*”21” earned a respectable $23.7 million for the film’s budget ($35 million), winning the weekend though not doing much to reverse the modest box-office trend right now. As for theories about why it won, here’s a quote from Variety

Sony prexy of domestic distribution Rory Bruer credited a great cast, a compelling story and out-of-the-box marketing for the film’s perf.

“People knew they were in for a fun ride. The film brought to life a world you really felt you were a part of. We got a great mix, from older adults to younger adults, to males and to females,” Bruer said. “It was cool, fresh and different.”

Yes, “cool, fresh and different.” It’s not just a movie, it’s a salad dressing. (I also gotta say, I know some folks hate the Variety lingo, but I get a kick out of the word “prexy” for “president.” It sounds so non-threatening and sort of like a Keebler elf. On the other hand, I don’t think I’d want to entrust thermonuclear launch codes to a “prexy.”)

*Not one bit to my surprise, “Horton Hears a Who” stayed strong at #2 with a reasonably elephantine $17,425.00 as per the mighty Weekend Mojo. I’m a firm believer in the “nobody knows anything” school of looking at show business; there is nothing in this world harder to gauge than human irrationality. However, the one formula that seems genuinely unbreakable is that a family film that kids like and parents find even mildly entertaining is as close as the universe gets to a license to print money.

*I doubt the Mighty Fanboy boycott can truly take credit for it (though I can’t blame them for claiming it), but as predicted/wished, “Superhero Movie” came up with a fairly lousy third place showing for this kind of movie of $9,510,000 on 2,960 screens (more than 300 more screens than “21” opened on), despite the demonstration-disbanding efforts of the non-galactic storm troopers of mall security. “Just like Beggar’s Canyon back home”? Well, we take our triumphs where we find them, even if, to be fair, there’s some indication “Superhero Movie” might be at least a tiny bit better than other recent spoof films, as Cinematical’s Eugene Novikov schools us on the gradations.

*Of the other new movies this weekend, I’m not all that happy to report that Kimberley Peirce’s “Stop-Loss” did the predicted mediocre-to-terrible business, given that while it had a few fans among critics, its reviews and overall buzz were nowhere near strong enough to give it half a chance with such tough subject matter. Always sad to see the movie that at least tries get nailed.

Nevertheless, while its earnings of $4,525,000 were dismal, the per-screen average of “Stop-Loss” was $3,505 — actually nearly $300 bucks higher than “Superhero Movie,” so there’s that. Even, so, audiences bear the ignominy of being slightly more kind to both “Shutter” and “10,000 B.C.“, proud owners of 7 and 9 percent ratings on the RT meter. (Of the former, a PG-13 remake of a Thai horror film — points for originality since it wasn’t Japanese or Korean — Bullz-Eye’s own Jeff Giles wrote: “This will not be a theatrical hit. It will not find a new audience on DVD. You can officially pretend it was never made.”)

*Meanwhile, good ol’ Simon Pegg has had his cult status confirmed in the harshest way possible with the drubbing of his David Schwimmer-directed “Run, Fatboy, Run” which netted only $2,390,000 and had the lowest per-screen average of any new film this week. On the plus side, it also had the lowest budget, a mere $10 million, so there’s something to be said for thrift.

Meanwhile in Indiewood…. And, here too, yours truly seems to have called it. The immigration weepie, “Under the Same Moon” came in just below “Run, Fatboy, Run” with $2,251,000 — but did so while being in only 390 theaters (“Fatboy” was on over 1,100 screens, far too many for a modest comedy.) Its growth seems strong and this one could be headed for something like “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” territory, driven, no doubt, by the eternally under-served Latino audience.

The only film I was sort of wrong about was that the highest per screen average of any film this week was “My Brother is an Only Child,” an interesting sounding, politically driven Italian film with great reviews, about which I made a crack implying I’d be the only person reading this column who would consider seeing the movie, nevertheless managed a whopping $10,500 per screen average. Of course, it’s only on one screen in NYC, but still….

And, finally, I was appalled to realize only too late that I had not mentioned the opening in limited release of the boxing-themed Adam Carolla vehicle, “The Hammer” because it wasn’t mentioned, well, anywhere, but last week’s “Ebert and Roeper” and perhaps some L.A. area local media, and so it had completely slipped my mind.

Now, some of you will be hooting in derision because you think of Adam as the slightly less unfunny guy on the early seasons of “The Man Show” and others will be perking up because he’s the even funnier guy on the early seasons of “The Man Show,” but radio fans, especially out here in SoCal, know Adam as the host of the only-ever listenable iteration of “Love Line,” and something of an actual comedy genius in terms of mastering the art of the impromptu rant about idiots who try to argue that they cheated on their signifant other’s “on accident,” or garbage collectors who refuse to pick up certain types of garbage. After he left “Loveline,” I feared that he’d never find a format as amenable to his particular skills. Certainly a well-reviewed movie was about the last place I expected to find him. However, in perhaps the most shocking development in filmed entertainment history, critics seem to like this movie, more or less, netting a very healthy 72% Fresh rating on the Tomato Meter.

But here’s the really strange part — even though it entirely failed to even register at Box Office Mojo, according to RT, “The Hammer,” which also got “two thumbs up” from Richard Roeper and Michael Phillips, did a very respectable per screen average of $4,857 for a total of approximately $97,000+ at twenty theaters. Not bad for a movie even confirmed movie-geeks aren’t hearing about just yet.

Could “The Hammer” wind up doing better than “Run, Fatboy, Run,” with a similar sports/rom-com set-up, but with possibly far better, old fashioned slow-roll-out release pattern? Weirder things have happened.

Actors, Actresses, External Movies, Movie Comedies, Movie Dramas, News, Reviews

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